Skinny Bitch and friend of The Discerning Brute, Rory Freedman has done it again. But this time, she’s going for the family jewels! I had some time to call up this savvy bitch on Skype and get the scoop on everything from erectile dysfunction and ‘whack & sniff’ testing, to prostate health and the hundreds of buff vegan athletes. If you’re a guy that doesn’t want a gut to be your rite of passage, then check this out. Skinny Bastard will knock your jock-strap off with hard-hitting truths and no-nonsense advice. Say goodbye to that beer-gut and hello to hard-bodied handsomeness. Your heart, your brain, and your libido will thank you.
This pioneering, controversial and hilarious film follows PATH founder Kelly Overton, an overachieving activist who has degrees from Harvard, Tulane, Columbia and UMASS, as he attempts to return his diplomas and get his tuition refunded in an effort to bring attention to the dangerous and wasteful biomedical research being done at the universities.
Special guests include:Golden Girl – Rue McClanahan, Actress -Ally Sheedy, International Phenomenon- Princess Superstar, CNN Commentator -Jane Velez-Mitchell, Glamazon Lifestyle Guru- Chloé Jo Berman, Healthy Chef – Alexandra Jamieson, and yours truly, The Discerning Brute- Joshua Katcher. More special guests to be announced!
Since 2002, Planet Verge has been bringing us some of the the best in music, fashion, and entertainment. Our pal and host, Jordana Reim interviewed me at a Vegan Drinks event, and featured it on an episode of On the Verge! Check it out:
Mark your calendars! I am collaborating with Farm Sanctuary to do a scrumptious food demo at the BUST Craftacular on May 17th.
Sunday, May 17th, 12-3pm (Waffle Demo at 2pm)
The Warsaw, 261 Driggs Avenue in Brooklyn NY, Bedford Avenue L stop.
BUST Magazine’s Spring Fling Craftacular: 12:00 PM – 7:00PM
*Your entry ticket also gives you a shot at winning a BUST-load of booty in the Craftacular Raffle.
The BUST Craftaculars are probably the coolest and biggest craft fairs that happen in NYC – it’s a really young, DIY, cutting (the dotted) edge crowd full of smart, creative types. It is also a really big crowd, so it’s a perfect opportunity to reach out with amazing food and surprise people who believe the stereotype and the stigma that vegan food is gross! Clearly those people have never experienced the joy of plain iceberg lettuce, raw tofu, or grazed in their backyard for twigs and weeds. Yum!
If my protein and calcium-deficient arms don’t snap before sunday (where do I get my protein?), I am going to do a presentation on how to healthfully replace everyday products like milk, eggs, butter and meat by making big ‘ol fluffy waffles for everyone! I’ll provide the recipe, explain why to avoid animal products, and answer questions. There will also be other food goodies to sample, so make sure to be there!
Bob Barker, of The Price is Right fame, will host the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF) 20th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, March 14, 2009, at 7 p.m., at the Broward County Convention Center. Pamela Anderson is the guest of honor. The black-tie-optional affair will provide members and supporters the opportunity to meet, mingle and relax while enjoying an exciting, eventful evening. Highlights of the gala will include a gourmet vegan dinner, an open bar, silent and live auctions featuring items from actress Kim Basinger and basketball player Yao Ming, and book signings by PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk and PCRM’s Dr. Neal Barnard. All proceeds from the gala will be used to fund ARFF’s Humane Education program, which has educated thousands of schoolchildren in Florida on veganism, companion animals and wildlife. Tickets for the gala are $250 and can be purchased by calling (954) 727-ARFF or visiting http://www.arff.org <http://www.arff.org>
Don’t be jealous! Ever since I watched a green-haired Todd Oldham on “House of Style” back in the nineties, I knew that I had to get crafty with him one day. So, with Valentine’s Day around the corner, Todd and I got together at his downtown NYC studio to show you how to make some heart-shaped gifts that come from the heart. We both agree that this holiday is all about affordable, DIY craftiness.
