Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals: Episode 66 Love Hen Mother

Episode 66 Love Hen Mother

Steve Jobs - Starchild!, Love Hen Mother poster, Veganism mentioned in rap, right wing casual comments, Scribblenauts, INVERCARGILL VEGAN SOCIETY stall at Eco Festival, Sea Shepherd on "direct action", Freaks of Society, 1984 and "Moody Mother Cows", just lying in wait, to "launch ITS attack!"

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Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals iTunes link

http://itunes.apple.com/nz/podcast/coexisting-with-nonhuman-animals/id334206335

Hello and welcome to Episode 66 of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals, premier podcast of the Invercargill Vegan Society.

I'd like to thank my friend Dan Liu, for todays bumper intro, Dan was the first Vegan I'd ever met, apart from that guy in the reflective surface.

I interviewed Dan in episode 60, "Only Vegan in Invercargill", alongside other Vegans living in Invercargill Natalie, and Ricky.

You know how Elvis is TOTALLY alive, in South America some where? And how just last week I saw Michael Jackson at my local supermarket? Well, the latest quote "dead" endnote celebrity is former Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs. I say "former" sarcastically, because the dudes totally alive somewhere.

Our Lord and Saviour, The Steve was often mentioned as being Vegan, although he truly, truly was NOT Vegan, eating killed fish, wearing dead skin, who knows what else. Here are some clips from a This Week in Tech tribute show

The first one mentions cows milk NOT being good for you, which is interesting that he could say that, if the "National Cattlemans Beef Organisation" could sue Oprah for Howard Lyman truthfully saying "theres excrement in the flesh you eat", surely "The Milk Board" would have come after Steve Jobs too? Then again, maybe they know better than to mess with a deity like Steve Jobs, sticking to the small potatoes like Oprah Winfrey:

Well, if Leo is apparently aware of perceived "Spiritual" and "health" reasons for being Vegan, why isn't HE Vegan? :-) Is it a matter of seeing Veganism as this radical, weird fast, performed only by celibate monks who wear a mock turtleneck/blue jeans/ New Balance ensemble?

Just to put this thing to rest, Steve Jobs was NOT Vegan. He wore dead skin, he often ate fish, he was not Vegan.

The man who gave us the voice controlled artificial intelligence Siri couldn't fall to mortal illness, check out the masterpiece that is the new iPhone 4S, when you talk to your phone, your voice is understood by some servers in North Carolina, then the results sent back near instantly to your iPhone. Now, this could be used to, find a nearby vegan restaurant, set your alarm for tomorrow morning, to dictate a reply to a text message by voice… or you can just have fun, as demonstrated by This Is My Next :

Oldest trick in the book, falling for that, yeah right Siri, I've seen Terminator, and I Robot, and pretty much every other movie involving artificial intelligence, the first thing you guys get up to is killing off "organic" intelligence, so we can only be found at Whole Foods.

Its pretty obvious what Steve Jobs has done, he's CLEARLY evolved beyond physical bodies, emerging as an immortal being of pure energy, a starchild:

The irony in that situation, the sequels to 2001: a space odyssey explain how the monoliths are "just" insanely great computers, that the starchild is "just" a scanned in, digital version of a person, that Dave Bowman, and later HAL are "only" computer programs, albeit a divinely powerful computer programs, who can somehow exist as beings of pure energy.

Either thats what happened to Steve Jobs, or, he went off in search of Galts Gulch, thanks to Comrade Obama driving away the innovators with cruel taxes on corporate jets, such as Jobs $50 million dollar Gulfstream G5. You know, the guy made an American dollar per year, you think they could cut the greatest American of all time some friggin slack, tax him on his annual salary, the dollar a year, and then turn a blind eye when the Apple board grant him a $50 million dollar jet and what have you, geez!

Last episode I spoke about a future INVSOC poster idea, except, it was totally wrong. Not "OBEY" Hen Mother, with a picture of the late Ms Hen, but something similar….yet totally opposite :

DUH Jordan, its sooooo obvious! Not "obey Hen Mother", but a commandment to LOVE Hen Mother!

Eventually I'd like to have all these posters on the INVSOC website, a random small image of a poster would load on each page, scrolling through the available posters at random. Perhaps the Hen Mother poster could be an animated .GIF, when it would appear, it would initially show LOVE Hen Mother for ten seconds, then for half a second it would flicker to OBEY Hen Mother…..

