Public Education Thanks 425,000 MORE Meat-eating, Milk-chugging Children

Weak economy puts more kids in line for free meals

(CNN) -- The sagging economy is taking a bite out of federal school-meal subsidies as more students take advantage of free or low-price breakfasts and lunches, nutritionists say in a report released Thursday.

The School Nutrition Association surveyed more than 130 school nutrition directors from 38 states to produce its report, "Saved by the Lunch Bell: As Economy Sinks, School Nutrition Program Participation Rises."

The nonprofit organization said that about 425,000 more students are participating in the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program in 2008-09 than in the previous school year.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/11/school.meal.subsidies

Tell the world you care more about children than those in charge do and that you don’t want children to get sick or die from: Strokes, Heart disease, Osteoporosis, Kidney Stones, Colon cancer, Prostate cancer, Pancreatic cancer, Ovarian cancer, Cervical cancer, Stomach cancer, E-coli, Endometrial cancer, Breast cancer, Hypoglycemia, Diabetes, Kidney disease, Peptic ulcers, Constipation, Hemorrhoids, Hiatal hernias, Diverticulosis, Obesity, Gallstones, Hypertension, Asthma, Salmonellosis, Trichinosis, Irritable colon syndrome, and Mad Cow/CJD (all related to meat and dairy products). http://inslide.com/

It is a crime against humanity to decide that children shall stumble and die early deaths so that those in charge may eat and work as they wish.

No matter what anyone argues, schools feeding unsuspecting children the corpses of once living beings and promoting breast milk--complete with its blood, pus, and hormones--stolen from confined, drugged, and tortured cloned creatures as normal and healthy beyond infancy is a physically, socially, mentally, spiritually, and ecologically damaging, unnecessary crime against humanity.

Schools avoid Humane Education and teach students to be ignorant and apathetic. Miss-educated doctors scramble to find a cure for cancer; yet, wise vegans know prevention is the cure. So too, truly defeating ignorance and apathy lies within prevention. Humane Education teaches children the truth about our world and raises a generation that cares. The philosophy learned in classrooms today becomes the philosophy of society tomorrow.

Children deserve the truth and are the key to change. Children are the transmission of society. It is up to vegans to break the cycle of hereditary ignorance perpetrated by school boards who allow the meat and dairy industries to go after the very children we entrust them to protect. Milk mustache posters are an embarrassment to the educational system and a crime against humanity, far worse than Joe Camel, for they hang in an institution that children trust for truth. The indoctrination vegans fight so hard is ingrained in schools - the very place we should be working on prevention.

Elie Wiesel wrote, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented". Will Barack Obama’s lack of action torment children and animals? After all, Obama knows all about the problem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt56ER4TSqc

Vegan Santa podcast

Vegan Santa has a new message of truth from now on. A new message we haven’t heard from the slave-driving, milk-chugging Santa of old. Vegan Santa brings a message of peace, love, and understanding for all.

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them” Oscar Wilde

“Adults find pleasure in deceiving a child. They consider it necessary, but they also enjoy it. The children very quickly figure it out and then practice deception themselves” Elias Conetti

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives” Einstein

http://vegansanta.com/podcast.mp3
http://www.itunes.com/podcast?id=270714687

http://vegansanta.com/

Good teachers are hard to find

Look at what we do to loving cows, chickens, pigs, and other partners on this planet we all have the privilege of sharing. Humans do not know how to conduct themselves in the universe. We search in outer space for other life forms; yet, we ignore the many amazing beings right here on Earth.

We don't understand animals or ourselves. All we care of is how that one will taste. This is really sick and downright evil when you think of eating the corpse of a once living being and drinking the breast milk of--complete with its blood and secretions--confined, drugged, and tortured creatures.

What meat-eaters and milk chuggers don’t realize is how their taste buds would come alive if they were to go vegan. Vegan food is so much better tasting. Meat is gross!

It is like a cigarette smoker who quits and then enjoys breathing again.

In the end, one must be caring enough to change. The problem is - one must give respect to others before one can earn it for themselves. Most people do not care enough to change.

