Dairy Industry Cruelty: One of Agriculture’s Best Kept Secrets
August 8, 2011
By Gene Baur
The cruelty inflicted upon calves in the dairy industry is one of agribusiness’s best kept secrets. Many consumers might assume that because cows are not slaughtered directly for their milk, dairy products are somehow less inhumane. What many consumers aren’t aware of is that when they purchase milk, cheese or other dairy products, they are contributing to a brutal cycle of suffering for countless calves. In order for a cow to produce milk, she has… Read More >
“Vegan America” is Closer Than You Think
May 25, 2011
By Gene Baur
Thousands of years ago, Hippocrates, the founder of western medicine, said, “Let food be thy medicine.” Tragically, the way most Americans eat, food is more like poison, making us sick and killing us prematurely. Heart disease and cancer are the nation’s top killers, and the risks of both can be reduced by eating plants instead of animal products. Removing meat, milk and eggs from the menu also prevents animal suffering and goes a long way… Read More >
The True Cost of Your Shiny Smooth Hair
April 19, 2011
By Stacy Malkan
Beautiful, shiny, frizz-free hair? Count yourself lucky to have hair at all! I first heard about the Brazilian Blowout from Susanne Harvey, who called to tell me she’d lost huge chunks of her long red hair1 after using the popular hair-smoothing product that is all the rage with celebrities. Turns out many women have had the same fallout experience, including actress Mary Louise Parker2 and scores of others who have been complaining to FDA for… Read More >
Making Climate Change Personal
March 4, 2011
By Colin Beavan
In 2006, I became increasingly concerned both about climate change and the military action taken by the United States to secure its access to oil supplies in the Middle East. As a journalist and author, I wanted to find a way to make the case for a lower reliance on fossil fuels and other natural resources to the American and European publics. However, I did not believe a typical political discourse would do the trick.… Read More >
Putting the “Me” in Media
January 5, 2011
By Elizabeth Castoria
Hi there! I don’t know if we’ve met, but I’m the media. (OK, fine, I’m not all of it, but I am definitely one teeny tiny part. Jon Stewart, Anderson Cooper and Jane Velez-Mitchell are in here somewhere, too.) So often people talk about “the media” and its influence on our society and culture as though it was a singular entity and a really mean one. It feels like the media is basically the equivalent… Read More >
Love List: Flea Markets & Snapshots
July 28, 2010
Love Warrior, Last week I launched my Love List series. Well, amen, hipshake, cause sooo many people wrote their own and tweeted and FB’d it. There’s even a Love List group on myCSL (go join it hot pants). Love Lists heal. They are fun and funky and free. Love Lists remind you that life is deliciously sweet, like a big drippy emotional ice cream cone (sans the glycemic spike). Tune in every Wednesday for my… Read More >
Action is the Antidote to Despair
May 18, 2010
By Guest Blogger
By Zoe Weil You’re making all the right choices. You’re an organic locavore. Whenever possible, you bike, take public transportation, or walk instead of drive, and when you drive it’s a hybrid. You choose cruelty-free, toxin-free personal care products. You’re a member of a dozen different organizations all with missions you wholeheartedly support. Compact fluorescents? Of course. Bottled water? Never. Yoga and exercise? Regularly. A positive attitude? Absolutely. But perhaps you, like me, have those… Read More >
How I Found My “Soul-Mate” Job
May 4, 2010
By Guest Blogger
By Maya Gottfried Many of us seek soul mates in relationships, but what about “work soul mates”? What about the work we do that helps complete us? That takes us to the next place spiritually? For me, writing Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuarywas a soul mate job. At age 35 I learned about Farm Sanctuary, a national organization (with shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif) that rescues and advocates for… Read More >
Birthday Activism: Making Each Year Count
April 9, 2010
By Michael Parrish DuDell
In the past, I wasn’t particularly keen on celebrating my birthday. As a child, of course, it was always exciting to commune with friends over plates full of greasy pepperoni pizza and frosting-covered yellow birthday cake. But as I got older, the thought of organizing a party to celebrate yet another passing year just seemed…well, sort of unimportant. Then I turned 25, and everything changed. My 25th year of living was perhaps the most exacerbating… Read More >
180 Feet Above Ground
March 10, 2010
By Julia Butterfly Hill
Julia Butterfly Hill lived a fast-paced lifestyle until surviving a severe car crash at the age of twenty-two. Hill has said that the accident and subsequent year-long road to recovery awakened her desire to begin a spiritual quest. She ended up 180 feet above ground, living in a California Redwood Tree named Luna that was over 1,000 years old to keep it from being cut down. Hill lived in the tree for 738 days without… Read More >
The Man with the Plan: A Vegan Awareness Month Tribute
November 16, 2009
By Michael Parrish DuDell
Donald Watson, Vegan Activist “Honey, be careful with that orange juice, but why not have some of this chicken soup? I left out the noodles just for you.” My grandmother’s confused. Nestled in a dimly lit dining room somewhere in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida sits my father, ex-girlfriend and myself. Grandma Helen is jogging back and forth from the kitchen with a schmorgesborg of food she’s prepared just for our visit. Somehow she missed the memo… Read More >
Super Simple Ways to Save the World and Help Animals
October 7, 2009
By Chloe Jo
We hear it all the time, “Oh, I want to do more to help the animals, but I simply don’t have the time” or “I give a few hundred bucks a year to my favorite charity, but can’t commit to more.” What if I told you activism doesn’t have to be exclusively about offering clean water to children in Africa? What if we told you there are tangible and easy peasy ways to save the… Read More >
Part II: WARM Memories
September 15, 2009
By Guest Blogger
Continued from WARM Memories Part I by Andy Glick… In 1991, my dream was realized, and I opened The WARM (Woodstock Animal Rights Movement) Store here in Woodstock. To the best of my knowledge, this was one of the very first “Cruelty-free, Vegan, Socially Conscious, Environmentally Friendly” store in the United States. At first we relied heavily on PETA’s Cruelty-Free shopping guide to help us find products for the store. We also attended trade shows… Read More >
Part I: WARM Memories
September 14, 2009
By Guest Blogger
Once again, it’s a glorious Meatless Monday! Today, Andy Glick is here to share the first part of his experiences in the animal rights movement in Woodstock, NY… Ingrid Newkirk, PETA I feel very fortunate to have been involved in the Animal Rights (AR) movement since the early days. In 1989, I formed a group in Woodstock, NY, called WARM (Woodstock Animal Rights Movement). For a few years prior to starting WARM, I had been… Read More >
Today’s Activism…Be Creative!
July 8, 2009
By Guest Blogger
Melisser, The Urban Housewife As the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale has just passed, a week where people all over the world came together to bake not only for charity, but to show people that vegan food is fabulous, I can’t help but think about activism in general. Sometimes it’s easy to feel like you’re not doing enough to help those in need, especially the millions of animals who rely on those who can speak for… Read More >
