Date: July 13th, 2006

The Calendar section in the Thursday, July 13, Los Angeles Times includes al fluff piece about Ringling Bros. I will paste it below and encourage Angelenos to send letters to the editor. A good resource is www.Circuses.com
The Los Angeles Times takes letters at letters@latimes.com

WITH THE KIDS
Circus glam and glitz
Lions, tigers and bears? No way. Ringling Bros.' new show goes more high-tech.
By Liane Bonin
Special to The Times
http://www.calendarlive.com/family/cl-wk-kids13jul13,0,6992542.story?coll=cl-family-top-right
July 13, 2006

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages ... yes, that means you, the one with the iPod. Could you unplug for a minute? And put down the Sidekick? Please?

Clearly, you have a lot of distractions, so I'll keep it brief. The circus is coming to town, and it's been re-imagined. No, it's not Cirque du Soleil. You know, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Lions and tigers and bears? But, um, maybe without any of those particular animals. Hey, put down that remote, buddy!

It's not easy selling the big-top experience in the 21st century. Kids are as cynical as they are sedentary; families stay connected via texting, and thrifty parents may find it hard to rationalize $14 tickets to the "Greatest Show on Earth" when that "Finding Nemo" DVD is sitting on the coffee table. So now Ringling Bros. is hoping that an injection of Hollywood glitz and high-tech razzle-dazzle will separate generations of couch potatoes from their sofas.

The first step in any remodel, of course, is out with the old. Three rings? Try none. "Our audience told us their lives are a three-ring circus already," says Nicole Feld, the show's 28-year-old co-producer and daughter of circus owner Kenneth Feld. "They're looking for a more focused entertainment experience."

Now the action will unfold in a 130-by-80-foot performance space. For anyone worried about missing a moment, there will be a video screen 24 feet in diameter to fill in the gaps. The screen won't simply churn out a jumbo-size version of what's afoot (or ahoof) on the floor, however. Pre-taped segments featuring animation and graphics will make television-addicted kids feel right at home. "We wanted to make it multilayered and more intimate through the use of video. Plus, we're also able to keep the action going with pre-taped segments," explains director-writer Shanda Sawyer.

One of those layers involves a storyline that ties together the array of acrobatic acts, elephant dances and clown antics. A multiracial "family" (made up of performers) is brought onto the stage to discover their circus dream jobs while audience members clap and cheer to facilitate the process.

And if the audience participation isn't enough to seduce television-numbed young ones, old standards are given modern twists. Elephants engage in a hip-hop dance party, the clown car is now a smash-up derby and one young performer engages in a live-action video game.

"Living in Los Angeles as I do, you have to be aware of the things that kids love," Sawyer says. "Kids and families expect a level of sophistication from their entertainment."

Sawyer should know. An Emmy Award winner whose directing credits include "The Man Show" and segments of "The Miss America Pageant," she's a circus newcomer but a pop-culture pro. "I came in as a complete beginner, but they wanted that fresh perspective," she says.

A quick scan of the creative minds behind the production reveals a Tony winner (production designer Robert Brill), a two-time Oscar winner (costume designer Colleen Atwood) and a former Pussycat Doll and Fly Girl (choreographer Carla Kama).With such a glamorous creative team, comparisons to Cirque du Soleil, Canada's upscale, animal-free entertainment empire, are almost irresistible. But Feld points out that, unlike Cirque — for which tickets can cost more than $100 — Ringling is far more accessible.

Cirque "is very interesting entertainment for a niche audience, but we're about entertaining kids and their parents at a lot of income levels," she says.

A familiar face helps too. Last year, "American Idol" finalist Jennifer Fuentes (she rubbed shoulders with Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard during the second season) joined the cast as a singer and now does double duty as a master of ceremonies.

"For over a year with the circus I've been singing in front of thousands of people," says Fuentes, who is considering sending tickets to "Idol" grouch Simon Cowell when the circus comes to town. "Even more than 'Idol,' it's my first really huge production, and it's amazing."

Not everyone has been as impressed. A New York Daily News critic deemed the new production "the lamest show on earth," while the New York Times gave it the backhanded compliment of "peculiarly satisfying and entertaining." Devoted circus fans have mourned the perceived loss of old-fashioned entertainment. "It's like an ice show without ice, and it looks like a circus that's run out of money," says Richard Deptula, former president of the Circus Fans Assn. of America, who acknowledges he hasn't been motivated to see the show in person after watching it on video. "It's so thin now. No flying trapeze act, no wild animal act. It just isn't the circus to me."

It's difficult to look at the current production's scaled-back use of exotic animals (in lieu of the big cats' roar, domesticated housecats perform tricks along with dogs and birds in one act) without wondering if the constant chastising from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has played a role.

Feld says of the changes: "It was just a creative decision. And the elephants are still a huge part of our show. That's what people come to the circus for — to see the animals."

As far as treatment issues, Ringling has created the Center for Elephant Conservation, a 250-acre facility in Florida dedicated to the breeding, scientific study and retirement of Asian elephants, in addition to donating sizable funds to support elephant research at the Smithsonian's National Zoo.

PETA remains unsatisfied. "This is definitely a step in the right direction, but it's not enough," says PETA spokeswoman Lisa Wathne. "People don't want to support the use of animals in the circus, and because of it attendance is dropping drastically all over the country." Though privately held Ringling Bros. does not disclose financial records, Wathne says PETA tracks ticket sales at many of the circus' venues across the country.