If only I had Buddha as my teacher when when I was young.

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it" Buddha

Podcast - Adama and Warwak talk of the evil in place
http://www.inslide.com/02AdamaWarwak.mp3

http://adamaspeaks.com/

The institutionalized bastardization of our children

The real fake "artists" are farmers using Mother Nature to create their wares as they can't create anything themselves. The other group of fake "artists" are the sellout graphic advertisers who use their skills to promote the farmers’ wares and make money with no regard for truth.
Podcast - fake artists sellout to the death industries


http://adamaspeaks.com/

http://www.worldpeacediet.org/

Schools abandon children

by Kelly Kilpatrick

Changing the Face of School Lunches

Though it would seem like common sense, we continue to keep an eye on the bottom line regarding school lunch programs. Rather than looking out for the health and well being of our children – who are undoubtedly our future – cheap, lackluster alternatives to healthy and balanced meals make their way into our schools, and subsequently, students’ bellies. Big changes will need to be made if this dilemma is meant to be solved.

Take Money Out of the Equation

Money should not be the sole consideration for a school lunch program. Money is important, and we certainly don’t want to pay exorbitant costs for food. However, we are just perpetuating a cycle that has gone on for years. Honestly, is the cheapest food possible really going to be good quality?

Eliminate Big Business

This is the logical next step. Huge corporations are providing this cut-rate, processed food to our children, keeping them obese and hooked on terrible foods that will only continue to maintain the status quo. Big business and schools do not need to be mentioned in the same sentence, just like mortgage companies and the government, but I digress.

Support Responsible and Sustainable Growers

Supporting growers that practice environmentally sustainable farming procedures should be encouraged and patronized by our schools. As the trend in thinking shifts to more “green” living, it only makes sense for us to begin to integrate the people who are out there doing the right thing into our educational system. This is called leading by example, not “do as I say, not as I do.”

Locally Grown Foods

An even better step would be to patronize local farmers and growers that are working hard to bring food to market. Naturally, there are many educational opportunities when the food students consume comes from a local farm as well.

Educate

Students need to know what’s going on, and so do their families. Making sure that we continue to educate the public regarding the food we all consume is something that we absolutely must continue to do. Many people would be astounded at what they’re putting into their bodies, but are completely oblivious to this information. Education is the first step in helping people to make informed dietary decisions.

Kelly Kilpatrick, writes on the subject of distance education. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24@gmail.com

Humane Education will create a generation that cares

Humane education reinforced with a vegan school lunch will end school shootings and create a generation that cares. When children see that adults care enough to change, they will care in turn. This is too serious of an issue to leave alone just because some wish to eat unimpeded.

Humane education makes the acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills, and commitment to living ethically, sustainably, and peaceably on this planet the very purpose of education. It does this by infusing the curricula at all levels of education with meaningful information, inspiration, and tools for creating a safe and humane world for all.

Humane education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation. It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone: not just our friends and neighbors, but all people; not just our own dogs and cats, but all animals; not just our own homes, but also the earth itself, our ultimate home.

Humane education helps raise a generation that cares, that realizes that what we do matters, not just to ourselves but also to everyone our lives touch; a generation that understands the connections between both our personal and cultural choices and the fate of other people, other species, and the Earth, and takes responsibility for creating a better world. Humane education achieves these goals by inspiring people to identify the values that will guide them through life and by teaching them the process of embodying these values in the face of complex problems and needs.

The birth of humane education as a national effort dates back to 1915. In that year, “Be Kind to Animals Week” was inspired Dr. William O’Stillman, leader of the American Humane Association. AHA’s primary goals were: visiting local schools to promote the development of humane education and publicizing the good works of the nation’s humane societies.

Quality humane education uses a four-element approach that includes:

• Providing accurate information about the interrelated issues of human rights, environmental preservation, animal protection, and culture.

• Teaching critical thinking so students can discern fact from opinion and resist forms of manipulation, whether from advertising, media, peers, or social norms.