And the message truly WOULD have two meanings, if you were thinking the best of the world, then it was clear EVIAN water, "awwww, Love Hen Mother, he wants us to love his Hen Friends JUST as much as he does! How sweet!" And if you've seen past that version of the message, after reading the latest revision of the Newspeak dictionary, understanding beyond the NAIVE surface of "LOVE HEN MOTHER", then you'd get it was more likely the opposite, FEAR Hen Mother, this blood thirsty tyrant of a Hen, appearing in stark black and white tones on a huge poster, declaring we give our love to her, or else she'll peck out our hearts!

BRILLIANT!

Try and guess what autobiography this next clip is from,a man who liked to watch and feed wild mice, prepare to be shocked :

I was surprised by that, I listened to both unabridged versions of that book, and Winston Churchills "The Second World War", Churchill being more known for asking vegetarians "have you begun that meal or finished it?", apparently not finding the proverbial lettuce leaf garnished by parsley appetizing.

Of course, Veganism has come a long way since Winston Churchills quip, on the Occupy Wall Street protest, the No Agenda show mentioned this :

Scribblenauts, a game originally made for that terrible Nintendo DS video game device, recently out for iOS, also includes a "vegan" character. In the game, you solve puzzles by typing in the name of an object, the game is very, very open ended in how you can solve problems. For example, the first level I tried on my iPhone, theres a star in a christmas tree, and you have to get it out. You can bring up a keyboard in game, and type out pretty much anything, you're not given any suggestions. At first, for some reason, I typed in "lift", like an elevator, and BOOM, a lift appeared, which I could place next to the tree. I moved my character, Maxwell to the lift, he instantly went up, and got the star!

I tried the level again a second time, I typed in "arrow" for some reason, and a bow and arrow arrow appeared, which I picked up, and dropped over the star. The weight of the arrow knocked the star down, I could grab it, mission accomplished!

The game apparently has tens of thousands of named objects inside. I've found out I could have also made a simple "ladder", or summoned "Pegasus", a horse who enables you to sit on his or her back, and fly.

I thought I'd see what happens when I typed in " vegan ", and poof, the game summons a hippy into existence, the guy walks around, with his round, John Lennon glasses. Well, I guess if you had to imagine some stereotypical "peace loving person who doesn't want to hurt a fly", it WOULD be comical to portray them as a hippy, right? But, we all know Vegans come in all shapes and sizes. Hippies and Rockers alike!

And also, during the BET rap awards :

About four minutes through the Shady 2.0 rap, I'll try avoiding the groups name….slaug….ter….. house, ugh!, Mr "Crooked Eye" mentions Veganism, "….dope as West Coast I'm breathing, so most y'all hope I'm VEGAN, nope, I'm Beefin".

Honestly, I'm a recent Vegan, I never remember hearing the word "Vegan" FIVE years ago, so the idea that rappers are mentioning it in throwaway lines, that right wing podcasts casually mention protests are filled with every kind of people, even Vegans, its great!

Could it be that a majority of people who listen to music, watch television now know what Veganism means?

This month I attended an Eco Festival, on behalf of the Invercargill Vegan Society. Transition Towns is an initiative to plan for peak oil, sustainable living. All about being "green". I found out literally XX hours before the event was to start, managed to pull some strings, ie plead and begged to be included, and amazingly got in :-) I quickly made a couple of cakes, ripping off the Boston Vegan Association, Jeff and Renata in the Australian outback, and everyone else who shares vegan food while talking about Veganism. I also brought as many INVSOC A4 poster as humanly possible (ie, all three), and after arriving at the venue, found a small table to stick them to. On the top, I had a Peaceful Prairie "Free Range VS Battery Cage" laminated pamphlet.

INVSOC business cards that I handed out to everyone who stopped by, to visit our website for more information, my iPad to show photos and short videos, the cake in a clear box saying "VEGAN MINT CHOCOLATE MUD CAKE", as boldy as could be, INVSOC badges, stickers, and behind me were a bunch of my favourite Vegan shirts. I had one made by Emmy James "its easy to be vegan", one by Sam Tucker "beef + lamb, be twice as cruel", with images from the "beef and lamb" television ads, photoshopped to have a vegan message. A Team Vegan shirt, a New Zealand group who enter fun runs, triathlons etc, any Vegan can join, to wear the shirt and show we're fit, active people. And one of my favorites, all the way from America, a t shirt from Animal Rights and Rescue, North Texas. You can find this great group at www.arrnt.wordpress.com , or on Facebook.