The theme for this show — "dream big" — seems to speak directly to the survival of an American institution. But for the time being, send in the clowns. "It's like what they say in 'The Greatest Show on Earth,' " Deptula says. "You can shake the sawdust off of your shoes, but you can't shake it out of your heart."

(END OF LA TIMES ARTICLE)
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Date: Thu Jul 13 19:24:55 2006

Date: November 2nd, 2005

The Sacramento Bee has a great story in the Wednesday, November 2, "Scene" section (Pg E1) on Comcast's refusal to air commercials from Compassion Over Killing promoting vegetarianism and portraying the cruelty of the meat industry. I will paste it below. Please send supportive letters to the Bee.
The paper takes letters, from those who live within the paper's "home circulation area" at opinion@sacbee.com
Include your full name, address, and daytime phone number.

Comcast nixes animal-welfare ads
By Cynthia Hubert -- Bee Staff Writer
November 2, 2005

http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/13802724p-14644107c.html

Jennifer Fearing sold her piano recently and decided to donate some of her windfall to one of her most passionate causes: promoting vegetarianism.
Fearing contacted a national nonprofit organization called Compassion Over Killing and offered to underwrite the costs of airing advertisements in Sacramento that decry the treatment of farm animals. She wrote a $2,600 check to the animal group, which negotiated a deal with Comcast cable company to air the ads on MTV four times a night for a month.

Comcast cashed the check. But the ads, which show graphic images of animals housed in cramped, filthy conditions in slaughterhouses and "factory farms," and urge people to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, never aired in Sacramento. They have been shown in other markets across the country.

"We were told they were rejected. We were not given any specific reason," said Erica Meier, executive director of the animal group, based in Washington, D.C. "We were very surprised. We have never had any similar complications." Only one company, in Alabama, has refused to air the ads, but no money changed hands in that case, she said.

Erica Smith, spokeswoman for Comcast in Sacramento, said Tuesday she was looking into the matter. The ads may have been rejected, she said, to allow staffers to evaluate claims of animal mistreatment. If the company gets proper documentation, she said, the ads might be reconsidered.

Meier said Comcast never asked her group for documentation. "They rejected them without explanation," she said. "But we would welcome any opportunity to validate their content."

As a private company, Comcast has the right to reject advertisements it deems inappropriate or offensive. The company has said it will reimburse the group if the ads never air, but Fearing doesn't want her money back. She intends to bring the situation before the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission, which is scheduled to hold its monthly meeting Thursday afternoon.

"This is something that I believe in very strongly, and I'm not going to roll over on it," said Fearing. She runs a local nonprofit group, United Animal Nations, that benefits animals, but she stressed that the battle with Comcast is entirely personal. "These ads are not obscene. There's no cursing in them. Are they violent? They just show where your food comes from. It never even occurred to me that they might be censored."

Rich Esposto, executive director of the local cable commission, said Fearing is welcome to appear before the panel and make her case. He questioned Comcast's handling of the matter but said Fearing probably has no legal standing to challenge the company's decision.

"It takes a willful, conscious, knowing violation of the regulations for me to bring enforcement action," he said. "Disagreeing with someone's politics and refusing to take their money is not illegal, although I would like to know more about this from a fairness standpoint."

Meier, of Compassion Over Killing, said the two advertisements that Comcast initially agreed to air are "pro-vegetarian commercials" that "expose the horrors" inflicted on farm animals.

Among other things, the 30-second spots show chickens, alive and twitching, hanging by their feet in a slaughterhouse. The images were taken in Arkansas by investigators for the group, she said.

"It's simply the reality of where our meat and eggs and milk come from," Meier said.

The advertisements have been shown in more than 50 cities across the United States, including Los Angeles, Detroit, Boston, Denver and Fresno, she said.

In early October, staffers for Comcast in Sacramento reviewed the advertisements, negotiated a schedule to air them and accepted a check for $2,561 from the animal group, Meier said. "We had no indication whatsoever that there might be a problem," she said.

The first ads were scheduled to air Oct. 17 on MTV, which has the young-adult audience targeted by the animal group.

If Fearing loses her skirmish, she said, she may consider pitching the advertisement to another cable provider, even though the audience would be smaller.

"I want people in Sacramento to see this," she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To view the ads in question, go to www.cok.net/feat/mtvfall2005.php and click on "If You Knew."

About the writer:
The Bee's Cynthia Hubert can be reached at (916) 321-1082 or chubert@sacbee.com.
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(END OF BEE PIECE)
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Date: Wed Nov 2 15:33:47 2005

Date: December 7th, 2005

There is a terrific article about foie gras in the current San Diego City Beat. I will paste it below. Please some a quick supportive letter to the editor at editor@sdcitybeat.com


MMMMM....CRUELTY.
Activists are ridding San Diego of a tasty yet nasty delicacy, one restaurant at a time
by Nancy Cary

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3833#

The winter holidays can be kind to restaurant owners. Company’s in town, the cook of the house has already thrown at least one big feast and people are ready to eat out. Couples dress up and make a date to dine by candlelight. They splurge and order a cocktail, appetizers and dessert. Even the boss is in a generous mood, booking a side room in a trendy downtown restaurant for the company party. Diners are daring; they slip off their diets and order something exotic.

But this winter, they’ll have a hard time finding the popular French delicacy foie gras.

Until recently, foie gras seemed the latest darling of some San Diego restaurants, joining the company of other European-influenced appetizers. Foie gras (pronounced “fwah grah”) is sometimes served on a bed of greens, topped with chutney or compote. People describe its taste as buttery; others describe a velvet texture—a “melts in your mouth” experience, one local chef said. Foie gras is often presented as paté, a paste that can be spread on bread or crackers.

