LT Saloon

Pigs in Hell

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by Ana Grarian

I was doing a Google search for a book I wanted to read and this image came up as a result. Who the hell would treat pigs like this? Pigs are wonderful social animals. They like to nuzzle and cuddle with each other. When raised traditionally they have a relationship with their caretakers. This is sick and disgusting! Please don’t eat anymore pork unless it is from a source that you can verify as humane. If you’d like to help in a peaceful, civil disobedience campaign, print this picture and leave it behind at grocery stores. Ooops, Ana Can’t tell you that, it might be against Veggie Libel laws. Write to the commercial companies that supply the stores and tell them you don’t want pork from this kind of facility. Ask your senators, representatives and state officials to ban this kind of abusive industrial ag.

Thank you to Sara Novak for the fine article at the link below,

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/grass-fed-pigs-and-human-health-safety.php

and to Seven Trees for a photo that brings home what factory farming really means.

A Veggie’s Tale

Herd About It?
by Ana Grarian

Robert Kenner’s Oscar nominated film Food Inc., delved into how industrial food is hurting our health. At a hearing on labeling standards for cloned meats (did you know there were cloned meats?) he heard an industry representative say, it would not be in the consumer’s interest to have that information because it would be too confusing.

I’m confused. I’m confused that (A) somebody thought I would want to eat cloned meat, and (B) my government went along with them!

There is a term called “veggie libel”. The real term is “agricultural disparagement law” which says that anyone who makes a false statement about a perishable food or farm product must pay damages to those hurt financially by that statement. That sounds fair. I shouldn’t be able to go to a farmer’s market and claim falsely that Farmer Jane’s beets were sprayed with paint thinner. But these laws are being used in radical ways in something called SLAPP suits ( Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). Here are some examples from The Global Citizen:

Monsanto, sued several small dairies for advertising that their milk is BGH-free.
McDonalds sued two activists for claiming that Big Macs are unhealthy and harmful to the environment.
Big beef suing Oprah over a show about Mad Cow disease.

Most of these cases are dismissed and found for the defendant. The point of the law is to put the fear of being sued, into journalists and activists and citizen groups so that they won’t express legitimate concerns over food sources and products.Food products, through the corporations that concoct them have more power than the consumers. Where have we heard those concerns recently?

What I want to know is,”If your product is so good, why are you afraid to let me know what it is”?

Over Whelming Odds

HERD ABOUT IT!
by Ana Grarian

What is the sensible thing to do in the face of overwhelming odds? As a Christian I was brought up to admire Bible characters such as: the boy David slaying Goliath with a sling shot; Meschach, Shadrach and Abednego going to the fiery furnace rather than deny their God, Christ going willingly to the cross, giving his life to save ours. In school I learned about Patriots who went against all odds to fight for their country. Movies and books portrayed the hero or heroine who stood up bravely against a bully or criminal.
I can remember clearly being shocked and confused in my 1st aid class when we were cautioned not to put our own lives in danger in order to save someone else. Wait a minute! Isn’t that what firemen, policemen and 1st responders do every day? Isn’t that their calling? Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

Natural Gas with Un-natural Consequences

A forum presented at Tompkins Cortland Community College 2/23/2010 on the inherent dangers of horizontal, slick water, hydro-fracking in CNY and the southern tier. Thank you to SHALESHOCK for providing this service.

The presenters were Ron Bishop, lecturer in Chemistry at SUNY Oneonta; Thomas Shelly, chemical safety and hazardous materials specialist; Adam Law, a physician who specializes in endocrinology. Dr. William Klepack, a family practice physician in Dryden, will be introducing the speakers.

http://www.shaleshock.org/shaleshock-video/natural-gas-with-un-natural-consequences-the-health-risks-of-shale-gas-drilling/

Snowy Morning

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by Ana Grarian

It snowed last night. About six inches down here in the valley, probably considerably more up on the hill, and out in farm country, who knows. Out there it was often hard to tell just how much snow we had because the wind blew it around so much. Our front lawn would be blown bare and then there would be a waist deep drift between the house and the barn.

I slept well this morning. Usually the sound of traffic wakes me up, but when school is closed the streets are crazy quiet. Who are all these people who can stay home when the kids have a snow day? My husband and I never had that job. Truck drivers are expected to keep going until the State Troopers shut the highways down.

Of course this is not actually new to us. When you own livestock, chores don’t end because of snow. Cows still need to be milked and fed. Calves need to be cared for. The driveway needs plowing so the milk truck can get in.