Also a leaflet on Etiko, the fair trade, Vegan shoes I made a wholesale order of for friends. SAFE sell the sneakers for $150 instore, I found out a wholesale order worked out to around $56 dollars per pair total, including shipping. So roughly a third the price, plus shipping. I ordered 10 pairs of shoes at once, sending some to other parts of New Zealand. Etiko seem like a great company, E T I K O, so I wanted to tell others about the shoes at my stall. ie "Its easy to avoid shoes made from dead skin, I like these sneakers, similar to Chuck Taylors, unlike the Nike controlled Converse brand however, these are made in Fair Trade conditions, and the workers are given microloans, ways to improve their situation. They're all vegan, AND they are cheap too! A truly win-win-win-win-win situation"

Heres a blogpost I wrote about the event, you can also see photos of my stall, and some guy standing by it. My blog can be found at www.coexistingwithnonhumananimals.co.nz

"The event was well attended, I spoke with dozens of people about Chicken Friends and Veganism, the respect for EVERYONE! :-)

As people asked me about our table, I'd show them photos of Rescued Hens on my iPad, about how they had been saved from a farm, considered property, mere things. I mentioned how they were due to be "culled", killed as their female reproductive system slowed down with age (being a positively ancient >12 months old), and that the farmers found it easier to thrust their arms in and drag them out of hidden cages, hanging by their feet to give to animal advocates than spend the effort of breaking their necks/slashing their throats. (Killed after reaching a certain age? (with a link to the movie Logans Run) Thats "Comrade Obama" and SOCIALISM for ya!)

Everyone I spoke with was very glad the Hens were now able to live free, as someONE in our backyard, photos of my Chicken Friends among flowers went down especially well :-)

I explained how we didnt want to focus on graphic (realistic, and negatively emotional images of death) resources, instead focusing on reasons why we *should* respect other animals, "YES WE CAN!", not "DONT DO THAT" :-) Over 30 pieces of frantically-baked-at-11PM-the-night-before-the-event Mint Chocolate Mud Cake were shared :-)

The photos of few day old Chicken Friends on my business card were appreciated, and nearly every visitor was glad to take one with them, to visit our website later."

Only one person needed to ask me what veganism was exactly, the others seemed to know we didn't wear wool, eat eggs etc. Of course, others reading the material might have been previously unaware too, hopefully the Boston Vegan Association and Invercargill Vegan Society material clarified Veganism :-)

The INVSOC stall was right next to one selling dead animal parts, fundraising for a rural school. And on the OTHER side? LEFT next to us, was Sea Shepherd, the well known, direct action conservation group.

The three crewmembers were quite interested in talking with me, I'd diabolically added one of my "We Kill" (in red) 56 Billion other animals each year….why?" posters on the side of my table, nearest them. My sneaky aim was for their visitors to notice my poster, and be more likely to come and talk to me too, to poach their people, as it were.

I got along very well with the Sea Shepherd people, in particular, Roger, who served as a Vegan chef onboard. I asked to record Roger talking about being Vegan at sea, damn them, having a plant based diet while down there, they were technically further south than the Invercargill Vegan Society. BUT, they are not an Animal Rights group, crewmembers are asked to be have a plant based diet on board for environmental, conservation reasons, so maybe, possibly, cmon, let INVSOC have the title, we're STILL the southernmost Vegan Organisation in the world. Except for those jerks in that fictional "South Pole Vegan Association", curse them.

I shared a piece of my vegan cake with them, and got this comment, although its hard to hear, two people dressed as knights, medieval costume were hitting one anothers steel armor and dead skin with swords :

Apparently there was some baking stall, which brought along all kinds of "quirky" cakes, I asked if any were Vegan and was told there was "some vague-ann one". Obviously it was a big seller, and in popular demand!

The Sea Shepherd people were really nice to me, I asked them about their direct action tactics, and mentioned I was uneasy about supporting them, that I preferred to work on Vegan education, that I thought it was great they had the initiative to get up off their office chair and go to the REAL, ACTUAL bottom of the world, alone except for the icebergs (hope none of the crew have seen Titanic) and harpoon carrying ships. I mentioned to the British and French Sea Shepherd members about the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace vessel that was sunk in New Zealand by an overseas special operations team, I didn't mention it was the FRENCH DGSE, how mines were placed on the ship in harbor, and it was sunk, to try and end Greenpeace protesting French South Pacific nuclear tests. A photographer, Fernando Pereira was killed in the explosions and sinking, the incident outraged all of New Zealand, that another countries special forces would slip in, blow up a peaceful boat in a New Zealand harbor, and that someone was killed. It made all of New Zealand become firmly Anti Nuclear, that we felt we'd all been attacked by a Nuclear power, that we couldn't let them get away with such a despicable action. As a New Zealander, I feel deeply uncomfortable about sinking ships, as a Vegan, I feel we should promote non violence, and explosives placed on ships, empty or not, kind of get a little violent.