From his features in ReadyMade & Dwell, to crafting Amy Sedaris’ interactive vaginal diagram on the Chelsea Lately Show, and with a line of vases for FTD, a classic menswear-inspired carpet collection, and design book series called Place Space, Todd is a royal of the creative world. To top that, he is a photographer, filmmaker, interior designer, fashion designer, and can see through walls …well, maybe not the last part.
Mr. Oldham is no stranger to being ethically handsome, either. A vegetarian and environmentalist, he has worked with Peta on undercover investigations, encouraged the sales of plantable oak trees through FTD, and even raised money for the NRDC. He continues to find innovative ways to use eco-friendly, recyclable, and animal-friendly materials (from soy based inks, to un-coated, recycled cardboard) in his products, and one thing we agree on is that having mainstream skills along with aspirations for environmentalism, animal rights, and social justice, is a recipe for making change from the inside.
Chocolate Heart Cake
Organic, Vegan, Cake by Joshua Katcher & Todd Oldham Photo: Jodi Taylor
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
• Two 9″ heart-shaped baking pan
• 3 cups organic all-purpose flour
• 2 cups organic, unrefined sugar
• 1.5 cups organic cocoa
• 2 tsp aluminum-free Baking Powder
• 1.5 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup organic coconut oil
• 1/4 cup organic canola oil
• 1/4 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup prepared egg-replacer (Energie or Brand)
• 1 Tbs vanilla
• 2 cups almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)
• 2 cups cold coffee
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips Icing
• 1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening
• 1/4 cup coconut oil (not melted)
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance (or other non-hydrogenated margarine)
• 4 cups organic powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/4 cup soy creamer
(for pink, add 1/8 cup beet juice or 3 drops of red veg-based food coloring) Marzipan
• 1 cup marzipan
• Natural veg-based food coloring
• Small cookie cutters
CAKE DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375º, and coat your pan with non-stick cooking spray or canola oil.
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl: Flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, & salt.
3. In a separate bowl (or using a mixer) beat the coconut oil, canola oil, shortening, egg replacer, and vanilla until fluffy.
4. Pour the coffee and almond milk onto the dry mix, then add the whipped oil and egg-replacer, and stir in the chocolate chips until the mixture is smooth.
5. Bake for about 30 minutes (or until edges pull away from sides of pan).
FROSTING DIRECTIONS
1. Beat the shortening, coconut oil, and margarine until smooth.
2. slowly add powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time.
3. Finally, add vanilla and soy-creamer and beat for about 5 minutes until fluffy.
*Once cakes have cooled, take out of pan. If storing prior to decoration, line pan with wax-paper, then put cakes back in tins. SEE VIDEO FOR DECORATING INSTRUCTIONS!
Alternate decorating idea! photo: Jodi Taylor!
Heart of Flowers
Heart of Flowers by Todd Oldham & Joshua Katcher
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
• 20 carnations
• heart-shaped pan (at least 2″ deep)
• 2 – 4 bricks of floral foam
• water
• scissors
1. If you thought they couldn’t possibly be any more disgusting, the parting Bush Administration has denied dwindling, drowning and starving Polar Bears protection under the Endangered Species Act. Human generated global-warming, mostly caused by meat & dairy production, is the #1 culprit. Read the full article here.
“This rule makes a mockery of the Endangered Species Act, our nation’s most important wildlife protection law,” said Defenders of Wildlife executive vice president, Jamie Rappaport Clark. “The polar bear doesn’t have time for political maneuvers. Its habitat is melting away, its food is becoming scarce and the science is clear that the cause is global warming – yet the rule this administration released today affirms that little will be done to save the species from sure extinction.
2. If you wear glasses or sunglasses, and you don’t know about Fabulous Fanny’s, you are missing out! Get the most amazing selection of thrift & vintage frames and shades. Buying thrift is the greenest way to shop! It’s one of the East Village’s best kept secrets, and one of my personal favs.
With an awesome party, of course! With Miss Guy on the turn table, more amazing vegan food than your eyes and tummy can handle, and the most inspiring crowd of activists and celebs from Danilea Sea and Alison Becker to Jennifer Coolidge, Corey Feldman & Inder Bedhi of Matt&Nat – this Winter Wonderland fundraiser was not to be missed – but if you did miss it, make sure to make it to next one! Farmsanctuary.org
4. Our friend Karl at PARTYBOTS has designed some awesome, 100% post-consumer recycled, originally designed notebooks! These are sweet and under $6 each! Cheap gifts for everyone this holiday!
