Chicks, Mayonnaise and Personal Responsibility

...s–and I believe that small organic farms benefit from the presence of farm animals, so I want to support farmers who work in right relationship with animals. 6) Finally, make your own dang mayonnaise. *** Thank goodness for the Internet and social networks, which make the task of eating ethically so much easier than it was even just a few years ago. Ask around for good sources for eggs, meat and milk, and chat up the vendors at your farmers’ marke...

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Looking for the Union Label

...d a highly catchy ad jingle from the roller disco era, “Look for the Union Label” (youngsters can watch it on youtube here). We looked for the union label and we were surprised to find it via a company called Union House which carries a functional, if unexciting line of apparel. Unless hipsters take to golf shirts in an ironic fashion judo move, these offerings will never be cool like the domestically made clothes made by the union busting folks o...

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Anima: Animals, Faith, Compassion

...tures a dozen faith leaders discussing their tradition’s relationship with animals. I must note the appearance of the clergy (and official mascot dogs) of our spiritual home, St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, who explain the human relationship to creation as one of “stewardship,” often mistranslated as “dominion.” Wether one eats meat or not is just part of the issue. Right relationship to our fellow creatures is what is important. Home gardeners, c...

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Book Review: The Urban Bestiary

...sses, losses or frights as part of what it means for us to be alive, to be animals interacting with other animals in the world. I’m writing this with a particular passion right now, because recently someone in our neighborhood (not our near neighbors, but our general area) hired a company to set snares for coyotes, and a video of a coyote thus strangled surfaced on a local news blog. I don’t doubt that those neighbors were driven by fear, or grief...

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Lost from the cradle of connection: the high price of driving

...t forlorn postures of the dead I can imagine. When we have stopped killing animals as though they were so much refuse, we will stop killing one another. But the highways show our indifference to death, so long as it is someone else’s. It is an attitude of the human mind I do not grasp. I have no point of connection with it. People drive in such a way that you think they do not believe in death. Their own lives are their business, but my life is no...

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