But before the diner ever sees it, foie gras comes to the chef in its raw form. In French, foie gras means fatty liver. It’s the product of an enlarged liver of a duck or a goose.

“The duck’s liver is the size of your hand when you make a fist,” said Bertrand Hug, owner of Bertrand at Mister A’s in Bankers Hill, as he described how ducks are force-fed twice a day during the last weeks of their lives.

“The liver grows,” he said. “They get an overextended liver—a kind of disease. It can be as big as three pounds. It grows lighter in color.”

Hug and other restaurant owners get their supply from Hudson Valley Foie Gras in New York and Sonoma Foie Gras, located near Stockton, Calif.

“I can only talk about Hudson Valley,” Hug said. “They are very good. They sent me a brochure. They’re absolutely doing it in a very humane way.”

San Diego activist Bryan Pease doesn’t see it that way. “Michael Ginor and Izzy Yanay, the owners of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, are very good salesmen,” Pease said, adding that one chef told him Hudson Bay Foie Gras had offered to “fly him out… to give him a tour and convince him to start selling [the delicacy] again.”

Pease says a video camera is his most powerful weapon in exposing the cruelty of factory farming. He and other activists began investigating foie gras in 2002. Today, he and his wife Kath Rogers run the nonprofit Animal Protection and Rescue League out of an office in Hillcrest. There, Pease and Rogers keep a photo library of ducks languishing with bowed heads in cramped cages. Some ducks’ feathers appear stringy and blood-tinged. Others have plucked areas with sores.

At 27, lean and angular, Pease still has the hurdler’s build he earned while in college. His presence is commanding and intense. During an interview with CityBeat, he focused on one of the photos.

“The pipe is just being pulled out of the duck’s mouth,” he described. Yellow cornmeal was caked around the open-hanging beak and down the breast of the bird. The duck’s eyes seemed unfocused and glazed.

“I remember being on those farms,” Rogers said. “Even if they’re not always in these cages, they physically cannot move once they’ve been force fed for so long because they’re so obese.”

Pease discounted one of the popular myths used to defend the force-feeding process. “One of them is that migratory species of ducks will tend to gorge themselves before migrating,” he said, as Rogers pulled out a pamphlet about foie gras myths and facts from stacks of literature lined up on metal shelves along the office wall.

“They’ll say that they are just taking advantage of this natural process,” Pease said, “but the foie gras producers are mechanically force feeding them so much that their livers are expanding to 10 times their normal size, where the ducks can’t walk, let alone fly or migrate.” These ducks don’t migrate, anyway, Pease said. “They’re an artificial hybrid between a Peking and a Muscovite. It doesn’t even exist in nature; it’s specifically bred for farm production.”

Hudson Valley Foie Gras’ operations manager, Marcus Henley, thinks animal-rights groups are misrepresenting what goes on when it comes to handling the birds. “If I show you a picture of a duck with a tube in its esophagus, it looks bad. Like it would hurt.” He adds, “But ducks and geese are different physiologically than humans.

“We have over 100,000 animals on this farm,” he said. “I can go to any farm across this country our size or greater and pick out conditions, animals very ill.” He added, “Pictures don’t always tell the whole story, anymore than a hospital or intensive-care unit doesn’t represent the community. It’s dishonest.”

Henley noted that Hudson Valley Foie Gras is only a few miles down the road from the Culinary Institute of America. “Chefs of today visited here as students,” he said, adding, “Our clients, restaurant owners and journalists are invited to tour the farm.”

In his essay “An Animal’s Place,” Michael Pollan sits alone in a restaurant, fork poised over a rib-eye steak, reading his way through many of the classic writings that have influenced present-day animal-welfare advocates, vegetarians and vegans. He concentrates on English critic John Berger’s essay, “Why Look at Animals?”

Berger stunned modern readers by claiming that people have lost their connection to animals, particularly eye contact with them. Through eye contact, whether it might have been with a farm animal or even domestic pet, people seemed to recognize in those animal eyes some kinship—even the possibility of an animal’s expression of fear, pain or tenderness.

“People built a relationship in which they felt they could both honor and eat animals without looking away,” Pollan reflected. “But that accommodation has pretty much broken down; nowadays it seems, we either look away or become vegetarians.”

Foie gras exists because it’s produced on factory farms, which are “confined animal facilities that apply industrial production methods to the raising of animals for human consumption,” according to the opening of the report “Confined Animal Facilities in California,” issued by state Senate Office of Research (SOR) in November 2004.

Upon the report’s release, SOR held a news conference to alert the public to several health threats and animal abuses associated with factory farming. Among the animal-cruelty issues in the report were: chicken, duck and turkey beak tips removed by hot blade or electric spark trimmers to prevent animals in too-close quarters from pecking each other to death, and dairy cows’ tails cut off for hygiene.

“Most people haven’t heard of these issues yet,” Pease noted. “As soon as we can bring a glimmer of information to them about what’s going on, they’re sympathetic.”

He added, “My philosophy about animal rights is simply that when extreme institutional suffering is going on, people need to be made aware of it and work to stop it.

“We wanted to focus first on the issue of factory farming because of the huge numbers of animals that are killed and undergo hormone treatment,” Pease said. “Foie gras, because it’s on the extreme end of factory farming—they’re jamming pipes down these ducks’ throats. That was a logical place to start as far as getting rid of that practice.”

