SVS Viewpoint archives

A Holiday 2006 Message from Stephen Kaufman, M.D.,

Co-chairman of the Christian Vegetarian Association (CVA)

Vegetarianism and Christianity

First, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish the Salem Vegan Society, members of the Salem community, and all Viewpoint page readers a blessed holiday season.

It is my hope that the following essay may better prepare you, to more fully express God's compassion and concern for all Creation, including the countless animals presently suffering under factory farming conditions.

Vegetarianism has been central to my Christian witness, because this diet expresses how I receive Jesus’ call to reflect God's pure love and compassion.

Like many vegetarian Christians, the diet is a natural outgrowth of my faith. Unlike most vegetarian Christians, I was a vegetarian before adopting the Christian faith. My “conversion” to animal advocacy in 1979 was heavily influenced by Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation. My subsequent marriage to a Christian naturally exposed me to the faith, but Christianity’s history of violence and its evident indifference to animal issues had discouraged me from exploring it more deeply.

Then I read Charles Vaklavic’s book The Vegetarianism of Jesus Christ, and then Keith Akers’ book The Lost Religion of Jesus, which explored similar themes. The possibility that Jesus was a vegetarian prompted me to explore the religion more fully. At this time, another important book for me was The Bible, Violence and the Sacred by James G. Williams, which shows how the Judeo-Christian religion can be perceived as encouraging peace and love. As I have come to adopt Christianity, a nonviolent diet has remained central to my Christian witness.

I don't think that seeking peace and nonviolence is a radical Christian teaching, or that it deviates from the Bible; though I would acknowledge that many Christians have failed to grasp these core values. Jesus’ only prayer was that God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven." Therefore, what is the biblical ideal? According to Genesis, God considered the Garden of Eden, in which all creatures lived peacefully and harmoniously, “very good.” There was no killing, and Adam, Eve, and all creatures were vegetarian (1:29-30). The Bible describes God creating animals as companions and helpers for Adam, not as his supper (2:18-19).

The Bible does describe Adam's "dominion" over animals, but, since Adam was a vegetarian, many see this as a sacred responsibility to care for God's creation, not as a license for exploitation and abuse. Whether or not Genesis is historically accurate, it certainly reflects the ancient Hebrews’ understanding of God’s ideal for this world.

Isaiah (11:6-9) prophesied a return to this vegetarian, non-violent ideal in the Messianic Age, when the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the lion will eat straw. Of course, outside of the Garden of Eden, vegetarianism is not an option for many creatures, and some humans must consume flesh to survive. But vegetarianism is an option for nearly all Americans.

In the U.S., nearly all animal foods are derived from intensive "factory farms." Animals suffer greatly from stressful crowding, barren environments that frustrate their instinctive drives, and manipulations without anesthesia, such as debeaking chicks, cutting off pigs' tails, and castrating and branding cattle.

Hormones, harmful to human health, stimulate excessive muscle development in animals, often causing painful lameness. Slaughter typically involves terror and, frequently, great pain. (See Gail Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse)

Yet Jesus taught, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." And the Hebrew writings encourage humane treatment of animals, and kosher slaughter with minimal pain. Jesus said: God feeds the birds, and does not forget the sparrows (Luke 12:6).

Humans also suffer when Americans choose flesh. Feeding the hungry is a central Christian concern, but converting grains to animal flesh wastes the vast majority of the grains’ proteins and calories, and all of their carbohydrates and fiber. While millions die of hunger annually, and many more suffer malnutrition, one-third of all grain worldwide is fed to animals being raised for slaughter. In the U.S., the proportion is nearly three-fourths.

Christianity teaches us to respect the world, and Paul wrote, "all things were created by him [God], and for him" (Colossians 1:16). However, inefficiently converting grains into animal flesh squanders non-renewable energy and water resources.

Intensive farming, spurred by taste preferences for flesh, causes soil erosion and land salination, which eventually reduce fertility. Surely, future generations will lament our society's choosing indulgence over moderation. Other environmental impacts include polluted waterways from animal wastes and cleared rain forests for cattle grazing.

Finally, many of the major killers in the West, such as heart disease and certain cancers, are associated with animal-based diets. Antibiotics added to animal feed yield “super-bugs” that can kill people and are antibiotic-resistant. Many Christians recall that Paul said, "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you" (1 Corinthians 6:19), and receive this as instruction to protect their bodies from harmful substances.

As a vegetarian for 25 years, I have been fascinated to discover Christianity's strong vegetarian tradition. Several early Christian groups, including the Nazarenes and Ebionites, encouraged vegetarianism. Since then, the Trappist, Benedictine, and Carthusian orders have advocated vegetarianism, as have Seventh-day Adventists.

In the 19th century, members of the Bible Christian sect established the first vegetarian groups in England and the U.S. Vegetarian Christians have included early church fathers, such as the Desert Fathers, Tertullian, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria, and John Wesley (Methodism's founder), Salvation Army co-founders William and Catherine Booth, Leo Tolstoy, and Albert Schweitzer.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful," and I do feel blessed. Like anyone, I can be selfish or insensitive, but I find that my diet makes me feel much more at peace with the world.

As far as I am able, no innocent creature suffers to satisfy my need for sustenance, and consequently every meal is a prayerful expression of thanks to the divine source of creation.

Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.

Chairman, Christian Vegetarian Association

www.christianveg.com

Stephen Kaufman is the author, with Nathan Braun, of Good News for All Creation: Vegetarianism as

Christian Stewardship, and he currently has a book in progress, Christianity and the Problem of Violence.

These books and other CVA materials can be obtained at www.christianveg.org.

Readers who enjoyed Steve Kaufman’s thoughts regarding vegetarianism and Christianity may also wish to refer to other books on this topic. For more titles, please refer to:

PETA’s JesusVeg.com reference to Scholarly Works and

the Christian Vegetarian Association (CVA)’s Bibliography page.

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Morning at Starbucks

We all have our coffee stories to tell. “I was raised on coffee… My mother used to give us milk with a little coffee… Coffee got me through college… I can’t function without my first cup of java in the morning… I jog to the corner Dunkin' Donuts for my morning coffee on Saturdays… I can’t live without it… I’ll get right back to you on that… after I finish my coffee.”

No such stories exist surrounding tea, at least none in the US. You have to go to Japan, China, or India for those.

