You’re probably reading this because you listened to my show today and (a) wanted more information about the stories I talked about, (b) you wanted to find ways to help, (c) you wanted to leave a comment or question about today’s show, or (d) you wanted to find out more about me. Well, you’re in the right place!
Here are links to the stories I talked about on today’s show. But first, in case you’re wondering, my opening song was “Be Healthy” by the Dead Prez. Awesome. Here are your links:
Dogs Deserve Better - for more information on what you can do to help your neighborhood tethered dog.
Finally, the video I mentioned on today’s show, which shows an officer of the law stopping traffic to allow a mother hen (duck) and her hatchlings cross a busy highway. Click here to see it.
Do you have any comments for me about this blog or the show? Leave them here, or email me at animalsinthepress at yahoo dot com. I really want to hear from you!
Quick update. The show starts tomorrow, May 6 from 5:30 - 6:00pm on local station KZFR. You can listen live by clicking that link and clicking on “Listen Live”, or wait for me to convert it to podcast form. I’ve been researching that, but I won’t really be able to try it until I’ve got my first show under my belt. I’ll have to move it from minidisc, to CD, to my computer, to the podcast site, and hope for the best. It make take a couple weeks, so please bear with me.
This blog will coincide with the show, so any stories I mention on the show will be linked to here. I will also post links on ways you can help when the situation arises. Anything I mention on the show should be here, so that y’all have easy access.
I’m pretty nervous and excited. Mostly nervous. I mean, I’m used to being on the air, but I’m nervous something will go wrong, I’ll curse like a motherfucker (what?), or I’ll offend someone and get kicked off the station. Let’s hope none of those things happen.
i’ve got to make this quick as i’m in a bit of a hurry. but i just wanted to post a quick update (and an apology for not writing more often).
i finally got certified over at kzfr about 4 weeks ago. i am now an official certified programmer. i’m in the process of trying to move the show to a new slot that better suits my schedule (and the show), so i’m waiting to hear back from the program director on whether or not that’s been approved. it sounds like it should be, so by the next time i write, i should be telling y’all when and where you can listen.
i had to record a test show so that they knew what i sounded like and get a general feel for the show, and it ended up coming out a.o.k., at the same time giving me an idea of what i wanted the show to be about. i’m very excited to get started on it.
so, for now, sit tight, and you’ll be hearing from me very soon. i hope.
Yee-haw! It’s Country Hoe Down Time at Farm Sanctuary’s California Shelter
Orland, CA – March 14, 2008 – Join Farm Sanctuary for a rootin’ tootin’ weekend of animal-friendly festivities at our annual California Country Hoe Down. This educational and inspirational event offers practical information and advice for animal advocates and features fun activities that will allow guests to enjoy the company of our rescued farm animals and each other.
The schedule of events includes presentations from Farm Sanctuary President and Co-founder Gene Baur, Compassionate Cooks Founder Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and author Mark Hawthorne, as well as a catered vegan dinner, sanctuary time with the animals, hayrides, cooking demonstrations, and a barn dance with complimentary refreshments and live entertainment.
WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, May 3 and 4, 2008
WHERE: Farm Sanctuary, 19080 Newville Rd., Orland, CA
REGISTRATION: Registration costs $35 per person and includes a catered dinner Saturday evening. Deadline for registration is April 25, 2008. Call 607-583-2225 ext. 221 or visit www.farmsanctuary.org to register today.
About Farm Sanctuary
Farm Sanctuary is the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization. Since incorporating in 1986, we have worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the “food animal” industry through research and investigations, legal and legislative actions, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts. Our shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif., provide lifelong care for hundreds of rescued animals, who have become ambassadors for farm animals everywhere by educating visitors about the realities of factory farming. More information can be found at http://www.farmsanctuary.org or by calling 607-583-2225.
What a prick. I mean, come on. Part of me ventures a guess that behind closed doors, he and his buddies are laughing because of all the press he’s getting now. As the article states in the beginning, he never really got press before.
Well, I’m sorry, “Tripp”. Bad press about killing an animal is not good press. Good luck dealing with the animal rights groups.
Isenhour getting plenty of unwanted attention for hawk killing
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—Tripp Isenhour has never gotten this much attention for a single golf shot. Really, he’s never gotten this much attention, period.