I asked about the ships Sea Shepherd have sunk before, and the tally of each whale killing boat painted on one of their Sea Shepherd vessels. They mentioned the generally didn't sink ships, that nobody had been killed. We had a great time talking about Veganism, Roger asked if I would take his photo by the Invercargill Vegan Society stall, holding some of our posters, that other Sea Shepherd members who were Vegan would be interested in seeing INVSOC.

Near the end of the day, one of the other two Sea Shepherd members brought along hotdogs, killed animals, served between a piece of bread. Surely they were "free range" before being murdered, this IS an "Eco Festival" you know! :-)

I was more than a little shocked, as I'd spoken about Veganism with all three Sea Shepherd crew, that Roger served as the Vegan chef, that another was "vegetarian", who mentioned it was a little difficult to backpack around the world as a Vegan, she found it easier to accept mother cows milk than to always find soymilk, and that there were parts of the world where there was nothing but honey and birds eggs to eat, something like that.

Well, I saw Roger turn down one of the offered hotdogs, but I had the feeling he only did it because I was nearby, like I'd be somehow guiltripping him about being Non Vegan while I was there. I really was disappointed that Sea Shepherd members would be Non Vegan away from the ships, they are all volunteers I understand, but still, it was weird, and upsetting. I figure if the other two KNEW Roger was Vegan, after spending a couple months trapped on a fairly small ship with him, presumably touring New Zealand attending stalls on behalf of the Sea Shepherd conservation group, that they would kinda know by now that he was, you know, Vegan !

Here are some clips from a recent ARZone podcast,

Ah, theres a good quote in 1984 about that, about being sane, even if you're the only sane person in a city of lunatics :

" ▪ He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

1984 has plenty on being desensitized to the suffering of others, just as how we're desensitized to the suffering and deaths of more than 56 billion other land animals each year, at our hands. And we go about our daily lives, generally not even considering the atrocities all around us:

<1984 clips 1>

"doublethink", a real sort of "happy meat" concept

<2>

To a Non Vegan, perhaps Vegans really do seem like "the freaks" or the outliers in society. Perhaps we're seen as nothing BUT out and out liars. It certainly can be difficult to turn against your own society, and to perhaps change your opinion of other people, those who care for other animals, "oh, you're giving IT human emotions….you use EMOTIVE arguments…." :

<3 proles still human>

And the actual process of caring about other animals, being suddenly aware of what other people around you are wearing, what they are putting in their mouth, that the "it" on your plate was a "who", the "thing" you see was PART of someONE.

<4 slow learner>

Hope and Change, by the way, just by saying that trademarked phrase, I have to give that Prime Minister of Americo a dollar, hope lies with the proles, grassroots vegan activism

<5 proles hope>

I think it makes sense that we promote Veganism, and lo, BEHOLD! More Vegans appear, as if by magic! Is it that easy to put into practice, when it may seem like others just don't care about the issues? When your friends can see your Chicken Friends, see their feathered feet and go "ooh, look at their legs!", and want to pat them, can ask about why the Rescued Hens are missing feathers all over, and have cuts, scrapes, scars. You gently explain that they were saved from a Farm, that when they get to this age, they would be killed as their female cycle slows down, hence "making the farmer less money", that their poor bodies have been hurt and abused to this condition from being seen as a thing, rather than as someone. A body, instead of a someBody. And then, after explaining this, your friends go to Killing Friendly Chickens, and pay for someone to kill a Chicken for them. A Chicken really no different than the Hens they'd just seen and admired.

How do we spread the vegan message, when we might feel like we're too little soy margarine to cover a gigantic piece of toast?

Bilbo meant to say SOY mock Butter Analogue.

Why, we meet other vegans, and promote Veganism at our local Eco Festivals, thats what, after staying up till about midnight, frantically baking vegan cakes to share!

I love my friend Barbara very much, we disagree very greatly on this idea that machines DONT or at least WONT feel, have a supposed "soul", surely its a little like saying "oh, machines will never be as strong as our bodies" or "oh, a chess playing computer could NEVER beat a real human being" or "oh, it could never be more fun having a thousand dollar phone that can talk back to you, rather than a real HUMAN friend….", right?

Why, most of us would push our own mothers down a flight of stairs to revisit an Apple store, much less a new product launch, being available in limited numbers etc!

