Well I am off to Hawaii tomorrow on my special pole dancing vacation.
I can’t imagine what it will be like. But I know it will be…..

So thrilling.

This is a combination of three of my great loves…pole dancing and the beach and vacation.Another one of my loves is the wonderful world of the animal kingdom.

On Mother’s Day, a lot of the posts from around facebook from the animal groups I follow got me thinking about animal mothers.

Animals have families. So simple and yet most people choose to ignore this fact.

Everything has been seeming so much clearer to me lately.

The dairy industry keeps mothers as slaves impregnating them until they are no longer fertile and then killing them. They take the male calves away within a day of birth and send them to horrifying veal farms.

It is like something out of a science fiction novel.

Every animal, human or cow, deserves rights—

I hold these truths to be self evident….

all animals are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and among these are

the freedom to

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

All men are created equal.

Male, female, human or cow, black, white, or spotted.

What does this mean?

I wish I had paid attention in class…..

I’ll give it my best shot….

Well, it does not mean humans and cows are equal in every way (obviously) …

but their moral worth, their right to live their own life, freely, is equal to every one on this planet.

No one is more “worthy” of living than anyone else. How do I know this?

Well I read a great reason in a book once. (David Burns’ Feeling Good where he was arguing that should you feel “worthless” you are so wrong because it is impossible to be worthless.)

Why???

Because the concept of “worthiness” is a meaningless to begin with. It doesn’t exist. It is just an abstract concept that is so generalized it has no concrete practical meaning.

How could it possibly be measured and whose standards would we use to measure it by?

It is impossible to come up with a meaningful measure of worth. It’s not a real thing.

There is no way of measuring the intrinsic worth of a life.

Therefore, if you must concern yourself with matters of worthiness, why not assign 1 unit of “worth” to everyone on the planet.

Everyone is worthy of their own lives.

Despite their infinitely numerous variations, “All Men Are Created Equal”

That includes the “men” in other species….and of course I take men by it’s archaic meaning of people in general, male and female and other.

It is wrong for us to enslave others. Even cows.

Clearly wrong for us to enslave and murder others–even more wrong.

Well, let me end my philosophic musings, by saying have a wonderful day.

I will let you all know how it goes in HAWAIIII.

PLease let me know if you have any thoughts on the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as it relates to animals or humans.

And whether you agree of disagree that a cow, for example, has the same moral worth, the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as a human does.

Also have any of you read Feeling Good by David Burns, my favorite book?

xoxox

Hello Everyone,

How are you doing?

I attended Vegan Drinks in NYC the other day. Were any of you there? If anyone who reads this blog lives in NYC, I would love to meet up some time at vegan drinks and meet you. I believe I may be away for this next one because I am going to HAWAII. I am so excited.

This was a really long winter in NYC and all winter long I dreamed, craved, going to the beach. I had dreams of going with my vegan boyfriend and going on holiday, but unfortunately we broke up.

Well, I am going to the beach anyway. On a No Boys Allowed women’s retreat–a pole dancing beach retreat nonetheless!! HA. As you may know if you read my 5 Random facts About Me blog post one time, one of my favorite things is pole dancing. It is so beautiful and athletic and I could go on for days about it. Well I am so excited for the retreat.

 

A few vegan shoes on pinterest.

 

Today I was reading one of my fave things online ROOKIE magazine (a magazine for teen girls) when I saw someone asking a question about vegan shoes. Though I normally do not get involved in self promotion, I decided to tell this fellow vegan shoe lover about my pinterest board in the comments.

 

While I was there I noticed another commenter being like “vegan shoes are highly toxic and bad for the environment. So is fake fur. People think animals are treated badly and killed in horrible ways on fur farms but that is just not true. Furs are worth less if the animals aren’t kept in good condition…so it’s worth it to the fur farms to treat their animals well.”

 

………………………….

 

I felt I had to comment! I almost didn’t cause I was thinking how can I possibly express how wrong this person is. They prob won’t even accept my comment.” Well, I decided I had to give it a go anyway. One can make a difference.

 

 

I calmy wrote that what she said was not true. Most animals are anally electrocuted and go crazy in the cages and chew off eachother’s limbs and what not. I told her to watch The Witness– a great documentary I saw online (wrote about it here) about a man whose love for his cat caused him to see the connection between cats and animal and try to make a difference by educating people about what goes on at fur farms by driving around in a van with footage from fur farms playing out the back, forcing people to witness the truth.

 

 

I also told her to watch earthlings.

 

Anyway, YAY for me. I spoke up for animals. I hope some teen girls read that and it gets to them.