• Inspiring the 3 Rs of reverence, respect, and responsibility so students will have both the passion for, and the commitment to, bringing about positive change.

• Offering choices for both individual decision-making and group problem-solving so that students can become part of a growing effort to develop sustainable, peaceful, and humane systems by which to live.

The American public school system is actively keeping gravely serious information from you and your children. People deserve all the information so they can choose wisely about things such as living an extra 10 to 12 years or never having to worry about many cancers, heart attacks or strokes. A vegan school lunch addresses the Health Care Crisis.

I am simply offering information and have not forced food or beliefs down people's throats. Imagine if just saying or writing something could force people to change.

It is not a "personal choice" when you are eating my friends and you are ruining my world. My tax money subsidizes your "personal choice." When you made your "personal choice," did you ask the animal if you could confine, torture, and murder him or her? When you made your "personal choice," did you ask me if I mind all your pollution and devastation? Just because we personally make selfish choices does not make them "personal choices."

Please visit these two links to leave your say with Barack Obama
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/vegan_school_lunch_options
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/nationwide_humane_education

I find it very disturbing that schools hide veganism from children and promote false dairy industry advertisements. School administrators have proven they do not care to change – even when children’s lives are at stake.

What can be more important than children’s lives?

Schools should be delivering truth; instead, money-hungry administrators promote evil lies and sell out the children we entrusted them to care for.

Children want all the information and appreciate having choices – especially when their own health and well-being are in danger. The philosophy learned in classrooms today becomes the philosophy of society tomorrow.

Schools avoid humane education and teach students to be ignorant and apathetic.

Not knowing and not caring are different things. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is nothing to sweep under the rug. I wonder how people will feel in 10 to 15 years when the children of today are the “dropping-like-flies” adults of tomorrow. It breaks my heart, but at least I know I did everything possible to let people know.

Animal agriculture targeted at national animal rights meetings

by Philip Lobo, Communications Director – Animal Agriculture Alliance

Two national conferences held in July and August 2008 brought together 1,200 domestic and international animal rights activists to share strategies and tactics for furthering
their campaigns. Taking Action for Animals increased attendance is in its fourth year.

Animal Rights 2008 retains attendees despite having been boycotted by animal rights giants the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (PETA) for the past three years, Animal Rights 2008 attracted roughly 400 animal rights activists.

Items high on the agenda at the conference included effective ways to appropriate religion and co-opt environmentalism, how to maximize the value of “YouTube” as a communication tool and ideal techniques to for reaching children and young adults with the animal rights message. Animal agriculture also was targeted, with groups sharing ideas for ending animal agriculture altogether.

Having only received cursory attention in the past few years, livestock production was a top target at Animal Rights 2008. Conference attendees embraced an incremental approach to abolishing animal agriculture. Alex Hershaft, President of Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM) and a leader in the movement to repeal the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), opined “abolition (of meat) provides the long-term solution” but also emphasized farm welfare reforms, although not a long-term solution, provide a means to ending animal agriculture. Well-known activist Karen Dawn and animal rights attorney Sean Day similarly emphasized that every step that moves animal agriculture toward the activists’ definition of animal welfare is a step toward animal liberation.
http://www.beefusa.org/uDocs/animalagriculturetargetedatnationalanimalrightsmeetings.pdf

Podcast: Animal Rights 2008 Conference - Engaging Children - Warwak

District 3 sure bad food not served in schools

Happy meat my ass! Nothing "happy" about murder! No matter what anyone tells you, eating the carcass of a once living being is unnecessary and is physically, socially, mentally, spiritually, and ecologically damaging.

More lies, ...

District 3 sure bad food not served in schools

By CRAIG A. WHITNEY

Former Fox River Grove Middle School art teacher Dave Warwak returned Monday to speak to his former employer about the food the district is serving to its students.

He also spoke about his termination last fall.

Last September, the School Board fired Warwak for allegedly teaching students about following a vegan diet during class time. Warwak is a vegan who avoids using animal products of any kind.

