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| Lynx Issue 16: Boycott Amazon.com, Animal Savants |
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| Friday, 29 February 2008 00:00 |
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First of all, welcome to the many new subscribers who signed up for this list at last Saturday's "Humane 101" event (see report below). You have joined over 800 other people, mostly in the Greater Pittsburgh area, who share an interest in animal protection and animal-related issues in this region. Whatever area of animal advocacy you come from, we hope you will find items of interest in this weekly email newsletter and occasional alerts. In this week's edition:
"Humane 101" - The Weather Couldn't Stop Them! Despite nasty weather and road conditions and the dire warnings of TV meteorologists, almost one hundred people turned up at the HSUS "Humane 101" presentation in Squirrel Hill on Saturday. They came from all backgrounds: animal rights activists, dog groups, cat groups, wildlife advocates, TNR specialists... and as far as we know this was a "first" in Pittsburgh for so many members of the animal protection community to come together with the common goal of working together to promote the interests of animals in legislative matters. Participants met the new PA Director for HSUS, Sarah Speed, and former PA Senator Roy Afflerbach gave a one-hour presentation on how to fine-tune strategies in fighting for animal-friendly legislation in the public and private sectors, for policy areas ranging from dogfighting to foie gras bans. We hope that this event - and the others being held across the state - will help foster a new sense of solidarity and strength in numbers within the animal community statewide. We have tended to see our differences more than our common points in the past, to the benefit of the "opposition," and we hope that this seminar will prove to be a first step in bringing change in that respect. Sarah and Roy have offered to come back and do more seminars of this kind and we'll keep you posted on any other events coming up. Incidentally, new list members might not know that progress is already being made in the legislative field in Pittsburgh, where a small group of representatives from City animal groups - including VFA - joined forces last year and have been working with City Council to promote a move toward a real "No Kill" policy in the City, for both companion animals and wildlife. So stay tuned for news of developments on that front! Special thanks goes out to My Goodies Bakery and Coffee Tree Roasters for the donations of coffee and vegan baked goods for the event! Amazon.com Are Merchants in Cruelty Along with keeping you updated about local restaurants selling foie gras, a VFA member recently contacted us about the sale of foie gras on the popular website Amazon.com. Currently there are over 200 foie gras items on their website, including not only various sizes and types of this torturous delicacy, but also "I Love Foie Gras" t shirts! Foie gras isn't the only unethical product Amazon.com sells. Believe it or not, they all sell a variety of dog fighting and cock fighting books and magazines, promoting these violent and cruel practices that are actually illegal in most areas. You can contact Amazon by phone or email: 206-266-1000 (press 1 for customer service, 5 for corporate receptionist and ask for customer service.) If you have an account with Amazon.com, go to www.amazon.com/help, log in and click on customer service to send an email registering your concerns. You can also write Jeffrey Bezos Amazon's CEO directly: Jeffrey Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com Inc. Animals In The News If you have not heard the name Temple Grandin before, she is a somewhat famous person who is autistic, who has claimed in the past that animals think like autistic humans-that they think in pictures instead of thoughts. This sort of statement harms the animal movement because it assumes that nonhuman animals are somehow less mentally capable than humans on the whole. Even further, it leans toward an idea that autistic people are somehow less human than nonautistic people-something that is obviously untrue. It seems like it would be obvious, even if we did compare nonhuman animals to humans with mental impairment, that the ethical implications of harming such a being would be obvious. However, to many, it was just another excuse for the exploitation of animals. Recent research, however, shows that animals actually think much more like mentally "normal" humans. They "take in lots of juicy stimuli, sift through, and draw a cohesive picture," unlike Grandin's previous assumption that animals had a sort of "handicapped" way of processing information. The scientists do note though that some nonhuman animals think in a similar way to autistic savants, but without the other difficulties that usually accompany the disorder in humans. In short, autistic savants are people with autism who have one or multiple "superhuman" abilities such as extraordinary memory or musical ability. The movie Rainman was based on such an individual. However, these "superpowers" often come at a price-disability in other areas of mental processing such as the ability to interact socially. They note that some animals have these sort of powers (Clark's woodpeckers, for instance, can locate over 1000 pine nut stashes) but are so well adapted to their environments that they "don't suffer other cognitive impairments typical in human autistic savants". View the entire article here: Overall, this article plays an important part in dispelling the myth of animals being less competent than humans and lends a hand to the movement towards their need for equal consideration. Animals are not just lesser versions of human beings. In some ways, they are less able than us, but in others they are equal or will far exceed human capabilities. This is definitely something we must all consider in the future of animal activism. News Briefs Come to 'The School' this Sunday, March 2nd to see performances by bands Earth Crisis and Path to Misery. The show runs from 1pm -11pm, so stop by to hear some great bands. VFA will be co-tabling with t-shirt designers Black and Green Distro, who are generously donating half of their days shirt sale proceeds to VFA! UPCOMING EVENTS: Friday, February 29th, 7:00 pm: VFA public meeting/dinner at Zenith, South Side Sunday, March 2nd: VFA co-tabling with the Black and Green Distro at Earth Crisis/Path To Misery concert (see above) |