 

If you want to learn more about animal rights my humble recommendations are …check out 269 life and follow Anita Krajnc, both on facebook!

 

Do you ever respond to people who try to knock veganism, or vegan shoes, or animal rights? Or do you prefer not to get involved and let their ignorance reveal itself. I always feel releived when people respond to those haters in the comments, but I know it is a rough role as they are attacked themselves. What do you do?

 

Feel free to comment any time and let me know if you ever attend vegan drinks!

 

 

vegan go go boots

white converse high tops.

vegan birkenstocks because I have really been reminiscing about my old pair. They were so comfortable, and incredibly real birkenstocks for all their hippie-ness, are not at all vegan.

Check out this blog by an unknown tumblrist: I Have Seen Another World.

Through pictures and dreamy captions….it tells a story of a war.

1. I updated my vegan shoe pinterest with some cool vegan shoes such as these:

“save one life, save the world”.

The similarities to the things I saw in the slaughterhouse videos and in the trucks thanks to the youtube videos of Toronto Pig Save have really been haunting me with how similar they seem to the holocaust. Gas Chambers. Cattle Cars. Horrible experiments on animals. The dark barren barns chickens and pigs, for example, live in before being slaughtered.

The moment I decided not to look away and “bore witness” was the moment everything changed. Now I feel like I want to see more, to know what is really happening. Now all these extreme animal rights people’s tirades are really making sense!

When I learned about the holocaust in middle school I read a lot of books about it…in my typical, disturbed and depressed yet can’t look away fashion. I always remember thinking, how could this have happened only 50 years ago? It didn’t make sense. I looked around me and didn’t see evil people who were capable of doing anything like that. It seemed like a blip on the radar. And yet I imagined myself, being half Jewish, in that situation and tried to make it feel real.

Now I see that those behaviors are still in place but they are hidden from our view…in the slaughterhouses of the world. In the video I mentioned above, they talk about how evil is often just no one taking responsibility…like in a bureaucracy where normal people take orders but don’t want to take responsibility for what they are doing–that’s how evil happens. Exactly!

Clicking around, I found this Holocaust Comparison Project, a photo essay by David Sztybel, that the video is responding to. It makes fascinating and disturbing points. The same patterns of violence that existed in the Holocaust are very much alive and well.

At the end of the photo essay there is this post script:

Edgar Kupfer was a survivor of the Dachau death camp. After his liberation, he furtively scrawled the following message on the wall of a hospital barrack:

Wow.

I understand the Holocaust is an extremely sensitive subject. But like they say in the video, by discussing the past, we can learn from the past.

Your thoughts? Do you feel that you know your motivations for being vegan or vegetarian on a deep level or do you sometimes question? What do you think about the Holocaust Comparison Project?

Hello everyone,

Just thought I’d post a brief update.

What an intense experience it was writing and putting together my last blog post, my interview with Anita Krajnc, founder of Toronto Pig Save.

Intense because… it is intense to witness these things. Death. Suffering. Cruelty. Injustice.

It is intense to even talk about these things. In fact, in rereading my interview I noticed that I skimmed over talking about the true horrors of what I saw. I did write a brief post about it on my other personal blog though, which can be found here.

I think it is amazing that Toronto Pig Save bears witness 3 times a week.

I think it is important too…because I think…you start to second guess yourself. You think, maybe I couldn’t have seen what I did. Pigs boiled alive… It was only after reading a comment on TPS’s facebook today where someone was talking about how many pigs are boiled alive did I feel like, OK! I wasn’t just seeing things!

It’s hard to believe the things you see. It’s like your mind almost wants to protect you from it, and tries to dull the memory so that you can’t “bear witness” as powerfully. The emotion fades. But at the same time, I’ll never forget what I saw. Yeah, I can’t recall the exact sound of the pigs screaming anymore but I know what I heard, and saw. It never totally leaves you I guess.

Did anyone watch any of Toronto Pig Save’s videos? If so, I’d love to hear your experience watching them, and thanks to everyone who liked and commented, that was so amazing to feel your support. It is wonderful to hear from people from far and wide.

Well, I feel I am kind of left with the question, what do I do? Anita invited us all to think about starting our own Pig or Cow Save groups,  and in the interview she suggested I do use my artistic bent to make some sort of art for animals.

I would love to do something kind of like what Jo-Anne McArthur does. But how? But what? I will be brainstorming on this question…

One thing I read today got me thinking about…

All those people out there who still think we need meat to be healthy…

Also all those people who skim over the elephant in the room when talking about vegetarianism or veganism (sure it’s healthy, and good for the environment, but what about the murders taking place)…

What a challenging issue this is. Definitely something that will be in the history books. This is a movement. I love how Anita is leading it on one front from Toronto, Non-Violent Style–inspired by Gahndi and Tolstoy…

Something I hate:

I hate how people don’t like vegans. I hate how people don’t understand that vegans are self righteous for a reason.