Isenhour said it was a “one-in-a-million” golf shot that killed a protected hawk and that he was only trying to scare the bird he now faces misdemeanor criminal charges for killing.
“It was unfortunate, but there’ll be plenty of time for me to tell my story,” Isenhour said on the Golf Channel’s PODS Championship post-round show Friday, his first interview since news broke that he killed the protected bird Dec. 12.
“It’s one of regret and remorse that it happened, because I’m certainly sorry to hurt a migratory bird, or any bird for that matter.”
PGA Tour players didn’t seem too shaken.
“It’s a bad break for the bird, but it sounds like there are a lot of other things people should be worried about,” Mark Calcavecchia said.
Others were more upset. The head of the Humane Society of the United States faxed PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem a letter urging “appropriate remedial action against Isenhour up to and including fines and suspension.”
Isenhour also lost his practice privileges at Grand Cypress Resort, where the crew was filming. He is playing the Nationwide Tour—a minor league of sorts to the PGA Tour—this year, but has played two years on the big tour. He lost his card both times after failing to finish in the top 125 money winners.
It’s doubtful most sports fans, save the fervent golf fans, had heard of Isenhour before this week.
Investigators said Isenhour killed the hawk because he was upset it was making noise as he tried to film an instructional video. He allegedly first drove in a golf cart toward the bird, then 300 yards away, to hit balls at it. When the hawk later landed within 75 yards, Isenhour’s shots got closer until he eventually hit and killed it. The bird fell to the ground bleeding from both nostrils, witnesses told the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“I can’t deny the accident did happen, but we tried to do everything we could after it happened to make things as proper or right as we could,” Isenhour said.
The golfer, whose real name is John Henry Isenhour III, said it was foolish for people to believe he could have realistically hit the bird.
“That’s obviously people who don’t know very much about golf,” he said. “To say it’s a one-in-a-million shot for an accident like that to happen, you know, and when it did happen, I was very remorseful, very upset that it happened.”
But film crew members who witnessed the killing saw it differently.
“He was just going strangely out of the way to go after it,” said Jethro Senger, a sound engineer at the shoot. “And it was almost, the whole thing was basically like a joke to him. The balls were getting closer and closer. ‘Haha, look how close that one came.’ ‘That one was even closer.’
“I yelled at him,” Senger said. “I said, ‘What did you expect was going to happen?,” Senger said. “I said, ‘You’re a pro golfer, you’re hitting line drives right at it.”’
Doug Beretta, who runs an organic dairy farm in Santa Rosa, always welcomes the spring arrival of daylight-saving time. His cows, on the other hand, have a bigger problem with the switchover, which this year starts on Sunday.
“From our standpoint, it gives us an extra hour of daylight at night, so we’re able to get more things done,” says Beretta. “(But) for the first week or so, it’s tough for the cows to adjust.”
Sunday at 2 a.m., when clocks should be set forward one hour, marks the earliest time change since 1974. It’s the second year in a row that daylight saving begins on the second Sunday in March instead of the first Sunday in April.
The extra hour of daylight will last until Nov. 2, which for Beretta will mean a more efficient farm. But for every spring change, Beretta adjusts the milking times for his cows by 30 minutes. Normally, his 300 cows are milked first at 2 a.m. With the time change, this normal time essentially becomes 3 a.m., so Beretta moves the morning milk time to 2:30 a.m. In the fall, when clocks are turned back an hour, the cows’ adjustment is more difficult.
“When you move it back, those cows are holding that milk for an extra hour, so you can run into some health problems,” he said.
Ideally, said Beretta, the government would stick to one time standard all year round. “I just wish it would stay set,” he said. “It’s cumbersome to get all your clocks changed. I wonder if it’s worth all the hassle.”
The biannual spring/fall time adjustment has been in effect for most of the past 90 years, ever since World War I prompted Congress to find a dramatic way to save Americans money and stimulate the economy. Washington’s logic: With more daylight hours, households would spend less on bills for lighting and electricity; also, factories would be more efficient because workers would be refreshed with the extra daylight hours they had for unwinding.
After President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which extended daylight-saving time by a month, the Department of Energy touted the benefits of energy savings, but Michael Downing, who detailed the history of daylight-saving time in a 2005 book, says the U.S. government has misled Americans on the economic benefits of the time switch. The biggest beneficiaries of the spring clock change aren’t consumers but retailers. People shop more when there’s more light at night.
