LETTERS [May 1998]

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Maneka
Your articles on the treatment
of animals in India are especially interesting
to me, since I met Maneka Gandhi in
July, 1995 when she was in Chicago to
address a Jain convention. She took 20
vegetarian activists to dinner at a local
vegetarian restaurant, and told us about
the opening of American fast-food franchises
in India, which were and are trying
hard to convince Indians that eating
meat is the “modern” way to eat. Buyers
roam the country offering people money
for their cows. The people, as everywhere,
are shortsighted enough to take
the immediate cash in exchange for their
cows. To a person in rural India, cows
are their life. They drink the milk, and
use the dung for fuel. With no cow, they
have no way to cook, and indeed often
have little to cook.

Letters

Teach the children well

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

JONESBORO, Arkansas– – Why
did Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden,
11, on March 24 steal seven pistols and three
rifles, set off a fire alarm at Westside Middle
School, and as the children ran out, kill classmates
Natalie Brooks, Britthney Varner,
Stephanie Johnson, and Paige Ann Herring,
plus teacher Shannon Wright?
Probably for the same reason a powerful
politician might think he can get away
with repeated self-exposure and other acts of
uninvited sexual aggression against female subordinates:
each alleged offender learned early,
when an older man he admired gave him a gun,
that normal rules don’t apply to hunters.

Dog ecology in Puerto Rico

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

LUQUILLO, P.R.––To save a sato, one of the
Puerto Rican street dogs lately made legendary by humane
literature, a would-be rescuer first must find a sato– – and
that, these days, is surprisingly difficult.
Mailings from major humane organizations would
have you believe homeless dogs are everywhere in Puerto
Rico. Doing a personal ecological assessment of the Puerto
Rican homeless dog and cat problem, however, I spent six
days and five nights, March 25-30, combing the 320-
square-mile island from Luquillo in the east to Mayaguez in
the west, Old San Juan in the north to Ponce in the south. I
drove every major highway, circling the island and crisscrossing
representative parts of it six times, twice by night
and four times by day, mostly on mere ribbons of winding
asphalt barely wide enough for two cars to pass abreast.

Editorial: Peace plan two years later

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Wesleyan University psychologist Scott Plous’ article “Signs of Change Within the
Animal Rights Movement,” just published in volume 112, #1 of the Journal of Comparative
Psychology, rates an exception to the usual rule that two-year-old opinion polls are not news.
Plous in June 1990 surveyed 402 participants in the first March for the Animals in
Washington D.C., and followed up in June 1996 by surveying 372 participants in the second
such march. These subjects were each at least 18 years of age, identified themselves as animal
rights activists, and “reported traveling from another state expressly to join the march.”
Their profiles each year were so similar, except in average duration of animal rights involvement,
which increased by three years, that Plous concluded the animal rights movement has
essentially stalled in terms of recruitment for a decade––a point increasingly evident to grassroots
organizers such as Joe Haptas of the Northwest Animal Rights Network, who says as
much in his letter on page 5 of this edition.

Will the shelling stop?

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

SAN FRANCISCO––If you think
people who torture animals for alleged “cultural”
motive are as addicted to their deeds as
those who torture just for kicks, and that they
will therefore break any bargain, the Joint
Statement of Principles and Guidelines subscribed
to on March 31 by the San Francisco
SPCA and Representatives of San Francisco’s
Live Animal Markets may strike you as a
cruel and just slightly early April Fool.
You may side with the activists
now burning up the Internet with assertions
that SF/SPCA president Richard Avanzino is
the biggest fool of all, for agreeing––d e
f a c t o––to self-policing to eliminate six types
of animal abuse recognized by both the
SF/SPCA and the live marketers.

MEMORIALS

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

In fond remembrance of Steve Siegel, passionately
devoted and highly effective animal
rights activist. You made a huge difference,
and continue to inspire me daily. Thank you!
––Jill Breslauer
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Obituaries

BOOKS: Vegetarian Dogs

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Vegetarian Dogs:
Towards a World
Without Exploitation
by Verona re-Bow
and Jonathan Dune
LiveArt (POB 7056, Halcyon, CA
93421), 1998.
55 pages, spiral binding, $12.00

In India, where one can hardly open
one’s eyes without seeing a street dog, and
where commercial dog food is almost unheard
of, there are indeed plenty of malnourished,
even starving dogs. One wonders, however,
if the malnourishment is not due less to the diet
of street garbage––mostly fruits and vegetables
–– than to parasite infestation and over-competition
for the garbage caused by too many dogs,
too many pigs, and lots of monkeys.

OBITUARIES

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Joanne Boyle, 42, of Quincy,
California, was killed by an automobile as
she crossed the road on March 21, while
traveling in Nevada. From her late teens and
for 10 years thereafter, Boyle worked for the
late Pegeen Fitzgerald’s Vivisection
Investigation League. On her own, Boyle
promoted cat adoptions. Beginning in the
summer of 1975, Boyle was an enthusiastic
participant in the 18-month campaign which
stopped the American Museum of Natural
History’s cat sex experiments––the first
major victory over vivisection in the modern
history of the animal rights movement.
Boyle created some of the most imaginative
posters and was an active demonstrator. She
was both committed and creative, and a good
friend, missed by all whom she touched.
––Henry Spira

Obituaries

BOOKS: The Monkey’s Bridge & The Flight of the Iguana

May 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

The Monkey’s Bridge:
Mysteries of Evolution in Central America
by David Rains Wallace
Sierra Club Books (895 2nd St., San Francisco, CA 94105), 1997.
$25.00, hardcover, 276 pages.

The Flight of the Iguana:
A Sidelong View of Science & Nature
by David Quammen
Touchstone Books (1230 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10020), 1998.
302 pages, paperback, $13.00.

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