Murdering innocent animals…so crystal clear in my mind. And yet….so …everywhere!

My main question I think after the interview was

WHY

Why don’t people get it?

Here are my ideas why people don’t understand why animal rights matters:

1. They may not have a very large capacity for empathy

2. They are numbed to feeling empathy for animals from all the conditioning from food companies (“you need meat to be healthy”), scientists debating whether or not animals are conscious, hunters numbed to violence at a young age, parents creating a “bystander effect” by eating meat like there is nothing wrong with it, advertizing proclaiming humane, local, sustainable meat from old fashioned farms with happy pigs and cows (ha!) and just generally all the messages we receive in our society that animals are ours for the eating and using.

3. people do feel empathy for animals but are addicted to the taste of meat and dairy and feel they can’t change (I definitely have felt this way and know how hard this can be)

4. They feel threatened by vegans moral stance which deep down makes sense to them, and feel judged and that creates a backlash like “but it tastes so good!”

5. They have never seen a farm animal before in their life, let alone gotten to know one, and so they never think about animals and can easily assume animals are dumb and don’t suffer like we do

Other ideas?

a puppy in the womb

I am experimenting with the 80/10/10 Diet by Dr Doug Graham, which is a book about High Carb Raw Veganism, also known as Low Fat Raw Veganism, or Fruitarianism or eating all fruits and vegetables. I have been eating so much fruit.

Hope you are all doing well, and Happy Tax Day and Happy Monday!

created by Al Ridley, owner of Sadie’s Diner and Juice Bar

Hello Everyone,

I have something very cool to share with you today.

It is an interview with the founder of Toronto Pig Save, Anita Krajnc.

(Anita Krajnc, left)

For those of you who don’t know what Toronto Pig Save is, it is people who stand at a stoplight in protest, three times a week, as pigs crowded in those huge trucks roll into the slaughterhouse which lies straight in the heart of downtown Toronto. Around 5000 pigs a day are killed there at Quality Meat Packers. (gotta love those slaughterhouse names).

photo of Toronto Pig Save protestors from the Ghosts in Our Machine

I first learned about Anita in an Animal Voices interview I highly recommend, where she talked about (among other things) her organization’s philosophy, inspired by Tolstoy

(this guy)

of “Bearing Witness”, which basically means when you see someone suffering, fight your urge to look away and instead, go towards them and see if you can help. Or said better by Tolstoy himself as quoted below by Anita:

“When the suffering of another creature causes you to feel pain, do not submit to the initial desire to flee from the suffering one, but on the contrary, come closer, as close as you can to her who suffers, and try to help her.”

-Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom

Basically it is a fascinating interview you’ve got to check out. I was so inspired by how interesting and cool Anita was that I decided I had to interview her myself.

And I did.

1 Word of Caution:

What You Are About To Read And See May Disturb You

In fact, it disturbed me so much, it really changed me.

For one thing, watching the videos she sent me (linked and discussed in the interview) in which I saw Anita standing up for pigs who were freezing without protection in below freezing temperatures really touched something inside of me. It was like something I had only seen in a movie where someone, usually only at the very end, stands up for what’s right. It reminded me, standing up for animals IS what’s right, no matter what all the Bacon Lovers and PETA haters that I hear 100 times a day may say.

I also saw her footage inside the trucks of the pigs.

(photo by Anita Krajnc)

Seeing that footage made me understand so much more than I ever have in 15 years of reading about animal rights. I think the problem was I had always looked away from the scenes of abuse and slaughter in graphic documentaries. Like most animal lovers, I HATE seeing videos of any sort of animal cruelty. But that’s what bearing witness is all about. This time, I was kind of like, I asked Anita so much about this whole “bearing witness” thing, I should probably watch these videos and see what it’s all about for myself.

Well…

I had always heard how intelligent pigs are, but what that means is pigs understand what’s happening to them. It is a horrible tragic experience for them, culminating in their death, and they can see it and feel it coming. You can see it very clearly in the vids that pigs are so much more like us, more human, than we realize…if we would only draw closer and look them in the eyes.

I wrote on my facebook page yesterday after seeing some of Toronto Pig Save’s videos on youtube:

When I watched these vids I had a flash of recognition…I don’t know whether I saw myself or my dogs. Their eyes convey so much, like a human eye magnified by 50. I am shaken up. In a second you see yourself in their position reflected in their eyes.