During the public comment segment of Monday's Board of Education meeting, Warwak alleged that 384 pounds of meat contaminated with mad cow disease were fed to Fox River Grove Middle School students.

"It takes some 10 to 15 years for it to incubate -- the prion," Warwak said. "It latches onto a brain cell.

"This is serious stuff," he continued. "I tried warning you about it before. You didn't want to listen."

Warwak also told the School Board he has contacted the State Board of Education to investigate his termination.

District 3 Superintendent Jackie Krause said the district has already made sure it has not served contaminated food that was part of a recent meat recall.

"We received from the State Board of Education a listing of products and numbers associated with those products," Krause said. "We took a look if we had any of those items on hand or as reasonably far back as records could tell if we had those on hand, and we did not." For more on this story, read the March 6, 2008 issue of the Cary-Grove Countryside.

No kidding Jackie Krause, you don't have any "on hand" - you already fed the recalled beef to the children back in April and the months after in 2007.
http://inslide.com/foxrivergroveserveddowners.mp3
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/safety/Hallmark-Westland_byState.pdf
http://inslide.com/agencies.htm
Click here to see what the people in charge want to feed you but don't want you to know!

http://inslide.com/respect/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=68
http://inslide.com/respect/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=67
http://inslide.com/respect/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=64

With mad cow disease, the only thing cattlemen have to fear is the press itself

By Martha Rosenberg

“Texas has had one variant CJD case,” the Texas Department of State Health Services Infectious Disease Control Unit assures the public on its web site after a November mad cow scare. “Investigators have concluded that the patient was a former resident of the UK where exposure was likely to have occurred.”

But that’s not what the press says.

When Irene Gore of Palestine, Texas, died in 2001 the Associated Press’ headline was, “Disease Like Mad Cow Kills Woman.”

Her own husband blamed the calf valve that was surgically placed in her heart in 1979. “She had been carrying around bovine material for 20 years,” said Mack Gore.

Parents of Karnack, Texas, Green Beret Sgt. James Alford also believed he had “the ‘variant’ form of CJD caused by eating brains or nervous system tissue from an infected cow,” said the AP when he was diagnosed with CJD in 2003 while in the service. “They worry he may have got it from eating sheep brains locals served to soldiers as an honor in Oman,” said the AP.

Texas, like other states and the federal government dreads an outbreak of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the human brain disease caused by eating cows with mad cow disease.

Not only can variant CJD spark panic in hospitals, health care settings and mortuaries, it can wipe out the US beef industry in days. Remember what happened to US beef exports when the US’s first mad cow was discovered in Washington State in 2003?

No wonder state and federal health agencies continue to protect the identity of the Texas farm where the first domestically produced steer with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), a.k.a. mad cow disease, was raised in 2005.

Why should a meat operation suffer just because it risked the lives of people who ate its product?

Why shouldn’t it be able to continue selling its wholesome products?

Nor did Texas officials release names when a herd of 1,000 head of cattle “in Texas” were quarantined and 46 carcasses tested for mad cow in 2001 after eating banned animal meal that contained meat and bone. Who ate those wholesome products?

“This is not a public health issue, it is a violation of an FDA rule, and the rule is a precautionary rule,” said Dr. Konrad Eugster, executive director of the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory at the time -- using the same wording officials used earlier this year when meat at risk for mad cow disease from the Hallmark Meat Company was found in federal school lunch programs.

Oops.

Despite the three locations, the Texas Department of State Health Services says they have had more than six CJD cases since 2000. Sporadic CJD comes in clusters? Texas authorities say a November scare about the source of a hospitalized Amarillo woman’s disease is unfounded.

In fact, Ted McCollum, beef cattle specialist with the Amarillo office of Texas AgriLife Extension, was so sure it was nothing, he called the woman’s case “sporadic” before tests were even done -- perhaps to quiet tumbling beef futures markets at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Of course Texas is not the only state in High Denial.

First reports of the death of the former mayor of Buffalo, NY, James D. Griffin, from CJD by local TV stations in May vanished from the Web until resurfacing in November, presumably after the window of hysteria had closed.

