I don't see a single leaf waving. It's probably ninety degrees at Catskill Animal Sanctuary; the air is thick and still as death. But I don't turn on my air conditioner, for quite simply, it uses too much electricity. Global warming. The earth is pleading for our help, so I'm making concessions where I can. Like turning the hot water heater on only 30 minutes before my shower. Like pooling my errands so I drive less. Like going without air conditioning when I want it. Lessen the footprint. I'm trying.

The animals, after all, don't have air conditioning. They have shade, sure, but on days like this they'd love to be standing right in front of that machine that magically takes hot air and turns it frigid. (For all I understand about how air conditioning works, it might as well be created by David Copperfield or Penn and Teller.)

Today, we all sweat. I sweat at my computer, shedding first my shorts and then my shirt as I hope against hope that no stranger appears in my doorway (as they often do.) Quelle suprise! I hear myself rationalizing why a "director" is working in her underwear...

Down at the barn, meanwhile, the pigs loll in the mudbaths we make for them under the willow trees, and grunt with glee when, as they leave their pasture to come to the barn for nighttime, Lorraine sprays each of them with cool water from the hose.

The sheep, recently shorn but nonetheless trapped inside their dense coats, pant heavily. We wonder if we'll need to hose them down, too. The horses and cows find the shade and stay still; the poor broiler hens struggle.

Chickens, you see, aren't supposed to weigh 15 pounds. But those that miraculously escape slaughter DO weigh that much, sometimes more. Agribusiness has created Frankenbirds--chickens that grow at freakishly fast rates (greater profits for the producer) yet have such high death rates that agribusiness itself has created the term "flip-over syndrome" because it finds so many young chickens lying on their backs, feet pointed skyward, dead from violent heart attacks because their hearts simply can't take the rapid growth.

Yet we continue to eat them. Tortured birds, caged pigs, terrorized cows. Under agribusiness, the tiniest concessions to their well-being are long gone. These animals are commodities, period. It doesn't matter that they suffer mightily. It doesn't matter that they are so very much like us, or that pain is pain and suffering is suffering whether it is inflicted to a human or a dog or a chicken. It feels the same, no matter what one's species.

So just like the 500-pound man is having a harder time on this hot humid day than I am, so are our poor chickens. They're gasping for air.

At a summer event four years ago, Dr. Joel Fuhrman spoke to our audience about the importance of an essentially vegan diet. "A little chicken, every now and then" is what he personally added to a diet comprised largely of dark leafy vegetables, fruits, and grains.

That same summer, chef Roni Shapiro, owner of a vegan delivery service called Healthy Gourmet to Go, came to the farm on weekends for a series of cooking demonstrations and tastings. As I introduced her to the audience, I said something like, "It's not appropriate for me to tell you not to eat animals. Instead, it's my job to say "look who these animals are. Once you see who they are and how much like us they are, then perhaps you'll reconsider your choices." Roni would get up then and say, "Well, I can tell you not to eat animals. PLEASE DON'T EAT ANIMALS."

Four years and hundreds more connections with animals and one book later, it's time to revise my message. Time to actively encourage people to alter their diets not only for the animals' sake--I, for one, don't want to participate in their misery and terror--but because the future of our planet is at stake.

Agribusiness is wreaking havoc. Earth is hot and getting hotter, and climactic devastation is around the corner. Methane from cows, the razing of the ecologically important Amazon in order to graze cattle or to grow what feeds them, the melting of the North Pole due to warm air
being trapped by greenhouse gases--most notably methane--the killing of so many of our waterways by the waste of pigs, chickens, cows---

Our planet needs for us to stop eating animals.

Though he doesn't specifically mention agribusiness, take a look at Amy Goodman's interview (Democracy Now) of Tim Flannery, a leading scientist recently named Australian of the Year. And after you do, vow to drive less, to convert to solar, to put your hot water on a timer. Vow not to use your air conditioner. Vow to turn off lights, to take short showers, to put on a sweater instead of turning up the heat, to make "energy efficiency" the top priority when you purchase new appliances. Vow, most importantly, to eat your vegetables.

www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1454240

Good morning, animal lovers!