I feel more convinced than ever in my life that Veganism is no joke, not just a cool community and lifestyle, but something that deals with one of the most real, heartbreaking, evil and important issues on earth.

photo from weanimals.org by the animal rights photographer Joanne McArthur

Watching these videos reminded me of the feelings I had whenever I have read books about the Holocaust. They always talk about the cattle cars—-well, amazingly they are still in use. Pigs are so expressive, and if you watch the videos you will see, so clearly similar to us…that it changes you to “bear witness”, draw nearer, and see the reality of what it’s like for them. It makes you feel compelled to share what you know with others because your friends and family would WANT to know about this, and now I feel very different about veganism and animal rights than I did before.

photo by Jo-Anne McArthur

Though before I thought it was very likely and I was almost positive that farm animals had feelings like we did, and I agreed on principle, now I KNOW. Funny, there’s actually a big difference between being almost positive and seeing it with your own two eyes, hard as that is to do.

Like Tolstoy says, you have to FIGHT your natural inclination to look away, and “bear witness”, draw nearer, and if you do, you will be changed and you will be able to do what is right, whether that means defending animals convincingly or starting your own protest etc.

I feel now like I’m coming from a place of strength rather than uncertainty, about pigs at least.

Ok, now the interview where Anita will explain all.

Once again, I highly recommend this Animal Voices interview for some fascinating listening (it is where Anita tells all the stuff that I kind of summarized in my questions).

Without Further ADO:

10 Questions For the Founder of Toronto Pig Save

1.

Toronto Pig Save has vastly improved my life. Before TPS I often was depressed about the state of the world. Paradoxically, I know more now about the unspeakable suffering of animals, and witness it personally each week, but I also see more changes. Collective activism is the best antidote on a personal and social level.

Anita Krajnc

In grade school, I remember writing passionately about recycling and winning a public speaking award, and then in grade 7 or 8, entering a public-speaking contest and taking an equally passionate stance against abortion! By high school, I’d changed my mind and became a feminist In university I did my undergraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies because I feared nuclear war—nothing else made sense, but to stop nuclear Armageddon. By the time I went to graduate school, there was Gorbachev using glasnost and Tolstoyan unilateral disarmament actions to melt the Cold War, so I switched course to study environmental politics.

I took a year off between my masters and doctoral studies. I remember working in Ottawa at the time as a legislative assistant to environmentalist MP Charles Caccia, and seeing the Clayoquot Sound blockade on the cover of the Globe and Mail. My sister and I decided to go to Vancouver Island for a two-week holiday and to check out the protests… but when we got to the Peace Camp, we were so impressed by the eco-feminist and mostly vegetarian camp (there was nonviolence training and a participatory consensus decision making circle) so we never left for the “hiking trip.” Instead we both got arrested on August 9^th—a day of mass arrest. When I was about to be arrested, I remember starting to shake almost convulsively, I was so afraid of challenging authority. Since then, my fear has left me. In 1997 I partook in Greenpeace’s Great Bear rainforest civil disobedience action and spent only one night in jail for it—my only time in jail!

My animal rights awakening took place in the early 1990s. I saw a poster on campus advertising the screening of The Animals Film in the basement of then Sigmund Samuel library.

It was a long, graphic film. I had nightmares for three days, and then went vegetarian and became an animal rights activist for life. David Stzybel, then head of the University of Toronto Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (U of T SETA) had organized the screening… I am grateful to him for my initiation into the world of animal justice—he has since become a lifelong friend. I became president of U of T SETA a few years later and campaigned on getting stats on the number of animals used in experimentation (about 50,000 vertebrate per year at the time!). I was somehow clueless about the importance of veganism until around 2005, when I re-watched the film The Witness screened by an abolitionist vegan, animal rights club at Queen’s University and—finally, became vegan. I financed the purchase of 100s of copies of the film Peaceable Kingdom and distributed these to students and student clubs. I wanted to pass forward the same type of transformative film to students that had converted me in the early 1990s.

What I find curious and a bit scary is that I lived in the vicinity of the slaughterhouse for years, and knew some sort of activism should centre around this horror of horrors. And as I’ve just related, I had been a pretty committed activist all my life, taking on various roles in my personal and work life, and willing to sacrifice for the greater good. My training as an instructor should have equipped me to organize—I taught a course on social movement strategies and tactics at Queen’s University for three years, covering a different strategy each week, such as public education, media, community organizing, protest art, market education, NGO-government partnerships, transnational advocacy and so forth. Yet I only pondered the slaughterhouse within a kilometer of my neighbourhood a few times a year usually when I walked near the site (Quality Meat Packers is smack in the middle of downtown—a few blocks southwest of King and Bathurst). The most I did was to ask a few people if they could organize a protest, or some sort of outdoor video education display. I even asked a group all the way in Hamilton, because they were regularly leafleting and organizing direct action.

