Author Archives: There's an Elephant in the Room

Looking at language: Cull

Posted on September 13, 2019

Cull. We see the word applied increasingly to the mass killing of numerous species; to deer and to foxes and to seals, to pigeons, crows and even swans. The word is in the news at the moment, being applied to … Continue reading →

Posted in Speciesism, Terminology | Tagged animal agriculture, badgers, cull, environmental destruction, habitat destruction, nonveganism, profit, slaughter | 4 Comments

Thoughts on the price of folly

Posted on September 12, 2019

Planet Earth is experiencing an escalation of extreme weather events. This escalation will continue for as long as we fail so utterly to grasp that one of the main causes – if not the main cause – is our own … Continue reading →

Posted in Global disasters, Sentience | Tagged anger, animal agriculture, climate crisis, climate disaster, death, death row, disaster, disease, disgust, ecological disaster, fire, flood, Flooding, folly, images, sentience, slaughter | 1 Comment

Thoughts about diluting the animal rights message

Posted on September 11, 2019

For a moment, please imagine if you will, that this page were to highlight something horrific being done to humans, something such as torture, sexual violation, or forced labour. Imagine an article describing men, women and children, families and friends … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Speciesism | Tagged animal rights, forced labour, Human rights, sexual violation, social media, speciesism, Torture, truth, victimisation, violation | 4 Comments

Defining veganism in light and shadow

Posted on September 3, 2019

I have always stood by an assertion that veganism was perfectly adequately defined by Donald Watson and his contemporaries when they first developed the philosophy and the words to describe it: The vegan believes that if we are to be … Continue reading →

Posted in Victims in the shadows, What is ...? | Tagged cloud, country life, deer, fishing, game, grouse, hunting, light, nonveganism, partridge, pheasants, salmon, shadow, shooting, sport, targets, trout, veganism | 8 Comments

Victims in the shadows: emus

Posted on August 16, 2019

This series of short blogs hopes to shine a spotlight onto ways that humans exploit other creatures for financial gain, ways about which the majority of consumers are unaware. This is not intended to shock; it’s intended to illustrate and … Continue reading →

Posted in Speciesism, Victims in the shadows | Tagged butcher, consumer demand, consumers, emu, emu oil, emus, feathers, flay, flesh, leather, oil, oppression, plucking, prejudice, shoppers, slaughter, slaughterhouse, speciesism | 6 Comments

Chicken executions at night

Posted on August 11, 2019

Today I did a taxi run in the early hours of the morning, passing the slaughterhouse at about 03.45 as the pre-dawn glinted on wet black roads, and again at 07.00 in the rain-drenched grey light of day. Approaching the … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, consumer demand | Tagged agony, animal lovers, blood, chicken, chickens, consumer, consumer demand, consumers, infants, miasma, processing plant, shoppers, slaughter, slaughterhouse, stench, terror | 4 Comments

‘Transparency in advertising’ – bring it on

Posted on August 9, 2019

As expected the animal use industries are mounting an increasingly bizarre pushback against the labelling of substances for which they long ago co-opted names. There are frequent media outcries about who has the right to use words like ‘milk’, ‘sausage’, … Continue reading →

Posted in Addressing resistance to change, Global disasters, Uncategorized | Tagged advertising, breast milk, burger, climate, climate change, climate crisis, climate emergency, dairy, diet, environment, environmental destruction, extreme weather, guidelines, health, healthy, marketing, milk, nutrition, plant based diet, plant-based, plant-based eating, plants, sausage, supermarket, sustainability, transparency, transparency in advertising, truth in advertising, vegan, veganism, weather | 7 Comments

Straight talking about ‘welfare regulations’

Posted on July 24, 2019

It’s common to read on social media that because the writer of a comment claims to support ‘better welfare regulations’, they assert that whether or not they are vegan, they are doing something to help our victims that those of … Continue reading →

Posted in consumer demand, Terminology, welfare | Tagged animal rights, autonomy, better, code of practice, consumer, consumer confidence, consumer demand, experience, experiences, feelings, gassing, guidelines, inanimate objects, maceration, regulation, regulations, regulatory reform, right, rights, thumping, veganism, welfare, welfare organisations, welfare standards, well-being, wellbeing | 6 Comments

‘It’s time to re-evaluate our relationship with animals’ by Lesli Bisgould

Posted on July 16, 2019

This is the first time I’ve shared a transcript as a blog, but this very special talk deserves to reach as wide an audience as possible. In this lecture, Ms Bisgould explains in compelling and rivetting detail, why legislation does … Continue reading →

Posted in property status, welfare | Tagged animal rights, Cruelty, fundamental interests, kinship, laws, legal, legal person, legally justifiable, legislation, Lesli Bisgould, morally justifiable, necessary, necessary suffering, person, property, property status, regulations, respect, suffering, unnecessary suffering | 4 Comments

Straight talking about ‘factory farming’

Posted on July 11, 2019

There seems to be some sort of blind spot in our collective consciousness about the term ‘factory farming’ and all the various types of *CAFO in which our numerous species of victims are incarcerated. For a start, the creating of … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, FAQ, Global disasters, Terminology | Tagged animal agriculture, animal rights, CAFO, ecological disaster, environmental destruction, ethical, factory, factory farming, family farm, farming, feed conversion ratio, health, humane, locally raised, organic farm, planetary collapse, planetary destruction, welfare | 5 Comments