New York State Humane Lobby Day is upon us, March 24, people. This is our chance to talk about legislation that will directly and significantly affect the nonhumans with whom we share the state. Want to go but don’t have a ride? Chartered buses will leave from Water Street and Midtown West the morning of. $25 pp.
In the Awesome Vegan Shit on Etsy department, there’s this (maybe NSFW?) Vegan Vulva Lip Balm, for the, uh, lips on your face. VulvaLoveLovely‘s store totally cracks me up with its vagina pendants, uterus plush dolls, breast pillows, and other assorted vag trinkets.
And how’s about these super cute handmade vegan flats?! Vegansaurus pointed these out earlier this week, but I can’t not direct you them again cause I loves me some sustainably-made shoes!
Speaking of shoes, we went to the opening of Melissa Shoes‘s pop-up shop at Kaight this week. Ooooh, shiiiiny.
Discerning Brute founder Joshua Katcher will give a vegan cooking demo TOMORROW, hear me?, at JivamukTea Cafe 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The event costs $75, and you can sign up here by going to the special events tab on the upper right and clicking “signup now!” next to Joshua’s photo. (Pssst, you can check our NYC events calendar for more vegan happenings in the area, too!)
TeaNY is reopening, say some news-rumors. Alas, the LES restaurant, which has been closed since it lost to an electrical fire in June ’09, isn’t answering the phones or opening the doors, so I have no real live dates for you at present. TeaNY, answer my calls, open up, and bring back your sweet, sweet, frothy almond milk tea lattes. I still love you.
‘sNice is opening a new location at Sullivan Street between Prince and Houston, sooort of near TeaNY. Some time this month they will fill the sandwich and tea chasm below Houston. So, TeaNY, whatever with you. Oh, consumers are so fickle. (Just kidding. More is more. Give me my lattes.)
State Senate majority leader Dean Florez introduced a bill today that would require California animal abusers to list themselves in a registry, as is currently done with sex offenders and arsonists. Yay, public shaming of horrible, deliberately perpetrated atrocities!
According to the Animal League Defense Fund, who is supporting the registry effort with its new campaign, www.ExposeAnimalAbusers.org, the bill would include “violence (torture, mutilation, intentional killings, etc.), sexual abuse, and animal fighting as well as neglect (such as hoarding).”
“We operate shelters in the hopes of giving abandoned pets a second chance at a loving home, not subjecting them to lives of continued abuse and neglect,” Florez, a Democrat and chairman of the Food and Agriculture Committee, said in a press conference this morning. “A registry of abusers would help ensure animals are not being adopted out to convicted abusers, end the cycle of abuse and increase the likelihood of finding these pets the forever home they deserve.”
You can sign the petition to ask that your state force animal abusers to register.
Read more in the New York Times and watch Florez’s press conference announcement below.
The Superbowl happened; the underdog won; and Roberto Martin and Tal Ronnen prepared for Ellen yummy vegan nachos, pot pie, stew, and more. Rah, rah, rah!
Olympic ice skater Johnny Weir is going to don fake fur rather than real fur over his manitard because some muddling vegans tried to take the focus off his triple axel for a second to talk about his anally-electrocuted outfit, and he just CANNOT BE DISTRACTED FROM WHAT’S IMPORTANT. Weir gets what’s wrong with fur, he told the AP, “but it’s not something that’s the number-one priority in my life. There are humans dying every day. … Look at what just happened in Haiti.” LOOK OVER THERE! LOOK OVER THERE!
How about this: a slice of your debit transaction fees could support animals instead of banks. In Defense of Animals launched a debit card that will direct a portion of transaction fees to IDA, which they will use to fund “our chimpanzee sanctuary in Cameroon, Africa; our veterinary clinics and ambulance service for the thousands of street animals of Mumbai, India; and for our investigative and sanctuary work in rural Mississippi,” IDA founder and President Elliot M. Katz said. For use wherever Mastercard is accepted. No details yet on how to get one, but I’ll update if I find out.
Food Fight! Vegan Grocery needs our $$ to help cover their taxes. They’re offering a 5-percent discount with code “FUTAXES10″ (heh) good through Monday, 2/15. Time to stock up on chocolates and Ricemellow, MMMMHMMM.
New iPhone app from the vegan boozemeisters at Barnivore. Search for “vegan is easy” in the iTunes store. Update (2/15): Per Jason Doucette’s comment below, the app was not made by Barnivore, but it uses data from Barnivore.
Well, there you have it — the week that was. Did we miss anything? Let us know!
Correction (2/16): HSUS’s new dog food contains supplements that they say might come from animal sources. Drat.
It’s been a buzzy holiday weekend in the vegan news department. Tonight we catch up on all the goings-on since Wednesday.
Obama poster artist Shepard Fairey immortalized Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson with a print of his very own. Posters measure 18 x 24″, are signed by Watson, and cost $55 each. Buy ‘em at Obey Giant. PAUL WATSON CAN NEVER DIE.
The California-based Animal Legal Defense Fund released its 2009 State Animal Protection Laws Rankings. (Old news? Yeah, sort of. Still worth reading? Totally.) ALDF ranked New York in the middle tier — not laying down the law with the best or permitting certain atrocities with the worst. Illinois ranked highest and Kentucky lowest. Read the full report here (PDF).
Ingrid Newkirk reminds us via Huffington Post why it’s awesome to be vegan, and then she rhymes with food.
Vegan Twinkies are BACK. No Whey! Kitchen is going to fill the hole left in your heart by the closing of Vegan Honey Bake Shop. No Whey! sells to restaurants and is taking private orders for a limited time.
Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns, will deliver her lecture “The Social and Secret Life of Chickens” at the New York Public Library’s Mid-Manhattan branch on December 30. That’s 40th Street and Fifth Avenue, 6th floor, 6:30 p.m. this Wednesday. BE THERE.
Your average dog eats a LOT of meat, VegNews reminds us: “research teams found that a medium-sized dog consumes approximately 360 pounds of meat and more than 200 pounds of grain each year. The agriculture needed to sustain this kind of companion-animal diet emits twice the greenhouse gas emissions that come from driving an SUV 6,200 miles per year.”
MEANWHILE, Annalisa Lazzaro of NYC asks The Ethicist whether it’s cool to feed her cat a vegetarian diet. Duh! And you’ve got to be resilient! If one vegetarian — or better, vegan — kitty food doesn’t work out, try another one. Then try cooking for Mr. Pus. Why support animal cruelty or slaughter in any way if you can avoid it, right?
Don’t know what to do with your sad, leftover shepherd sticks candy canes? Vegan Cookies brings us this recipe for peppermint candy cane chocolate chip cookies AND shows us how to crush candy canes. Holiday anger issues: resolved.
Cafe Blossom’s UES location opened, so go there and eat everything.
Companion animals are a more significant cause of global warming than SUVs, claim two New Zealand scientists (slash critical thinkers!) in their book, Time to Eat the Dog?: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living. According to the ABC article on the book, authors Robert and Brenda Vale say that cats’ and dogs’ carnivorous diets are the problem. Well, hey, plenty of dogs live healthily vegan. Problem solved. Bejesus. Now what about humans’ diets?
Russia plans to send monkeys to Mars. Why not just send humans, hmm? Space radiation, NASA says, and the solution? Radiate squirrel monkeys here on Earth, and proffer funds to the med schools that participate in testing.