There are many books on Tolstoy, engaging in community organizing during the famine of 1891-92, especially in detailed biographies like the recent highly recommended Rosamund Bartlett (2011), Tolstoy: A Russian Life and A. N. Wilson’s (1988) Tolstoy: A Biography. Also there is an entire book about the topic: Jonas Stadling and Will Reason’s In the Land of Tolstoi: experiences of famine and misrule in Russia (originally published in 1897). Tolstoy’s family helped set up 246 soup kitchens, makeshift medical facilities, and kindergartens (most of Russia was illiterate).

This will give you a better idea… Tolstoy’s biographer A. N. Wilson (p. 400) writes:

“…it was the practical relief of human suffering which marked the next two years of the family’s life. Their example had a powerful effect, and there were many landowners, as well as sympathisers coming out from the towns, who assisted with these soup kitchens…. As well as collecting, distributing and conserving food, the Tolstoys were able to set up care for the children of the villages where they worked, and basic educational supplies. Some of the time, Sofya Andreyevna helped in their makeshift hospitals, kindergartens, and dining rooms…. She was at Yasnaya Polyana dealing with the enormous correspondence which Tolstoy’s public appeals were generating….”

people at Tolstoy’s vegetarian soup kitchen

It’s inspiring to hear you speak of the power of art and placards and I hope you pursue your love of art for raising consciousness about animal rights. That “No bacon today. All Pigs have been freed” Photo-shopped image was made by one of our members, Al Ridley, and it appears at the end of this Pig Tribute video made by Joanne O’Keefe. (editor’s note: I recommend the whole thing)

What we see is hard, but what’s positive is the suffering animals want us there to see them and to be their voice. If I were in that truck I would want the same. It’s made easier because we bear witness as a collective. The great artist Sue Coe said if you bear witness in a slaughterhouse by yourself, you will go insane. But collectively bearing witness is empowering and it builds community.

We also see the ripple effects of us standing there… it positively affects the public and workers in the animal exploitation industry to see us there. It sends out the message “we’re here, we care, we’re sorry and we’re trying.” We plant some seeds and puts the issue on the public agenda. Suddenly people start seeing the transport trucks and looking and talking about it at home, at school and at work. We also get media attention which takes our message far and wide and we always take pictures at every vigil and post these on Facebook and occasionally create videos of the suffering animals and us activists bearing witness for YouTube.

7.

In your animal voices interview you explain the beautiful philosophy of “bearing witness”, having a responsibility to not look away when an injustice is happening. So true. What is it like seeing the faces of the pigs and knowing you are helping them, but at the same time knowing you can’t save them…bearing witness to their suffering. I agree that it is wrong to look away when someone needs your help, but in practice, do you feel like it helps to bear witness knowing you can’t do anything for those specific pigs? And do you ever get the sense the pigs know you are on their side?

You raise a key question about philosophy and why there are such paradoxical and tragic elements to our bearing witness without helping save the individuals before us. We are there to offer brief moments of love and compassion and sympathy and our collective public protest is in the hopes of preventing other pigs going to slaughter. We say to the pigs that they did not die in vain. This is a utilitarian perspective and partly why we feel divided… guilty for not doing more because if you or I were in that truck, we would demand more. There is another philosophical perspective besides utilitarianism called a deontological approach whereby each of us does what’s absolutely right in the present. So if there is a truck full of living beings being sent to slaughter we should stop the truck and free the suffering ones… It is what Jesus, Bhudda, Tolstoy, Gandhi or King would do, and thankfully it’s what Chinese animal lovers do to free transport trucks of dogs and cats being sent to slaughter.

chinese activists who rescued a trucks of dogs bound for slaughter

The pigs definitely know who their friends are. Our vigils are 98% love-based and positive but occasionally there’s a slip as in this video called Confrontation! At the end of this video, after I’ve crossed onto slaughterhouse property and confronted managers about the freezing conditions, hypothermia and frostbite suffered by the pigs, you see the pigs coming towards me as I stand between them and the managers and act as their voice and they know.

(editor’s note: must see video)

happy pigs

8.

One amazing thing I have gathered from your interview and your website is that the truck drivers and workers at the slaughterhouses seem to be turning to your side. They take your literature and you say many of them are even vegetarians and are eating your vegan BLTS. Do you think they will end up being animal rights advocates?

