Weekly Newsletter - January 7, 2015
From Christian Vegetarian Association (CVA)

  1. Book Review: Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate by Kim Stallwood
  2. The January 2015 Peaceable Table Is Now Online
  3. This Week’s Sermon from Rev. Frank and Mary Hoffman

1. Book Review: Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate by Kim Stallwood, 2014, 248 pp, $18.
 
Kim Stallwood’s reflections on his long journey with the animal advocacy movement are both interesting and insightful. Working with many leading animal advocacy groups in the United Kingdom (including BUAV) and the United States (including PETA), Stallwood has gained knowledge about what strategies seem to work and which do not. Further, he has experienced the challenges of working with dedicated animal advocates who, in their zeal to protect nonhumans, don’t always treat each other very well.
 
Growl is easy to read and filled with entertaining anecdotes. Much to Stallwood’s credit, he does not identify by name those people with whom he has disagreed, sometimes strongly. In other words, he resists the temptation to use his book as a means to broadside individuals with whom he had conflicts.
 
Stallwood identifies four key values to animal rights: compassion, truth, nonviolence, and justice. His book is largely an exploration of how these values apply to everyday advocacy. He also identifies five stages (which often overlap) of social movements: public education, public policy development, legislation, enforcement, and public acceptance. Animal advocates often focus on public education, in part because it does not require any compromise of values. In contrast, any successful legislative action requires compromise, which might seem to undermine core values.
 
Next week, I’d like to explore the topic of nonviolence. Though I’ve given a lot of thought to this topic myself, I want to acknowledge Stallwood’s insights, particularly when it comes to destruction of property and home demonstrations.
 
Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.

2. The January 2015 Peaceable Table Is Now Online
 
A Happy New Year to our readers!  
 
As of January 1, California's famed Proposition 2, passed in 2008, goes into effect, requiring that all "laying" hens in California (and on farms elsewhere shipping eggs to California) must have enough room to stretch their wings without touching the cage bars or another chicken. All attempted lawsuits by chicken-farming interests to defeat the measure have, fortunately, failed.  So, although we can't go so far as to say these hens will have a happy new year, this year will certainly be less painful for them, both physically and psychologically, than before. And we will continue to work on behalf of our animal cousins until all such cages are, not just larger, but emptied.
 
Contents include: 

  • The Glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom, at an Indonesian animal hospital/sanctuary, shows an abandoned infant orangutan cuddling a Sumatran tiger cub.
  • All of us who urge compassion for farmed animals have heard the claim that plants suffer too when they are harvested, so why object to violence against animals? The Editor's Corner Guest Essay by Will Tuttle shows just how full of holes this argument is.
  • A NewsNote reports that a "sharecropping" chicken farmer in North Carolina, incensed by the Purdue company's false claims of humane treatment, blew the whistle on his own farm!
  • A tasty and health-promoting soup, inspired by the late Michio Kushi, can be made from this month's Recipe.
  • Raised as a traditional farmer who hardens his heart to exploit animals, Harold Brown began to awaken thanks to a heart attack at the tender age of eighteen, and later went on to a total transformation of outlook, committing himself to a compassionate vegan lifestyle. Read his story in My Pilgrimage.

You can read this issue online here.
 
Toward the Peaceable Kingdom,
Gracia Fay Ellwood, Editor

3. This Week’s Sermon from Rev. Frank and Mary Hoffman

Jesus’ Manifestation: Epiphany

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