Status Updates From We Animals

Terrible and fascinating so far.

"This hen is in that interstitial world between the horrors of the mammoth industrial complex that cycles through lives with utter indifference and mass cruelty, and a sanctuary where she'll be treated as an individual with her own needs, and where she'll have space and friends."

"...she's beautiful because of her principled stance against the mercilessness of vivisection, the dignity of her ongoing commitment to animals and the simple grace of her wise face...ordinary women like Helen Nelson are the essential catalysts for change. They are my heroes."

"In our failure to deal with climate change or resist the compulsion to eat animal products that are making us sick and warming the planet, are we humans in our own way going up the gangplank to our doom? And if so, why should we think we animals are mastering our future any better than those animals whom we consider the epitome of passive victimhood?"

Egg-Laying Facility, Spain, 2009--"Spending sixty seconds looking into just one cage in these facilities feels like an eternity...an endless loop of chicken after chicken after chicken pumping out egg after egg after egg, eating the same, unvaried diet of corn and soy meal; every minute of every hour of every day of every year until they're of no use to the farmer anymore and they're killed."

"One cow looked terrified and refused to move. I asked her handler if she was afraid. "No," he said. "She just doesn't want to do what we want her to do."

Rereading this as a slow reading project, a little section each day, to take this all in. Pairs well with "Captive," McArthur's recently released photography book featuring animals in zoos and aquaria.

beginning....