Author and activist Mickey Z. will be the key-note speaker at this Sunday's Veggie Pride Parade. The parade begins at 11am in the West Village; he'll take the stage at 1pm in Union Square, where the parade ends. There will be additional speakers sharing the stage to educate the masses about the benefits of a veg diet but my vote goes to Mickey for being the most bad ass of the lot.

Mickey's books include The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet, 50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism, and Self Defense for Radicals: A to Z Guide for Subversive Struggle--and he's published by some of the edgiest indie publishers around, such as Soft Skull Press, Disinformation Company, and PM Press. Oh, and Newsday called Mickey Z. a "professional iconoclast" and Time Out New York has referred to him as a "political provocateur."

SuperVegan: Well hello there Mr. Fancy Pants. How did you end up being the key-note speaker at this year's parade?

Mickey Z.: Wow, that's funny because I'm the furthest thing from fancy pants. I tend to wear my clothes until they fall off me. Anyway, I've known parade founder Pamela Rice for many years and she invited me to speak at the 2009 event. I ended up going on very late and reaching a much smaller crowd but Pamela said I still "stole the show." This year, well... I guess I got bumped all the way to the front of the line.

This Thursday, at Vegan Drinks, we are going to have a special bake sale to benefit Darwin Animal Doctors (formerly named Amigo Fiel before our US incorporation this month), my project to start the first animal hospital in the Galapagos. This is part of World Vegan Bake Sale Week, and the bake sale will take place at Angels and Kings bar from 7pm to 9pm.

Our head baker for the event is the amazing Laura Dakin, the vegan chef of Sea Shepherd and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis. There will be everything at this bake sale from cookies to cakes to vegan quiches to vegan pigs in blankets.

Right now, the animals of the Galapagos suffer from car accidents, invasive germs, and other problems wrought from urbanization. We've started paying a full-time vet to save animals in the Galapagos every day, and he's handling everything from invasive diseases to animal surgery. But he needs veterinary equipment and additional staff, so every penny made at the bake sale will go directly to helping the animals of Galapagos.

Come and stuff yourself silly with treats in order to help out a lot of animals!

Australian activist Nicola Paris has been cooking vegan food for Sea Shepherd pirates on board the Steve Irwin for three Antarctic whale defense campaigns and much of the last two years. Her posts are written from the ship and transmitted on a delay.

April 15, 2010:

What has led to here…

So I just finished up with my third Antarctic campaign defending the whales aboard Sea Shepherd's flagship, the Steve Irwin. This year's Antarctic campaign was pretty successful, and full on, and tiring - and then we stopped in Hobart, Australia for just 10 days. And many of us who had been working nonstop for months, are now still on board and heading up to the Northern Hemisphere.

I am in the role of head cook for the 6 week transit - stepping in whilst our regular head cook Laura takes a break. So it's all up to me... On the to do list: make 3 meals a day, plus fresh bread, plus afternoon tea and treats and dessert for 18 people, use all the fresh produce in the right order before it rots, get creative when we run out of fresh produce, don't cut/grate/burn myself too many times a day on rocking seas, drive everyone insane with whatever cheesy music is coming out of my stereo (gotta dance and cook at the same time), keep some semblance of hygiene and order to the place, rotate the stock, ration out the treats... oh, and make sure the food keeps people happy and avoid a mutiny. What the bloody hell was I thinking?!

As you may know, the Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin is coming to New York City. Our docking info is finalized for the ship's New York visit:

New Jersey
Date: April 24-25
Location: Bayshore Recycling, 75 Crows Mill Rd, Keasbey, NJ 08832
Additional Information: Join the ship’s crew for the Earth Day celebration in conjunction with Clean Ocean Action and Edison Wetlands.

New York
Date: April 26- 30
Location: Chelsea Piers, Pier 59, 62 Chelsea Piers # 300, NY, NY 10011-1015

And when the ship is here in New York City, you'll have a chance to meet Paul Watson! A few of us will be working the April 30th event, A NYC Evening For the Oceans, at which Paul will speak. He's a VERY good orator, so you don't want to miss this.

It's going to be a relatively small event, so you'll definitely get a chance to get close to him.

And there will be food from Candle Cafe and Vegan Treats, so it will be worth the price of entry. :)

The Nebraska Soybean Board's latest commercial wants you to know the truth about meat. Oh, no, that's not right. They want you to eat meat so they can profit, because, as they say in this commercial, 98 percent of domestic soybean sales are purchases from the US meat industry.

The commercial makes no effort to hide the soybean farmers' agenda. After an intro segment, it begins: "From across our heartland, soybean, livestock, and poultry farmers are working together to feed the world."

We get the usual appeals to patriotism ("heartland"), community ("working together"), and an unquestionable common goal ("feed the world"). So, as united Americans, the soybean and meat farmers are going to stamp out hunger. Brilliant!

But let's back up. Why don't they tell us how much soy it takes to feed a cow (whose natural diet consists of grass), and then tell us how many humans you could have fed with that? Also, perhaps they could let us know how feeding an animal an unnatural diet of soy (and corn) affects its immune system and actually costs even more because they have to dose it with antibiotics to keep it healthy? Let's not forget the costs to human health of eating animal meat. And while they're analyzing the true cost of meat production, why not tell us the costs to other species as the soybean farmers mow down animals' natural habitats to make space for more soybeans?

"We need to do a better story of telling the benefits" of meat consumption, they say. I didn't hear about a single benefit of meat consumption in this commercial. I did hear plenty about the industry's "commitment" to human health and animal welfare (What??), but not a single representation of benefits. Show me proof that eating animals is good for my health or their welfare. C'mon, Soybean Board, show me what's really going on behind the curtain -- the animals as they're typically raised and slaughtered -- and try to tell me that this is humane and healthy.