5. This holiday, you may be feeling philanthropic. However, be very aware of organizations like Heifer International – whose promises of alleviating malnutrition and poverty through providing animals, actually has disasterous results. Like the little fact that over 90% of the Africans who are given dairy cows are lactose intolerant. Our friends at WFAS school us on this, and tell us how we can really help:
“While this might sound good on paper, the water and land needs of livestock in areas that are often short on both quickly outweigh the benefits — instead it increases human dependence on an unsustainable food-system that depletes the environment and does not fulfill all of a community’s real nutritional or long-term survival needs” Read the full article.
6. Organic Cotton from Alternative Apparelis so much better than conventional cotton from the notoriously homophobic Urban Outfitters.
7. December 20th is National “Adopt, Don’t Shop” day.
The Saturday before Christmas is the biggest puppy-buying day of the year. This year, In Defense of Animals is teaming up with activists in dozens of cities around the country to educate the public about the horrors of pet factories (puppy mills) and encourage people to adopt a homeless animal from a shelter or rescue group instead of buying one from a pet store. Enzo and I say you should adopt!
8. In case you missed it on Ecorazzi, Chloé Jo Berman, and yours truly were interviewed about ethical fashion. Read the interview!
9. Elephants should not be in zoos. For example, the Los Angeles zoo has killed 13 elephants. Help close down this horrible slave-trade, and save Billy from the same fate that his previous 13 fellow elephants experienced. These intelligent, emotionally complex and gorgeous beings belong in their native habitat, not in captivity.
10. The sleek Pool Collection from Matt&Nat has arrived! Get it while it’s hot, then take a dip in the pool. 100% vegan, recycled lining, and cool as hell.
I was recently in Ft. Pierce, Florida, and had the incredible privilege of visiting the largest chimp sanctuary in the world, Save The Chimps. From the moment I set foot on this amazing 200 acre piece of land, I could hear and see the chimps playing in the distance. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. There were no fences or bars – just wide open islands separated by water, covered in gorgeously-designed chimp habitat.
Kelly Overton, Joshua Katcher, Triana Romero
Most of these chimps were torn from their families, and shipped off to spend decades (some for as long as 40 years in a concrete box) as Air Force research “tools”, biomedical research subjects, entertainment, and pets. The psychological and physical trauma most of these chimps have endured is incredible, and that is why Save the Chimps is so important.
In 1997, Carole Noon, sued the Air Force, who was giving chimps away to the Coulston Foundation in Alamogordo, NM – a biomedical laboratory with the worst record of any lab in the history of the Animal Welfare Act. After a year-long struggle, Save the Chimps gained permanent custody of 21 chimps, survivors and descendants of those captured in Africa in the 1950′s and used by the Air Force in the original NASA “chimpanaut” program.
Dana & Thoto
These former lab chimps now live in social groups of friends that they have developed on their own. Many walk and play on grass for the first time since they were children. Soon, the entire group of 266 chimps will all have been transported from Coulston to their permanent home in Florida as the habitat is completed.
Carlos enjoys the grass
snacking on melon
Chimp Paradise
PBS recently did a documentary called ‘Unnatural History‘ that focused on our disgraceful history with chimps, and the efforts of organizations like Save the Chimps. You can watch a clip here:
WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?
Mel
Jaybee
Start off by giving a chimp adoption as a holiday gift! This year, instead of wasting your money on trinkets and plastic crap – give the gift of a good life to Mel or Jaybee or other chimps who have been through so much. Your support will provide care for all of 2009. Your gift includes a full color photo, adoption certificate and more!
HELP BRING THEM HOME!
Relocating one chimpanzee from New Mexico to permanent sanctuary in Florida costs $2,500; this includes the expense of caregiver staff on both ends of the trip, veterinary care, transport vehicle maintenance, fuel costs, and the work of bringing a new chimp building on-line in Florida.