For those of you considering taking the turkey off the table four days from now, here's the recipe that knocked the socks off Catskill Animal Sanctuary guests a few weeks ago. We had a lovely little event -- if seriously hampered by the downpour -- comprised of readings in the barn from my book Where the Blind Horse Sings, tours to meet some of the notable four-legged characters from its pages, and then a vegan cooking demonstration/tasting by Julie Barone and Julie Gelardi.

What a hit!! Everyone in the room went back for seconds, and I saw a few people waddling up to the table for a third helping!! Tastier than any turkey, by a long shot!

By the way, we LOVED this cornbread stuffing, but you can put your favorite Thanksgiving stuffing inside a pumpkin instead of a dead bird. It's that simple!! We cooked the stuffing separately in a glass dish, then stuffed some into the pumpkin and spooned the rest around the outside of the glazed and gorgeous pumpkin, garnishing with parsley. Beautimous!!

Cornbread Stuffed Pumpkin: More Decadent Than Any Butterball!!

Wash and scoop out seeds and pulp of 1 medium-large (or 4 smaller) pumpkin or other winter squash. Bake in a 350 degree oven with lid on for 45 to 60 minutes, or until pierced easily with a fork.

Make the stuffing per instructions below, and feel free to stuff inside the pumpkin AFTER cooking or to pile the stuffing around the turkey, garnishing beautimously with your favorite herbs. Serve w/your favorite vegan gravy: a mushroom/rosemary gravy works for me!!

Cornbread and Pecan Stuffing
First, make the cornbread:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup plus 1 Tb water
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup maple syrup
1 tsp salt

1. Heat the oven to 350.
2. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients.
4. Add the wet to the dry and mix as little as possible. Do not over mix. Just fold, gently, with a rubber spatula.
5. Pour into an oiled 9-inch cast iron skillet or 8-inch square baking pan or 9-inch pie plate. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

NOTE: Fine to make the cornbread ahead of time to make your holiday cooking easier. It's OK if it's a little stale; in fact, that will make for a better stuffing!!

Next, the really yummy part:
Stuffing (easily doubled or tripled)

1 large yellow onion, diced
1 bunch celery, trimmed and then diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
¼ tub of Earth Balance (that is not a typo. If you're concerned about fat intake, try reducing amt. of "butter" and substitute extra veg stock)
1 recipe cornbread, above
1 loaf of your favorite bread, stale if possible, cut or torn into chunks
1 cup vegetable stock (or more!)
1 cup pecans, roughly chopped
1 generousTb dried sage
2 generousTb fresh chopped parsley
2 tsp salt (that’s what recipe calls for, but I used one tsp. and it was ample)
1 tsp pepper
1 cup fresh, whole cranberries or 1/2 cup dried cranberries

1. Melt the Earth Balance in a large stock pot. Sauté the onion, celery and garlic until the onions are translucent. More of a sweat than a sauté, actually…
2. Turn off the heat and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. If it seems too dry, add more melted Earth Balance or veggie stock, or some of both. Yes, that is a lot of fat. You'll know why when you taste it. This kind of indulgence is ONLY for Thanksgiving!!
3. Stuff into a baked pumpkin, or individual delicate squashes, or a casserole dish. Do NOT stuff into a dead bird. Bake for a good 30 minutes at 350 degrees. You want the inside piping hot and a little soft, with the outside golden brown.
4. You may also add sautéed mushrooms, any kind, for extra flavor and richness

Have a warm, happy and turkey-free Thanksgiving from your pals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary!

Published on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
George Bush: Pardon All the Turkeysby Bill Maher

New Rule: The president can't pardon just one or two turkeys this Thanksgiving. He's got to let them all go.

It's probably too much to expect from the man who wanted "no child left behind," then vetoed health care for kids. But think of the upside. Freeing the turkeys might help the president's credibility when he says things like, "We don't torture."

