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Blogging for Chickens
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Eastern Shore Sanctuary
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Jul 30, 2005 16:43 PDT
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BraveBirds Times Online
July 2005
Online newsletter of the Eastern Shore Sanctuary & Education Center
Blogging for Chickens
Virgil Butler used to kill chickens for a living. Now he's blogging to
save their lives. Once deemed "the best chicken killer in Arkansas,"
Butler quit his job in 2002, coming forward with detailed recollections
of extraordinary abuse and everyday cruelty at the poultry factory. His
weblog, or "blog," has drawn national media attention to the
deprivations endured by people, animals, and the environment in the
impoverished rural regions where the meat industries locate most of
their operations.
On August 6, starting at 9 AM, Virgil and his partner Laura Alexander
will be participating in the annual Blogathon for charity. They will be
required to post a blog entry every half hour for 24 hours. They have
selected the Eastern Shore Sanctuary as the non-profit organization to
which their Blogathon sponsors will contribute.
The "hot topic" about which Virgil and Laura will be blogging is
factory farming. By participating, they hope to spread the bad news
about meat, dairy and eggs to people who have not yet been exposed to
such information. They chose the Eastern Shore Sanctuary as their
designated charity because we are a small sanctuary located in an
impoverished rural region dominated by the poultry industry. According
to Virgil, they also appreciate our efforts "to show the underlyng
reasons this horror happens and the many parallels to
it, like sexism, and why society allows something as horrific as
factory farming to happen without questioning it."
To sponsor Virgil in the Blogathon, visit:
http://www.blogathon.org/blogathon.php?campaign&id=196
You will need to register before you will be able to see the form for
making a pledge. The minimum pledge is just a dollar.
Still living in Arkansas and often harassed by local authorities angry
about his activism, Virgil hasn't been able to find a steady job since
quitting the poultry plant. That makes the donation of his time to
raise money for our sanctuary all the more meaningful. We hope that our
supporters will drop him a note of thanks even if they are not able to
sponsor him in the blogathon.
To learn more about Virgil's journey from poultry factory worker to
"cyberactivist" for the animals, visit his blog or read the Poultry
Press interview with Virgil and his partner Laura:
http://www.cyberactivist.blogspot.com
http://www.upc-online.org/fall04/virgil.htm
Recent and Upcoming Publications
The recent front-page Wall Street Journal article about our
rehabilitation program for former fighting cocks was picked up by
several other newspapers around the nation, bringing much-needed
attention to the inaccurate stereotypes that perpetuate cockfighting
and usually doom birds confiscated from cockfighting operations to
death. To read that article or learn more about our efforts to both
rehabilitate roosters and educate the public about them, visit our new
web page dedicated to the issue:
http://www.bravebirds.org/rehab.html
Fanny lives on. While we still miss the hen known to us as Fanny, we
are happy to report that Best Friends magazine will be running the
story of her life and death. If you've not yet read "Funeral for a
Hen," and don't want to wait for the magazine, you can still find the
piece on our website:
http://www.bravebirds.org/fanny.html
Multimedia Fun
Eastern Shore Sanctuary cofounder pattrice jones will appear on the
Talking Animals radio show on KCUI (Irvine, CA) Monday 01 August from
9-10 am Pacific (12-1 Eastern). She will talk about the sanctuary and
share her ideas about how to engage people who are concerned about
environmental or social justice but do not yet understand why they
ought to work for animal liberation too. Those outside of the listening
area can tune into the live stream or access the audio archive later
via the Talking Animals web site:
http://www.talkinganimals.net
One of our favorite fellow activists, the ecofeminist known as
"homefries," is putting together a series of radio programs called
"Spark Symphony: Voices Connecting Animal Liberation with Social
Justice." The current episode concerns the relationships between
feminism and animal liberation. It has lots of interviews with people
around the country, including Eastern Shore Sanctuary's pattrice jones.