The custom-built Save the Chimps trailer will make at least 26 four-thousand mile round trips between New Mexico and Florida (that’s equivalent to driving around the Earth four times), carrying 10 chimpanzees each time. The trailer is designed so that each chimp has a window seat and can watch their journey across the United States!
You can sponsor a chimp’s trip to Florida by making a personal donation, giving the donation in a friend or family member’s name, or organizing a fundraiser at your school, business or community organization. We will provide brochures, newsletters and temporary tattoos for fundraising purposes upon request. Contact Save the Chimps for more information.
Thanksgiving is already a holiday that’s wrong on so many levels. I don’t need to go into the details of the nature of our ancestors interactions with the Native North Americas – or the clinging to the fantastically ridiculous and false fairy tale of our chummy dinner together one night a few hundred years ago. But the last thing we should allow Thanksgiving to continue being is yet another massacre concealed under the guise of tradition, goodwill, and entitlement. This holiday season, I am refusing to sit at any table with a big, dead, tortured, cooked bird on it!
Why? For one, I had no idea how similar turkey’s are to cats until I met one. Like most people, I subscribed to the convenient belief that they were dumb and void of personality. This is such a pervasive stereotype because A) Most of us do not get to actually meet a turkey who is not dead, frozen, sliced, de-footed and beheaded. B) The turkeys can’t speak in any language that we validate; their clucks and gobbles are written off as nonsense in that same fashion that racist and xenophobic Americans make fun of any language they don’t understand, and C) It’s the only way to rationalize what we do to Turkeys – because if they’re dumb, they must have a dull ability to feel pain and fear, right?
When I finally met a turkey who approached me and rubbed his head against my leg like a cat and purred as I scratched his warm belly, I realized just how silly our rationalizations are for calling some animals ‘pets’ and others ‘Thanksgiving dinner’. Just because something is popularly participated in, and offered up on a platter doesn’t make it right. Our third-grade history books could tell us that much.
This thanksgiving, I am telling my friends and family, “It’s me or the Turkey!“. I will not sit at the table if there is a Turkey’s body on it. I never thought I’d say this, but I have friends that are turkeys! It doesn’t sound silly to say we have friends that are dogs and cats, but when we take an animal that is typically stripped of individuality, and whose sole purpose is supposed to be getting it’s throat slit, cooked, and eaten – it comes out sounding strange. Thankfully we don’t need to have dead turkeys at our tables, and we can certainly insist that our families and friends give the turkeys something to be thankful for this year.
Popping up all over the web are ‘carnivore pride’ sites whose messages range from unapologetic, caveman cravings, to defensive and arrogant rationalizers’ manifestos. Some even refer to a “call to arms”, as if every aspect of consumer culture isn’t already unrelenting in pushing meat and other animal products onto a terrified and protein-obsessed, infantile and hedonistic consumer culture.
“The average American consumes 218.3 pounds of meat every year. But in the face of concerns about Mad Cow disease, dubious industrial feedlot practices, and self-righteous vegetarians, the carnivorous lifestyle has become somewhat déclassé. Now, Scott Gold issues a red-blooded call to arms for the meat-adoring masses to rise up, speak out, and reclaim their pride.
“So this…is my rallying cry. A call to arms.I’m certain that there’s a veritable army of carnivores out there just like me, ready and waiting for someone to come forth waving that blood-red banner high, unabashed, in true carnivorous splendor.” – ShamelessCarnivore.com
Do you know why these meat-pride sites have emerged? Not because meat-eating has any intrinsic legitimacy, but because perceived change and a loss of identity on the part of those who consider themselves “carnivorous” is scary and polarizing. What exactly are they rallying against? Simply put, they are resisting the emergence of truth, and like every other social justice movement, once the economics and the very identity of those who will go to the ends of the earth to maintain the status-quo are challenged, an instinct to defend their comfortable positions arise. Something in the tone of these sites tells me that they’re designed specifically with pissing off vegetarians in mind.
