ponderings, passions & politics... 

"... Yesterday, on International Women’s Day, did we remember the 99.99% of the planet’s population who are non-human? Did we remember all the non-human mothers in the world? Did we consider in particular the non-human mothers we use as resources? If we did not, then we need to include them in our thoughts and our actions and consider that ALL mothers and their children, no matter what species, should be free of exploitation. Because if non-human mothers are not free, none of us are free. In fact there are parallels with how patriarchal society views and treats women, and how we use, exploit and control the reproduction of non-human females. The two are not unrelated. Women are no longer considered legal property as non-human animals are, but violence against women is at epidemic proportions today and violence against nonhumans is greater still."

“SEVEN hundred horses a month - many young fillies and colts bred for racing - are slaughtered at two Australian abattoirs and shipped overseas for human consumption, including to Europe, the centre of the horsemeat scandal.

The majority are slaughtered in Queensland at Caboolture's Meramist Abattoir, where 500 horses are processed each month.

A further 200 a month are killed at a South Australian abattoir, Samex Peterborough (formerly Metro Velda).

Thousands more are processed at 33 knackeries across Australia for petmeat and hides each year, with industry reports indicating the annual cull totals around 40,000.”

"... in meat-eating cultures around the world, even though the type of species consumed changes, people tend to have only a small handful of animals they have learned to classify as edible. All the rest they classify as inedible and thus disgusting and often offensive to consume.

So when it comes to eating animals, what is striking is not the presence of disgust -- disgust is the norm, the rule, rather than the exception. What is striking is the absence of disgust. The question we would do well to ask ourselves is why are we not disgusted by the select few species we have been taught to think of as edible. And why don't we ever ask why? When the stakes are so high -- our food choices are truly a matter of life and death, particularly for the 10 billion sentient individuals in the U.S. every year who are no less sensitive and conscious than those we consider friends and family yet who subsist in abject misery, as their bodies are unnecessarily turned into units of production. Why do we leave our choices so unexamined? Why don't we consider that so-called edible animals have lives that matter to them, just as horses and dogs and cats do?” read more in “Why Horsemeat Is Delicious and Disgusting”

“what we call natural is simply the dominant culture’s interpretation of history… it references not our fruit eating ancestors, but their flesh eating descendents… we only look as far back in history as we need to justify current carnistic practices…”

“do we really want to use neanderthals as the yardstick for our current choices?”

"I noticed the frequently stated notion that eating meat was an essential step in human evolution. While this notion may comfort the meat industry, it's simply not true, scientifically. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today..."

Ms. Bowser certainly succeeded in a highly dangerous mission to the great benefit of the Union effort. She was one of the highest placed and most productive espionage agents of the Civil War. ... [Her information] greatly enhanced the Union's conduct of the war. ... Jefferson Davis never discovered the leak in his household staff, although he knew the Union somehow kept discovering Confederate plans."