Animal [Rights] Dissertations

An actual fucking list of ALL ANIMAL-RELATED DISSERTATIONS RECENTLY WRITTEN! Beautiful. Too bad I don't have access to most of them, but it's still very helpful and frankly kind of moving to see the huge body of literature that is growing around animal issues.

Animal Rights in Academia

Very interesting dissertation on the 5 most prominent animal rights organizations in the U.S. and the ways in which they frame their campaigns/goals. Written in 2008 by Carrie P. Freeman.

(Marilyn Frye comes to mind again)

Sympathy, by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals —
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting —
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings —
I know why the caged bird sings!

"Interruption" by Brenna Sahatjian

I've just stumbled upon a gem! I've listened to the Climate Composition that Evan Greer gave out when he came to play here but I guess i kept missing the last track entitled "Interruption" by Brenna Sahatjian. I know what you're thinking. Obscure song references are boring and self-indulgent. But seriously, the minor melody and bittersweet voice of the singer really makes this an interesting song, i think, and if you're a person hiding in the shadows of oppression and trying to forge your way into something better then maybe you'd get a kick out of this too. It's always great to realize that you're not alone in your resistance, that we're all in this punky goodness together.

The last four lines -- which are much more meaningful when properly contextualized in the entire song -- are as follows:

Excuse me I was talking or living or dreaming or just being
too bright for the gray malaise of these modern days
To each interruption we'd answer with eruptions
of the lava that bubbles underneath the mundane.

She writes/sings about how we all resist the mundane through our daydreams, but how interruptions bring us back to our banal monotony, keep luring us into our cages. But there's lava bubbling up under that mundane, so it's okay. We can make it through the gray malaise :)

Sooooo good. I'm so grateful for music, for words, for poetry, for communication. And oh god this unread blog is turning into a stereotypical quasi-journalish radical space. Woe is me.

love yo'self

Snatched from a good vegan friend's blog whose been through some tough times. Here's to you, Nicole.

Exploitation and Resistance: The Story of Tilikum

Exploitation and Resistance: The Story of Tilikum

Cooperative Living : Rant / Prose of Epic Proportions

There's something so fulfilling about eating the food that your haus-mates make you,

Knowing that they're busy busy people who could have spent those few hours differently,

Writing a paper, reading for a class, calling their families,

People who might know a thing or two about cooking but who are really still just kids,

who are fuckups just like you sometimes,

who are tired, stressed,

who are confused, lost,

but who are really beautiful,

really really beautiful,

just by the virtue of wanting to be in a community,

putting time aside to nurture others, and thereby themselves.

It makes it all taste so good.

The burnt broccoli bits or the oily plaintain chunks are so tasty, so personal, make the dish unique,

every meal is somehow epic,

somehow conquering... and empowering.

Deeply connecting us with the ways that we nourish ourselves.

so unlike the usual practice of buying and selling prepared foods,

buying from cooks who don't see you, don't know you, but who want to earn an extra dollar,

or even unlike baking alone,

baking alone, for yourself,

for you and your tupperwares,

for the week? for the freezer? who knows.

cook in small quantities or it'll all go to waste!

No no, not here.

Every day is a baking party here,

A ravenous feast, a sustainable space of composting, of quinoa, of beans soaking, of Moments.

A space where food vanishes into invisible tummies and libations are poured to the Haus Gods. (But not really.)

Where the pizza is made with the help of 4 others, where granola greets you in the morning... just because.

Just because its a community.

Everything is OK. Too much flour? salt? You usually can't even taste it.

It's all OK.

Alles wird gut.

Tout sera bien.

There's something so fulfilling about cooperative living, I don't think I'll ever be able to leave it.