“There’s a reason that the first and most persistent lobby for daylight-saving was the Chamber of Commerce on behalf of retailers and merchants,” says Downing, a lecturer at Tufts University outside Boston. “People really bought more goods after work when they were given light. And that effect persists. As recently as 1986, when we went from six months of daylight saving to seven, that extra month, according to industry estimates, was worth $200 million-$400 million to the golf industry alone, and $150 million to the barbecue industry.”
Oil companies also lobbied for daylight-saving time because they predicted - correctly - that it would lead to more leisure driving, Downing said.
The Parent-Teachers Association is among the groups that have opposed daylight-saving time because, in the spring, it means students go to school when it’s still dark. The PTA’s concerns took on national prominence in 1974, after President Nixon mandated that daylight-saving time take effect in January. Nixon wanted to reduce Americans’ electricity bills in the wake of OPEC’s oil embargo, which drove up gas prices.
“Within a week, pictures started to flash around the nation of kids on these dark streets,” Downing says. “There were a couple of bus accidents involving schoolchildren, and that became the end of Nixon’s plan.”
Sunday’s time switch is the earliest for Americans since Nixon’s experiment. Last year’s change in time caused some confusion for computer users. This year, experts expect no trouble and say that most computer operating systems should automatically roll over to the correct time.
Though the title of Downing’s book, “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time,” would indicate he opposes the time switch, Downing doesn’t. Like Beretta, Downing enjoys the extra moments he gets with the sun still overhead.
“Most people like having extra light in the summer at the end of the day - it absolutely effects a behavioral change,” says Downing, who lived in the Bay Area on and off for three years. “If you give people more light at the end of the day, they’ll go outside their houses. … I’m a devoted fan of long, late summer sunsets. So I’m all for daylight saving during the longest days of the year.”
I wrote an op-ed for the Chico News and Review. I’m not sure it’ll get published, but I wanted to share it anyway:
In light of the recent violations exposed at the Hallmark Meatpacking Plant in Chino, CA, and even more importantly the 143 million pound beef recall brought about by the USDA, I thought I would take a moment to mention the bigger problem I see with this whole situation.
I grew up near Chino, where a lot of the farms were family owned and operated. A lot of them still operate that way, and it’s become hip these days to buy meat, eggs, and dairy from such farms because of their “humane” practices. As a result, when talking about my choice to follow a vegan lifestyle, the words I keep hearing over and over are, “I like to buy humane meat.” Herein lies the problem. There is no such thing as “humane meat.”
A good majority of the animals sent to Hallmark for slaughter came from family owned and operated farms. So yes, for the sake of argument, the animals were raised humanely, in most cases. However, what happens once they are loaded onto the truck and sent off for processing? What happens when they leave their “happy” existences? The video captured by HSUS will show you. If you think this is new information, or an exception to the norm, think again. Farm Sanctuary has been investigating slaughterhouses for 20 years and have years of footage of these exact practices being carried out. Other animal protection groups have captured footage, just like the footage seen around the nation recently, before and after the Downed Animal Act was passed, of this very type of abuse and disregard for the law.
A friend of mine, who grew up in Southern California and has family members who operated a farm and worked with Hallmark, told me that when he was a kid, he visited Hallmark. On the wall in the office was a drawing by one of the children of another Hallmark employee. The drawing was a depiction of an employee, beating a cow, behind the a Hallmark truck. A speech bubble had him yelling something to the effect, “Get up you downer!”
Please, do the most humane thing of all and give up meat. Once or twice a week, once a twice a month. For the rest of your life. Heck, do the same with eggs. Eggs are loaded with cholesterol. On top of that, poultry is intentionally exempt from the Humane Slaughter Act, so there is no protection for them when it comes to processing sick or injured birds. Most importantly, buying local does not mean you are buying humane. Think outside the nicely-packaged box and think about what you are participating in, and in the end, feel better about yourself and what you eat.
These horrors happen every day on every farm that raises animals for profit through food. If you eat meat or dairy, you support this economy through your diet and your dollars. Please open your eyes and realize what you are a part of - make a change in your lifestyle - for your health and out of mere respect for fellow earthlings.
And piss on you, those of you out there who complain about the HSUS. This story would not have broken if it weren’t for the HSUS and the work they do.
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday ordered the recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse that is being investigated for mistreating cattle.