When I was growing up, my first recollection of coffee was a brown-and-white checkered mug that my grandmother used to set out on the counter for me in the morning. Next to it was a small juice glass full of orange juice and some bread and butter for toast. We weren't poor, we had other things too, of course; but that was essentially us.

Next to the brown-and-white checkered mug and the orange juice was a silver coffee pot with an elegant silver pouring spout and a small round, jewel-like glass handle on its lid, through which you could watch the coffee percolating. A small, orange light would light up at its base when the coffee was ready.

These would be waiting for me every morning before I left for school. Among these things, I remember the brown-and-white checkered mug the most. It was mine. My key to the world of coffee, my initiation into the adult world. No more Welch’s grape juice in a Bugs Bunny jelly glass. I was henceforth running on caffeine and cream.

I used to drink my coffee light; cream, no sugar; and I still don't understand how anyone can drink their coffee black, no matter how good or exotic the brew. To me, it's the cream that makes the coffee. Rich and mellow, warm and smooth to hold.

I like the feel of the warm mug in my hands, and the look of the light, strong liquid in the center of the cup. The cream takes the edge off of an otherwise rather harsh adult beverage, and allows us to remain children for a while longer, even as we’re setting off into the world to do the things that adults have to do.

Coffee, light, did in fact get me through grade school, college, and through my first job. For every significant event or milestone that occurred in my life, coffee was there to help me along, to ease the tension, to see me through; a friend, a crutch, a confidence builder, something familiar to run back to.

I always told myself, if I ever “made it big,” I’d celebrate my success with a cup of coffee. Maybe from the corner gas station if I felt like it. I guess it didn’t really matter where it came from back then.

I remember when things started to change with Starbucks. I visited my first one in Northampton in 1993, back in the dark ages. The Internet shows up... Starbucks. It was a big deal. A coffee shop, I forget the name, was in the spot, down the hill next to Smith College. Starbucks logos appeared on the glass door and windows one day. I knew something was up. Little did anyone know back then where it would eventually lead.

These days, in the morning, I see the Starbucks sign from about a mile away. The wind is whipping across the red brick pavement of Government Center Plaza (like a scene from hell), and the morning sun causes my eyes to squint and blink.

I have to confess, I gave up coffee completely a few years ago. I drink only tea now. My new crutch. I may not be the president of the company, or even make enough money to pay my bills, but at least I have tea. It makes me rich, in a way. Most of us need these small things to keep us happy, perhaps sane.

So it seems I’m no longer fully a part of the coffee world from when I was growing up, but I still try to fit in as much as possible. Still like to rub elbows with the best of them.

As I approach, farther along Tremont Street, at 8:25, five minutes before I’m due in at work, I begin to sense the “presence” of this particular Starbucks. Its façade seems to exude a sort of strong aura. And although I’m ashamed to admit it, I like it. From a distance, through the tall plate glass windows, it appears to be a particularly crowded morning. The line, almost to the door, is moving somewhat slowly, but it is moving, and I take this to be a good sign. Good enough.

I approach the front door, down the slight incline, past the veterans, the disabled, the various other unemployed. I sense that the length of the line may or may not make me late. The lights are warm and comforting inside. I grip the silver handle on the front door, swing it open, wait for a moment as a cute twentysomething falls out onto the sidewalk, and I’m inside, in the middle of a packed roomful of customers, none of whom have anything on their minds except coffee, and cream. Lots of cream. I know exactly where they’re at.

Everything inside of Starbucks is very nice. And let me emphasize, very nice. Nicer than where I work. Nice smells, nice music, nice things to buy on the shelves, nice baristas who come up to you and ask you what you want while you’re still in line.

And the people in line are nice. What’s not to be nice about? We’re all running a little late for work, but what the hell. No one’s going to get fired over a few minutes. The mood is decidedly upbeat, like the smiling photos of the musicians on the Starbucks CD jackets. Ahead of me in line is a manager in her forties with a portfolio in hand, and ahead of her a somewhat weary-looking veteran.

There are no prerequisites per se. No attitudes, no newspapers or laptops required. But there is just one catch. Almost everyone here this morning, from what I’ve observed, will be walking out with a latte. Maybe a double or a triple latte. This is most definitely the norm, not the exception. This is what everyone is here for, the reason for the line.

While the crowd is lighthearted (like the Starbucks staff), in a good mood, either chatting with each other or simply soaking up the nice surroundings and waiting, they are also serious about what they’ve come here for: their latte, and nothing else. I sense that everyone is anxious to get theirs in hand and be on their way, but is more than willing to wait. The coffee and steamed milk is flowing, and it has no intention of stopping.

I'd say roughly ninety-eight percent of the people pass on the sugary muffins and lemon tarts in the glass bakery case. One of the managers calls out, very loudly over the crowd, “One Maple Machiatto!!! Double shot!!!” A barista deftly grabs a green-and-white cardboard cup from a tall stack and repeats the order, very casually and coolly, “Maple Machiatto. Double shot.” Cool, very cool.

The barista begins mixing in the ingredients and steaming the container of milk with the frothing arm. The customer swipes their Starbucks card, and waits a few seconds as the barista pours the steaming milk into the black espresso. “Maple Machiatto up” is the barista's even subtler, quieter announcement as the order is placed on the raised pick-up counter. This same scene repeats continually, all day long, from six in the morning until 10 pm, at countless Starbucks.

Despite everything I know about veganism, about the dairy industry, about factory farming and mega-dairy farms, I still like the place. I can’t help it. Call it the former coffee drinker in me, I continue to have a soft spot for Starbucks. And I kid you not.

The baristas can repeat the entire order with soy, and they do. Starbucks sells cartons of soy milk on their shelves. The flowing dairy milk? Starbucks is simply giving people what they ask for. The atmosphere is nice, the staff is nice, the customers are nice, it’s all nice. I’m even nice. I order my Awake tea in the red wrapper, ask for soy, not steamed, cold, and it’s up by the time I swipe my Starbucks card.

I’ve always believed that vegans should fit in to the rest of society, eat at the same restaurants, drink at the same bars, attend the same baseball games, order coffee at the same cafés. I’m still a vegan while everyone else around me is ordering lattes.

