Vegetarian Star

Time magazine is featuring a short article on the practice of flexitarians, or people who eat vegetarian sometimes, but not completely.

Green lifestyle website Treehugger‘s founder Graham Hill and his “Weekday Vegetarian” concept is discussed, as well as praise for the movement by people involved with animal rights like Animal Liberation author Peter Singer and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal’s president, Ingrid Newkirk.

“Absolute purists should be living in a cave,” says Newkirk. “Anybody who witnesses the suffering of animals and has a glimmer of hope of reducing that suffering can’t take the position that it’s all or nothing. We have to be pragmatic. Screw the principle.”

“The surge is due to a sense of a plateau,” Singer said. “You’ve already reached out to the base of strict vegetarians, and it’s hard to get beyond those numbers. People should go further, but it’s progress in the right direction.”

More at Time.

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“Most of the girls that I date are vegetarians . . . They always leave me, but stay vegans.”

—Russell Simmons to the New York Post at the Bold Native premiere he hosted. According to Peta’s president’s opinion, he’s doing his job right. Ingrid Newkirk once said vegetarians and vegans should date meat eaters…and dump them once they’ve converted to start working on another person.

The women in Russell’s life must be very eager to break away from him to spread the vegan news.

Photo: PR Photos

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A big slice of vegan birthday cake goes out to the following vegetarian or vegan celebrities.

• Ingrid Newkirk (61)

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You’ve heard what’s on Gene Baur‘s and Farm Sanctuary’s agenda for this month in the realm of animal rights.

Now, the Los Angeles Times talks to Ingrid Newkirk to see what PETA’s plans are in their May in Animal News feature.

Since you’re already a veggie or at least reducing your meat intake, you won’t have to worry about the dancer rubber stopping you on the street with a vegetarian starter kit.

We don’t think there will be vegan, edible condoms in the kit either. Sorry.

When asked what PETA would be up to in June, Newkirk replied:

“A million projects, from promoting spaying and neutering through demonstrations featuring dancing condoms to distributing our free vegetarian/vegan starter kits. But we’ll also definitely be working hard to curb attendance at SeaWorld and at [Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s] shows. Indeed, we’ll continue to expose Ringling by circulating video footage of elephants being routinely beaten as well as photos of the cruel methods that Ringling uses to train baby elephants.”

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Jack Hanna and animal rights activists aren’t best friends forever.

More recently, he and PETA’s president Ingrid Newkirk shared words over the value of holding dolphins captive in places like SeaWorld.

Another area where he and activists may differ is the area of zoos, where animals are restricted to small spaces versus being free to roam for miles in their natural habitats.

Hanna thinks this is something that’s unavoidable, as some animals cannot be released into the wild.

“I’ve tried working with animal rights groups, and some of those people are just plain nut cases,” Hanna told Northern Express. “You can’t just put all the animals back out into the wild. That’s why we have zoos – good zoos, not bad ones. We have 220 of them in this country. Ninety nine percent of our animals come from other zoos – animals that are born in captivity. Not everyone has the means to travel like I do, and this allows people to see these animals up close. People leave learning something.”

With animal rights activists like PETA, it’s not necessarily the wild they’re recommending, but sanctuaries.

These environments would offer the larger living spaces that more closely mimick an animal’s natural habitat.

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“To truly “go green,” we must start with what’s on our plates. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, 30 percent of the Earth’s ice-free land is now involved – either directly or indirectly – in livestock production. As the world’s appetite for meat increases, countries around the globe are bulldozing huge swaths of land in order to make more room for animals and the crops that feed them.”

“Then there’s the energy required to operate factory farms, feedlots, slaughterhouses and trucks that transport animals and the amount of water that is squandered on animal agriculture (it takes more than 4,000 gallons of water per day to produce food for a single meat-eater compared to 300 gallons needed for a vegan). And don’t forget the edible crops that are used to feed animals instead of hungry, malnourished people. If we are ever to halt climate change and conserve land, water and other resources, not to mention reduce animal suffering, we must celebrate Earth Day every day – at every meal.”

—Ingrid Newkirk, president and co-founder of the animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in an Earth Day article at the Sacramento Bee titled “There’s No Such Thing as a Meat Eating Environmentalist.”

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Jack Hanna On Larry King Live

Larry King hosted Jack Hanna and PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk on Larry King Live, where the two got into a heated debate over whether keeping whales like the one that killed SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau, is safe for humans and animals.

Newkirk said the conditions aren’t ideal for the whales and that they are “swimming in their own diluted urine” and she hopes the company is sued.

Hanna said the benefits of learning about whales outweigh the risks and compared the trainers to astronaunts.

“Larry, didn’t our astronauts go up in the space shuttle and we lost them when they came back? It was a terrible thing. They went back up in space, didn’t they? We want to learn from space and help mankind. That’s what SeaWorld does. These are dangerous animals. This young lady sacrificed her life and would be sitting here today saying she’d do it again for the great work she’s done and SeaWorld has done to educate tens of millions of people over the last years.”

Do you agree with Hanna?

Or is there a better way to educate the public than through marine parks like SeaWorld?

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The story of Temple Grandin is depicted in a new HBO movie starring Claire Danes.

Although not a vegetarian, Grandin’s work in animal behavior resulted in her designing more humane methods to apply to the livestock industry.

PETA’s president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has written a piece in the Sacramento Bee on Grandin’s work.

A few highlights:

“I admire her work in the field of humane animal slaughter. PETA would prefer, of course, that no animals be killed for food, but we won’t ignore the horrors of factory farms and slaughterhouses just because we wish that they didn’t exist.”

“Throughout her career as an animal-science professor at Colorado State University and a consultant to the American Meat Institute, Grandin has worked to improve animal-handling systems at slaughterhouses – markedly decreasing, although never able to stop completely, the amount of fear and pain that animals experience.”

“This may seem like a small victory – the cows are still going to be killed after all – but until the day that we get animals off the dinner plate altogether, is it too much to ask that we do everything we can to reduce the fear and suffering that they experience in the slaughterhouse?”

Read more at the Sacramento Bee.

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