Officials said this is the largest recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 recall of 35 million pounds.
Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. The amount of beef — 143 million pounds — is roughly enough for two hamburgers for each man, woman and child in the United States.
The federal agency said the recall will affect beef products dating to February 1, 2006, that came from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., which supplies meat to the federal school lunch program and to some major fast-food chains.
Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said his department has evidence that Westland did not routinely contact its veterinarian when cattle became non-ambulatory after passing inspection, violating health regulations.
“Because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection, Food Safety and Inspection Service has determined them to be unfit for human food and the company is conducting a recall,” Schafer said in a statement.
A phone message left for Westland president Steve Mendell was not immediately returned.
Federal officials suspended operations at Westland/Hallmark after an undercover video surfaced showing crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts.
Two former employees were charged Friday with animal cruelty. No charges have been filed against Westland, but an investigation by federal authorities continues.
Authorities said the video showed workers kicking, shocking and otherwise abusing “downer” animals that were apparently too sick or injured to walk into the slaughterhouse. Some animals had water forced down their throats, San Bernardino County prosecutor Michael Ramos said.
No charges have been filed against Westland, but an investigation by federal authorities continues.
Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been eaten. There have been no reported illnesses linked to the beef at any of the schools.
“We don’t know how much product is out there right now. We don’t think there is a health hazard, but we do have to take this action,” said Dr. Dick Raymond, USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety.
Most of the beef was sent to distribution centers in bulk packages. The USDA said it will work with distributors to determine how much meat remains.
Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease because they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.
About 150 school districts around the nation have stopped using ground beef from Hallmark Meat Packing Co., which is associated with Westland.
Jack in the Box, a San Diego-based company with restaurants in 18 states, told its meat suppliers not to use Hallmark until further notice, but it was unclear whether it had used any Hallmark meat. In-N-Out, an Irvine-based chain, also halted use of the Westland/Hallmark beef. Other chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King said they do not buy beef from Westland.
Raymond countered a claim leveled by Humane Society President and CEO Wayne Pacelle, who said a USDA inspector was at the Westland plant for about two hours each day. USDA inspectors are there at slaughterhouses “continuously,” Raymond said.
Federal lawmakers on Thursday had called for the Government Accountability Office to investigate the safety of meat in the National School Lunch Program.
Upon learning about the recall, some legislators criticized the USDA, saying the federal agency should conduct more thorough inspections to ensure tainted beef doesn’t get to the public.
“Today marks the largest beef recall in U.S. history, and it involves the national school lunch program and other federal food and nutrition programs,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. “This begs the question: how much longer will we continue to test our luck with weak enforcement of federal food safety regulations?” Advocacy groups also weighed in, noting the problems at Westland wouldn’t have been revealed had it not been for animal right activists.
“On the one hand, I’m glad that the recall is taking place. On the other, it’s somewhat disturbing, given that obviously much of this food has already been eaten,” said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union. “It’s really closing the barn door after the cows left.”
A couple of weeks ago, on the way to work, I saw a mother and her calf. They had been separated and were sniffing and gazing at each other through the fence. I didn’t see the separation happen, but I saw them afterward. I don’t know how long they’d been that way, but from what I understand, the mother will stay right there until her baby is returned. Usually, the baby is not returned, and in some cases the mother will still stand there, waiting.
The mother was sniffing through the fence, longing for her little one. The baby was small; smaller than I’ve ever seen. Around the size of a medium-large dog. He was clumsy on his feet, and I could see this without his even moving a muscle. They stood right next to each other, through the fence. For the first time in a long time, I cried about the animals I saw on the way to work. I had to finally teach myself to just keep driving, not to think about it, just keep going and I’d soon find sanctuary. I should mention, on the way to work, I pass pasture after pasture after pasture of cattle. Young ones, teenaged ones, and adults. This is by no means Harris Ranch, but they are close enough to the road that if you pay enough attention to them, you start to make stories about them.
I paid attention to the mother and her baby and the tears started to flow. And I felt awful inside.
Then, last week, we welcomed a mother and her calf to the sanctuary. It was unexpected and emotionally fulfilling. I had forgotten all about the mother and her baby I’d seen a couple weeks prior, and seeing these two together was one of the more heartwarming things I’ve seen in a long time. The calf is growing, and the mother is growing more comfortable with her new surroundings, and they both finally have the love they deserve.
