Music, Philosophy, Analysis, (R)evolution
“4/22/2010, 1:23pm EST”
The Discerning Brute, one of my absolute favorite websites and one of the most influential vegan outposts on the web, has made me a contributor. My first post ran today. Feel free to check it out and leave a comment or three!
—Dan
“4/01/2010, 2:37pm EST”
New York gains 140 newspapers →
rubenfeld: Local and community papers rule, while metro and regional suffer.
“2/24/2010, 10:56pm EST”
Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, needed $20,000 to pay his taxes. So he called a broker for a California tomato processor that for years had been paying him bribes to get its products into Kraft’s plants.
The check would soon be in the mail, the broker promised. “We’ll have to deduct it out of your commissions as we move forward,” he said, using a euphemism for bribes.
Days later, federal agents descended on Kraft’s offices near Chicago and confronted Mr. Watson. He admitted his role in a bribery scheme that has laid bare a startling vein of corruption in the food industry. And because the scheme also involved millions of pounds of tomato products with high levels of mold or other defects, the case has raised serious questions about how well food manufacturers safeguard the quality of their ingredients.
Over the last 14 months, Mr. Watson and three other purchasing managers, at Frito-Lay, Safeway and B&G Foods, have pleaded guilty to taking bribes. Five people connected to one of the nation’s largest tomato processors, SK Foods, have also admitted taking part in the scheme.
“1/27/2010, 1:27am EST”
Mercy For Animals investigation exposes Willett Dairy farm practices. →
Describing conditions at Willett Dairy in Locke, NY:
“A worker restrains the calves and ties their mouths shut with rope, then burns off the newly budding horns with a hot iron. The calves struggle but, bound and gagged, there is not much that they can do. The worker sticks his fingers in their eyes as he restrains them. They make gurgling noises, kick, and several fall over. Some calves choke up what appeared to be vomit from the pain.
“The worker then docks the tails using a tool that is mainly used to castrate bulls. He attaches it to the calves’ tails and turns it until the ends of the tails tear off, after which he cauterizes the exposed vertebrae. The animals receive no anesthesia, and are clearly in extreme pain.”
The investigator says he saw dozens of calves with fresh, bloody wounds where their horns had been burned off. “My supervisor told me that this was his favorite job. ‘(We) burn ‘em… It’s this little iron… and you put it on the little nubs on their head and it kills it off. It’s like, ’sssssss.’ I used to love doing that.’
“’The cows don’t like it?’ I asked.
“‘Would you?’ he replied. ‘Oh fuck, it’s gotta be fucking very painful…. Oh yeah, I used to love that shit… blood and smoke all over the place. YEAH! Hamburger.’”
“During one particularly slow day,” writes the investigator, “my supervisor entertained himself by punching cows in the head. Additionally, he told me stories about prior instances in which he had battered the animals. Last year, he broke his hand by punching a cow in the eye. Another time, he ripped his hand open when he punched a cow in the nose and caught her tooth. He claims that he once clubbed a bull with a 2×4 ‘like Babe Ruth,’ and then repeatedly kicked him in the testicles while he was down. He also said that he locked a cow’s head in a gate and cracked her over the head with a wrench, dropping her to the floor. He thinks he got arthritis from punching cows.”
Not surprisingly, Lyndon Odell, Willet’s CEO, defends his mega-farm’s practices. After viewing the video, he said, “They picked out a few isolated incidents and they’re trying to portray them as something that is malicious on our part, that we don’t do a good job with our animals.” He added that he would fire any employee who abused one of the farm’s cows. “We have a history of firing people who have mistreated animals because that is not where we belong.”
Hmmm, I wonder if the employee referred to here has been fired as a result of this investigation? And gosh, I wonder what must constitute “mistreatment” if the routine cutting off of tails and horns doesn’t count? If there is a hell, it cannot possibly burn hot enough for those who work in the animal industry.
Meanwhile, local law enforcement doesn’t give a shit. The article goes on to discuss how the local DA’s office in NY, the ASPCA, and the local SPCA have turned a blind eye to the 40-page brief filed by Mercy For Animals against Willett for breaking even the weak laws that are in place to protect farm animals from such abuse.
If you have the funds to spare, please consider donating to Mercy For Animals so that they may continue to speak up for those most in need. And please, do not ignore your own part in this evil. Giving up dairy products, not to mention other animal products, has never been easier. (See links in the side bar for more information.)
“12/29/2009, 9:57pm EST”
The good little defender of “traditional marriage” just got divorced. I wonder if anyone in the press will ask him, during one of his regular media appearances, how that squares with his past views and actions. Please, somebody — pleasantly surprise me.
“10/07/2009, 1:11pm EST”
Via HuffPo:
Supreme Court justices weighed arguments over a 10-year federal law that bans the creation and sale of commercially available videos that depict graphic animal cruelty, such as pit bull fights and women crushing small animals with their feet or high heels.
Justice Antonin Scalia said that the court needed to consider “the right of people who like cockfighting, who like dogfighting and who like bullfighting to present their side of the debate.”
Since we’re accustomed to Scalia rationalizing his own views into whatever case he’s investigating (ahem, Bush v. Gore), we can assume that while he is at best conflicted about how to weigh other animals’ vital interests against the torturous whims of seriously sick humans, he probably comes down on the side of the sickos.
When considering free speech, Scalia said that “it’s not up to the government to decide what are people’s worst instincts,” and as opponents of animal fighting may be more inclined to express their views than supporters, that “side of the debate is entitled to make its point as forcefully as possible.”
