VEGAN OF THE MONTH

Heh. How long has it been since I've named one? I think we managed to skip 2006. Maybe we'll return to a regular schedule, but in the meantime, here's an Isa Moskowitz profile in the New York Times that helps dispel some of the cultural cliches about dour, self-righteous, ascetic vegans. Also, Moskowitz drops a bombshell that unfortunately isn't followed up: "[E]ggs are the big lie in baking. All the books say they provide structure, but that's kind of crap." How so? I'm no baker, and I know there are good alternatives to eggs for vegan baking, but in what sense is it a 'lie'? Anybody?

MILK MAY TRANSMIT MAD COW DISEASE

That's what a new study indicates, according to a new study from Case Western University School of Medicine - prion proteins were found in milk, and were, like actual prions in meat, extremely resistant to conventional attempts to destroy them. It's just a preliminary study, of course, but yet another reason not to classify milk as a "health food."

UPDATE: On the lighter side, The Onion (via Vegan Porn) comes through again with a product that perfectly encapsulates why I always felt a little skeevy about milk even when I was drinking it copiously, and why I similarly feared cottage cheese once it got runny. "Whether you're spooning it atop your cereal or simply enjoying a tall, lukewarm glass, Morning Clots' chewy, full-bodied texture and old-timey flavor will have you saying 'It's Coagulicious!'"

A NO-BULL TREND

It appears that yet another idiotic, cruel institution - one we're all supposed to respect simply because it's been going on so long and has such pretty costumes - is due to fall by the wayside: Bullfighting in Spain is on the ropes partially because of a strong and organized AR movement against it there, but also, more importantly, because an increasing number of Spaniards simply find it to be an embarrassing irrelevancy: In a recent survey only 27 per cent of Spaniards expressed any interest in bullfighting, while 72 per cent declared no interest whatsoever. And with Barcelona closing its last bullring due to lack of attendance, this does not look like a trend set for reversal. I doubt that the whole country will ban bull "fights" outright anytime soon - but it's clear that in terms of the big picture, this despicable display of male insecurity is already in its death throes.

I would normally wait to see this covered somewhere other than a self-interested press release, but then I would normally forget about it and it would fall through the cracks, so I'm going ahead and posting it as is. Supposedly it's a Tufts University initiative and will be published in "Psychonomics Bulletin and Review," so you know it's gotta be kosher.

Anyhoo, the gist is that pigeons are smarter than you think. In one study, the birds have now proven capable of remembering "up to 1,200 images such as landscapes, cars or people simultaneously" - that is, they can match a given image with the right food lever. Kind of a complex game of "Concentration," which I remember as challenging enough even without 1200 options.

The second study is eve more intriguing:

In the second study, the pigeons first viewed a page of 16 small pictures that were either all the same or all different. For example, if the first page showed 16 small identical mugs, the birds were then able to successfully choose a page showing 16 identical hourglasses over a page showing a variety of pictures. The pigeons also were able to identify pages of all different pictures. The results of this study demonstrated the pigeon's ability to compare two relationships, sameness or difference, rather than just two pictures.

Wow. Again, I'd like to see all this in the words of the Tufts researchers. But if true this is pretty impressive, going beyond simple counting or recalling to a) being able to tell how one group of objects is or is not like another group, and b) being able to tell what the researchers want you to show that you can do. They always seem to leave this part out - I wonder how many animal cognition experiments have failed because the animals just didn't catch onto the point of the experiment, or else weren't that interested in playing along.

MILK: BAD FOR YOU

That's the unspoken message in two science stories I just ran across on the front page of Google News, though neither, of course, spells it out this way. And in one case, the evidence is only circumstantial: In nearly one in five nutrition studies done on milk, there is a conflict of interest on the part of the author(s) that calls into question the credibility of the entire study. While it's possible the "author conflict" turns out to be irrelevant to a given study's conclusions, it's worth noting that this percentage of occurrence - 18% - is greater than that found in juice studies (8%) and soft drink studies (6%) combined.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell the authors of this study don't even mention that fact, only their sun-rises-in-the-east conclusion that beverage studies' conclusions may be biased in favor of the studies' funders. But the data is there in "Table 1" on page 4 of this document (the "author conflict" data). Dunno why the study's authors didn't see fit to point out this anomaly. Who's funding them, anyway?