The Soybean Board is clearly looking where the money is, and right now that's in the meat industry. But hey, I love edamame, tofu, and tempeh, just to name a few delicious soy-based foods. Let's remind the Soybean Board of the truth about the costs and "benefits" of meat production and consumption, and let's let 'em know that we're happy to eat soybeans, but not in the form of meat. Write them at info@nebraskasoybeans.org.

Yes, the Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin is coming to New York City, from April 23rd to May 3rd. And we need volunteers to help! No experience necessary!



Which exact dock it's going to arrive at in the city is being confirmed, and we'll let you know as soon as confirmation happens.

If you can volunteer, please email nyc@seashepherd.org and state what days you can volunteer, how long on each day, and which position you can assist with. There will be a volunteer meeting/ training a few days before the ship arrives.

We'll also need food donations for crew, for the ship's upcoming campaign to fight tuna extinction in the Mediterranean.

(More information after the jump)

There's a lot of noise on the internet today about Christopher Cox's "Consider the Oyster" which carries the slug/page title "It's OK for vegans to eat oysters" and the subhead "Why even strict vegans should feel comfortable eating oysters by the boatload."

Cox's basic thesis is that oysters don't feel pain and that commercial oyster production/harvesting is far more ecologically friendly than most other industrial food production. He goes out of his way to say that oysters are sustainable for food use in a way that clams and mussels are not. He gets a qualified endorsement from Peter Singer. One can certainly argue with these things, but he's basically done his homework. Except for seeming to have no clue what it means to be vegan.

When I became a vegan, I didn't draw an X through everything marked "Animalia" on the tree of life. And when I pick out my dinner, I don't ask myself: What do I have to do to remain a vegan? I ask myself: What is the right choice in this situation? Eating ethically is not a purity pissing contest, and the more vegans or vegetarians pretend that it is, the more their diets start to resemble mere fashion—and thus risk being dismissed as such. Emerson wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

The only way for me to read this is that Cox doesn't know what "vegan" means. He never became a vegan, and needn't worry himself over remaining a vegan. Because of our very consistency (foolish or not) there's no gray area for vegans when it comes to eating animals. Cox is trying to be ethical about his consumerism, and that's great. I just don't understand how the hell anyone thinks the way he's going about it can be described as any form of veganism. It isn't.

Vegans do not knowingly/willingly/actively consume or purchase any part or bodily product of an animal that was taken from a living animal or for which an animal was killed. (I know that's a lot to pack into a sentence, but there it is. End of story.) You can argue that this isn't the most constructive approach to ethical consumerism, as Peter Singer does. But Peter Singer does not claim to be vegan, nor does he endorse the point of view that eating oysters can ever be vegan.

Work that floral blouse! H&M launched a line of organic and recycled clothes called the Garden Collection (sending you to the Swedish site so you can see all the rainbow-colored garments). They're priced like the non-organic stuff so no excuse not to, unless you only wear gray or something INSANE like that.


The NYC Animal Advocacy meetup is heading to Columbus Circle-area restaurant Telepan Saturday to protest its use of foie gras, and the owner is getting ready by preparing some bullshit spiel about how he's a beacon of awareness who champions hormone-free milk in schools, serves grass-fed cows, and "won a merit batdge from Animal Welfare Approved." Congratulations, Bill Telepan, for caring about what affects your bottom-line. That's capitalism, not compassion. Go to the protest tomorrow, Saturday, March 27, 7-9 p.m.

HEY YOU GUYS OUT IN BAY RIDGE, CAN YOU HEAR ME? The Village Voice tells us there's this delish vegan sandwich at Casa Calamari in your 'hood -- puffy hero bread overstuffed with loads of sauteed broccoli rabe. Yum!

For the first time in possibly forever, no dogs were killed in the Iditarod this year. Racers chock it up to the cold. I get that many of the racers love their dogs, but somehow not enough to NOT put them in harm's way? I really just want to see the dogs mushing their humans. MUSH, MUSH, ASSHOLE. Update!: Commenter Lucy reminds us we can write to the Iditarod sponsors and politely ask them to stop using dogs to pull sleds at Helpsleddogs.org.

Food banks for companion animals! Thanks, Petco Foundation! Next step: make 'em vegan!

Hey, it's Alicia Silverstone at Candle 79, talking up veganism!

Go Dairy Free rounds up 20 new dairy-free (mostly vegan) foods from Natural Products Expo West 2010. Nut butters! (Stop cringing, boys.) Gluten-free breads, Tofurkey frozen pizza, new Gardein stuff! Check it!

Finally, don't forget to turn off the lights during Earth Hour Saturday, 8:30 p.m. local time!

An update on the current Antarctic campaign, from Sea Shepherd crew member Andrea Gordon.

This message was transmitted to New York from the Bob Barker vessel via satellite.


So lots went on here yesterday - everything has been a really intense emotional rollercoaster. In the morning, we were told the campaign was over and we had to go back to port. I took the news really hard. Every day we were with the Nisshin Maru, I was just so happy knowing the whales were protected and safe. We had such an amazing and successful campaign, but going back to port knowing the whalers were still down here with the whales isn't easy. I didn't have much time to dwell on it though, because 30 minutes after that, we saw the Yushin Maru #3 on the horizon. We hadn't seen that ship since it rammed us at the beginning of the month. Everyone jumped back into gear, we sent the small boat after the Yushin, packed with butyric acid, paint, and some angry Sea Shepherds ;) The small boat chased the Yushin through the ice at 15 knots, and the Yushin just slammed into a lot of the ice, risking damaging their ship to get away from our boat.