You can download or stream it here:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=13437
Recent Events
Thanks to Marilyn Ramos and Susan Weingartner for helping out at our
exhibit table at the recent AR2005 conference in Los Angeles. Eastern
Shore Sanctuary cofounder pattrice jones spoke on several panels at the
conference and promises to post summaries of at least a couple of her
talks on our website soon.
The weekend after AR2005 brought the Taking Action for Animals
conference to Washington. Because so few grassroots groups had been
invited to participate and so many topics were not on the agenda, the
organizers of the Grassroots Animal Rights Conference offered TAfA
conference participants additional free events during the off-hours of
the last day. So it came to pass that pattrice jones found herself
talking to more than 50 activists at a lunchtime talk on direct action,
feminism, and animal liberation. Attendees appeared to enjoy pattrice's
stories about life at the sanctuary and to appreciate her explanation
of how animals like fighting cocks are used to make false ideas about
gender seem natural and true. The organizers of both TAfA and GARC are
to be congratulated on cooperating to turn what could have been a
conflict into a bonus for the conference participants who chose to
attend the extra events.
Sanctuary Update
The recent heat wave has been hard on us and the birds. The ducks keep
cool by splashing in their pools but everybody else has been wilting.
When chickens are hot, they stand with their wings hanging slightly
open, as if they had loosened their clothes. They're smart, staying in
the shade, drinking lots of water, and avoiding excessive activity.
But, even so, two of the older "broiler" hens had heat-related heart
attacks this week. Just up the road (and up the other road and down
another road) are factory farms housing tens of thousands of chickens
in dank and overcrowded sheds. We can only imagine how the heat has
compounded the everyday misery of those birds. As always, such
reflections inspire us to redouble our efforts to work for an end to
all animal exploitation while doing all that we can to care for
individual animals in the interim.
Eastern Shore Sanctuary & Education Center
13981 Reading Ferry
Princess Anne, MD 21853 USA
410-651-4934
http://www.bravebirds.org
--Apple-Mail-1-576977652
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
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<center><bold>BraveBirds Times Online
July 2005
</bold></center><bold>
</bold><center><italic>Online newsletter of the Eastern Shore
Sanctuary & Education Center
</italic><bold>Blogging for Chickens
</bold></center>Virgil Butler used to kill chickens for a living. Now
he's blogging to save their lives. Once deemed "the best chicken
killer in Arkansas," Butler quit his job in 2002, coming forward with
detailed recollections of extraordinary abuse and everyday cruelty at
the poultry factory. His weblog, or "blog," has drawn national media
attention to the deprivations endured by people, animals, and the
environment in the impoverished rural regions where the meat
industries locate most of their operations.
On August 6, starting at 9 AM, Virgil and his partner Laura Alexander
will be participating in the annual Blogathon for charity. They will
be required to post a blog entry every half hour for 24 hours. They
have selected the Eastern Shore Sanctuary as the non-profit
organization to which their Blogathon sponsors will contribute.
The "hot topic" about which Virgil and Laura will be blogging is
factory farming. By participating, they hope to spread the bad news
about meat, dairy and eggs to people who have not yet been exposed to
such information. They chose the Eastern Shore Sanctuary as their
designated charity because we are a small sanctuary located in an
impoverished rural region dominated by the poultry industry. According
to Virgil, they also appreciate our efforts "to show the underlyng
reasons this horror happens and the many parallels to
it, like sexism, and why society allows something as horrific as
factory farming to happen without questioning it."
To sponsor Virgil in the Blogathon, visit:
http://www.blogathon.org/blogathon.php?campaign&id=196
You will need to register before you will be able to see the form for
making a pledge. The minimum pledge is just a dollar.
Still living in Arkansas and often harassed by local authorities angry
about his activism, Virgil hasn't been able to find a steady job since
quitting the poultry plant. That makes the donation of his time to
raise money for our sanctuary all the more meaningful. We hope that
our supporters will drop him a note of thanks even if they are not
able to sponsor him in the blogathon.