A few are vegetarian… and many take our leaflets and vegan BLTs and DVDs. Our hope is that they’ll become animal rights advocates. Becka Samuels at Guelph Pig Save interviewed a former worker at Conestoga Meat Packers who now wants to join their bimonthly vigils. Our group from the start made its mission the advocacy of animal rights and worker justice. We are at the early stages of this campaign… it takes time to meet with workers and talk to them and get to know one another. We approach workers with respect as equals—but we don’t always meet this standard, especially if we view a worker who is violent with the electric prod… it is difficult remaining calm and talking in a respectful way, but it’s an ideal we strive for.

a vegan blt

There are further steps we need to take in order to set up “just transition” and healing and recovery programs for workers in the animal exploitation industry. For example, we could set up job opportunity flyers and offer help with resumés. We could promote alternative vegan jobs down the road for workers in the food industry. Vipassana classes have been offered to prisoners and soldiers (see the film “Doing time, doing Vipassana”  and Dhamma Brothers on Vipassana and vegetarian meals being introduced to prisoners in a maximum security prison in Alabama). We think such healing meditation should be offered to slaughterhouse workers… These are dreams we have and ones we are working on.

I have known pigs mostly in transport trucks –thousands by now since we started doing weekly vigils in July 2011) and to me they are very similar to my dog Mr. Bean, who is my best friend. They are even more expressive in their faces and their eyes, look pleading, sad, scared and confused.

I’ve met happy pigs at farm sanctuaries, including Snooters, Cedar Row, Ruby Ranch Pig Sanctuary, Teja’s, RR Horse Refuge, and Wishing Well, all in Ontario. I had the privilege of meeting Julia and her piglets at Farm Sanctuary in upstate New York during the Hoe Down. Along with the wonderful and equally exuberant Jo-Anne McArthur of www.WeAnimals.org, they starred in a short nine minute documentary I did with Humberto da Silva. See last 3 minutes of the doc.

I am about to get to know pigs much, much better, because I’m going on Big Pig Trip with Joanne O’Keefe on May 11. We are going to visit at least a dozen sanctuaries, and even take an animal communications course at Idraloka…. I’ll be video-taping and photographing pig stories and we also hope to make a stop at The Tolstoy Foundation near Woodstock Farm Sanctuary.

3. Indraloka Farm Sanctuary,  Mehoopany, PA where we’ll be taking an animal communications course

I love reading books, and the books I find most inspiring and also practical are books by leading community organizers including, Tolstoy, Gandhi and King. I can’t get enough of Tolstoy and recommend his 600 + works My favourite nonfiction book is Resurrection (his last major novel), and there is even a vegan political prisoner in it who reads Karl Marx and wears no leather. His nonfiction books are all truly foundational for the nonviolence movements of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Gandhi read Confessions, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What is Art?, “The First Step” essay (on vegetarianism) and many other of Tolstoy’s books which Gandhi lists in his book Indian Swaraj. He translated many of Tolstoy’s books and essays into Gujurati and bought copies for people as must read books… It’s funny, that is something I do… I buy dozens of copies of Calendar of Wisdom by Tolstoy (which he considered his most important book) containing sayings each day from other great philosophers, and also quotes by Tolstoy himself. It is this book that contains probably the most profound and simply stated definition of bearing witness:

“When the suffering of another creature causes you to feel pain, do not submit to the initial desire to flee from the suffering one, but on the contrary, come closer, as close as you can to her who suffers, and try to help her.”

-Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom

tolstoy telling a story to his granchildren

A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tostoy

Anything else you would like to add or say, I would LOVE to hear. Please feel free, and thank you so much for answering these questions.

I would love to invite you and your readers to join one of our weekly vigils. There is nothing more powerful than bearing witness to the suffering of pigs, cows, chickens, and other farmed animals going to slaughter. It’s like being in a war zone, and witnessing the mass torture and killing of innocents. Once you see this personally, it’ll change you forever… It is strangely empowering, in the paradoxical sense that Indian prophet Ramakrishna observed:

“But my heart has grown much, much larger, and I have learnt to feel [the suffering of others].”

Once you bear witness personally, you will become a much more outspoken advocate and you’ll want everyone to see what you saw. As more and more people bear witness, major social change for animals will occur. Animal liberation will be unstoppable, and the world will be a happier place for all!

If you live elsewhere and there is a slaughterhouse in your community, please consider starting a Pig Save-like group. Check out our website for tips and please contact us. We’d love to work together with and for all our animal friends.