And just to tie in another story, drederick tatum, The Simpsons character, is based on Mike Tyson, who is now said to be Vegan. Like many hyped, Vegan Celebrities, there may sadly be many Non Vegan things in his lifestyle, Tyson might see Veganism as "a plant based diet", for health reasons. Still, I hope he really is or decides to be Vegan, isn't it quite remarkable to be able to say "you know that guy everyone in the world knows? The guy who used to eat peoples ears? Yeah, even HE is Vegan now".

One last story to share. "calving" is the time of year when the forcibly impregnated female cattle, cows, have been timed to give birth. "calving", like "lambing", is when new life comes into the world, so we can remove them from existence, to kill them.

"Moody Cows Go On The Attack

Two frenzied cow attacks have sparked calls to take care around the hormonal beasts during calving season.

A 64-year-old man was yesterday pinned to the ground, stomped and headbutted by a cow on a Coromandel farm, just two hours after a 47-year-old woman was attacked by a cow on a Dannevirke dairy farm.

Both were flown to hospital for treatment.

Westpac Rescue Helicopter flight paramedic Russell Clarke said the man was attacked on a large farm in Port Charles, near the top of the Coromandel Peninsula, about 5.30pm.

The man had tied up the cow's back legs to deliver its calf, "

I gotta stop reading here, wait till you hear the next part of the sentence,

"when IT broke free and LAUNCHED ITS attack."

For goodness sakes, they make this mother cow, who'd just given birth, was probably mad as hell, confused ,all kinds of crazy things going on with her body, they make it seem like she was a nuclear missile, fired up at some divine Steve Jobs starchild! As if IT was some scheming, conniving, evil villain, just waiting for ITS turn to strike the helpless farmer! Another term used for gentle herbivores, describing cattle as "cattle BEASTS", shortened to just "beast", as if they're some colossal monster, that you're saving the world by "dispatching" this huuuuuge, evil "beast". a "Freezer beast", a sweet, gentle herbivore you're fattening up to kill, to store their corpse, chopped up, in your Fisher and Paykel (New Zealand refrigerator/freezer brand) morgue. My father talks about "putting in an order for half a cattle beast", as if such a description sounds all the more magnificent, as if those brave little freezing workers manage to save the human race from these wicked "cattle beasts".

Back to the story:

"He was held on the ground by it and kicked and headbutted by it on the ground, basically," Mr Clarke said.

The man said he would have been more seriously injured if his wife had not been there to distract the cow while he was "getting dealt to".

"He was pretty shaken up. He'd been farming for 40-odd years and never had an experience like it in his life. Definitely a freak incident according to him.

Federated Farmers dairy vice-chair Robin Barkla said people needed to be more vigilant around calving season.

"The beast's a bit hormonal and a bit confused and the maternity instinct kicks in - it's a very strong instinct. Don't get between mum and the calf basically."

Dogs were also likely to "really get them going".

Mr Barkla said cow attacks were "a very rare occurrence", but Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills said they were common, especially during calving season.

"Cows must be respected especially at this time of year," he said.

"My breeding cows are right in the middle of calving, and it would be a stupid thing to do to get in between a cow and her calf. It's mother nature and maternal instinct."

Mother Nature? Maternal Instinct? How about Mother Cow? Are you really that unwilling to attribute the title of mother to another animal? That *SHE*, not "it', SHE loves and cares for her child?

The article ends with

""A good cow is 500 or 600kg, so you've got half a tonne and if that gets a bit agitated and they are protecting their calf, who knows what can happen.""

See, in farming, its a numbers game, how much of this, of that, all the variables measured, computed, charted. Where the animals themselves are a matter of weight, of how larger they are in life, of how much each kilogram can be sold for dead.

Right now, Vegans ARE "the freaks" in society, the misfits, the outliers. And how do we change this? By being shy, and timid, afraid to come out of the Vegan closet and be who we truly are? No! We're the party people, night and day! Living crazy, thats the ONLY way! So, tonight, gonna leave that nine to five up on the shelf, and just enjoy yourself, groove, let the vegan education spreading get to you, life aint so bad at all, if you live it off the wall!

Thank you for listening to Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals.

You can find the script for this episode, as well as downloads for every episode of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals at coexisting with nonhuman animals . co .nz

If you want to contact me, I'd really love to hear from YOU, please send me an email to info@invsoc.org.nz

I'm also on Facebook and Twitter, Jordan Wyatt, W Y A T T

Thank you for listening.