While the treatment of ducks and geese during the production of foie gras is extreme, animal-rights activists argue that chickens and turkeys, bred for the ever-increasing consumer demand for an alternative to red meat, also suffer cruelty. According to an October 2005 Purdue Agricultural Economics Report by Carlos Mayen and Kevin McNamara, “Presently, turkey production in the U.S. stands at 264 million birds (7.3 billion pounds) while broiler production at 8.7 billion (45.8 billion pounds).” The authors describe how in less than 100 years “the poultry meat industry, once a barnyard enterprise with chicken meat only a by-product of egg production, has evolved to a specialized, capital intensive, well-coordinated industry.”

Animal-rights organizations, such as Delaware Action for Animals, Gentle Thanksgiving Organization and People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), describe on many of their websites how ducks, turkeys and chickens are treated by the poultry industry. Raised in cages, chickens have less than half a square foot of space per bird, they claim, while turkeys, often kept in crowded, indoor pens, have less than three square feet. Many break limbs from rapid weight gain and suffer lameness and heart attacks. All suffer the same ugly fate: throats slit, their bodies are hung on a conveyer belt and then dumped into boiling water to strip their feathers, sometimes while the birds are still fully conscious.

It’s rather unpleasant stuff, and Pease and Rogers spent last year working alongside other activists, celebrities and legislators to stop it.

“We filed a lawsuit against Sonoma Foie Gras in California because until Proposition 64 passed last year, any individual or organization could sue a company that was breaking a law,” Pease said. “In this case, we were alleging that they were violating the animal-cruelty law. So we sued them under the unfair-business-practices statute.”

Pease slipped into an exaggerated politician’s voice as he described the state Legislature’s response: “‘We’ll immunize Sonoma Foie Gras from this lawsuit, violating the animal-cruelty law.’ Now this is really weird—who’s ever heard of the Legislature passing a law to handle a lawsuit?”

Despite its flaws, the activists supported a bill by then-Senate President Pro Tem John Burton aimed at banning the force-feeding of ducks and geese in California and the sale of foie gras statewide when made from force-fed ducks. But not right away—the bill included a seven-year phase-out period, during which the producers can’t be prosecuted. Starting in 2012, foie gras can’t be made unless producers come up with a humane way to do it.

The Legislature passed Burton’s bill, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it into law in September 2004. Activists say it’s historic legislation because rarely has the state banned factory-farming processes considered cruel. Since its passage, similar bills have been introduced in Oregon, Massachusetts, Illinois and New York.

But Pease and Rogers haven’t stood still. “We don’t want to wait until 2012 for this law to go into effect, when, meantime, there’s how many millions of ducks that are going to be basically tortured to death for [foie gras] and when we can get restaurants to pull it off sooner,” Pease said. “Also, that will make it less likely that possible efforts to repeal the law will be effective if all of these restaurants are pulling it off their menu.”

“If I had my way, the consumption and production of foie gras would have been made illegal now. For many reasons. Not just for the sake of the ducks, but for people, too,” said Jeffrey Strauss, owner and chef of Solana Beach’s Pamplemousse Grille, which, ironically, uses a goose as its design icon. “I’ve had some conversations with other chefs in San Diego. We all feel about the same way—we wish it was illegal. Level the playing field.”

Strauss said restaurant owners are unfairly caught between the pending ban on foie gras and the reality that they and their chefs need to please their customers to turn a profit. He said that while some restaurants have taken the dish off the menu, others are still serving it.

“First thing, we took it off the menu,” said Strauss, whose restaurant was rated the best restaurant in San Diego by the Zagat Survey in 2004.

“Let’s say that I cater rack of lamb for 200 people,” he said. “Fifty lambs gave their lives for me. There’s been nights when I wake up and think about when I die, I don’t want there to be a judgment.”

Strauss remembered his first contact from Pease and APRL: “They sent me a letter in February. Bryan called back. I expected him to be combative and argumentative. He sat there and listened, not one-minded. Didn’t threaten. Just invited me to look further into it.”

Strauss, 43, has been cooking since he was 16 and opened the Pamplemousse Grille nine years ago. His grandfather, a German immigrant, ran a cattle ranch in New Jersey, and his father was a livestock wholesaler in the Bronx. “Hundreds of whole goats would go out of there in a week. I remember seeing them in the lockers.”

Strauss said his first experience with animals was on his grandfather’s cattle farm. “I loved walking around that pasture—I’d see a calf and think, That’s the cutest thing in the world,” he said, adding that on the farm you could “count on one hand the number of vegetarians.”

One afternoon a few months ago, APRL outreach workers Chris Cavalcanti and Dana Robinson stood at Fifth and University avenues in Hllcrest, handing out literature for APRL. “Before I joined APRL and decided to work with Bryan and Kath, I checked online,” Robinson said. “They’re completely genuine. Their office is great. You can tell that they don’t spend a cent of the organization’s money on it. They want every cent to go back into the nonprofit, not like other nonprofits where you see these offices with all of this great furniture.”

Robinson recalled doing outreach for APRL at Trader Joe’s when a woman recognized her co-canvasser, Cavalcanti. “The woman said, “You’re the one who made me go vegan.’”

“It makes it worthwhile,” Cavalcanti said. “But some yell at you. One guy screamed at me about not needing to protect the seals at the beach. Most of the people are positive though.”

Cavalcanti opened a binder filled with APRL literature. “They look at the brochure pictures and say, ‘Wow, this is terrible,’” Cavalcanti said. “It’s really easy to go to the supermarket and pick up your food all neatly wrapped in cellophane, and not see that it is an animal.

“Bryan and Kath have dedicated their lives,” Cavalcanti added. “I realized that just being vegetarian wasn’t enough. We have to work together.”