But Texas has the parallel problem of venison which is also considered unsafe because of chronic wasting disease, the deer version of mad cow, which Texas spreads through “hundreds of deer-breeding facilities [which have] have sprung up in the state to feed the interest in building bucks with bigger antlers,” according to the Houston Chronicle.

(Why is Texas breeding deer if there is a deer population problem? Good question.)

Like the beef industry, Texas doesn’t want to risk its “multi-billion dollar hunting industry,” as the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission refers to it, because of a mere food scare -- so it assures the public the venison is safe. Especially when the animal doesn’t look sick -- and you bone the meat away from the spinal cord, spleen and brain.

Unfortunately, venison was not safe for Wayne Waterhouse and James Botts of Chetek, Wisconsin, and Roger Marten of Mondovi, Wisconsin, who all developed rare brain diseases after wild game feasts and died in the 1990s.

Nor did it seem to be safe for the “three unusually young patients with CJD who regularly consumed deer or elk meat” written up in an article in the October 2001 issue of the Archives of Neurology.

Nor had any of them visited the UK.

Martha Rosenberg is staff cartoonist on the Evanston Roundtable. She can be reached at mrosenberg@evmark.org

Next on Obama's Dance Card, Mother Nature

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) might be the next interior secretary. As this shot clearly proves, he's an outdoorsman.

It's not lost on transition officials that Thompson is an avid hunter and angler whose candidacy has been endorsed by sportsmen's associations.

President-elect Barack Obama told Field & Stream magazine in September that he wants a sportsman or sportswoman in the post. "I think that having a head of the Department of Interior who doesn't understand hunting and fishing would be a problem," Obama told the magazine.
Washington Post

Meat Takes Mystery Role In School Lunch

School Cook Creates Vegan Dishes
By Marla Hinkle

BENTONVILLE -- Wylie Gray builds layers of organic spaghetti sauce, pureed zucchini squash and whole-wheat noodles.

He prepares a vegetarian meal for children at the Bentonville Seventh-day Adventist School each Wednesday. About 29 pupils are enrolled, and not all partake in the meatless lunch.

Meals are $2.50 for children in kindergarten through second grades, and $3 for older students and adults. All proceeds from the lunch go back to supporting the school.

Rob Farinholt, principal at the school, said Gray has become creative in his cooking skills.

"I know my daughter Simone looks forward to hot lunch day on Wednesdays. As parents, we love it, too," Farinholt said.

The school recently promoted its support of nutrition with a four-day Vegan Raw cooking class presented by health and lifestyle trainers Jeff and Nancy Reidesel. The members also have recipes published in the church cookbook.

About 60 people attended the event each night, Farinholt said.

Gray has been a supporter of the school more than 20 years and is the grandparent of two pupils there, Brayden Richardson and Brielle Richardson.

"We do not serve fast food here. I think you're a lot better off if you have a more natural diet," Gray said.

He also takes the time to do his enchiladas "the hard way" dipping his shell in sauce and adding ingredients one by one.

"When you layer food, it separates the flavor of each ingredient, and you will taste more of it."

Adding flavor is one of the challenges he must meet in preparing tasteful vegan and vegetarian food that, at times, strives to imitate meat texture. Take Gray's lasagna. He used spun dried soybean to add bulk. He said it's virtually tasteless but tends to soak up whatever ingredients and spices are in the recipe. Sometimes he uses griller burger from Morningstar Farms.

He has used cashew cheese and bell peppers in his lasagna for added flavor and texture.

"Soybean has a nice texture to it and is a good, transitional food."

The Bentonville Seventh-day Adventist Church has a potluck on the Sabbath, and they don't serve meat, so the school continued that tradition, Gray said, although it's not a church doctrine one cannot eat meat.

Also, a couple of doctors who are church members agree with this diet, Gray said. Some members are completely vegan, and he tries to accommodate them by using Smart Balance non-dairy butter and soy milk in recipes like his mashed potatoes.

"I ran out of Smart Balance and used one stick of butter in my Banana Nut Bread, but I didn't use eggs."