The other item is more straightforward: Milk cancels health benefit of drinking tea, much as milk cancels health benefit of eating chocolate. Of course if one food is health-positive and adding another renders it health-neutral, it's a pretty good bet, isn't it, that the second food is health-negative, that is, bad for you in some particular way. But I guess it's asking too much for any of the news reports I've read to even bring up that possibility. It's all just some bizarre phenomenon that only affects milk when in combination with black tea. Right.

2007 LISTERIA RECALLS

Holy crap, that's a lot of listeria recalls! No, wait, what I meant is, I found it mildly noteworthy that the first two official meat recalls of the year are for listeria. What's not at all noteworthy is that you haven't heard word one about these, nor about any recalls in 2006 other than those associated with fresh produce.

Also not noteworthy (but I just noticed it): That the USDA would issue a recall the day after Thanksgiving (hmmmmm, what day of the week might that be?) for more than 23 tons of turkey and ham products that were potentially contaminated with, you guessed it, listeria. Bet that recall helped alert a lot of people in time!

CRUELTY, FREE!

Hey, ever-so-clever Chicago restaurants - be sure to keep on 'not selling' foie gras! Even though the law would seem to be able to distinguish pretty easily between "free" and "free with the purchase of," the legal outcome isn't so important as is your success in getting news outlets like this to once again plaster disgusting photos, video and facts about foie gras production on their sites for everyone to see.

2007 - THE YEAR IT HITS THE FAN?

I know, I know, the trope of "this time they'll have to open their eyes!" is as old as animal activism, but I have to wonder: Now that the reality of global warming is accepted by all but the most fantastically delusional members of society, and now that the phenomenon's connection to animal agriculture has been so thoroughly documented, will Joe and Jane Average finally start to connect the dots? "Hmmmm... this burger... end of a habitable planet... gotta decide..."?

Here's just one bellwether, the science blog of the Houston Chronicle, wherein the meat-eating author resolves (yeah, yeah, New Year's and all) to eat less meat after reading the UN report, asking the musical question, Would you stop eating meat to save the planet? It's amusing how many uninformed knee-jerk condemnations flow in to the comments, including the completely straight-faced usage of "Animals were put on Earth for us to eat, and I'm happy to oblige." I realize there will always be that fingers-in-ears element, but I'm wondering if the humming will have to get louder and louder now that the facts (and of course, these facts comprise just one of many sound logical reasons for veganism) are becoming ever more in-your-face?

JACKASSES

Here in our predominantly Judeo-Christian culture, we have to worry about idiotic kids getting hurt by emulating Jackass. Good to remember that there are other cultures with institutions just as idiotically dangerous.

EXTREME WELFARE RANCHING

"Across southeastern Colorado, ranchers, neighbors, the Colorado National Guard and others worked furiously Tuesday to feed" cattle trapped without food by the blizzards out there. "The Colorado National Guard used seven helicopters to drop hay bales to stranded animals Tuesday; 140 Guard members remain activated to help out with storm recovery."

Now, I'm all for feeding starving animals. But I'm curious - who paid for those seven helicopters to feed these animals? Did it all come out of ranchers' pockets? Or is this part of the "storm recovery" for which we all pay the National Guard? It was my understanding that the National Guard was a taxpayer-funded force to protect people - I never heard that they were also in the business of protecting animals.

Oh, sorry, this is a "humanitarian" mission, we can't allow these poor animals to starve to death? Uh-huh. If the Guard is so worried about the animals' welfare, will they be storming the slaughterhouse when these animals are being skinned alive? Just wondering.

HAPPY NEW BLOG

Hey, here's some cheery news that I just found out about, appropriately, on New Year's Day: The inestimable, the indefatiguable Gary Francione now has a blog! It's called "Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach."

