The Lorax and Someone Like You

I selected this post to be featured on Vegan Blogs. Please visit the site and vote for my blog!

Today on my Facebook feed, I was sent a link to one of my favorite videos that had made its way to a site called GodVine, which devotes itself to videos with a Christian theme. The video that shows the rescue of several beagles in Spain that were being used for animal testing. As I've mentioned before, I'm not of any particular religious denomination, though I lean towards Unitarianism and its non-dogmatic belief in the good in all people and in doing good in the world. It's a kind of religious free-for-all that my atheist Gramma was gung-ho about. (She on more than one occasion proudly pronounced that there was no God and that when you "dropped dead" that was it. Yet she loved hymns. Gotta love that.)

Anywho, I'm already zooming way off topic.

So I don't scout out Godvine, but occasionally a link will bring me there to some uplifting video. So I was not surprised that this video found its way to the site. Here is is below. (Very sweet -- not graphic at all.)

What really struck me though were the comments below the video. (I will say in GodVine's defense that their comments section is the only one I've come across where people had only positive things to say. It amazes me at times how vicious people can get on comment sections, saying things I would hope a person would never say to another face-to-face.) But what I found fascinating and troubling were the prayers to Jesus to stop such cruelty or the demands to arrest the people who had tested on the animals. Many people even seemed to think animal testing did not happen in our country.

But I did not see one comment that indicated that a person had reconsidered his or her using products that tested on animals.

That nobody saw the link between what we choose to spend our money on and what happens to these animals in laboratories was very troubling. It's great that people wanted to pray to God, if that's something that helps them in their spiritual growth. But what about making different (and super simple!) choices to effect change? And then spreading the word about companies that don't test to send the monetary message: We only spend our money on products that don't hurt anybody!

Would making changes be inconvenient? They might temporarily be a little work, finding products to replace our long-used favorites. It might possibly be more expensive. But to me it's worth it. (And I'll get more into how to do that further down.)

If experimentation on rabbits, mice, pigs, and monkeys doesn't bother you, experimentation on cats and dogs might. Stray/lost animals that are brought to shelters can be bought for animal experimentation: it's called "pound seizure." (Click here to see if pound seizure is legal in your state. You might be surprised.) In other words, your shampoo, soap, nailpolish, dishwashing liquid, or hair gel may be tested on people's lost pets, who want nothing more than to go home.

I'd love to think that prayer, wishes, or bemoaning the cruelty of animal testers will stop this, but I don't believe it will. We have to actually change things in our own lives to stop it. I think we sell ourselves short on what a difference one person can make.

Here's a great short video on making a difference by Colleen Patrick Goudreau.

I always loved the Dr. Seuss's book The Lorax. You may already be familiar with this wonderful story, which is narrated by the "Once-ler" who tells the tale of how greed and thoughtlessness destroyed a fictional land but leaves the reader with a seed and the powerful word "unless." The best quote, that I'm sure many will recognize, tells us,

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, 

nothing is going to get better. 

It's not."

 

In one part of the book, the Lorax debates with the owner of a corporation on what ordinary people will buy:

The Lorax: I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues. And I'm asking you sir, at the top of my lungs - that thing! That horrible thing that I see! What's that thing you've made out of my truffula tree?
The Once-ler: Look, Lorax, calm down. There's no cause for alarm. I chopped just one tree, I'm doing no harm. This thing is most useful! This thing is a "thneed." A theed, a fine something-that-all-people-need! It's a shirt. It's a sock. It's a glove! It's a hat! But it has other uses, yes, far beyond that. You can use it for carpets, for pillows, for sheets, for curtains! Or covers for bicycle seats!
The Lorax: Sir, you're crazy. You're crazy with greed. There's no one on earth who will buy that fool thneed!
[ a man drives by, buys the thneed and pays the Once-ler]
The Once-ler: The birth of an industry, you poor, stupid guy! You're telling me what the public will buy? 


Hmm... Sound familiar?



Of course, by the end of the book, the Once-ler comes to deeply regret his decisions and implores a young boy to spread the news of what once was. (Much in the way Richard Harris's King Arthur told the tale of Camelot to a young boy at the end of the movie.... Oh heck. I can't resist. Here's the ending of Camelot.)

Much to my delight, I saw that The Lorax is going to be a movie this spring! (Starring Danny DeVito, Taylor Swift, Ed Helms, Betty White, and Zac Efron.) Here is the trailer:

So where does this leave us?

Don't be a person who wishes for change or just shakes their head sadly. Be someone who does something. Something simple! Just pick one product to replace (in a babysteps kind of way). Once you've found one, try another.  It might make a great New Year's Resolution: replacing one product per week/month! 

Here is a great link to PETA where you can get a Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide. As well, there is a search engine, where you can search for cruelty-free products. There's even a Be Nice to Bunnies Phone App that allows you to quickly find out if a product tests on animals or not.