Pease and Rogers met, Pease said, “when we were arrested for scaring crows away from hunters in New York during a crow-killing contest…. Participants kill as many animals as they can in a weekend and bring them back to a bar to be weighed and counted.

“New York,” he said, “has a law against scaring animals away from hunters.”

Pease will tell you it’s only a coincidence that he followed his father’s path into a law career. Pease was born in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1978. His dad, an assistant U.S. attorney, read to him often and encouraged him to learn. His mom had been a schoolteacher and social worker before starting a family.

While Pease was at Liverpool High School, he had a defining moment in biology class. “I’ve always liked animals,” he said, “and when I first went vegetarian was when we started to do dissection in high-school biology class. I was against that. It caused me to evaluate why I was eating animals. So I went vegetarian.”

Asked if his parents supported his decision, Pease shrugged his shoulders. Rogers nudged him. “No, his parents weren’t supportive. His dad said that even if he went vegetarian, he was still going to cook the meat for Bryan and then just throw it away, so it wouldn’t matter if he went vegetarian.”

“Yeah, at first it was kind of a slow process,” he said.

Pease remembered what might have been his “first hands-on experience with the law.” He said, “When I was 17, I was falsely arrested at a fur protest, doing nothing more than holding a sign on a public sidewalk.” He said he was charged with unlawful assembly, but “everyone had an absolute right to peacefully demonstrate in a public place under the First Amendment, of course, so I was acquitted.”

Pease researched the legal issues surrounding his case in his father’s office. “I put together an argument on appeal that the judge’s order to ‘stay away’ was unconstitutionally vague,” he explained. Pease presented the oral argument himself and won. “What has stuck with me from that experience, and many other activist experiences to follow,” he said, “is that even if you are completely innocent of a charge and the facts are not even in dispute, the criminal-justice system can derail your life for a long time if you get entangled in it, and the police are given an incredible amount of discretion in that area.”

At Cornell University, Pease majored in human development with an emphasis on nutrition. He persuaded the student government to unanimously pass two resolutions, one recommending dissection alternatives in biology classes and the other mandating full vegan options in the dining halls.

Pease credited early activism for teaching him about the law, and he went to a law school with a solid public-interest background. “I made the Buffalo [N.Y.] Public Interest Law Program remove fur items from their fundraiser auction,” he recalled.

Pease is concerned about recent laws that appear aimed at cracking down on animal-rights activists. He noted that California recently passed a law upping the penalties for trespassing on farmland to as much as $250 for a second offense.

“It used to be an infraction,” Pease said. “You’d get a small fine, say $10.” He said the change was a response to APRL’s investigation of Sonoma Foie Gras. “Actually,” he added, “all over the country there have been attempts to implement legislation specifically targeting animal-rights activists. It’s being billed as the new domestic terrorism threat—animal-rights activists. It’s such a red herring, it’s ridiculous.”

Not all restaurant owners in San Diego are willing to pull foie gras from their menus, and not all are happy with Pease and APRL. “They sent me literature, including the pictures. It was ridiculous,” said Mister A’s Bertrand Hug. “They came over and met with me. I told them where I was coming from, that foie gras has been around for 1,000 years in Europe. It’s a part of my culture. It is no worse than finishing off a pig.”

Raised in southwest France, Hug recalls seeing ducks and geese on farms. “My grandmother raised 40 or 50 at a time,” he said. “They force-fed geese with a funnel twice a day in the winter.”

Pease and Rogers traveled to France during their investigation and met with French activists. “It’s the hardest logical fallacy to combat when somebody says it’s culture, and it needs to be defended because it’s culture,” Rogers said.

Referring to Mister A’s, Pease said that “because we had sent them a letter and hadn’t heard back, we went back there and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to start protesting, and just wanted to check if you’d remove foie gras,’ and the manager agreed to a meeting.”

In May, APRL protested at Top of the Cove in La Jolla. Rogers said APRL had sent “the usual letter and brochures” to owner Ron Zappardino, who “started yelling over the phone, ‘You’re threatening me; you sent me a threatening letter.’

“It was a very mild letter,” she said, “talking about the animal cruelty, and then in the last paragraph we said that we had been educating some customers by going out with signs, so it was very, very mild.”

Zappardino remembered receiving APRL’s correspondence, which he said “was a threatening letter…. I talked to the young lady. She was unpleasant.” About APRL pressuring him to stop serving foie gras, he said, “It’s unreasonable. Owners have to decide for themselves.”

“Twenty years ago nobody knew about foie gras in the United States until Hudson Valley Foie Gras started pedaling it,” Pease said. “And Izzy Yanay, one of the owners, has been quoted saying that it’s his dream to see foie gras in the supermarkets or on pizza.

“That’s what we’re up against,” Pease added, “the increasing popularity of it.” He said every high-end restaurant serves foie gras unless they’ve taken an ethical position on it. “That’s why we need to approach them and get them to take an ethical stance.”

Pease and Rogers can list their successes: George’s at the Cove, Tapenade and Nine-Ten have all yanked foie gras from their menus.

APRL waited for more than a month after their May protest at Top of the Cove to check back to see if the restaurant would stop serving foie gras. In July, APRL returned to stage another protest.

“Top of the Cove took foie gras off their menu and even displayed their newly printed menus with no foie gras for us,” Rogers said. She and Pease have asked APRL members to send thank-you postcards to Chef Timothy Ralphs.

Zappardino said it’s true that foie gras came off the menu at that time, but, he added, “I only have it certain times of the year. My chef changes the menu quarterly. We’ll serve it if our customers ask for it.”