Take a look at this video, shot just last month at a typical American turkey slaughterhouse, and this one, shot undercover last year at a Butterball slaughterhouse by investigators from PETA, and you'll see that my use of the word is no exaggeration. Butterball employees, taking a page out of the Abu Ghraib handbook, laughed while they kicked, punched, stomped, and even sexually assaulted turkeys.

These people should be arrested. They would be if the turkeys were dogs or cats. Too bad our animal protection laws make about as much sense as fighting a war against a country that doesn't have an army. Even though 98 percent of the land animals Americans eat are turkeys and chickens, the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act specifically excludes birds from protection. I'm not kidding.

The Butterball plant in the video slaughters about 50,000 turkeys every day. Fifty million turkey corpses will go into American ovens this Thanksgiving. More than 9 billion turkeys and chickens are killed in the U.S. each year. But not one of them is guaranteed a painless death, as documented in this video that was narrated by my fellow animal-lover and HuffPo Blogger, Alec Baldwin. The Senate can find time to vote to condemn an advertisement, but not to add birds to humane slaughter laws.

So in the face of this surreal situation, in which, once again we can't put our faith in the president, I ask you to do what I'm going to do and pardon a turkey this Thanksgiving. It's not hard. Just eat something else (ideas here and here ). Not someone else, because it doesn't seem fair to spare a turkey and roast a hunk of pig or cow instead. If we can bow our heads in gratitude for our families, our friends and our big screen TVs, and then carve into a creature who lived a miserable life and died a horrible death, then our ethics are about as sensible as Britney's parenting skills.

Former Vice President Al Gore should be the first to take the meat-free Thanksgiving pledge. Since raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined, is it too much ask Mr. Gore to stop gazing at his Oscar and his Nobel Prize long enough to read the United Nations report that calls the meat industry "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global"?

For those of you who believe that the war is just and that global warming is a figment of the elite liberal media's imagination, here's the straight poop:

* Turkeys and other animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire U.S. human population - all without the benefit of waste treatment systems. Sewage spills, waste-filled waterways and underground aquifer contaminated with e coli are the meat industry's gift to Americans this holiday season.

* Turkey meat has just as much cholesterol as the pieces of cow and pig called "red meat." Eating meat is linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, some cancers, and diabetes.

So do the right thing. Instead of stuffing a turkey this year, stuff the tradition of turkey for Thanksgiving right where it belongs - in history's trash can.

-Bill Maher

I spoke on Thanksgiving afternoon at the Berkshire Vegetarian Society's "Living Thanksgiving," held at the United Methodist Church in Lenox. Eighty people were there; no turkeys died to feed us. Rather, there was table after table of everything but the turkey: cranberry sauces and pilafs potatoes and yams and entrees like loafs and souffles and tortes and stuffed vegetables. And then, of course, there was stuffing...lots and lots of stuffing. Isn't Thanksgiving really about the stuffing, after all?

My beloved pal Murphy the dog was invited in, and had a grand time in the midst of so many good smells and animal lovers--he begs very politely, and more than one guest succumbed to his patient entreaties.

I read from Where the Blind Horse Sings. I talked about the life-altering lessons learned from broken animals made whole again. Questions from the audience were wonderful and provocative, and in the end I invited the group to visit Catskill Animal Sanctuary the following day. It was a lovely afternoon.

I pulled up to my house at 6:30 under a nearly full moon. I walked up the back steps, stripped off two jackets, and walked immediately to the oven with the pumpkin pie given to me as I left the church. I piled old newspaper, then cedar kindling, then locust and oak logs in the fireplace, and an amber glow lit the living room.

Just outside my front door, I heard the horses (for those who don't know, my house is in the middle of one of our horse pastures). I peered out to see old man Maxx and his friends Callie and Hazelnut. Their heads leaned over the deck railing; their ears pricked forward in eager anticipation of a friendly greeting and a treat. No carrots to be found, however, and my fruit bowl, often piled high, was vacant.

I wonder.....

I pulled the pie out of the oven, shoved one arm then two into my red cordurouy jacket, then my green one, and walked out to the deck.