There are only rare instances, when I’m waiting for one of the baristas to put my soy up, when something catches me, a slight twinge of guilt, or regret. Maybe I should be bringing my own soy from home and making my tea at work. But this usually passes, and suddenly I’m back into the groove with everyone else. I take my tea from the pick up counter and fall out onto the sidewalk when someone opens the door.

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First Annual Maple Farm Sanctuary Fundraiser

A Message from MFS's Cheri Ezell & SVS

The genesis for Maple Farm Sanctuary (MFS) was the result of Cheri and Jim VanderSluis standing together as several of their baby goats were driven away in the trunk of a car, destined to have their throats cut and then consumed by their killers. With tears in their eyes, a powerful decision was made to no longer farm animals.

It was an emotional transformation that finally allowed both of them to honor their true feelings regarding animal life and animal rights. To honestly say that Maple Farm Sanctuary was going to stop farming animals wasn’t enough. Not contributing to the industry of farming animals was a further transformation. Neither Cheri nor Jim consumes meat anymore.

The Mission of MFS is not just to rescue abused, abandoned and unwanted farmed animals and all other domestic animals, but to educate whenever possible that the farming of animals is violent, inhumane and even unhealthy for both man and animal.

The goals of MFS are not just in the present. Jim and Cheri hope that the sanctuary, and the knowledge they have for animal care, will be carried on long after they’re gone. Efforts are presently underway to conserve a significant part of the farm for a healthy population of wildlife as well.

At present there are a few volunteers that help with the web site maplefarmsanctuary.org and occasional work on the farm. For the most part, Jim and Cheri care for over 100 assorted animals daily, from dawn to well past dusk. There are elderly animals needing special care and young animals needing love and attention. Everyday is cleaning day. Shavings and straw for bedding and grain and hay for food.

On Sunday, October 22, MFS's First Annual Fundraiser took place, including an open house with barn tours, vegan food and vendors. Proceeds from the event are now being directed toward the care and feeding of the animals. SVS members attended what turned out to be a beautiful, peaceful fall day. We enjoyed a vegan meal sitting next to a 3-month-old calf, and a few llamas caressed our brows. You can still donate to MFS online.

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News of Everyday Things

On the first day of classes each semester, my upper-level French professor in college would enter the classroom, read quickly through the 30-or-so names on his student roster, pause momentarily in a thoughtful way, smile, and recite his infamous first-day-of-the-new-semester aphorism… “Never teach them anything the first day," whereupon we all promptly exited the building, some in search of an extra hour of television, cigarettes, or numerous other vices too vile to mention.

I guess he assumed some of us would go on to be teachers some day – and some probably have. I have not, except perhaps in the sense that we all may be considered to be teachers of others at various times in our lives.

Before I get to the main topic of this month's piece, I’d like to take a moment to address a comment I heard the other day – it was actually in an e-mail to me – in hopes that I might dispel any hint of negativity that I sensed in this message.

Someone had written me stating that the reason why she does not donate or volunteer to SVS is because she believes it to be merely a portal – a “gateway” is the term that was used – to other, national and regional vegan and animal rights groups.

How untrue. SVS is anything but a portal or gateway.

Founded in August 2003, SVS is a unique news and information source for vegan and animal rights issues, based in Salem. It’s main function is accomplished via the Internet on a daily basis, posting news and local, regional and national event listings that have to do with veganism, animal rights and environmentalism.

The SVS Web site does link to other groups, some regional, some national, but so does The Humane Society, PETA, Farm Sanctuary, and just about every other national and regional group. It’s called networking. It's helpful to members who want a quick reference, and to the public, many of whom may be less familiar with these topics, who may be still learning about them.

According to the message I received, it’s okay when these national groups do it, but when SVS does it, we’re automatically demoted to the “gateway” status, not unique in our own right.

Although SVS is presently an Internet-based news and information site, here is a short-list of just some of the events and campaigns we have initiated in Salem during our first three years:

2003 – SVS is formed and registers as a non-profit organization in Salem, becoming the first group in Massachusetts to use the word vegan in its title.

2003 – The SVS Web site is launched, providing daily news updates and weekly event listings.

2003 – SVS introduces monthly “Wednesday” meetings; a chance for vegans and vegetarians to meet in Salem. (Vegetarians are always welcome to join and to attend meetings.)

2004 – SVS becomes a Society Member of the International Vegetarian Union (IVU).

2004 – SVS announces the formation of the SVS Book Club, providing the opportunity to meet quarterly to discuss the most current vegan and animal rights trends and issues.

2004 – SVS joins Salem Access Television (SATV) as a Business Member and contracts with VegVideo and Undercover TV to show weekly animal rights documentaries which present to the public current animal rights abuses, videotaped undercover at factory farms by leading animal rights groups.

2004 – SVS presents the Salem premiere showing of “The Witness,” a Tribe of Heart documentary examining the fur trade and its abuses, at SATV. The event/discussion is well-attended.

2004 – SVS is invited by Salem State College to exhibit at their annual Environmental Career Fair, a part of their annual Earth Day celebration in April. We now exhibit at this event annually.

2005 – SVS hosts vegan and animal rights author, Erik Marcus, at a lecture, book-signing event in Salem.

2005 – SVS initiates monthly educational leafleting opportunities for animal rights activists in Salem, which educate Salem residents about such topics as veal production, animal experimentation and humane education in the classroom, as well as the annual Great American Meatout in March.

2006 – SVS works with The First Church in Salem to host a vegan fellowship breakfast following Sunday service at their Essex Street location in Salem.

2006 – SVS launches the first annual Salem Vegan Food Drive to Benefit the Salem Mission, the first ever 100% vegan food drive in New England, perhaps in the nation. Many boxes of vegan food items are donated at participating Salem businesses throughout the month of June and are donated to the Salem Mission. This is now an annual event in Salem.

2006 – SVS is invited to attend the first annual Salem CultureFest on the Salem Common. We provide vegan and animal rights literature to festival attendees and invite them to assist SVS.

2006 – SVS is invited by the Salem State College Peace Institute to help facilitate vegan catering for its 100^th Anniversary Commemoration of Gandhi’s Struggle for Nonviolence. We negotiate with Biscotti Cucina of Salem and the Organic Garden Café in Beverly, who donate vegan desserts for this event.