Thanks so much, Anita and, if you got this far, let me know any thoughts that crossed your mind in the comments section. I’d love to hear what you think about any of this stuff. I love hearing from you.

Also, Toronto Pig Save on Facebook

Talk to you in the comment section!

Yesterday I made a pinterest board for vegan shoes and bags. Wish I had thought of it sooner, it is so easy to use and fun to look at. By clicking on the pics you can be linked to all of (in my opinion) the coolest vegan shoes and bags on the market. It’s exactly why I started this blog to begin with, but pinterest is a much better platform for that. I think from now on, I will just add any cool vegan shoes I see to my pinterest page and that will free up my blog for more interesting things. Also, I’m going to try to integrate the pinterest page into the blog so you can just see what’s available to purchase in case you need some vegan shoes quick.

I have to say, while I was looking for vegan shoes to add to my cool vegan shoes pinterest board I was really struck by how few options there still are for vegan shoes. Some of the websites that are the top search results for vegan shoes are appaling! This probably leads people to believe that it is next to impossible not to buy leather and still be able to look presentable.

On the plus side, there are more than 54 awesome vegan shoes on my page all of which I would love to own. So can’t complain too much.

As I was searching for vegan shoes, I found that slightly contrary to what I say in my article “where to find cool vegan shoes online“,  I found the coolest vegan shoes on the following websites:

The Good Guys

Cri de Coeur

Zara (sort by price, lowest to highest, should under or around $60 may be vegan, but look at the materials)

Asos and Urban Outfitters (ditto what I said about Zara)

mooshoes

Let me know what you think of the page and if you have a pinterest page let me know because I would love to check it out. Thanks to everyone on my Facebook page (mynonleatherlife) who sent me theirs already.

My meaning? One time I saw a profile on OKcupid that said I’m vegan, but trust me I’m not one of THOSE vegans!! You know, the ones everyone hates because they go around preaching about veganism and how you’re evil if you’re not a vegan. The ones everyone is hating on in the comments section of PETA videos on youtube.

Well, here’s how it happens.

First you are raised into a culture where everyone eats meat, dairy, uses animal tested products and what not and it’s totally NORMAL. You hear things like animals aren’t conscious beings. People speculate over whether or not animals feel pain.

You have a dog or a cat. You know your pet feels pain, has a personality, loves you. But you never see any other animals. You hesitantly guess that all animals are probably like your pet.

You decide you want to be vegetarian. Amazingly you manage to break your habit, restrict your diet–now you’re a vegetarian!! You are on a roll. People always ask you about it. Why are you a vegetarian? You don’t really know how to explain it. They ask you “is it for health reasons or animal rights reasons”. You don’t want to seem weird and you don’t really know how to explain yourself, so you say “both”.

You’re a vegetarian for years and you start reading more about it. You hear rumblings about veganism but it seems way too extreme. Plus, what is wrong with milk? They don’t kill the cows.

You hear about egg farms and you make sure to always buy free range eggs and tell all your friends and family to buy the same.

You feel bad for cows and make the connection that you are wearing ANIMAL SKINS on your feet. you decide to stop buying leather and find your fashion choices are vastly reduced.

Then you finally get the courage to delve deeper into what people are saying about dairy farms and egg farms. So free range farmers lie about what free range means? You read all the grisly details. You’re ready.

You become vegan.

You lapse a couple of times. Finally it sticks.

Suddenly it starts making sense. Why would I want to participate in a system of slavery, violence, cruelty, and torture.

You feel really relieved to be out of it. Free of any guilt that you are complicit in it.

Suddenly all around you, things start seeming different.

You pass the meat aisle in the grocery store and see logos with happy cows and sunshine and old fashioned looking farms. It reminds you of something out of a superhero movie, something that the villains would come up with….creepy and sinister. Like The Joker.

You see pictures on tumblr of food which you formerly would have thought looked delicious even though you wouldn’t eat it, and now you just feel kind of sad.

The world looks different. You try to have patience for everyone and realize that it’s really hard to change your diet. If you hadn’t gotten on a path of vegetarianism you might still be eating meat today. You try not to judge anyone.

But once you cross over to the other side, suddenly the simple fact that was there all along, that animals have feelings, suffer, have lives, have families, want to live their lives and deserve to be free becomes like, coldly obvious.

Why was it so hard to see that simple truth for so long?

There was so much brainwashing going on. Through advertisments, through the guise of being scientific and not anthropomorphizing animals, through the fact that we never see or get to know any animals in our modern society (since they’re all hidden away in factory farms), through the fact that people are addicted to meat and cheese (I definitely was).

