“Excessory Baggage” by Meryl Smith

Too much news piling up, so I’m just gonna spew it atcha:

• Jessica Simpson is “deeply hurt,” “disgusted,” and “upset” that Pamela Anderson called her “bitch” and “whore” for wearing that “Real Girls Eat Meat” T-shirt. Thankfully, Pam ain’t apologizing (though she does claim she was only “kidding” … we can let a little damage control pass, and still be proud of her, right?).
• A giraffe at a circus in Amsterdam led a jailbreak, helping 15 camels, 2 zebras, and some llamas and pot-bellied pigs escape. (They were later recaptured.) Anyone have links to pictures or video of this?
• The New Scientist tells us that “Rhesus macaques have been shown to possess yet another numerical talent once thought unique to humans – they can simultaneously count audible beeps and dots on a computer screen.” Good to know, but can we stop experimenting on them, please?
• Ryan from VegBlog points us to a list of “The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1” and notes “17 of the top 20 (and 9 of the top 10) are vegan. Show this to the next dummy that says, ‘Being vegan is too expensive.’”
• The Food Fight! Grocery blog continues to be your go-to source for headlines such as “Dog Meat Off the Menu for Olympics”“, “Woman Shoots Herself While Trying to Kill Mice”“, “Woman’s fingertip bitten off at meat market“. Go read. And buy some unhealthy vegan food that costs over $1 while you’re at it.
• Lewis Cicero of Fairfield, Connecticut faced either execution or declawing after scratching some of his human neighbors in 2006. His guardian Ruth demanded a trial on criminal charges. The case was just dismissed, as Lewis has kept out of trouble under house arrest.
• The Discerning Brute checks in with some stylish non-silk ties, non-leather martial arts gloves, non-wool post-consumer recycled suits, and more.
• Boing Boing Gadgets points us to this fake Louis Vuitton Piglet Dog purse by artist Meryl Smith (see picture). I don’t know where she falls on animal issues, but a lot of her work is animal-related, and her sad greyhound piece The Last Race is pretty affecting.

Beijing rescuer Hu Yua keeps 250 cats in her apartment. “If I don’t take them in, the government will kill them.”

Reader Hannah sent us this in-depth article about the house cat holocaust going on China in preparation of the Beijing Olympics. The article and accompanying images are very disturbing, though there are some heartwarming tales of individual rescuers. Unlike Athens’s genocide against dogs before the 2004 Olympics, this horrible initiative isn’t even limited to strays. The government seems to be running a successful propaganda campaign claiming that cats are inherently dangerous and cause all sorts of diseases; many people are turning in their own pets “for safety’s sake.”

In slightly better news, the Indian state of Kashmir has canceled plans to poison thousands of stray dogs (the numbers vary widely from 2,000 to 100,000) in an attempt to stop rabies. After killing the first 500, authorities have decided to try sterilization instead.

More locally, have you read about the rescues of Phyllis the Bed Stuy Chicken or Denny the Bronx goat? Both happy endings for individuals, but reminders that there are still plenty of active slaughterhouses in New York City.

Chinese Raccoon Dogs are the source of a lot of not-quite-faux fur

A year ago, we blogged about Burlington Coat Factory selling fur Baby Phat coats as faux. This was quickly followed by news that Macy’s and J.C. Penney were pulling the same stunt with Sean John coats. Feeling left out by Russell Simmons and P. Diddy, Jay-Z’s Rocawear was quick to get in on the racket, too, by labeling real fur as fake right on the label.

The Humane Society of the United States has been monitoring this whole mess, and it’s not just just a hip hop problem anymore (or limited to ignorant people on eBay). A new HSUS investigation has found mislabeled or misadvertised fur at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, Dillards, Yoox, and Bloomingdales. There’s background and info on what you can do to help on the HSUS site. For full details, check out the PDF report.

It’s bad enough these retailers and manufacturers are selling fur, but can’t they at least own up to the fact?

Dr. Benjamin Spock, humanitarian.