One of the most common accusations made by meat-eaters to vegetarians is that we think we’re ‘morally superior’. We are referred to as ‘self-righteous‘. This would mean we have an unfoundedcertainty that we are right. I can’t tell you how many times I have to point out to people who accuse me being self-righteous that it actually has almost nothing to do with me, per se. Instead, it has everything to do with respecting other individuals, whose will to live, attempts at escape, and inarguable signs of suffering have put me in a position to respect their validity as individuals with intelligence, interests, and complex emotions and social behaviors in consistency with a larger system of ethics.
Inconsistency (and a defiant defense of those moral inconsistencies within a larger ethical context) is the hallmark of carnivore-pride positions. We say “If you wouldn’t eat the family dog, then why eat a pig?” They say “It’s perfectly fine for me to be morally inconsistent because it’s about me and my desires – not about the pigs’ (or even the dogs’) interests,” or “because it tastes good”.
The term ‘carnivore‘ is reserved for those organisms who consume nothing but raw flesh and organs. Humans are opportunistic scavengers – physiologically designed as omnivores who can typically survive and even be healthy eating whatever is available. For a human to call him or herself a carnivore is to say that they eat almost no vegetation, and that they share the characteristics of other carnivores (short intestinal tract, biological hardware to take down and consume animals’ organs raw). And if there are those out there subsisting almost entirely on flesh and organs and secretions – bless the heart of anyone who has to tolerate the smell of the festering, curdling, rotten mass traveling through an intestinal tract that’s far too long to get rid of the mess before it becomes toxic, and sends a putridness out of every pore, in every drop of sweat (never mind the toll on general health) . The fact is that as omnivores, we can choose what to eat – and that’s where the controversy resides.
This raises the question: why aspire to the title of ‘carnivore‘? It is, in itself, a rejection of the vegetarian identity – and a response to what they perceive as moral superiority and self-righteousness. The pride emerges in meat-eating as if most of these people were part of the hunt, and many of them do hunt, but the majority of meat-eaters in the US do not hunt. Instead they purchase meat from masters of illusions – the supermarkets that hide the killing process within perfect, clean packages, and behind images of animals that want us to eat them. The closer they get to the carcass, the more they feel they’ve somehow participated in some proud act or tradition. With the context missing, it is of course pornographic – like being stimulated by an image. Devouring the body of a chicken doesn’t make you a hunter any more than devouring porn makes you experienced in sexual intercourse.
Suicide Food Blog
It certainly is more about the identity of being a man than anything else. As I pointed out in my recent letter to the New York Times, the limited, suffocating identity of manhood in this culture is inseparably tied to attaining and consuming meat. Thus abandoning meat-eating is abandoning manhood and pride itself. For more on this, read Total recall, and Men Like Sports & Men Like Sports II.
What’s happening today is that the process and effects of factory farming and other cruel methods of viewing and treating non-human animals as ‘production units’ and the rest of the non-human world as a stockpile of resources to be exploited and drained, are being exposed and scrutinized. From environmental concerns, to ethical concerns – there are signs of human beings emerging from the state of infantile self-gratification that is causing us to destroy our only home and torture our only known companions in the entire universe.
While it would be great to have someone else do all of our hard labor for no pay, the process and effects of slavery in America have been exposed and mostly rejected. Don’t be fooled in thinking that the path to equality over the last few hundred years wasn’t met by resistance. There wasn’t some sudden, mass enlightenment. People died fighting for and against it. Similar cases existed for Women’s Equality, Anti-Semitism, and Child Labor. These social norms weren’t participated in because individuals had less moral character in the past than they do now – they were participated in because they reinforced and maintained a certain status, hierarchy, and economic benefit to those doing the exploiting.
Eat My Fear, by David Lynch, 2000 - rejected from NYC Cow Parade
The emergence of this über meat-pride within the wider context of a dominant meat-pride culture is evidence that the truth and the reality of what happens to many animals exploited for their flesh and functions is being adressed. They are on the defensive, and for good reason: truth is difficult to evade.
Posted by TheDiscerningBrute 
In order to begin production on the film, the legendary artist
like Heifer International – whose promises of alleviating malnutrition and poverty through providing animals, actually has disasterous results. Like the little fact that over 90% of the Africans who are given dairy cows are lactose intolerant. Our friends at WFAS school us on this, and tell us how we can really help:
