Kristof Editorial

Nicholas Kristof, who is writing from Yamhill, Or (which is just up the road), wrote an editorial about animal rights, and deals with his own hypocrisy (although unapologetically) around eating meat and caring about the treatment of animals. He made mention of Prop 2 in California which would ban factory farming methods. I haven't read the proposition so I don't know exactly what that would mean, as factory farming can mean a plethora of things. But the fact that this bill is up in California, where to take an old GM mantra, "As goes California, so goes America." California, being one of the largest economies in the world, creates changes that ripple outside of its borders. They are often on the leading edge of progressive social policies (and a few regressive ones as well). If Prop 2 passes it can't help but to have a major impact on animal treatment both within and outside the state. California is one of the largest producers of cheese and milk in the country, and has it's fair share of metropolitan sized feedlots. It would seem that this would increase the price of these animal based products, and actually bring the consumer price closer to the real world costs of producing them (externalization of pollution costs, eg). The Humane Society is sponsoring this prop.

Back to the Kristof editorial, the fact that an editorial in the New York Times would advocate the humane treatment of our food animals shows that the animal rights and welfare movement is at least having some impact. I don't think even 5 years ago that this would have been possible.

I haven't seen any polling on this to see its likelihood of passage, but I'm guessing with a well-coordinated campaign this has a real chance of passing. It has a long list of endorsements; business, consumer, political, and celebrity. As my last post about teaching animals and society showed, presenting people with the real way in which our food is produced will cause people to take action to change their consumption patterns. It may also prove to push people to vote to change the methods of the brutal and inhumane factory farming system. In California all they have to do is mark yes on Prop 2, and human health, animals, and the environment will all benefit.

http://www.humanecalifornia.org/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/opinion/31kristof.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

UPDATE:

A field poll released on 7/22 found that with a basic description of Prop 2, 63% of people had a positive view of it while 24% had a negative view. Without a doubt the meat and dairy industry are going to dump millions of dollars to fight this proposition, most likely playing the "this is going to cost you at the grocery store" line, but it's a going to be a hard sale. "We want to continue to torture and mistreat animals" is a tough line to take. It looks like this has a real shot at passage.

Teaching Animals and Society

I'm a grad student in sociology at the University of Oregon, and recently, with a friend of mine, taught Animals and Society for a 300 level class. This was the first time this class has been taught at the U of O. I am an aspiring vegan, I slip up every now and then, but went into the class having been a vegetarian for 12 years. I was hyper aware of the bias that I might bring to the class, and I didn't want to make it an indoctrination session. We talked about human animal interaction in all sorts of forms, as pets, as entertainment, the history of domestication, as economic assets. This was all very interesting, and the class was great. But then we got to the animals as food portion of the class. We had them read a section from Beyond Beef by Jeremy Rifkin, and we watched the Humane Society video shot inside the Hallmark Slaughterhouse. This is when things began to get interesting. Although we had other subjects to cover, the animals as food section seemed to color everything we did afterwards. Later in the class we gave the class a vote on whether or not they wanted to watch Earthlings, the documentary narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. I didn't want to show it because the imagery is so brutal, but overwhelmingly the class voted to see it. We made the disclaimer that it was much harder to watch than the Humane Society video, which really bothered many people in the class. Earthlings is broken up into several sections: pets, clothing, food, entertainment, test subjects. One of our students kept count of how many people left and during what section. Out of the 35 or so people who left during class, around 28 left during the animals as food portion of the film. On the last day of class we had an open discussion about how people's views had changed over the course of the class, and almost all wanted to talk about meat. Eventually Keith, by co-teacher, asked how many people had stopped eating meat during the course of the class and 17 people raised their hands, this out of a class of 96 (although there were only about 70 there that day). But someone else said that that didn't really account for everyone because this person had changed their meat consumption patterns, but hadn't given it up. When asked how many had changed how much meat or the kind of meat they eat, almost everyone raised their hands.

For me this was a powerful example, that if people are presented with the way that their meat is produced, and it is done in a respectful way, then consumption patterns change. All 17 may not maintain their abstinence from meat, but if a few do, then that is a lifetime of non-meat consumption. And if those who do go back to eating meat make better choices about the meat they do consume, then at least the brutal system of industrial meat production won't have their income to count on.

favorite band name of the moment

A Ghost's face two inches from your own face.

Seriously,

Who's running John McCain's campaign?

Manu Chao

There is probably no more important pop musician in the world than Manu Chao right now. He sings in a number languages (English, French, Spanish, and Portugese being the most common). He embodies the global world we live in and his music reflects that back onto us. Born to Spanish parents, he spent his youth in Paris. After early musical experiences, he moved to and traveled throughout Latin America. His music is an amalgamation of all of these influences, rock, reggae, latin styles such as cumbia, salsa, ranchero and merengue, techno and electronic music. He also works in political commentary, championing the causes of the poor and oppressed. On his album Clandestino, Sub-Commandante Marcos' voice can often be heard as lead ins or lead outs of the tracks. Sub-Commandante Marcos is the spokesperson for the Zapatista Movement in Chiapas, Mexico. He has had two of his solo albums, Proxima Estacion: Esperanza and Radio Bemba Sound System (a reference to the Cuban Revolution), re-released in the US. His first solo album Clandestino is an album that I've never tired of. It has all the markings of a great album, good rhythms, interesting production, engaging lyrics, a sense of purpose. All of these should be a part of a well rounded record collection. He has also worked as a producer for other artists, most famously with Amadou and Miriam, a blind couple from Senegal. Senegalese Fast Food by the duo became an international hit. Hopefully the re-releasing of these albums will make them easier to find in record stores, because this is music that should be in the hands of all of us.

I saw Manu Chao at Red Rocks in Colorado in the summer of 2007, and the music that seems to float along on the albums took on a ferocity in the live setting that I couldn't have expected. He embodies the politics of the Clash, the hope of Bob Marley, and the music of diverse cultures from different continents.

He has never taken off in the US the way he has in Europe and Latin America. He does have a strong following among music loving lefties here, but he sings in something other than English, and that does not portend good things as far as breaking out in the US. We are not a global people, for the most part we tend to not look beyond our borders for inspiration and creativity. The United States is missing out on much that the world has to offer because of this insular attitude.

In the end Manu Chao is a musician with a global vision and a commitment to bringing that world together through music. He has a reach that few musicians achieve, and it is time that his name was better known here.

http://www.manuchao.net/

http://www.zapatistas.org/

http://www.nacionalrecords.com

Vegan body building in WW

The Willamette Week (local Portland Weekly) had a front page story about a couple of vegan body builders. I have no interest in body building, but anything that challenges the industrial food producers hype that says that we all need milk and cheese and meat and eggs to be healthy is a good sign. Here's the link to the story.

http://wweek.com/editorial/3436/11241/

Blitzen Trapper signed to Sub Pop

This might be old news, but Portland band Blitzen Trapper signed to Sub Pop, which is great news. It always seemed they were prime Sub Pop material, poppy and interesting at the same time, solid song writing and great musicianship, a DIY approach. We played with them when they were known as Garmanbozia (and we were known as White Whale). They were one of the bands I always thought deserved a wider audience, and it's great that they've found it. Field Rexx, which I picked up at a Doug Fir show has been a steady companion for at least two years now, and not that many albums last that long in the rotation. It has country and pop leanings, with enough breaks and tangents to keep it interesting. Their last, Wild Mountain Nation, has gotten great press, and was on the front page of Pitchfork for what seemed like a couple of weeks, when many records they review are on and then off. Check them out if you get a chance, the live shows are as good as their records.

http://blitzentrapper.net/

Merkley Makes a Move

Jeff Merkley (D) is challenging Gordon Smith (R) for the senate in my adopted state of Oregon. Gordon Smith has been a tried and true backer of the Bush Administration until it became quite apparent in 2006 (when Dems swept every statewide race) that being a republican in this state might be a great deficit. So now Gordon Smith is running as a democrat, showing pictures of Obama in his campaign ads, running on traditionally democratic prinicples of environmental protection, expanded government provided health care, etc while also attacking Merkley for being a democrat. Smith has had a solid lead up to this point, but Rasmussen has their latest poll out that shows Merkley with a statistically insignificant lead, which means they are basically tied. This is bad news for Smith. He has more money, more name recognition, more to lay claim to, but he has an R by his name, which trumps all of that it would seem. Merkley has been making a steady climb while Smith's support has been flat at best.

http://www.pollster.com/08-OR-Sen-GE-SvM.php

Smith has been good on certain issues (trying to get mental health parity, whereby insurance companies would treat mental illness the same as physical illness), but his political turn around on the Iraq war in 2006 only came about after he saw that his undivided support of the war would be an anvil around his neck in 2008. He is in trouble, like many republicans this year.

McCains Pre-11/9 mindset

It is presidential electioneering season, and that means tons of boredom passed off as excitement. Well, there is one exciting aspect of this whole thing, and that is watching John McCain flounder at every turn. Twice, two days running, McCain referred to the Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia has not existed since 1993, when the one country split into two, with the other being, weirdly enough, Slovakia. As the right wing will go about relying on the fear of terrorism as their only talking point, the will undoubtedly say that Obama has a pre-9/11 mindset. Maybe we should start saying that McCain has a pre-11/9* mindset.

*Fall of Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989.

Introduction to ......

After having resisted blogging for such a long time, I've decided to throw my hat into the ring here, and share with world all of my trivial thoughts, well not all, but my trivial thoughts on music and politics. This thread got started when I was having a discussion about learning music as a kid the other day with Katie and her parents. Her mom asked if I took piano lessons as a kid, and I said that I did, but none of it really stuck with me. I'm sure there's some muscle memory there, and that whole spatial thinking thing that kids supposedly improve through playing piano, but nothing concrete. I don't play the things I played as a kid. It was rote reproduction. And this is the problem with music education (and mostly every type of education). Creativity isn't valued, being able to do as your told is valued. So it's no wonder that many kids, forced into music lessons or school band, abandon music shortly after they are no longer forced to go. If creativity was valued, if kids were taught not only the fundamentals, but also how to compose a piece or write a song, then I think more people would continue to play music after the lessons are done, and our world would be a richer place for it.