One loaf didn't rise, but two did.

"It's no big deal, since the flavor didn't change."

Dessert is usually healthy, such as Gray's Tropical Fruit Kabobs.

"I don't fix sugar cookies."

All cookies aren't forbidden. Gray has made oatmeal cookies with a cherry in the middle for decoration. He's also used crushed pineapple in his banana bread.

Gray used to have more of a sweet tooth, he said.

He grew up in Hammond, La., home of 5,000 people "and a few old grouches," Gray said, smiling as he shared a description of what was written on the town sign.

Gray was born to older parents; his father was 60 and his mother was 43 when he was born. He liked to cook with his mother.

"I remember we were always shelling black-eyed peas, snapping green beans and picking blackberries. We had 5 gallons of blackberries, and I could have all the pie I wanted."

A pulpwood train went by their home, and he recalls a man waving to him and throwing him a bag of candy as he went by.

"I have the cavities to prove it."

In the summertime, Gray's father would give the train crew some of the vegetables he had grown in his garden.

Although the family grew their own food, at times, there wasn't enough money to pay for food.

Gray caught his own trout and cleaned them. He still eats some meat.

"I'm open-minded. If it's vegan and it tastes good, it's good."

He had the chance to put his cooking to the test while in the military. Gray was a medic in Vietnam, and he was put in charge of cooking one day when they were short-handed.

A back injury has caused Gray a great deal of back pain. Nerve damage and arthritis prevent him from standing at the sink and peeling 20 pounds of potatoes, he said.

Wednesdays can be a struggle for him, but it is a day he still anticipates with pleasure. A staff of about four adults assists him.

If he has a problem with food, Gray said it's simply that he eats too much of it.

The children have their own favorites, like Haystacks, a layered combination of Frito chips or baked chips, cheese, beans, lettuce, tomato, picante sauce or salsa, sour cream and onions.

"The kids haven't told me I've fixed the same thing twice. Even when I have a repeat, I'll do something different."

Tofu Lasagna
12 lasagna noodles, whole, cooked
1 pound tofu

Tomato sauce:
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup carrots, grated
1/4 cup green pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 quart tomatoes
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 cup vege-burger (optional)
1/2 teaspoon basil

Saute vegetables in oil until tender and add vege-burger. Add tomatoes and simmer for 1/2 hour.

Cashew Cheese:
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon onion salt
3 tablespoons brewers yeast
1 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup oil
1 (4-ounce) jar pimientos
1 teaspoon garlic salt

Place water, cashews and salt in blender. Whiz thoroughly. Add oil slowly until mixture thickens. Add lemon juice, pimiento and seasonings and whiz again.

Crumble tofu into bowl, pour in the cashew cheese and mix. Use alternately with tomato sauce and noodles. Save some to drizzle on top. Bake lasagna at 350 degrees until good and bubbly.
Servings: 8 to 10.
-- Vonda Beerman, "Favorite Vegetarian Recipes" (Bentonville Seventh-day Adventist Elementary School)

Plant-based school lunches in Atlanta

Tofu corn dogs, vegan burgers and cartons of soy milk are now showing up on school lunch menu in Gwinnett County, Metro Atlanta's largest school system, which is now offering vegetarian meals every day of the week at all of its 110 schools.

Dec. 16: Press conference & vote on Humane Education

What we present as normal shapes young attitudes towards life.

Compliance with New York State's 1947 Humane Education law is one of the League of Humane Voters of New York City's top priorities as we seek to get humane education into schools. Working together with Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers, we've discovered that the law, which requires instruction on the humane care and treatment of animals, is unknown to most educators. To correct this major problem, LOHV-NYC asks Council Members to open doors with letters to principals in their districts and also to help with funding. More than two years ago, we also suggested a resolution would help. That became Resolution 497, which will finally be voted on at a public hearing of the City Council's Education Committee on December 16.