"Animals," I whispered...."animals....look what I have!!"

Murphy got the first bite, shoving his snout right into the center of the pie. Callie was next. She sniffed tentatively: what kind of treat is THIS?? and then licked the surface, ever the lady. Hazelnut did the same.

And then came Maxx. Maxx, the thirty-something-year-old gelding surrendered to CAS after his owner died of cancer. Maxx, the gelding with his harem of six mares. Maxx, the pumpkin pie lover who took one perfunctory sniff and then smashed his muzzle so forcefully into the pie that I nearly dropped it, and then again, delighting in its texture and sweetness.

"HAPPY THANKSGIVING, MAXX!!" I exclaimed, laughing heartily.

Murphy and I stayed on the deck for another few minutes, surrounded by horses content to remain right there with us, drenched in moonlight, soaking up the love and savoring pumpkin pie.

What better gift to yourself, the animals, and our frighteningly fragile planet than to pledge to go veg? Take a look at my OpEd in the Providence Journal:

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_stevens31_12-31-07_328CK6A_v7.2a6d37f.html

Today, I spoke to the Kauai Vegetarian Society, a newly-formed group that meets monthly at the Neighborhood Center in Kapa'a, located right on the beach and just a half-mile or so from Blossoming Lotus, Kauai's wonderful vegan restaurant.

How impressed I was!! First, that over forty people attended on Super Bowl Sunday when rain pelted the island relentlessly was impressive enough. Second, the group was an informed and sophisticated bunch--well aware of the health aspects of the veggie lifestyle--comprised of a everyone from young families to retirees. I met John, fresh out of his Bikram yoga class (held just above Blossoming Lotus), Gordon and Diane, a vibrant and enthusiastic West Side couple, and plenty of others who've enthusiastically embraced this compassionate lifestyle.

The audience asked wonderful questions about the work of Catskill Animal Sanctuary, and laughed warmly when I read chapters from Where the Blind Horse Sings that show how animals -- sheep and pigs and chickens -- can evolve when they're loved...when they're in situations that allow them to thrive. One particulary good question was about how we handle people who show indifference to animals.

Most interestingly, though, according to organizer Jim Brown, at least a quarter of the group were newcomers -- and this happens at each meeting of the fledging group (just a year old). How different that is from our local vegetarian group that struggles to get its members to attend its monthly meetings.

What is there to learn, I wonder? Naturally, the "Garden Island" attracts people interested in a healthy, active lifestyle. But there must be some way for our good group to draw more people, because its message is obviously one that everyone can benefit from.

Meanwhile, the weather is not on my side this year--one stormy day follows the next--so I'm reading, writing, and working out with my partner David's friend Whitey the Goose. I'm on my way there now. Whitey and I have got to work on our abs today. In all this rain, I need a good sweat and could use a workout coach!!

Giving up meat isn't easy for many of us, particularly if we have a traditional diet and just aren't convinced that a meat-free diet can taste as good.

But the reasons to go veg are SO VERY IMPORTANT, and there are thousands of websites, restaurants, healthy-lifestyle coaches, cookbooks, cooking classes, and more to provide all the help you need!!

Here's an article to inspire you to take the leap--or at least the first step--toward an animal free-diet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?_r=1&oref=slog

The undercover video by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) of cows at the Westland/Hallmark slaughterhouse shows downed animals--too sick to stand on their own--being poked in the eye, beaten, sprayed in the face, lifted and shoved with forklifts, and ultimately dragged by chains to their deaths.

By this point, the video has been viewed by millions of Americans. Millions have been introduced to the concept of downed animals, and to the enormity of their suffering. Millions can no longer say "but food animals are protected by law," and must also now acknowledge that animals deemed unfit for consumption are entering the human food supply chain.

I am so grateful for this video, for the attention it has received, and for HSUS's renewed demands that Congress enact pending farm animal welfare legislation -- the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act and the Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act – without further delay.

I also applaud the efforts of HSUS and other big guns -- Compassion Over Killing, Farm Sanctuary, PETA, , etc. -- to shine a spotlight on the most egregious abuses -- downed animals among them -- in a system designed to maximize efficiency and profit despite the costs to the "product" (in this case, living animals) and the consumer.

Gestation crates. Veal crates. Tens of thousands of chickens raised in a single building (9 billion each year grown and killed in this country alone), sitting in their own filth, the ammonia from their excretions damaging eyes, lungs and throats. Grown so quickly that the chicken industry now knows the percentage of birds that will die of "flip-over syndrome" -- i.e. violent heart attacks -- because their organs can't handle the stress of being forced to grow to slaughter weight in just six weeks. We chop off animals' tails, we chop off their toes, we chop off their beaks, all without anesthesia, because on these factory farms, in these chambers of horror, animals packed together peck and claw and bite each other...and god forbid the meat be damaged. I'm grateful for the courage and commitment that it has taken to gather this footage, and I encourage those of you who've heretofore turned a blind eye to look at it.

Within the animal rights community, the debate will continue over whether lobbying for slow, strategic, and incremental change (the HSUS approach) is preferable to demanding the absolute and immediate end of all uses of animals by human beings. But when we're talking about shifting sociocultural attitudes (if there is such a word!), all change happens incrementally. Sudden seismic shifts of attitude are rare in us humans, and I applaud HSUS, Farm Sanctuary and others for their strategic, long-term approach to changing policy as they also encourage individual animal lovers to adopt a vegan lifestyle.

But I've got to be honest. I just don't feel excited about lobbying for laws that would outlaw mind-numbing cruelty and replace it with a little less cruelty. Through our e-updates and our quarterly newsletter, we encourage Catskill Animal Sanctuary members to make the phone calls that will encourage their respective lawmakers to vote for these incremental changes--in that way, we do our part. But in my role as director of a sanctuary that rescues these animals,the only approach that rings true for me is to say to every single human soul who comes our way: PLEASE DON'T EAT THEM. If you've read my blog from the beginning, you'll know that this hasn't always been my approach. But seven years into this work, it's the only message I feel we can offer.

Of course, how we offer it varies depending on the visitor's predisposition and level of awareness. For those who clearly feel threatened or judged, it can be as simple as encouraging them to lie in the shavings pile with a happy pig, read our signage about the lives of animals, take home the literature to read on their own. For others, it can mean emphasizing the environmental devastation wrought by agribusiness. In other words, no single formula works. What works, I believe, is to be grounded in the "rightness" of this choice, to understand that we're all in different places in our journey, to know that if meat eaters have come to Catskill Animal Sanctuary, somehow the question of diet is one they're already wrestling with...or one with which they're ready to. It's incumbent on us to help them along that path.

It's part of our job that I believe we do well; it's a job we must do better.

Here we go, everyone: another attempt by our "Environmental Protection Agency" to further erode clean air and water standards by exempting factory farms from regulation.

The EPA is accepting public comments until March 27 on its proposal to ELIMINATE clean air standards for factory farms. While federal law requires industry to report hazardous substances released into the atmosphere, the agency feels factory farms should be EXEMPT in order "to reduce the burden on the regulated community." The proposal explains that it's "too difficult" for factory farms to comply.

Oh dear. Poor, poor factory farms. Poor, poor production factories responsible for more emissions that all transportation combined. Poor factories responsible for dead rivers, ponds, and other waterways, the extinction of many species, illness and disease in nearby residents...and the wretched suffering of billions of animals every year grown to satisfy the human palate. They're having such a difficult time complying with clean air and water standards (such that we have). I feel for them.

(The proposal actually acknowledges that no penalty results from failure to comply...so what's the point of requiring compliance?)

PLEASE--EVERYONE--go to http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10380.cfm to register your objection to yet another predictable assault on the environment by the governmental agency charged with protecting it. A sample letter is provided--please make it your own. Send the Organic Consumers link to everyone you know. And hug a tree today, would you?

Send us a comment to let us know you've written. I'll publish it.