2006 – SVS is asked to participate in “A Very Vegan Evening” event planned by Feed Your Head Books, 272 Essex Street in Salem. Event date: September 30, 6 – 8 p.m. See Events page for more info.

So, although we are primarily an Internet-based vegan and animal rights news and information source, and while it's true that we do link to and work closely with several leading vegan and animal rights organizations, we are by no means merely a “gateway” to these other national and regional groups.

In fact, in addition to our strong Internet presence nationally and in the Boston-metro area, SVS continues to initiate educational community events and activities here in Salem, and we remain completely open to new ideas, new opportunities, and new active members.

Salem Signs

This summer, I took the initiative myself to introduce a Salem Signs page. It’s something I simply wanted to have fun with – sharing images of the many simple, everyday signs that I see here every day living in Salem.

Digital images are from storefronts, event signs, road signs and billboards, and from various other venues.

As is often the case with photography whose purpose is social commentary, or photojournalistic photography, the simplest of things, things that we all encounter every day, all around us – while out walking downtown, or perhaps when we’re out on an errand in the car – when captured as an image and presented in the right context, are suddenly transformed into provoking social commentary.

I recall a few years ago, reading an article I found fascinating about a unique community policing program initiated in urban Chinese neighborhoods.

In order to keep the neighborhoods, not only free of typical crimes, such as theft and violence, but also from other neighborhood social ills, such as unwanted pregnancies, malnourished children, and depression among homebound seniors, neighborhood police stations appoint and work closely with individuals within each neighborhood, or each district, who are colloquially known, in rough translation, as the “grandma police.”

The function of the “grandma police” – so called because those employed are often either retired or semi-retired elderly women, who know the neighborhoods well – is for these undercover police “grandmas” to go out into the neighborhoods daily, get to know the residents well, perhaps knocking on doors as a welcome “friend” or simply chatting on a street corner with them, and then to report any unusual events or “potential” criminal or social problems to the district police stations.

A highly efficient and effective system to ward off potential neighborhood problems, no doubt. Could such a system work in the US? Are there any neighborhoods any more? Any neighbors? Or simply cities and towns? We all live in Salem. We all live in Beverly. And so on. We’re all one big community now. Neighborhoods? A thing of the past. We have cars now to get places quickly, and television to truly escape.

What about community social service agencies for the police to work with? Any effective ones? And what social problems, or potential social problems, are there, really, to report? The homebound elderly? Oh well, we rarely get outside ourselves anyway, so what’s the difference. But is anyone overlooked? Anyone’s door we could be knocking on as a “friend?” Could someone use some information about keeping active, about constantly evolving nutritional information, about vegetarianism, about veganism?

As in the e-mail I received from the woman who refuses to donate to or volunteer for SVS, the mentality is now more, “I give to the national agencies. I belong to the AARP. I give to The Humane Society annually.” That’s great, but do you give to local organizations? They need your help the most now. Especially animal rights groups, often overlooked, as we pay far more attention to the "human" social problems first.

As I was out shooting images for the Salem Signs page the other day, the Chinese neighborhood policing article came to mind again. I view the images more as social commentary, perhaps even as art, and I know of no “grandmas” who are contributing to the page.

But as I was capturing a sign in a downtown Salem business window that presented a list of several meats with which potential customers were invited to build their sandwiches and wraps, I couldn’t help thinking to myself: this list, this image, is a sign of what most, if not all, vegan and animal rights activists would agree is an existing, rather than a potential, social problem: animal abuse. Where are the police when you need them?

Enjoy the page, and may you have the good fortune to contribute to a truly LOCAL vegetarian or vegan group someday soon.

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The Next Race

Early Sunday morning. I stand on the front porch and for one brief moment, the peace of Sunday morning, as I used to know it, is felt as I quietly place the red harness over Kelly’s shoulders and attach her leash.

It seems most mornings, even on Sundays, I cannot perform this simplest of actions without being interrupted by passing cars, which appear from around the corner at breakneck speed, well beyond the un-posted speed limit of our otherwise quiet street.

I walk with Kelly the short distance past the sea wall toward Forest River Park.

If we arrive early enough, before 8:30, I usually like to walk Kelly across the expansive green grass of the ball fields and up toward the wooded area that leads to the beach.

This morning, this is impossible. As we approach the ball field, we’re confronted with a sea of cars, parked neatly in rows across the grass, spanning the entire width and length of the fields.

The first thought that comes to mind is of a story I covered a few years ago when I was living in Northampton; an Airstream trailer rally at UMASS/Amherst; only instead of a city of silver trailers, Kelly and I are staring at a sea of Salem vehicles.

Come to find out, this is part of a triathlon event sponsored by the Salem YMCA. A Salem policeman directing traffic at the entrance of Forest River informs me that runners and bicyclists are about to come bounding over the hill in our direction at any moment. I thank him and head in the opposite direction.

My second thought, with Kelly straining at the leash as we walk more quickly toward Summit Ave, is that this sea of cars appears, momentarily, to be waiting for something. Silent, shining languidly in the summer morning sun, and waiting.

Of course, cars cannot “wait,” but so it appears. What would these cars be waiting for if they were waiting? Their owners? Or might they opt instead for an early retirement, beneath a quiet shade tree at the edge of someone’s property? (Does that much property still exist? I have a feeling it’s out there somewhere.)

And the cars’ owners? Are they waiting for anything? What is America waiting for on August 6, 2006? The answer is so obvious, it’s right in front of us. They’re not waiting for anything, I note as Y athletes, bathed in sweat, jog past us.

America, as you may have already realized, never waits for anything. It never has, and it most likely never will. America has always been about running the next race – the next achievement.

American history was built on this concept and it has spanned it, from our earliest pioneers traveling West, to Roosevelt’s New Deal, to the creation and expansion of our highway system, to our pioneering of space and nano-space. The examples are too numerous to cite here.

Most recently, from George Bush at Ground Zero, informing Americans that we will prevail against terrorists, to market genius Warren Buffet bestowing his vast fortune upon the Gates Foundation, Americans tend to back those who think new and big, and who act new and big.

At the same time, in a usually unsubtle contrast, America has dearly, in some cases foolishly, clung to its traditions – its American folkways and customs. Two examples come to mind:

On June 6 and 7 of this year, I stood looking from my office on the twelfth floor overlooking City Hall Plaza in downtown Boston, as incredibly strong winds and unusually cold driving rains beat down on participants in the Jimmy Fund’s Scooper Bowl charity event.