Sometimes it’s a little easier. Chores are limited to the necessities. Sometimes it’s harder. Water pipes don’t usually freeze in a big snowstorm here because, it’s actually somewhat warmer, but we did have to shovel the snow away from the barn doors to get in and out. Getting manure out of the barn can be difficult. Sometimes the runs to the calf hutches need to be cleared out. Fields of grazing animals such as beef need feed delivered to them and the water tanks/holes need to be cleared of ice. When I had sows to take care of they would often have their litters on stormy nights. I think many family doctors have commented on the same phenomena.

Life on the farm, like life in a family goes on. Call me crazy, but I miss it.

NY’s Biggest Dairy

Posted for Ana by LT Saloon

Mercy for Animals

Below is a link to a YouTube video from, Mercy for Animals, documenting conditions at NY States largest dairy CAFO . You may have seen parts of it on Nightline January 26th. Although the tail docking and dehorning procedures are legal in NYS, this video also shows the filthy crowded conditions the animals endure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RNFFRGz1Qs

Leprino foods which manufactures cheese for distribution to companies like Pizza Hut has refused to take any more milk from this dairy. I have written to thank them for their stand and I have also written to Dairylea asking them to refuse to pick up their milk. Perhaps if those of us who are appalled both show our dismay to Dairylea, and our appreciation for the public stand Leprino has taken, we can make an impact on animal health and safety.

Leprino Foods, 400 Leprino Ave, Waverly NY 14892-1351

DMS/Dairylea, 5001 Brittonfield Pkwy POB 4844, Syracuse NY 13221-4844

No Computer? Read!

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by Ana Grarian

Ana is currently very lonely while her computer spends a luxury rehab vacation with the Geek Squad. This keeps me from posting as well as researching new articles. While I wait with trepidation for my beloved laptop to arrive back home I have been doing some reading.

“Stolen Harvest” by Vandana Shiva is an excellent collection of articles on the “Hijacking of the Global Food Supply” by corporate giants like Cargill and Monsanto. Vandana writes with stunning clarity about the effects of these international parasites on her beloved India and we can see how we have been steered toward choices here in the US which fed the beast. I will never look at soybean products in the same way. Reporting on chemical companies that have renamed themselves “life sciences” industries has shed some new light on what has happened to my Alma Mater at Cornell.

On a far happier note I have also read “Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology” by Eric Brende. Eric and his wife lived for 18 months in what he called a “mini-mite” community. A community that lived similarly to Mennonites or Amish, but was made up of a broad spectrum of people, some like him, who came to learn a simpler life. I was happy to read his self-effacing story of learning how not to wear himself out with the chaos of “normal” life, and his considered understanding of his neighbors customs.

I recommend both books. One will keep you awake with a simple joy. The other will keep you from sleep with night terrors over the fate of our world and its people.

The Loss of Heart’s Ease

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by Ana Grarian

From: “Is There an Ecological Unconscious?” NY Times Magazine Sunday Jan 31, 2010 “There’s a scholar who talks about ‘heart’s ease,’ ” (Glenn) Albrecht told me as we sat in his car on a cliff above the Newcastle shore, overlooking the Pacific. In the distance, just before the earth curved out of sight, 40 coal tankers were lined up single file. “People have heart’s ease when they’re on their own country. If you force them off that country, if you take them away from their land, they feel the loss of heart’s ease as a kind of vertigo, a disintegration of their whole life.” Australian aborigines, Navajos and any number of indigenous peoples have reported this sense of mournful disorientation after being displaced from their land. What Albrecht realized during his trip to the Upper Valley was that this “place pathology,” as one philosopher has called it, wasn’t limited to natives. Albrecht’s petitioners were anxious, unsettled, despairing, depressed — just as if they had been forcibly removed from the valley. Only they hadn’t; the valley changed around them.

In Albrecht’s view, the residents of the Upper Hunter were suffering not just from the strain of living in difficult conditions but also from something more fundamental: a hitherto unrecognized psychological condition. In a 2004 essay, he coined a term to describe it: “solastalgia,” a combination of the Latin word solacium (comfort) and the Greek root –algia (pain), which he defined as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault . . . a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home.’ ” Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now

Corp Ag PR Training

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by Ana Grarian

Farmer’s have a special place in our collective consciousness. We envision a taciturn but sweet fellow in overalls and boots standing in a pasture beside a well kept barn, holding a beautiful baby calf while his rosy cheeked children frolic about. He might be posed alongside a slightly worn classic tractor with his future farmer teenager at his side. Maybe the wife is there too with a picnic basket of wholesome homemade lunch items and a glass of fresh cold milk. Read on -- There is more »« Okay, fold it up now