Resolution 497, sponsored by Council Member Tony Avella (D-Queens) and co-sponsored by 41 (out of 51) other Council Members, urges the New York City Department of Education to help schools comply with New York State's humane education law by issuing an informative memo to all public schools in the city. The resolution also mentions studies confirming the strong correlation between childhood animal cruelty and later interpersonal abuse.

"We like to think of humane education as the 4th 'R' - reading, writing, arithmetic and respect for all living beings; they're all crucial parts of a wholesome education. Society benefits tremendously from having humane education in the classroom. With Resolution 497's passage in the Education Committee and the entire City Council, we hope that the City will finally begin to comply with State law and bring humane education into every school in every neighborhood and in all the boroughs," said John Phillips, executive director of the League of Humane Voters of New York City.

Take Action!

1) Call your Council Member and tell him or her that our kids deserve humane education. Urge a vote for Resolution 497. To find out who your Council Member is, click here or email us with your address: info@humanenyc.org

2) Attend our press conference with HEART and Council Member Avella on the steps of City Hall on December 16th at noon. Afterwards, join us for the vote!
http://www.humanenyc.org/

PETA’s letter to Tim Mahaffy, Fox River Grove Middle School Principal

Tim Mahaffy, Principal
Fox River Grove Middle School
One page via fax: 847-516-9169

Dear Mr. Mahaffy,
On behalf of PETA and our more than 1.6 million members and supporters, I'm writing to express concern over the recent disciplinary actions taken against Dave Warwak, an art teacher at your school. According to news reports, Mr. Warwak was disciplined for informing children about the cruelty of the meat industry and the enormous health benefits of going vegetarian.

It's a sad day when a teacher is punished for telling students the truth: that by going vegetarian they will dramatically improve their health while saving animals from cruelty so extreme it would warrant felony-level cruelty charges in the state of Illinois if the victims were dogs and cats, rather than chickens, pigs, and cows. In a time of growing violence in schools, a teacher who is bringing a message of compassion should be applauded, not punished. Students in every school should have teachers like Mr. Warwak to tell them that the "chicken nuggets" they consume in the cafeteria were once living, breathing animals who were crammed into filthy sheds and pumped full of drugs before having their throats slit while still conscious.

Mr. Warwak was also apparently distributing copies of John Robbins' book "The Food Revolution", which documents not just the cruelty of the meat industry, but also the environmental and health benefits of a vegetarian diet. In these days of skyrocketing childhood obesity, hopefully Mr. Warwak's students will take this health message to heart: according to the American Dietetic Association, a vegan diet is appropriate for all ages and vegans have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity than meat-eaters.

If you agree to allow Mr. Warwak continue to discuss these important issues, PETA would be happy to donate "Compassion Care Packages" to every one of his students. These packages will include a copy of "The Food Revolution", a DVD of "Meet Your Meat" (a factory farm exposé viewable at http://www.meat.org/), and a free Vegetarian Starter Kit (downloadable at http://www.goveg.com/).

Please let me know of your decision. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Bruce Friedrich
Vice President PETA

http://www.inslide.com/respect/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=22
http://blog.peta.org/archives/BF_Letter_to_Mahaffy.pdf
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=33598
http://inslide.com/716304.mp3

Spending tax dollars so children can kill wildlife

By Martha Rosenberg

CHICAGO—The goldfish and koi started surrendering to the surface around Halloween. Bass, crappie, catfish and the distinctive sunfish/bluegill hybrids that inhabited the pond for 140 years followed.

Soon the 5.2 acre South Pond in Chicago's Lincoln Park sported a slick of shiny, golden and still moving fish, kind of like a macabre woman's drink.

But the fish kill was not an unfortunate runoff accident to be blamed on agricultural nitrates.

It was deliberately administered by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources which laced the pond with the South American poison Rotenone to "restore" the water body into a "model Illinois freshwater habitat."

It would be impractical to relocate "thousands or tens of thousands of fish," said DNR spokesman Chris McCloud.

A fish kill is the "standard technique" used when restoring a pond concurred Neal David, Lincoln Park Zoo's vice president of facilities.