The Scooper Bowl, according to the Jimmy Fund Web site, is the nation’s largest all-you-can-eat ice cream festival. Its purpose is to raise money to fight cancer. Why anyone would choose to attempt to fight cancer by consuming large amounts of animal dairy products remains a mystery. Yet now in its 24th year, the Scooper Bowl has raised $87,000 in this June's event.

What the Jimmy Fund's Web site doesn’t tell or show you is exactly how that $87,000 was won this year. I watched the first two days of the festival as driving rains continued to pound mercilessly against the bricks of City Hall Plaza and across the white tents the Jimmy Fund had erected. I stood in awe and wonder as a few hearty stragglers made their way bravely across the otherwise deserted Plaza toward the tents for their ice cream as the cold spring Nor’easter pelted them. It wasn't until the event's third and final day that the sun broke through - allowing, apparently, for numerous photo-ops.

This is clearly dedication, a driving force: Neither cold, nor wind, nor gloom of night shall keep the ice cream philanthropists from their appointed Boston Scooper Bowl. But has anyone informed them about soy ice cream or animal rights? Could they possibly amend this event somehow? Do it over – vegan? Highly unlikely. Tradition, you understand. ‘It’s the cows’ milk we need to fight the cancer.’ (Yet the cows’ milk may be contributing to some of the cancer.)

Another example is the current and growing phenomenon on the world's oceans: the mega-cruise ship.

Since 1912 and the launching of the Titanic, nations, led primarily by America and England, have sought to build bigger, grander, more luxurious. The world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas, will soon be getting a “sister” ship, Liberty of the Seas, in May 2007.

These ships have always been about luxury and indulgence. The tried-and-true jokes about cruise ship dining - excessive, formal, with one seating running into the next – are no longer quite so funny when you pause to consider the link between the average modern cruise ship’s cargo and the images that animal rights groups have now uncovered of factory farming abuses.

How many tons of frozen chicken and pork do these ships carry? How many tons of eggs for the omelets and the Eggs Benedicts? How many tons of milk for the breakfasts and baked goods? It’s all listed somewhere, but probably not on Royal Caribbean’s Web site, or on any other Web site.

Vegans are now keenly aware of what countless animals must endure in order fuel the next rock climb or the next spin around the ice skating rink on Deck 3.

Keeping in mind that, judging from history, America does indeed seem to be all about the next race – the next achievement – it’s sad to look at the current trend in charity events or at the next advancements in ocean liners and think, “This is what we’ve achieved.” An attempt to fight cancer with tons of ice cream, an attempt to conquer the world, fueled by animal abuse and animal consumption.

Which brings us back to Salem’s sea of cars. The next race - cars patiently waiting for their owners to complete. It’s not quite as bad as it might seem. I was walking my dog at the time, and most of the rest of Salem was either asleep or sipping coffee and reading the Globe.

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July 2006

Lee Hall Interview

Capers in the Churchyard:

Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror

Written by Lee Hall with Foreword by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

This July marks the release of a thought-provoking new work by Lee Hall, legal director of Darien, Conn.-based Friends of Animals (FOA)

Capers in the Churchyard defines animal rights, discusses dominant definitions of terrorism, and provides on-point analysis of relevant laws and campaigns.

Hearing that the book takes a look at these timely issues through a decidedly vegan lens, SVS invited Hall to speak with us about her new work. She graciously provided us with the following interview.

Salem Vegan Society (SVS): Lee, we recently told readers about Dining With Friends, a vegan cookbook you co-authored with Priscilla Feral. How did you go from writing for a vegan cookbook to producing a book on activism and anti-terrorism law just in the past year?

Lee Hall: Actually, although it’s not immediately obvious, the two books do have a common nexus. In Dining With Friends, Priscilla and I discuss the key importance of the way we eat, the health of the planet, as well as our own health. We talk about how vegan living is direct action on behalf of all other life on the planet, and it’s direct action we can participate in every day.

Rather than eat animals from less objectionable farms - and we can assume that “less objectionable” means that the animals be given more space than would be the case at the typical factory farm - we suggest veganism. Not only does it spare animals a life of being someone’s consumer good, but it also makes sense for nature and the animals who really can have the opportunity to live free lives.

Advocates of free-range farming seem to think that space for purpose-bred chickens, cows, and pigs is infinite. It’s not. Taking up more room for animal commerce makes no sense at all, from an animal-rights perspective. Veganism, in contrast, makes perfect sense.

So I wanted to explain that veganism - not militancy - is direct action, and that veganism - not free-range farming - respects animals and is the environmentally sound way to live. The Sierra Club won’t say that.

SVS:  Have you asked them to?

LH: I have. Veganism simply isn’t being advocated by the wealthy non-profits. Free-range is very big these days, and of course many of these groups’ members can afford to shop for expensive, organic fish, cheese, and flesh foods. On a planet of finite space and resources, that trend isn’t sustainable. And it’s ethical game-playing. Trendy grocers want us to pay a premium to get those “less objectionable” animal products. Even VegNews had a recent article calling eggs from hens in sheds (rather than conventional cages) “egg-cellent news” for hens. What nonsense. This is all about humane advocates promoting very egg-spensive products.

SVS: Why would advocates act in ways detrimental to their cause?

LH: That’s what the whole book is about. The short answer is that a good many of their supporters or potential supporters don't want to upset their lives by going vegan and being part of the work of actually behaving as a true social movement. So rather than scare off such individuals, activists give them what they call a 'soft sell.' Of course, that automatically relegates vegan activism to the margins, and that’s a serious problem. I think the reason goes much deeper, psychologically, than developing the soft sell. I think it has to do with the way activists themselves think about other animals and about themselves. I discussed this with two psychologists when I was researching the book, and I concluded that both violence and the soft sell are detrimental techniques; and, moreover, that they work in tandem.

SVS: Activists unknowingly sabotaging activism?

LH: Yes.

SVS:  Do you offer a way out of these patterns?

LH: Yes, a start. What happens when activists get lost en route to some place? Do they sit there in the road? Do they keep going the wrong way? Or do they turn around and get on the right road?