At first I was totally ecstatic at seeing this development, as Francione limits himself to a paragraph or two per entry on the front page, and I assumed he had boiled his writing style down to that length. Then I saw the "Read More"s. Yikes!

Still, for those who may balk at cracking one of Francione's dense but essential tomes on Animal Rights and Animal Law, the blog is a great opportunity to get relatively quick, terse capsules of his thinking on veganism and its associated strategies.

FREE THE REINDEER

Life imitates art:

Santa and the activists talked and talked
but he was intractable
Letting the reindeer fly off on their own was impractical...

TEH SOY MADE ME GAY

Oh, man. Where to start? I'm gonna have to come back tomorrow on this. It's just too rich... rich.... RICH!

UPDATE 12/18: Y'know, after thinking about this all weekend, I still haven't got the right comic angle that adds anything to this. It's too much of a perfect gem in and of itself. I will only mention what should be, and I hope is, obvious to all who read the "column" - that the ever-greater male panic at losing men's longstanding meat-eating supremacy in the face of clear, long-term, permanent cultural change almost could not be put in better allegorical terms. Dunno if that was the idea, but if so, well done.

SMARTER PEOPLE MORE LIKELY TO GO VEGETARIAN

Heh. Posted without comment.

SOUTH AFRICA BANS CANNED HUNTS

Yes, folks, it's come to this: The United States lags behind South Freakin' Africa in acknowledging and curtailing an obviously, shamefully, fundamentally unfair institution.

MONEY WHERE HIS MOUTH IS

Good for Bob Barker. I mean, I know the guy's rich and all, but $300,000 is a hefty chunk of pocket change to part with. The Price is Right for this guy, as he's learned the Truth and its Consequences.

OK, I'm done. But really, way to go Bob.

DON'T HAVE - OR GIVE - A COW

A nice summary of why the latest trendy way to assuage liberal guilt is a bad idea for people as well as animals.

A 'TAIL' OF TWO HEADLINES

This one has nothing to do with meat-eating or plant-based diets or cruelty or compassion. It's all about the headlines, folks.

I'm here and now calling for a moratorium on the headline "Animal Rights and Wrongs" or the latest variation, "Animal Rights or Wrongs."

I know it must seem fiendishly clever to each new headline writer who comes up with it, but get this: It's been DONE TO DEATH. It's PLAYED. It's OVER. Yes, we get it - rights, then with a mind-boggling twist on the meaning, counterposed with "wrongs!" This amazing wordplay has only been used in about 17,894 HEADLINES SO FAR. Anyone who uses it after the point where I click "Publish" on this post is now officially A HACK.

In contrast, I laughed out loud when I saw this one, which I'm pretty sure (go ahead, prove me wrong) is fresh: About a proponent of the Genesis 1:29-based diet - "Eats of Eden." Bravo!

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR... CANCER?

"High Protein Diets May Boost Cancer Risk" blares the Washington Post, summarizing what looks like a pretty preliminary study, but one that merits at least as much hyping as any of the tiny preliminary studies that seemed to exonerate high-protein diets. Basically, the study found that physically fit people who consumed more protein (which, though it's not explicit here, is almost certainly mostly animal protein) had more IGF-I, known to spur the growth of cancer cells, as compared to those eating a lower-protein vegetarian diet. This should be followed up with more comprehensive studies, but for now it's worth noting that the old saw "where do you get your protein?" has never looked more dangerously inane.

UN: MEAT-EATING IS KILLING THE PLANET

This is a major report that spells out what we've known for years: Massive US-style livestock operations are the biggest factors driving global warming. Maybe people like Al "Inconvenient Truth" Gore will start to pay attention, even if the hardcore deniers keep ignoring it...

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems," senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official Henning Steinfeld said. "Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

Cattle-rearing is also a major source of land and water degradation, according to the FAO report.

Even in spelling all of this out the report, from what I've read of it, shies away from the most glaringly obvious solution: Rather than tinker with animals' diets to get a certain number of ounces less methane per cow, STOP RAISING AND EATING SO MANY OF THEM. Pretty simple, really, but I guess that'll have to wait for the next pass.