Those of you who have been subscribed to DawnWatch for a while may have been missing the regularity of my alerts as I have had to devote so much time to book promotion. You miss receiving the alerts far less than I miss writing them. As I focus on promotion I don't know that the press it garners sells that many books, but it does seem to sell our message of compassion to a large number of people in the general public, whether they be NBC viewers or Washington Post readers. And I receive numerous emails from people who have been changed by the book. So for now it seems best to continue that focus, which takes me away from DawnWatch more than I would like.
Yet DawnWatch is not forgotten, particularly on a day like today, when the New York Times has deemed a proposition from California, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, worthy of its endorsement. This is a gratifying reflection of how far our movement has edged into the mainstream. While the New York Times is not calling for universal veganism, it is telling us that the treatment of animals matters; that is an excellent place to start, as it is a point on which decent people of every eating persuasion will agree.
The October 9 New York Times editorial in support of California's Proposition 2 is strong and succinct. I shall therefore take the lead set out by Wayne Pacelle and Mike Markarian of HSUS on their blogs, and rather than summarizing the piece I will paste it in full below in the hope that you forward it on to everybody you know in California. In fact, I would recommend that you simply forward it to everybody you know, for as the Times suggests, the effort in California should be moving other states to similar action in the near future.
Please, also, keep the discussion of the cruelty of factory farming alive on the New York Times editorial page by sending appreciative, short, personal letters to the editor. The New York Times takes letters at letters@nytimes.com . Always include your full name, address and telephone number.
Here's the October 9 New York Times editorial:
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Standing, Stretching, Turning Around
(Editorial, page A 36)
The goal of the California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act -- Proposition 2 on the state's November ballot -- sounds extremely modest. It would ban the confinement of animals in a way that keeps them from being able to stand, sit, lie down, turn around and extend their limbs. The fact that such fundamental decencies have to be forced upon factory farming says a lot about its horrors. We urge California voters to pass Proposition 2. We urge every state to enact similar laws.
Americans are becoming increasingly aware of how and where food is raised. With that should come real concern. The mantra of industrial farming has always been efficiency, but efficiency has come to mean a pregnant sow -- millions of them -- confined in a gestation crate barely 2 feet wide and only as long as she is. It means veal-calves rendered virtually immobile in crates barely large enough to contain their bodies. It means endless rows of laying hens kept in battery cages so small that the birds cannot even stretch their wings.
No philosophy can justify this kind of cruelty, not even the philosophy of cheapness. Proposition 2 will not just improve the square footage available to these suffering animals. Reducing the concentration of animals will also help reduce the water and air pollution created by factory farms. It will also begin to redress the imbalance between small farmers and the huge corporations that have acquired vertical, and fundamentally anti-competitive, control over the meat industry.
To a California voter still undecided on Proposition 2, we say simply, imagine being confined in the voting booth for life. Would you vote for the right to be able to sit down and turn around and raise your arms?
(End of NY Times editorial)
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You'll find the piece on line at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/opinion/09thu3.html and can also forward it from there. Or send a letter to the editor: letters@nytimes.com
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews of Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals” and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.
To discontinue DawnWatch alerts go to http://www.DawnWatch.com/nothanks.php
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Date: Thu Oct 9 22:16:31 2008