Many of these products can be found at Whole Foods or online at Vegan Essentials. Whole Foods is phenomenal at taking returns if the product you buy isn't the right fit. I've returned many products there and they never question it. If you don't have a receipt, they will give you store credit.

So make a change for the Lorax. And the beagles. Because unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

P.S. What are you favorite animal-friendly products?

PPS. A great place to adopt pets that were used in laboratory research is the Kindness Ranch.

I love turkeys...and not in THAT way. Or the food way.

 Petunia, a rescued turkey at the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary in New York.

Today's post raves about how cool turkeys are! Tomorrow's post will focus on my yummy plans for Thanksgiving this year...stay tuned! :)

Two years ago, I happened upon a very graphic undercover PETA video on how turkeys are treated in the industry. (I believe it was at a Butterball factory farm.) I was devastated and could not fathom how people could be so cruel.

And yet I couldn't fathom giving up turkey.

So I went online and researched humanely-raised turkeys and how I could procure one that had had a good life and a fairly painless death. The closest I got was Whole Foods, who assured me that their turkeys had it much better than their Butterball counterparts. I felt slightly better, but still uneasy.

For two Thanksgivings, I got caught up in the tradition of the day -- a day I adore! How great is a holiday about giving thanks? -- and was able to successfully avoid thinking about the bird as anything but food. Yet I could always feel the blinders digging in in an irritating fashion, the way a bra feels when it's just not fitting right. (Sorry boys ... you'll have to come up with your own analogy.) :)

It wasn't until last April that I decided to stop eating animals, after finally seeing the immense suffering my taste buds were inflicting on animals that had done nothing to me. (And "humanely-raised meat," much to my dismay, did not get a free pass.)

Once I no longer had to deal with feelings of remorse,  though, I became very curious about the creatures that I had previously and guiltily acknowledged as food. Turkeys, whom I'd always assumed to be sweetly daft, are fascinating creatures who defy the stereotype as the animal kingdom idiot. (Hmm....is it easier to hurt an animal if we think of him or her as unintelligent? As Jeremy Benthem noted in the 18th century, "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?")

Here is a lovely excerpt about a turkey named Ethel, written by Kathy Stevens, the founder of Catskill Animal Sanctuary in New York. (Taken from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Vegan's Daily Companion.)

Ethel, The Greatest Turkey of All Time

"Ethel arrived with six other turkeys, fortunate escapees from an industry that grows close to 300 million birds annually -- and then kills them.

Fortunately, Ethel was to have a different fate.


From her first day, it was clear that Ethel was a standout, curious kinda gal. Turkeys are gentle; Ethel groomed our truly free-range chickens, sheep, and pigs. Turkeys are affectionate; Ethel became our first lap turkey.


Ethel craves connection. Whether you're turkey, sheep, horese, chicken, rabbit, pig, human, or other is irrelevant. Her criteria are simple: if you live and breathe, Ethel wants to know you.


Despite her love of animals, Ethel seems to find the greatest joy in connecting with humans. When I sit down and cross my legs, Ethel sidles up to me until her big bird body touches my side, trills her lovely turkey trill, and stares at me. When I pick her up and place her in my lap, her body relaxes and her eyes quickly grow heavy with sleep. For those moments, all is right in my world, and, it seems, in hers. 


Every weekend throughout our visiting season, both tour guides and guests struggle not to step on Ethel. When we're in the barn, she settles into the middle of each group, moving with us as we move from animal to animal. She moves from one guest to the next, looking deeply into their eyes. In these moments, whatever's in that big turkey heart seems a lot like love."



To further illustrate how amazing turkeys are, there's a new documentary on PBS about a man who, by chance, became the mother of a clutch of wild turkey eggs. It's called My Life as a Turkey, and it looks fascinating!

You won't believe this short clip from My Life as a Turkey. So sweet and moving.

So if these creatures are indeed so wonderful, how can we justify hurting them? Killing them? Giving them such a horrendous life when they pose no threat to us? And all this senseless cruelty when we can survive quite beautifully without consuming them?

Below is an intense video (and one amusing commercial) on what happens to turkeys in order to bring them to our tables. I feel fairly certain that very few people will watch this. In fact, the chances are that nobody will. Which is fine. I totally get it. But if we can't even bear to watch it, what does that say about our choices? (And I'm throwing myself in that ring too -- I ate turkeys for 40 years.) Should we be paying others to hurt/abuse/kill feeling animals when we can't even watch it happening, never mind do it ourselves? If we are true carnivores/omnivores, shouldn't we be salivating, not cringing?

 Intense video of the journey turkeys take to get to our plates

(read above before watching)

 And this commercial, which is not intense, but very accurate and pretty funny!

So, as I said, tomorrow will be all happiness and holiday-cheer! I'll be talking about the yummy things I've got planned for this Thursday and how you can help these amazing creatures in very simple ways!