Posts By: Gary Smith
Gary Smith
Leilani Munter: race car driver, vegan, environmental activist
Leilani Munter is a race car driver, environmental activist, vegan and animal rights activist. Leilani uses her sport and platform to advocate for both animals and the environment. At the ARCA Racing Series event, she raced in a car designed to look like the orca whale Tilikum, featured in the documentary film Blackfish, and make a statement about Sea World and other animal abusement parks.
Undercover Investigator TJ Tumasse: “It is the responsibility of the consumer to know that they are directly supporting this suffering”
TJ Tumasse spent more than six years working as an undercover investigator inside many of the nation’s largest factory farms, local shelters, and roadside zoos for Mercy For Animals and other organizations. His cases exposed the ugly truth about what continues to happen behind closed doors, and led to groundbreaking criminal convictions for felony abuse to factory farm animals as well as corporate, local, and federal policy changes.
Stop Blaming Veganism for You Not Being Vegan
Lately (again) some ex-“vegans” are in the media proclaiming their love of eating animals. The usual reason for them going back to exploiting animals, though they still maintain their love for them, is they listened to their bodies and their
‘Bleating Hearts:’ 1001 Ways You Didn’t Know Animals Are Exploited
Author Mark Hawthorne nailed it the first time with Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism, which aimed to empower people to get active for animals around the world. Now, he’s nailed it again with Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering. It's the most comprehensive book about animal exploitation ever written. It is an encyclopedia of nearly every horror we do to animals, and how to make a difference on their behalf.
Will Tuttle on Circles of Compassion: Connecting Issues of Justice
Few living vegans are as influential and as compelling as Dr. Will Tuttle. His book The World Peace Diet has been called one of the most important books of the 21st century, and many vegans and activists credit Will with sparking their initial (or eventual) shift to veganism. Will and his wife, artist Madeleine Tuttle, travel the world giving lectures, workshops, and trainings based on The World Peace Diet, including veganism, spirituality, effective activism, and personal development. Will is a former Zen monk with a master's in humanities and a PhD in philosophy of education, and his work is embedded with these twin threads of spiritual consciousness and intellectual examination. Now, he is assembling the works of 28 other authors for Circles of Compassion: Connecting Issues of Justice, due out this July from the innovative new company Vegan Publishers. The writers explore the connections between injustice to animals and other social and ecological injustices.
YOUR EARTH DAY BUZZKILL
I appreciate Earth Day just as much as the next person, but the commercialism and the lack of discussion and awareness around the biggest culprit in both global climate change and the destruction of the planet frustrates me to no end. While changing out your lightbulbs, driving less, taking shorter showers and not allowing the water to run while you brush your teeth may all add up in some complex earth-saving logarithm, continuing to ignore the number one polluter of the air, water and land, the biggest consumer of a limited resource, i.e. water, and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases is at best absurd and at worst, hastening the end of the human species (not that I have a problem with that).
Vegan athlete Rob Bigwood: ‘Uneducated, arrogant, selfish people hide behind their keyboards’
I was surprised to find myself enthralled by Game of Arms. Not only was it well shot, but the storylines were engaging and showed the humanity of the athletes. When the show featured Rob Bigwood as part of his New York arm wrestling team Arms Control, they didn’t shy away from Rob’s veganism, in fact they portrayed it very fairly. It also became clear to me that Rob was the real deal, an ethical vegan. Throughout the series, both Rob and the show continued to speak openly about veganism.
Vegan Passover: honoring all those enslaved
Around this time of year four years ago, I had a discussion of Passover with a group of friends who are, like myself, Jewish and vegan. The discussion centered around how difficult it can be to attend seders where the dinner table is littered with the body parts of nonhuman animals. Being vegan, we not only abstain from eating meat, dairy and eggs, we also abstain from the use of all animals, whether that be for food, clothing, entertainment or animal experimentation.
lauren Ornelas on chocolate, slavery, food deserts, state of the movement
lauren Ornelas is Food Empowerment Project’s founder and serves as the group’s executive director. lauren has been active in the animal rights movement for more than 25 years. In cooperation with activists across the country, she worked and achieved corporate changes within Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s, and Pier 1 Imports, among others. lauren founded Food Empowerment Project in 2006.
DEFEATISM MUST BE DEFEATED
And the truth needs to be told whether people want to hear it or not, whether people are going to go vegan or not. Watering down the message is defeatist and at best presents a confusing message about what we actually want.
Damien Mander: “We all have that awareness, once we open our eyes”
Like so many others, I discovered Damien Mander and his anti-poaching work from watching his TEDx talk a few months back. I was riveted to my chair as I watched him tell the story of his work in such an impassioned way, and I was thrilled when his story made the larger connection between poaching and veganism. I dug a little deeper into his work with the International Anti-Poaching Foundation and their work to combat illegal wildlife trafficking and poaching on the ground. In addition to this hands-on work of protecting many endangered species, they also work through education and awareness campaigns. Once an Australian Royal Navy Clearance Driver and Special Operations military sniper, Damien has now dedicated his life to environmentalism and animal protection. He gave up a lucrative career and used his life savings and investments to start the International Anti-Poaching Foundation. It was an honor to speak to Damien about his important work.