For Pease and Rogers, change happens with persistence and patience. Whether APRL gets a promise of no foie gras on the daily menu for a few months or a full commitment to not serve it, they remain optimistic and grateful for any “victory.”

Meanwhile, Pease and APRL are working on several downtown and Coronado restaurants. Also, the group has submitted a proposal for an urban sanctuary for farm animals—for people to visit and see that farm animals have distinct personalities like dogs and cats.

Pease said “the proposal in Chicago to ban the sale of foie gras is headed for a full vote probably next month. At the Health Committee hearing in October, we got the committee to pass the resolution unanimously,” he said, “after showing our video on a big screen.” He added, “We’ve been doing lots of vegan outreach and just had a very successful ‘turkey-free Thanksgiving’ event where we raised some funds to air more of our ‘go vegan’ commercials.”

Persistence and patience. When asked what keeps her going, Rogers recalled Margaret Mead’s words, “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
12/7/05
(END OF CITY BEAT ARTICLE)
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(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. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts please leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)


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Date: Wed Dec 7 16:14:09 2005

Date: April 5th, 2006

Tonight's 5pm news (you may still be able to catch it) has a piece by consumer reporter Jeanette Pavini on animal testing. I will paste the web summary below. Please send a quick note of thanks for this coverage.

Go to http://cbs5.com/contact and choose 5pm news from the pulldown menu.

Here's the story:

http://cbs5.com/consumer/local_story_095194154.html

Karli Kuehnish loves her beauty products.

"I am a cosmetic junkie," she says. "I actually work in cosmetics."

She also is a big animal lover, and makes sure the products she buys aren’t tested on animals. But like many consumers, what Karli might not know is that, though a product my say that it is cruelty free or not tested on animals, that may not be entirely true.

Animal Testing Information Links
http://www.leapingbunny.org
http://www.eco-label.org
http://www.fda.org

"I'd say it's misleading," says Consumer Attorney Mark Chavez. "There's a definite economic advantage in the marketplace to being able to promote the product as being cruelty free or not having been tested on animals."

Michelle Thew of the Animal Protection Institute says that it’s an economic advantage that depends on the goodwill of the consumers. Her organization is trying to drive animal testing out of the cosmetic industry.

"It may mean that only the finished product is not tested, or it may mean that the company did not test it but paid someone else to," says Thew.

According to the FDA, “Cosmetic companies have unrestricted use of the phrases ‘cruelty-free’ or ‘Not tested on animals,’ because there are no legal definitions for these terms.”

So Chavez says that the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the consumer.

"The reality is that you may have to look beyond the label for any product and question the company about what that particular label means for that particular company," Chavez says.

That’s where organizations like leaping bunny and Eco-Labels come to into play. You can go to the sites to see if the products you use really are tested on animals.

Thew also says that if companies say they don’t test on animals, they should have no problem putting their name on the list.

"If a company won't sign a simple pledge to say they aren't testing on animals then we will let the consumer make the choice."

Karli has already made her choice.

“I've seen what it does to the animals and I really wouldn't want it to happen to any of my animals," Karli says.
(END OF STORY)
----------

(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. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.dawnwatch.com/cgi-bin/dada/dawnwatch_unsubscribe.cgi If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)



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Date: Wed Apr 5 18:14:26 2006

Date: October 16th, 2005

The article below advertises an exhibit at the New Haven County Historical Society called "Our Furry Friends." The piece presents a nice opportunity for serious letters on related issues, such as animal overpopulation, homelessness and 'euthanasia', and the benefits of spay-neuter and adoption. Letters could also examine the way our society treats animals considered pets as compared to other animals. The Connecticut Post takes letters at edit@ctpost.com.
Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.

Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)
October 16, 2005 Sunday

Exhibit celebrates 'recent' love affair with pets

FRANK JULIANO

MILFORD -- The two young girls in their fancy dresses are petting their dog, back when Maple Street here was a dirt road.

Very little is known about the photo, including the girls' names, why they were so dressed up, including a bow in the older one's hair.

But the photo, taken by New Haven photographer T.S. Bronson on May 17, 1908, is one of the earlier examples of city residents enjoying their pets.

The original photo, taken on a glass plate, is part of a new exhibit at the New Haven Colony Historical Society, called "Our Furry Friends," that examines when and why animals became pets.

Curator Amy Trout, herself a cat-lover, said she noticed that among the society's collection of thousands of glass-plate photographs from the turn of the last century was an astounding number showing people playing with their cats and dogs.

She decided to mount the exhibit, which also includes gilded bird cages and other equipment, to explain how a family's creatures went from being an investment to an expense lovingly made.

"We don't know too much about what is going on in the Milford photo, or who the girls are, but it shows that people 100 years ago, especially children, enjoyed their pets, loved and doted on them," Trout said.

While most domesticated animals were a source of food, clothing material and even labor, for families in the Colonial era and in the early years of the United States, historians agree that the Industrial Revolution created a middle class with free time and disposable income.

"It wouldn't be good history to say that there were no pets earlier than the late 19th century, but certainly in the Colonial days animals were not coddled," Trout said. "They were not members of the family as they are today. Sometimes it was a matter of survival."

Chickens provided eggs, cows milk and meat, and sheep wool to area families, she said.

But pets are certainly big business now, with veterinarians doing the kind of complicated surgeries on domestic animals that were once reserved for humans and done only at large reaearch hospitals.

The cost of owning a cat ranges from $491 to $822 in the first year and between $310 and $527 in succeeding years, according to the Web site, PetEducation.com

Dogs can cost from between $511 ad $1,977 in the first year [the higher range includes the purchase of a registered breed] and from $287 to $807 in succeeding years, said Dr. Race Foster, a veterinarian in Rhinelander, Wisc., and co-owner of the site. He estimates that over a typical dog's 14-year life the pet's upkeep will cost its family more than $12,000.

Of course, when it comes to a family member, money is no object, said Trout, the New Haven curator. But when did dogs and cats become family? She believes that it happened as an outgrowth of the reform movement in the mid-19th century, at the same time that child welfare organizations were created.

"You started to see school textbooks appear with lessons on morality that urged people to treat animals with kindness," the historian said. "There was an attempt to show pets in literature and art."

Among the "famous pets" shown in the New Haven history exhibit is Handsome Dan, a bulldog who was the first Yale mascot, who was anything but handsome judging from the 1897 photograph.

Another well-known dog discussed in the exhibit is "Lex," who was listed in a New Haven city directory by its owner as a member of the family in 1905. Lex's occupation was given as "night watchman," Trout noted with amusement.

Cities began to make accommodations for families with pets at the start of the 20th century, including the creation of animal control departments, "leash laws" and other legislation, officials said.

Milford has long had a large enclosed area within its 300-acre Eisenhower Park where dogs can run free and play, said Mark Lofthhouse, a member of that city's Planning and Zoning Board.

That feature is likely to remain after a redesign of the sprawling park complex is completed, Lofthouse said.

Dr. Sheldon Yessanow, a Trumbull veterinarian who operates the Oronoque Animal Hospital in Stratford, said the inclusion of pets among family members became an issue during the evacuation of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

Many evacuees refused to leave without their pets, a position that Yessanow said he can understand. "There is a special, important bond between people and their pets, and to break that is devastating to both the people and the animals," the veterinarian said.

He said in an earlier interview that despite some objections to the barking and to the sanitation issues dogs can create in shelters that pets will be included in future disaster relief efforts, due to new laws.

Trout said the Victorians themselves may have had a reputation for being fussy about their personal appearance and squeamish about health issues, but they loved their pets. "We have a photo in the exhibit of two ladies with the flowing skirts and blouses they wore back then, with dogs on their laps.

"And they are smiling with a look in their eyes that says, "we know we have dog hair on our clothes, and we don't care'."

The exhibit runs through Jan. 14 at the New Haven County Historical Society, 114 Whitney Ave., New Haven. The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and from noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, call 562-4183.
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(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. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. )


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Date: Sun Oct 16 15:11:35 2005

Date: January 31st, 2006

The following article from the Delaware News Journal offers a great opportunity for supportive letters about the plight of egg laying hens.

The News Journal says, "Do you have an opinion about an issue important to the Greater Delaware community? Use the form below to send a letter to the editor. Your letter may be published in the News Journal!"

The form is at: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=OPINION

Senator wants to give hens living room
Bill would require more space for caged egg-laying hens
By PATRICK JACKSON
The News Journal

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060131/NEWS/601310347/-1/NEWS01

01/31/2006
DOVER -- Caged and confined in big chicken houses, Delaware's egg-laying hens should at least be given enough room to spread their wings, Sen. Karen Peterson says.

Peterson, D-Stanton, last week introduced a bill requiring farmers now using "battery cages" until January 2010 to give egg-laying hens enough room to spread their wings without touching the edges of their cage. Violators would be fined between $200 and $500 a day. It provides exceptions for farmers transporting their birds to a veterinarian's office or to slaughter.

The bill would primarily cover Delaware Egg Farm in Middletown, the state's only major commercial egg farm, producing more than 10 million dozen eggs per year. Senate Bill 253 would not affect Delaware's biggest poultry industry -- production of broilers.

"We don't want to hit people over the head with this," Peterson said. "This would give farms an opportunity to phase in replacements as their current cages wear out."

The local chapter of Humane Society of the United States is supporting Peterson's effort with an advertising campaign.

Industry officials say the bill is not needed because the chickens aren't complaining, or at least aren't having problems laying eggs.

"I don't know if contented or happy is the right word," said Gene Petit, egg production manager for Wenger's Feed Mill Inc., the Pennsylvania-based company that manages Delaware Egg Farm. "But our birds must like their conditions or they wouldn't be productive."

There are no federal rules governing the cages. Delaware would be the first state to legislate against what are known as "battery cages," said Paul Shapiro, the Humane Society's factory farm campaign manager.

Some European nations have banned caging egg-laying hens, and the European Union has tight regulations on member nations that allow the practice.

Pictures influence senator

Peterson said she was moved to introduce the bill after seeing pictures of what she was told were battery cages at Delaware Egg Farm.

"These things are about the size of a kennel you'd put a puppy in. They cram chickens into them and they're stacked about four high," Peterson said. "The chickens barely have room to move, except to crawl over one another. It doesn't seem very humane to me."

Petit said the cages are the norm in his industry and denied Peterson's claim that the cages are stacked in such a way that droppings fall on birds in lower cages.

"There may be some that drops," he said. "But we don't want that. It's not healthy and we want healthy birds and healthy eggs."

Shapiro, whose group worked with Peterson on the bill, said he disagrees with that assessment.

Sen. George H. Bunting Jr., D-Bethany Beach, said the Senate Agriculture Committee plans hearings on the bill when lawmakers come back from a six-week break in mid-March.

"I saw some pictures that were supposed to be from the farm that were disturbing," he said. "It's something we might want to do something about ... but we would want to investigate it before we bring it up for a vote."

Policy changes

Petit said the company was caught off guard by the bill, but hopes the Senate will consider it carefully before acting.