To learn more about Virgil's journey from poultry factory worker to
"cyberactivist" for the animals, visit his blog or read the Poultry
Press interview with Virgil and his partner Laura:
http://www.cyberactivist.blogspot.com
http://www.upc-online.org/fall04/virgil.htm
<center><bold>Recent and Upcoming Publications
</bold></center>The recent front-page Wall Street Journal article
about our rehabilitation program for former fighting cocks was picked
up by several other newspapers around the nation, bringing much-needed
attention to the inaccurate stereotypes that perpetuate cockfighting
and usually doom birds confiscated from cockfighting operations to
death. To read that article or learn more about our efforts to both
rehabilitate roosters and educate the public about them, visit our new
web page dedicated to the issue:
http://www.bravebirds.org/rehab.html
Fanny lives on. While we still miss the hen known to us as Fanny, we
are happy to report that Best Friends magazine will be running the
story of her life and death. If you've not yet read "Funeral for a
Hen," and don't want to wait for the magazine, you can still find the
piece on our website:
http://www.bravebirds.org/fanny.html
<center><bold>Multimedia Fun
</bold></center>Eastern Shore Sanctuary cofounder pattrice jones will
appear on the Talking Animals radio show on KCUI (Irvine, CA) Monday
01 August from 9-10 am Pacific (12-1 Eastern). She will talk about the
sanctuary and share her ideas about how to engage people who are
concerned about environmental or social justice but do not yet
understand why they ought to work for animal liberation too. Those
outside of the listening area can tune into the live stream or access
the audio archive later via the Talking Animals web site:
http://www.talkinganimals.net
One of our favorite fellow activists, the ecofeminist known as
"homefries," is putting together a series of radio programs called
"Spark Symphony: Voices Connecting Animal Liberation with Social
Justice." The current episode concerns the relationships between
feminism and animal liberation. It has lots of interviews with people
around the country, including Eastern Shore Sanctuary's pattrice
jones. You can download or stream it here:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=13437
<center><bold>Recent Events
</bold></center><bold>
</bold>Thanks to Marilyn Ramos and Susan Weingartner for helping out
at our exhibit table at the recent AR2005 conference in Los Angeles.
Eastern Shore Sanctuary cofounder pattrice jones spoke on several
panels at the conference and promises to post summaries of at least a
couple of her talks on our website soon.
The weekend after AR2005 brought the Taking Action for Animals
conference to Washington. Because so few grassroots groups had been
invited to participate and so many topics were not on the agenda, the
organizers of the Grassroots Animal Rights Conference offered TAfA
conference participants additional free events during the off-hours of
the last day. So it came to pass that pattrice jones found herself
talking to more than 50 activists at a lunchtime talk on direct
action, feminism, and animal liberation. Attendees appeared to enjoy
pattrice's stories about life at the sanctuary and to appreciate her
explanation of how animals like fighting cocks are used to make false
ideas about gender seem natural and true. The organizers of both TAfA
and GARC are to be congratulated on cooperating to turn what could
have been a conflict into a bonus for the conference participants who
chose to attend the extra events.
<center><bold>Sanctuary Update
</bold></center>The recent heat wave has been hard on us and the
birds. The ducks keep cool by splashing in their pools but everybody
else has been wilting. When chickens are hot, they stand with their
wings hanging slightly open, as if they had loosened their clothes.
They're smart, staying in the shade, drinking lots of water, and
avoiding excessive activity. But, even so, two of the older "broiler"
hens had heat-related heart attacks this week. Just up the road (and
up the other road and down another road) are factory farms housing
tens of thousands of chickens in dank and overcrowded sheds. We can
only imagine how the heat has compounded the everyday misery of those
birds. As always, such reflections inspire us to redouble our efforts
to work for an end to all animal exploitation while doing all that we
can to care for individual animals in the interim.
<center><bold>Eastern Shore Sanctuary & Education Center
</bold>13981 Reading Ferry
Princess Anne, MD 21853 USA
410-651-4934
http://www.bravebirds.org</center>
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