SVS: Can mainstream groups learn to be supportive of this solution?

LH: Some environmental and civil rights groups have been supportive of serious grassroots activism. The environmental justice movement comes to mind. But with veganism, it’s clear that vegan activism is going to get a foothold only when people who are serious about it begin to promote it and educate people on the issues. Veganism is not about negotiation with industries regarding which kind of confinement we want to pay for. This is why Donald Watson, who co-founded the original Vegan Society in 1944, said veganism is about abolishing whole industries and striving to replace them with entirely with new, life-affirming ones.

SVS:  You seem to be finding a trend that’s as much a part of the environmentalist groups as the animal-welfare groups.

LH: Some wildlife-protection groups actually say nothing at all about the connection between animal use and environmental problems. Those that mention animals carefully limit their concerns to factory farming. But all animal farming pollutes terribly and is directly related to the deforestation that’s killing the global biocommunity.

SVS: So the plight of species, as it relates to our farming practices, is essentially being ignored by the nature advocacy community?

LH: Yes, and this can be even more striking. As I describe in the book, and as my co-workers at Friends of Animals - notably Daniel Hammer - point out, animal and environmental advocates are now experimenting with chemicals meant to sterilize free-living animals when there’s some conflict between our interests and the interests of other animals in their habitat.

SVS: What do you think of the view that eliminating the use of some animals as production units, but continuing to use their "essence," if you will, their cells, could be to our advantage as humans? The talk about lab-grown meat comes to mind.

LH: When advocates praise the research on lab-grown meat - putting aside that this research is being done right now through vivisection of goldfish and other animals - it seems to me they’re abdicating their role as vegan educators. NASA is supporting this research on lab-grown meat.

So where is this all going? The physicist Stephen Hawking says that to survive Earth’s destruction, we must make plans to travel to the moon or to Mars within the next few decades. If scientists think that such a scenario is a real possibility, we can imagine saving agribusiness by preserving a few tissue biopsies so that we can set up lunar meat labs. Magic - animal agribusiness without animals.  And what’s to become of the free-living animals? Would they be left to die? Perhaps a few would be transported to zoos on Mars?

I think it’s clear that this disposable planet idea, cobbled together in a few decades, is the essence of terror. On the other hand, a few decades of veganism could turn the damage around. If we can’t address the problems we’ve created right here on Earth, it seems preposterous to think that we can create a decent society somewhere else.

SVS: So the idea of living in harmony with nature is a key part of your view of animal-rights theory.

LH: Indeed. And bringing that into the discussion of terrorism, we should note that arson and bombs have never been about harmony with nature. Militancy, this trendy concept that tells activists that it’s time to declare “war” against the “animal-abusing scum” and show no mercy - it's the same aggressive, competitive, controlling, might-makes-right thinking that's dragged our society into this whole mess. It made us insist, in all sorts of scenarios, that we are Us, and they are Them; that they’re outside our moral community, and we’re superior to them. It moved us to come up with the tools to make us mighty against all the other life, justified in killing off anything and anyone apparently in the way of the progress of mankind, or whatever it's been called for the past 10,000 years since domestication began.

At the core of vegan understanding is the avoidance of dreary patterns of violence, for violence underlies the very trouble that we came here to transcend. A truly vegan animal-rights movement would necessarily be non-violent, and it is no accident that Donald Watson, throughout a rich life that lasted most of a century, never wavered on this point. Watson was a conscientious objector to war. Notably, Watson never said that war could be made humane. Yet that’s exactly what most of society did in the 1940s.

SVS: What is the significance of the churchyard in your book title?

LH: A family-run farm in central England supplied guinea pigs to product-testing companies such as Huntingdon Life Sciences. As the farm was located in a small, country village, it seemed a relatively easy target for closure. Over the course of several years, activists became increasingly frustrated with the owners of this farm and their refusal to relent to the pressure of the campaign. Eventually, the entire village became a target. One day, remains were dug up from a nearby gravesite and taken away. The body was that of Gladys Hammond, who was related to the farm owners by marriage. The family’s resolve began to crumble.

SVS:  They closed the farm?

LH: Not exactly. They stopped breeding guinea pigs and resumed full-time dairy farming. And now, as you can imagine, most people in the area take a dim view of the leadership potential of animal advocates. In fact, throughout Britain, animal advocacy is facing a severe backlash, and it’s not limited to there. Animal advocacy, just like animal testing, is global.  So is law enforcement today.

SVS:  What happened to the gravediggers?

LH:  Four people pleaded guilty - not to grave-digging, but to using the digging as part of a blackmail campaign. Laws in Britain, and here, now allow for serious jail time for conspiracy. That way, the government may avoid having to prove personal culpability for specific illegal acts. As these cases play out, the laws continue to expand government authority.

SVS: Should part of animal-rights law be about defending those accused of violent acts or intimidation?

LH: Defendants need representation when charged under the criminal laws, and our constitutional rights need defending. So lawyers are needed to do such work. I’m not sure, though, why animal-rights lawyers would be specialists in these areas. I think there’s a misconception that cases involving claims of property damage, organized intimidation and so forth are advancing radical positions. Making oneself and others vulnerable to law enforcement is not radical; nor is domineering conduct radical. This point is underscored by today’s economic reality, with prisons connected to private profits and county budgets, and with prison companies now operating as multinationals. When activists go into these places, they become raw materials for yet another industry built on caging living individuals.

In brilliant contrast, veganism makes a truly radical appeal: We can, and we must, reject oppressive methods in order to bring about a society that renounces domination and control of other animals, and enables us to live according to our true potential.  So I set out to show how and why this should guide activism, with regard to any industry in existence, anywhere in the world.

Capers in the Churchyard, by Lee Hall, is the new book from Nectar Bat Press, with Foreword by

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.

Receive a complimentary Friends of Animals membership when you order directly at the FOA Web site.

International orders are available at Amazon.com

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The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter

By Peter Singer and Jim Mason

Book commentary and excerpt provided by Yolanda Carden of FSB Associates

Convenience, price and packaging have become the driving forces behind the American diet. But what is the true cost of our day-to-day food choices?

To answer this timely and important question, co-authors Peter Singer, our most probing ethicist, and Jim Mason, an environmentally-conscious writer and attorney, undertake a modern-day odyssey both shocking and illuminating. Beginning their adventure at the dinner tables of three typical families with differing tastes and grocery-shopping habits, they set out to trace the origins of the foods we eat.