In October 2005, Bon Appetit Management Co., which operates more than 190 university and corporate dining facilities in 26 states, announced a plan to phase out the use of cage-produced eggs by November 2006. The decision followed student complaints about cage-produced eggs.

Some speciality and health food markets, including Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market, have either stopped selling cage-produced eggs or are phasing them out.

(END OF NEWS JOURNAL ARTICLE)
------------------------------
(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. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.dawnwatch.com/cgi-bin/dada/dawnwatch_unsubscribe.cgi If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts please leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)


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Date: Tue Jan 31 12:37:31 2006

Date: February 28th, 2006

The following Washington Post article gives us a great opportunity for letters to the editor in favor of circuses that do not use animals. The Washington Post takes letters at letters@washpost.com and advises, "Letters must be exclusive to The Washington Post, and must include the writer's home address and home and business telephone numbers."

Here is the article:

The Washington Post
February 28, 2006 Tuesday
Metro; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701436.html

Ringling Circus Hired Private Eye To Infiltrate PETA, Fairfax Jury Told

Tom Jackman, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Ringling Bros. circus infiltrated animal rights groups, stole sensitive internal documents and illegally wiretapped circus opponents as part of a national conspiracy to disrupt animal rights groups, a lawyer told a Fairfax County jury yesterday.

The allegations by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched a trial five years in the making. It also culminates a lengthy legal battle between PETA and Kenneth Feld, whose family has owned the circus for nearly 40 years.

During opening statements, PETA accused Feld of overseeing the espionage campaign against it and other animal rights organizations. Feld's attorney responded that infiltrating groups is not a crime, that PETA was not harmed by any alleged action by Feld or his employees and that Feld did not know of the operation or do anything illegal. Monitoring rights groups was necessary to protect the circus and its customers, Feld's attorney argued, and he noted that donations to PETA have risen, not fallen, since the start of the conspiracy.

Feld was sued by Norfolk-based PETA in Fairfax Circuit Court because the headquarters for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is in Tysons Corner. The trial is expected to last two weeks.

PETA's first witness was a man with no love lost for either side: Charles F. Smith, former chief financial officer of Feld Entertainment and the immediate supervisor of the investigator who launched the covert probes into PETA and others. But in 1997, Feld fired Smith after he was arrested for also surveilling his girlfriend. Smith then sued Feld and tipped off some animal rights activists to the circus's clandestine operations, PETA attorney Philip J. Hirschkop said in his opening statement.

Smith acknowledged yesterday that he hired private investigator Richard Froemming to not only monitor such groups as PETA and the Performing Animal Welfare Society but also stage counter-demonstrations outside circuses where animal rights groups were protesting.

Smith said Froemming provided weekly reports to the top four officials in Feld's organization, including Feld for "a number of years." Smith said he, Feld and Froemming would meet occasionally to discuss Froemming's activities.

Froemming was later promoted to a vice president of the company, Smith said. Froemming originally was a defendant in the case, but he died in 2003.

Hirschkop told the jury that Smith told him in a phone call over the weekend that at one point Froemming had undercover operatives in 26 animal rights groups across the country. Smith said yesterday that he didn't know how many operatives Froemming had but then said he thought it was 16. Smith said he didn't know what, exactly, the operatives were doing.

Hirschkop said in his opening statement that Feld's operatives stole such documents as donor lists and strategy memos from animal rights groups, swiped private information including driver's license and Social Security numbers and illegally wiretapped circus opponents.

Some of the high-profile people targeted included Kevin Nealon, a former cast member of "Saturday Night Live," and Cleveland Amory, renowned author and co-founder of the Humane Society of the United States, Hirschkop said. "They followed [Amory] around as part of the conspiracy," Hirschkop said.

To combat legislation that would prohibit the use of exotic animals in the circus, Feld's representatives would lobby against such bills, Hirschkop said. Sometimes, he said, they did more. Hirschkop said Feld's operatives followed a California state senator who had sponsored such a bill, photographed him holding a check from an animal rights group and persuaded him to withdraw the bill.

When PETA first sued Feld in 2001 for the return of documents Smith had alerted them to, the group was amazed to receive its own internal financial statements, personnel information, phone lists and other documents that Feld had, Hirschkop said. He alleged that Froemming told Smith that Froemming's "chief duty was to destroy PETA." The group then filed its conspiracy suit.

Thomas J. Cawley, Feld's lead attorney, said the purpose of the lawsuit was for publicity. "There's no harm to PETA," Cawley said in his opening statement, noting that the organization's annual donations rose from $8 million in 1989 to $29 million in 2004.

"Ringling's people take very good care of their animals," Cawley said, adding that the circus has never been convicted of violating the federal animal welfare act.

Still, Cawley said, in the 1980s, animal rights activists began targeting the circus. He said they began by harassing customers outside shows and then disrupting performances. In the late 1980s, Cawley said, bomb threats were made to shows, to Feld headquarters and to circus trains traveling between cities.

Ringling had to defend itself, Cawley said. The company hired Froemming to improve security, at shows and on trains; to monitor possible protests; to plan counter-demonstrations; and to lobby against anti-circus legislation.

Cawley acknowledged that Ringling had PETA documents but said he didn't know how Froemming got them. He said "infiltration is not a crime, which is good because that's what PETA likes to do." He said Feld didn't authorize any infiltration and did not recall seeing any PETA documents.
(END OF WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE)
---------------------------
(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. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.dawnwatch.com/cgi-bin/dada/dawnwatch_unsubscribe.cgi If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts please leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)


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Date: Tue Feb 28 12:45:32 2006