To Scalia it’s just a free speech case — with only humans granted a “voice”, even in the abstract — not at all related to disabling psychos who already make money under the radar from gambling on illegal animal cruelty but want to be able to sell videos of the shit too. And it isn’t the government’s role to decide what people should do and shouldn’t do — never mind that government does that all the time, and if it didn’t, Scalia would be shaking in his fat boots.
The most pathetic part is that Scalia’s myopic douchebaggery reflects an extreme imbalance in our culture and legal system in which human fancy is usually privileged over the very lives and livelihoods of any- and everything else.
“10/06/2009, 12:56pm EST”
New Obama regulations provoke lobbyist "fury" →
General rule: When corporate lobbyists are furious, the rest of us should be thrilled.
Still, I’d like to hear how public interest lobbyists — and by public, I mean humans plus other animals and the environment that sustains all of us — are affected by this change. This article barely makes any distinction between public advocates and corporate shills, which is pretty ridiculous.
“9/23/2009, 5:19pm EST”
In Defense of Animals (IDA) has won an important Freedom of Information Act case against Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), perhaps the most notorious animal testing company in the world. HLS excruciatingly tortures tens of thousands beagles, primates, rabbits, and rodents each year — and then kills them — at the behest of industrial and governmental clients.
Read the full press release here, and be sure to note how our government has failed to hold these thugs-masquerading-as-scientists accountable.
H/t David Benzaquen
“9/22/2009, 4:13pm EST”
This is pretty awesome:
Modern-day home mortgages have been so sliced and diced by rapacious financiers that some homeowners are successfully delaying — or even blocking — foreclosures through the simple tactic of demanding that banks produce the original mortgage note, which amazingly enough is often not so easy for them to do.
The whole article is worth reading: a story for our time that isn’t totally depressing.
“9/11/2009, 4:18pm EST”
“8/10/2009, 11:53am EST”
Kenneth Gladney was one of the anti-healthcare reform protestors who scuffled with union members at a recent congressional townhall meeting. Now he’s soliciting donations from conservative admirers to cover supposed health costs related to his involvement in said scuffle — because he was recently laid off and no longer has health insurance!
Yes, these people are incredibly stupid.
link via TPM
“7/14/2009, 11:22am EST”
More evidence, as if we needed any, that mainstream Republicans disdain reality, don’t do any proper research, and are motivated primarily by self-interest despite vehement claims to the contrary. Anchor Dennis Kneale appears particularly twisted for having such a loud, arrogant mouth.
CNBC is a joke.
video via TPM
“7/04/2009, 11:45am EST”
I’m sure everyone has tumblogged this already, but I was away from the internet yesterday.
As I thought about this announcement that I would not seek re-election, I thought about how much fun other governors have as lame ducks. They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions. I’m not going to put Alaskans through that.
Now she can just sit back and enjoy the millions while her book gets written by someone else… and plan her future political plays. I betcha we haven’t seen the last of her as a politician.
Yep, this lady is still idiotic and unabashedly self-serving, whatever lofty reasons she strains to cite for her behavior. I urge everyone to watch the rambling video.
Update: On the subject of rambling, Paul Begala eviscerates:
Her statement was incoherent, bizarre and juvenile. The text, as posted on Gov. Palin’s official website (here), uses 2,549 words and 18 exclamation points. Lincoln freed the slaves with 719 words and nary an exclamation; Mr. Jefferson declared our independence in 1,322 words and, again, no exclamation points. Nixon resigned the presidency in 1,796 words — still no exclamation points. …
Gov. Palin’s official announcement that she is resigning as chief executive of the great state of Alaska had all the depth and gravitas of a 13-year-old’s review of the Jonas Brothers’ album on Facebook. She even quoted her parents’ refrigerator magnet. (Note to self: if one of my kids becomes governor, throw away the refrigerator magnet that says: “Murray’s Oyster Bar: We Shuck Em, You Suck Em!”) She put her son’s name in quotations marks. Why? Who knows. She writes, “I promised efficiencies and effectiveness!?” Was she exclaiming or questioning? I get it: both! And I don’t even know what to make of a sentence that reads:
((Gotta put First Things First))
Ponder the fact that Rupert Murdoch’s Harper Collins publishing house is paying this, umm, writer $11 million for a book. Ponder that and say a prayer for Ms. Palin’s editor.
“6/08/2009, 5:41pm EST”
Republicans seized control of the New York State Senate on Monday, in a stunning and sudden reversal of fortunes for the Democratic Party, which controlled the chamber for barely five months.
A raucous leadership fight erupted on the floor of the Senate around 3 p.m., with two Democrats, Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, joining the 30 Senate Republicans in a motion that would displace Democrats as the party in control.
Are these guys aware of how big a mess they’ve just heaped on the already-huge pile of shit for this state to work through right now? Are they aware that our state legislature has garnered a fitting reputation as near-completely dysfunctional during the last 40 years of Republican senate control?
And it gets pettier, narrower, and crazier: apparently, a major motivation to defect for these two Bible-thumpers — both subjects of separate corruption investigations — was a growing sense that the Democrats were poised to bring gay marriage equality to a vote.
“4/06/2009, 11:31am EST”
As much as it sucks to have your dong decapitated, stories of non-human animals fighting back (and getting away with it instead of getting shot or euthanized) are nice to read.
"Precise percussion, tight guitar... There’s no denying their skill."
-- Nell Alk, PaperMag.com
Welcome to HERE.am, the official website of HERE. Founded by twins Dan and Matt Mims, HERE executes harrowing, audience-shocking art rock and fine discourse.
