Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago today. Happy Birthday!
PETA in DC
A Debate in the Graveyard
It is one thing to have a disagreement with someone else but it becomes something else altogether unacceptable when the criticism is a personal attack. This is always a sign that the author has nothing substantive to say or is incapable of saying it intelligibly. The Grumpy Vegan is, of course, the first to have a bit of fun at another’s expense to make a serious point, including Camp Drag of the Animal Oppressors, but ad hominem attacks need to be called out when they occur.
I don’t agree either with what I understand Lee Hall is saying in her book, Capers in the Churchyard, but I also don’t agree with how Steven Best and Jason Miller critique it.
Frankly, it’s a juvenile rant, which is a shame because there are important discussions that need to take place about the strategy of the animal rights movement. Here’s one extract to consider.
Comparing the amount of invective that Hall dishes out against animal rights militants to that she reserves for corporate exploiters of billions of animals, it is obvious that she sympathizes far more with animal oppressors than she does with militant animal activists and that she’d probably rather see Kevin Jonas and Josh Harper of the SHAC7 go to jail before Brian Cass of HLS or David Novak of Yum! Brands, Inc. She goes so far as to virtually apologize to corporate animal exploiters for the rude ways militant activists treat them.
Lee Hall, we have one question for you: just whose fucking side are you on in this war?
The Mourning of Elephants
Elephants, like us, mourn the loss of their kind.
An Update from the Grumpy Vegan
Apologies for the lack of activity here but there are times when silence is actually quite nice. The winter weather has been disruptive to normal service on this blog but that’s hardly an excuse.
I’m trying to stay focused on writing a book about what it means to care about animals. This is somewhat of a legitimate and reasonable account for my absence.
I’ve also been reading a lot. This includes Sheila Rowbotham’s biography of Edward Carpenter, which I enjoyed but found wanting because it frequently felt that it was more about the world he lived in rather than his life. I’m about to finish James Rachels’ Created from Animals. It has been simultaneously challenging and stimulating. It’s a fascinating case where the intersection of Darwin and the theory of evolution intersect with what our moral relationship with animals should be.
Emmy, Pretty in Pink