I am a huge fan of capitalism and the power of entrepreneurs and business to make people’s lives better, but you do understand why capitalism has gotten such a bad rap. People don’t always think about the lives behind their business. Even good people don’t, such as one of my favorite bloggers, the Pioneer Woman, who is a hilarious writer, loving mother, beautiful photographer and lives on a cattle farm. She loves those baby cows but she separates them from their mothers and sends them off to slaughter, thinking she’s given them a good life and that’s the way of things.

It shouldn’t be.

People are making huge progress in overturning this huge wrong in society. I have an awesome interview upcoming with someone whose work and progress is going to amaze you.

But yeah, in conclusion, I guess I am one of THOSE vegans now. I understand them. As soon as you turn vegan, I think most people get free of all the brainwashing and the simple facts become obvious for the first time. The emperor has no clothes.

That’s why there are so many of THOSE vegans.

I’ve got some more vegan shoe tip offs for you today.

First…

Yay! Someone has made a vegan knock-off of those Jeffrey Campbell shoes. You can get the unintentionally vegan version at Urban Outfitters. I have been hoping for a shoe like this for a long time.

vegan lucite shoes

I think I prefer white over the black.

I am a fan of Lucite. It is kind of taboo, since it makes you think of strippers, but at the same time it makes you think of Cinderella, and for me, pole dancing, which is my passionate hobby.

The logo of my blog is actually a pair of lucite shoes with a big rose clipped on it. Romantic much?

While I am on the subject of cool vegan shoes, I also like this shoe I found at urban outfitters.

vegan harness shoes

It also reminds me of a Jeffrey Cambell knockoff. This shoe reminds me of the kind of shoes that Black Milk encourages girls to wear with their black milk outfits. I am a huge fan of the company black milk for their marketing and generally the way they run their company. They never push anyone to buy anything but somehow they have developed a frenzy around their products. I like how they are a company that is so transparent and homegrown, always trying to befriend their customers, and how they do so many innovative things, their way. Check them out on Facebook for a fascinating business case study. Observing them on facebook brightens my day.

So yeah. Good to have vegan shoes for your black milk addiction. Even though I mostly observe from afar.

Finally speaking of harnesses, I recently hit the jackpot when I found these vegan harnesses.

The following may or may not convince you why I think harnesses are cool:

I could go on. If you think this is a cool look, check out Zana Bayne’s vegan section of her online shop. (she does make leather harnesses as well). Also check out the video–very NSFW but totally awesome.

I found a great site for unintentionally vegan shoes– Urbanog. Weird name, but it seems like all of the shoes on their site are vegan and made with man made materials (let me know if you find this isn’t true). They have a huge selection, and the some of the shoes are pretty cool. Definitely better than a lot of the cheap vegan shoe online retailers I’ve come across. Check it out, if you are in need of some type of vegan shoes. I will add this to my article “where to find cool vegan shoes online“.

I was looking for some thigh high boots. I am tall, so I have some tall boots, but they only go up to my knees. I wear black legging like pants basically every day, and a great shoe to wear over them, I think, would be black knee high/thigh high vegan boots.

I like these. Not that tall, but getting there.

I like these also.

These aren’t boots, but I thought they were pretty cool. They look better on the model,  if you click on the link–I just couldn’t find a good pic of them.

vegan heels

These are pretty cool, too. Very Goldfinger, or GoldMember.

They come in black too.

Remember Beyonce in GoldMember?

Just for old time’s sake!

In other news, I am having a birthday party on Saturday. And I’m calling it a vegan birthday brunch. I am really excited about it! I made fancy invites on paperlesspost, and am getting 40 balloons in pink, purple and yellow, pink and purple streamers, party hats…I am cutting out a pic of each guest and putting them on the hats…I am having vegan appetizers served on silver platters by my sister. Best of all, I am having it catered by Blossom du Jour, with their amazing sandwiches..my favorites being the Burrito Grande and the avocado fake chicken sandwich. I already want to plan like 10 more parties.

So excited. For the past couple of years I have really hated my birthday. I felt like I was getting older, and didn’t have any better clue what I wanted to do with my life. Then the other day I remembered turning 10, and having the same feelings. AS I turned ten I remember sitting under the piano reflecting on getting older. And now I’m so much older. It makes me realize that instead of agonizing over the inevitable passing of time, the only thing to do is celebrate the time we have left. Don’t consciously make yourself upset, simply seize the opportunity to make this birthday a happy day, and one to remember for the ages.

How I used to celebrate…NOT A GOOD IDEA!!

Your thoughts? Do you have any tips for entertaining? I’m really out of practice.

TTYS all. have a great Thursday!