Singer and Mason pursue the story with the kind of investigative and intellectual tenacity behind such landmark titles as Silent Spring and Fast Food Nation, hauling in pots from the Chesapeake Bay with a commercial crabber and dumpster diving with an urban band of "freegans." Along the way they check the validity of such labels as "Animal Care Certified," "Certified Humane," "organic," and "Fair Trade."

They expose the working conditions in Southern food-processing plants as well as those in other countries. They weigh the pros and cons of buying local, the complex dynamics of sustainability, the controversy over genetically modified organisms, the ethics of obesity, and the health implications of raising children vegan.

The Way We Eat concludes with five simple principles that consumers can use to make better food choices. Should we eat meat? If so, what kinds of meat are most humane to eat? What kinds of produce and dairy products? Wild fish, or farmed? Veal - ever? Recognizing that not all of us will become vegetarians, Singer and Mason offer powerful reasons for eating more conscientiously.

Peter Singer

A professor of bioethics at Princeton University's Center for Human Values. He first became well known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Jim Mason

The coauthor of Animal Factories (with Peter Singer) and the author of An Unnatural Order: Why We Are Destroying the Planet and Each Other, which John Robbins, author of the best-selling Diet for a New America, calls "a wonderful and important book." He is also an attorney and the fifth generation of a Missouri farming family.

Reviews

"Eating is, among other things, an ethical act. But to eat ethically requires knowledge of how our food is produced. In this well-researched and deeply troubling book, Peter Singer and Jim Mason paint a devastating portrait of the American meat industry that is bound to change the way you eat." 
 

-Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma

"In their new book - commonsense in its approach, easy to read, packed with information - Peter Singer and Jim Mason show how market forces inexorably drive farmers toward cruel practices. But their overall message is not bleak. Factory farming is under pressure to justify itself. The day may not be far when we will return to a more ethical treatment of fellow animals, and there are many practical things that ordinary consumers can do to bring that day nearer." 
 

J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace and Slow Man

"An absolutely indispensable book for anyone who thinks about what they eat. Singer and Mason present a sensible, rational discussion of why we should care about what we put into our stomach - whether for health reasons, for the environment's health, for the sake of animals, or for the people who work at producing our food. The Way We Eat is that rare combination of a lively read and thorough research and investigation. I cannot recommend it highly enough."
 

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and Raising the Peaceable Kingdom

"No other living philosopher has had this kind of influence . . ."
 

The New York Times Book Review

"Mr. Singer's influence extends to the world beyond the ivory tower partly because he writes with such lucidity and quiet passion about genuinely pressing questions." 
 

The Economist

"Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential."
 

The New Yorker 

An Excerpt from The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter
 

Behind the Label: "Animal Care Certified" Eggs

The carton of Country Creek eggs that Jake Hillard picked up at WalMart carried the name Moark Productions, one of America's largest producers of eggs. It also bore a red seal saying Animal Care Certified. We asked Jake if the seal signified anything to her. "Well, it seemed to imply that they followed some standard of humane animal care," she said. "I get the general impression that the chickens are cared for better than by some companies, but I don't know by how much."

Jake's vagueness about the Animal Care Certified seal wasn't surprising. Most Americans know little about how their eggs are produced. They don't know that American egg-producers typically keep their hens in bare wire cages, often crammed eight or nine hens to a cage so small that they never have room to stretch even one wing, let along both. The space allocated per hen, in fact, is even less than broiler chickens get, ranging from 48 to 72 square inches. Even the higher of these figures is less than the size of a standard American sheet of typing paper. In such crowded conditions, stressed hens tend to peck each other - and the sharp beak of a hen can be a lethal weapon when used relentlessly against weaker birds unable to escape. To prevent this, producers routinely sear off the ends of the hens' sensitive beaks with a hot blade - without an anesthetic.

As for the cages themselves, they are in long rows, sometimes stacked three and four tiers high. That way, in a single building, tens of thousands of hens can be fed, watered, and have their eggs collected by machines. Artificial lighting is used to mimic the longest days of summer, to induce the hens to lay the maximum number of eggs all year round. A year of this leaves the hens debilitated, and they start to lay fewer eggs. Many American producers then cut off their food and starve them for as long as two weeks until they go into molt, which means they lose their feathers and cease to lay eggs. Some die during this period, and the survivors lose about 30 percent of their body weight. They are then fed again, and their laying resumes for a few more months before they are killed.

Although animal advocates have been describing these conditions since the 1970s, until recently the American media have ignored them. That is changing, and much of the credit for that change must go to Paul Shapiro and Miyun Park, two young activists who at the time ran an organization called Compassion Over Killing. Paul learned about factory farms when he was 14 years old, and he started COK as a club at his high school. The club outgrew high school and attracted volunteers, among them Park, who became president a year later. The two led fur protests, sit-ins, and plenty of in-your-face street activism.

Troubled by the knowledge that within a 100-mile radius of where they lived millions of hens were suffering in cages, unseen by the people who bought the eggs the hens laid, Shapiro and Park tried a different tactic. In 2001 they began driving around rural Maryland locating egg factory farms by day and entering them with video cameras by night. Their videos show dead hens rotting in cages, hens with necks and feet caught in the wire mesh, and hens who had fallen into the manure pit beneath the batteries of cages. They also show COK members gently holding sick and injured birds and taking them away to get veterinary care. This was powerful stuff, and it won Park and Shapiro the attention of writers at The Washington Post. The paper's expose opened the door for a string of favorable stories about COK's open rescues in The New York Times and other national media.

Throughout the media brouhaha, no COK members were ever charged with trespassing or theft of birds, presumably because the egg companies did not want to acknowledge that the videos had been taken in their sheds. There was something different about this kind of animal welfare activism, and it helped win the sympathy of the media. Shapiro explains it like this: "We were regular people who were acting in the only decent way that you could when faced with such egregious cruelty. We weren't damaging property, we weren't hiding our identities. We just simply went in there and videotaped ourselves providing aid to sick and injured animals."