• Doctor Spock recommended a mostly vegan diet for babies, children and adults. And he sold way more books than Nina Planck ever will.
• At the prodding of one legislator’s 16-year-old daughter, Israel has outlawed animal testing for cosmetics.
• Posh Victoria Beckham carries vegan diet book Skinny Bitch around. Sales explode–hey, it’s selling better than Isa on Amazon!
• An Indian vegetarian won his civil suit for “aggravated damages” against Malaysian Airlines after they served him a meaty on-board meal in 2003. He received 200,000 rupees (about $4,124) in damages, twice as much as this Indian family did for “mental torture.”
• And I’ve always had mixed feelings about raw food, but this Chinese man is giving “live” a whole new (terrible, punny) meaning: he claims eating live frogs and mice for the last forty years has cured his stomach ails.

A few months ago, I got really, really sick of posting about Chinese raccoon dogs and all the terrible department stores their fur was showing up in. Thankfully, two New York legislators have introduced a bill to ban the sale of raccoon dog fur in the state. “Unfortunately, we can’t outlaw the inhumane treatment of these animals in China, but with the legislation I have introduced in the Assembly, we can at least ensure that New York State plays no part in this deplorable practice,” said Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal. There’s also a bill in front of the House Ways and Means Committee in Washington to do the same thing; that one would also require the labeling of all fur items, including those valued at less than $150 (which are exempt from labeling by current law).

I hope the only time I ever post about raccoon dogs again is to tell you that this bill passed. And when they inevitably show up in Felix’s cute video collection. (Thanks, Pierre, for the tip.)

Activists in Tianjin recently rescued more than 400 cats who were about to be slaughtered for their fur and meat. Many of the protesters had recently lost their own pets, and suspected they had been abducted by furriers. The police were no help since there is no law in China against killing cats and dogs. But the demonstrators persevered, and after a scuffle the Hebei provincial government allowed the cats to be taken to a nearby shelter.

The Chinese may be ahead of the game in terms of eating fewer animals than the gluttons here in the US, but it’s rare to hear of their animal rights successes.

Now Jay-Z’s in on this “faux fur – I mean, raccoon dog” coat collar business, too, but he doesn’t even have the Puff Diddly decency to recant. Insert “bitch” joke here.

Previously on SuperVegan:

• Macy’s selling real fur as “fake,” too?!
• I guess we should be happy that fake fur is considered more marketable?

Not so much cute here.

The Humane Society has been battling J.C. Penney over those same Sean John coats advertised as “faux fur” and later found to include fur from “raccoons.” The HSUS and J.C. Penney both sent the fur to be tested and the labs confirmed that the fur originates from Chinese raccoon dogs. Although they’re canines, the dogs are not a domestic breed and are therefore not technically protected under the Dog and Cat Protection Act of 2000.

But while J.C. Penney is abiding by that law, they’re 1. claiming the dogs are actually “raccoons” (there’s no relation) and 2. blotting out the word “raccoon” on the coat’s tags, which 1. is illegal under the Fur Products Labeling Act of 1951 and 2. makes no damn sense. At least Macy’s pulled the coats from store shelves.

Looking back at an earlier post about this topic, I found an insightful comment updating this issue. Though it was difficult to find, I did find one source, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, confirming that Beijing’s dog culling has been called off due to international outrage. IFAW reports:

Thanks to thousands of letters from concerned animal lovers around the world, including from within China, the anti-dog crackdown in Beijing has been officially stopped. According to the South China Morning Post, Chinese President Hu Jintao “was unhappy about the complaints and international media coverage” of the crackdown and put a stop to it.

The Washington Post reports on the protest leading up to the decision to call off the culling. Reuters follows the story and provides a video of the protests here.

Chinese raccoon dog: on a coat near you?

The Humane Society of the U.S. is claiming they bought a Sean John coat with an “imitation” fur collar from Macys.com only to find the label actually read “genuine raccoon fur.” HSUS is testing the fur to see if it’s from the Chinese raccoon dog. Macy’s has a policy against selling dog and cat fur; since this coat incident, HSUS has appealed to the company to stop stocking all fur-trimmed clothing.

Reuters reports here, via Yahoo.

This is quick on the dirty heels of the reports that Burlington Coat Factory has also been selling real fur as fake.

After a four-year publication hiatus, retired Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson has released a greatest hits page-a-day calendar with all profits to benefit Conservation International.

From the USA Today article “Larson is drawn to the wild side”:

“I can’t imagine how we’ll be remembered by future generations if we allow this to happen,” says Larson. It’s a holocaust, he says, only instead of killing off people, we’ll be “the flora and fauna Nazis.”

The approximately $2 million will help CI’s Asia programs, including a campaign in China to reduce the hunting of threatened species for pets, medicine and food.

With the hopes of reducing rabies in a country where 318 people died from the disease in September alone, China has made a bold move to ban households to one dog in nine areas of the country. This raises many questions, not the least of which include what will happen to those dogs that exceed the limit and how successful such a ban will actually be in curbing the rise in those suffering from rabies.

The official Xinhua news agency reports,”Only one pet dog is allowed per household in the zones, and dangerous and large dogs will be banned. Anyone keeping an unlicensed dog will face prosecution.” In August, attempts were made to deal with the rabies outbreak in the southwestern Chinese county of Mouding where 54,429 dogs were massacred.

Several animal advocacy groups in the US have weighed in on the issue as reported by the New York Times, including the Humane Society of the United States and PETA.:

“The Humane Society of the United States said the Chinese policy failed to address the underlying reason for the rabies crisis. The focus should be on rabies vaccination rather than a limitation on the number of dogs in a household,” said Wayne Pacelle, the organization’s president and chief executive. “Large-scale vaccination programs aimed at reducing and eradicating rabies programs do work in large nations.”

Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the policy might prevent people from acquiring more dogs than they could care for. It’s sad that it comes to this,” she said, “but for the dogs’ sake, restricting people to one dog stops impulse acquisition, encourages better care and will reduce the numbers who are suffering on the streets.””

Additionally, dog owners will be banned from taking their dogs to many public places including markets, parks, shops, and sightseeing areas.

Child, you’re destined to be bitten!

In this edition of SNARLS & SMILES:

We give SNARLS to Beyonce’. After that run-in with PETA a few months ago, you’d think she’d be more aware of how she treats animals—at least from a PR perspective—which we know matters to her more than the welfare of animals.

Reportedly, Beyonce’s new album cover has her with two alligators. Before the photo was doctored up with Photoshop to make it look “OK,” she had one’s mouth taped shut.

There was a shot where I held an alligator. [He] had [his] mouth taped—that was my bright idea. He was really cute, but since his mouth was taped, he didn’t have any way to defend himself. He was upset, so he peed on me. That was an experience.

Hopefully, it’s an experience you won’t forget, Beyonce (and may that stain never wash out)! Alligators belong in the wild, not a photo studio with taped mouths.

SMILES to Jackie Chan for defending dogs in China. The action star’s efforts to end dog slaughters and promote humane rabies control is admirable. The slaughters continue to draw strong condemnation and disgust from abroad and unusually critical remarks from China’s official media—who need to keep the pressure on. It’s all fuel for the fire to put an end to the madness.

Cheerful Chan said on a card to be auctioned for a fundraiser, “Of course it is our duty as human beings to love and respect each other. But that obligation extends to our animal friends as well,” and signed, “Love, Jackie Chan.” Awwww, thanks, Jackie!

Does this image upset you? It should.

The southwestern Chinese county of Mouding massacred at least 54,429 dogs this week, ostensably to prevent the spread of rabies.

Roadblocks were set up to prevent anyone leaving with dogs. People were offered about 63¢ to kill their dogs, or they could wait for the authorities to come and beat them to death on the spot. I guess I can see why some people opted to electrocute their own animals and take the money.

Even China’s famously fascist official news sources think this was a bad thing:

The official newspaper Legal Daily blasted the killings as an “extraordinarily crude, cold-blooded and lazy way for the government to deal with epidemic disease.”

“Wiping out the dogs shows these government officials didn’t do their jobs right in protecting people from rabies in the first place,” the newspaper, published by the central government’s Politics and Law Committee, said in an editorial in its online edition.

PETA has called for a boycott of Chinese goods, and has cancelled $300,000 worth of orders.

You can (and should) contact China’s Ambassador to the U.S. to register your disgust and to advocate for sensible rabies prevention:
His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: (202) 328-2574
Fax: (202) 328-2582

For the full story, here’s a long version from the AP or a shorter recap from the BBC. (Thanks to reader Fran Savarick for letting us know about this.)