Once Shapiro and Park had opened up the issue, reporters had no difficulty in finding credible experts who could attest to the conditions inside the egg factories. McDonald's has called Dr. Temple Grandin, a "preeminent animal behavior expert" and taken her advice on animal welfare issues. About the egg industry; she was characteristically plain spoken:

When I visited a large egg layer operation and saw old hens that had reached the end of their productive life, I was horrified. Egg layers bred for maximum egg production and the most efficient feed conversion were nervous wrecks that had beaten off half their feathers by constant flapping against the cage . . . The more I learned about the egg industry the more disgusted I got. Some of the practices that had become "normal" for this industry were overt cruelty. Bad had become normal. Egg producers had become desensitized to suffering.

United Egg Producers, the industry trade association representing most of the country's egg production, was concerned about the bad publicity the egg industry was getting. Its experts must also have been well aware that the entire European Union - twenty-five nations, with a much larger population of both humans and hens than the United States - was in the process of phasing out the battery cage, insisting that all hens have a place to perch, litter to scratch in, a nesting box to lay their eggs in, and about twice the space that most U.S. hens are granted. As for starving hens in order to force them to molt, that had long been illegal in the European Union. But United Egg Producers didn't recommend that its members follow Europe's example. It opted for a few minor changes and plenty of spin. Egg producers who followed a new set of voluntary guidelines would be allowed to stamp their egg cartons with a colorful seal stating that the eggs were "Animal Care Certified."

But the new guidelines were only a marginal improvement on the existing situation. They allowed each hen 67 square inches of space - by 2008. Dr. Joy Mench, professor of animal science at the University of California, Davis, and a member of UEP's own Advisory Committee, is on record as calling 80 inches a "meager" space allowance that is "barely enough for the hen to turn around and not enough for her to perform normal comfort behaviors." The UEP program also permits producers to continue to sear off part of the beaks of their chickens with a hot blade, without pain relief. A chicken's beak is its major organ for interacting with the ground and for picking up seeds or worms, and it is full of nerve endings. Professor Ian Duncan, who holds a chair of animal welfare at the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Guelph, Ontario, and has done decades of research on the welfare of chickens, says that "beak trimming leads to both chronic and acute pain." When asked on National Public Radio what she thought about the procedure, UEP's advisor Professor Joy Mench pointed out that for chickens, their beak is their main way of exploring, touching, and feeling things. "So," the interviewer asked, "cutting off the beak is a big deal, if you're a hen?" Mench replied: "It's definitely a big deal."

At the time of Jake's egg purchase, the UEP "Animal Care Certified" guidelines also permitted starving birds to make them molt. It doesn't really take an expert to say that this is going to make them suffer. In the National Public Radio interview, Mench didn't resort to scientific jargon: "The bird is starved. Yes, the bird is starved. I don't like to see hungry animals not being given food."

Finally, we shouldn't forget that the eggs that produce laying hens also produce equal numbers of male chicks. Since male chicks don't lay eggs, the egg industry doesn't want them. The broiler industry doesn't want them either, for they are not bred to gain weight rapidly, as broiler chickens are. Temple Grandin discovered what many hatcheries do with them: "They were throwing live animals in the dumpster to get rid of them. I was going, 'What? They were doing what?' Nobody would throw a live calf in a dumpster. These people forgot this is a live animal." The UEP guidelines don't require producers to avoid buying from hatcheries that use this method of disposing of male chicks.
 

Certified What?

In 2002, when UEP announced that they would release a set of standards for animal welfare, Paul Shapiro and Miyun Park were hopeful. "We were naive enough," Shapiro says, "to think that they might voluntarily reform. Then we read the guidelines and saw that they would permit barren battery cages, beak searing, and forced molting through starvation." Now Shapiro and Park were even more outraged than before: "This was not just a case of animal cruelty, it had become a case of consumer fraud," Shapiro says. So they decided to go back to some of the egg farms where they had done their open rescues a year or so before. "We knew what the conditions were like back then and now here they are 'Animal Care Certified', so we thought, 'OK let's see if there's been any change'. We found the conditions were exactly the same. There is no noticeable difference between the photos of 2003 and those of 2001."

In June 2003, COK filed petitions with the Better Business Bureau objecting to UEP'S "Animal Care Certified" logo as false advertising. After examining documents submitted by UEP and COK, the Better Business Bureau ruled that the "Animal Care Certified" seal was misleading and should be discontinued. The egg trade group appealed, but the appeal board upheld the earlier ruling. More months passed, and UEP made no changes in its "Animal Care Certified" program. In August 2004, the Better Business Bureau determined that UEP was failing to comply with its ruling and formally referred the matter to the Federal

Trade Commission for law enforcement action.

The pressure on the egg producers was mounting. In May 2005, UEP announced that it was recommending that egg producers switch to a molting process that does not involve starving hens and that this recommendation would, from January 1, 2006, become a requirement of a new animal care certification program. Producers should use a feed with lower protein levels instead of taking away food entirely, UEP now said. Then, in September 2005, after being "encouraged" by the Federal Trade Commission to do more, the egg trade body announced it was dropping the "animal care certified" logo and replacing it with one saying "United Egg Producers Certified: Produced in compliance with UEP animal husbandry guidelines." That may be literally accurate, but many consumers will still assume it means good animal welfare, when the truth is very far from that.
 

Reprinted from: The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter by Peter Singer and Jim Mason 

© 2006 Peter Singer and Jim Mason. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098.

Available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher by calling (800) 848-4735 or visit their website at www.rodalestore.com.

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May 2006

Join Farm Sanctuary in Celebrating 20 Years of Rescue,

Education and Advocacy for Farm Animals

An Open Letter from Farm Sanctuary to the Salem Vegan Society

As vegans and advocates for animals, members of the Salem Vegan Society already understand the intrinsic connection between animals, humans and the environment. You know that what you choose to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner directly affects the lives of animals, the environment and your health.

At Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, our members share the same principles. That’s why Farm Sanctuary is extending an invitation to the Salem Vegan Society to join us at our 20th Anniversary Gala for Farm Animals.

On Saturday, May 20, 2006, celebrity supporters, key legislators and animal advocates will gather at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City for a three-course gourmet organic vegan dinner, a farm animal-inspired auction, award presentations and live entertainment. The celebration, in honor of Farm Sanctuary’s 20^th anniversary, will reflect on the success of Farm Sanctuary’s shelters for farm animals, the first