The irony of killing the fish to save the pond was not lost on Chicago residents who for generations have enjoyed the fish from rented paddle boats on the pond.

Especially since the neglect-prone Lincoln Park Zoo allowed three elephants to perish in 2005 within seven months of each other and does not have a reputation for compassion.

"It takes such a long time for them to grow and they're just gonna kill them off," lamented Carlos de la Pena to a CBS TV news station about the fish kill.

Still, Chicago residents rarely see the trapping, denning, poisoning and sharpshooting—no doubt from helicopters—of "nuisance animals" that their tax dollars fund in what state officials term "wildlife management."

They probably think Ducks Unlimited loves ducks too.

The fact is the most state DNRs unswervingly serve hunters, who serve them back.

Their financial models are predicated on providing "recreational opportunities"—read: bloodsports—for sportsmen though their conservation/habitat doublespeak sometimes obscures that fact.

Deer hunting is a prime example.

Hunting is necessary to "control the herd" and "save deer from starvation" repeat DNRs year after year while shamelessly playing the other side of the street and licensing hundreds of deer breeding farms. Hello?

And greeting the fatal chronic wasting disease which might actually "control the herd" and "save deer from starvation" with emergency measures to wipe it out! (All the while encouraging donation of risky venison that sportsmen don't want to eat anyway to food pantries. Nice philanthropy if you don’t have to eat it.)

Nor do states only pander to deer hunter dollars.

Illinois spends over a $1 million a year to mate, hatch and raise ring-neck pheasants for "sportsmen" to hunt at 14 taxpayer-funded recreation sites.

Four sites even cater to children 10 to 15 though the eight-year-old Arizona boy who grew up shooting groundhogs and killed his dad and another man in November wouldn't make the age cut.

"They are the only places these young men and women can hunt and be assured of a good shot," Jerry Rodeen of Pheasants Forever, a national group which lobbied to keep the Illinois program funded in 2008 despite the recession, told the State Journal-Register in April.

150,000 pheasants a year are bred at the high tech 20,000 square foot Helfrich Wildlife Propagation Center with 12 acres of outdoor pens on the southern edge of Edward R. Madigan State Park near Lincoln, IL.

The facility is "very similar to a chicken or turkey farm," site superintendent Ron Willmore told the Pantagraph in 2004—pheasants wear plastic blinders on their beaks to keep then from attacking each other in the crowded conditions now illegal in California—"except for what happens to them."

What happens to them, of course, is the birds that hunters don't pick off, die from other causes like predators and the elements. Soon there is not a trace of them.

Kind of like the fish in South Pond

Martha Rosenberg is a columnist and cartoonist who frequently writes about the impact of the pharmaceutical, food, and gun industries on public health.

Will Obama lead by example?

So, ... Barack Obama knows all about the problems with the school lunch program and its implications on the future health of Americans. Will Obama lead by example or will he sweep the issue under the rug? “All ancient philosophy was oriented toward the simplicity of life and taught a certain kind of modesty in one’s need. In light of this, the few philosophic vegetarians have done more for mankind than all new philosophers, and as long as philosophers do not take courage to seek out a totally changed way of life and to demonstrate it by their example, they are worth nothing.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher

South Korean stores to offer U.S. beef again

AP - SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — U.S. beef will be back on supermarket shelves in South Korea, major discount department stores said Tuesday.

South Koreans protested in the streets for weeks when the government decided in June to lift a 2003 ban on imports of U.S. beef.

For months, supermarkets and many restaurants shied away from offering U.S. beef because of strong public opposition to the government decision.

But on Tuesday, the Korea Chainstores Association said major discount stores such as E-mart, Home Plus and Lotte Mart will begin selling U.S. beef because customers have asked for cheaper meat.

U.S. beef is generally less expensive than domestic beef.

Other smaller discount stores, supermarkets and department stores are expected to follow suit soon, association official Ko Sang-bum said.

The price of U.S. beef to be sold in the three major discount retailers starting Thursday remains under negotiation with importers, he said.

South Korea was the third-largest overseas market for U.S. beef until it banned imports after a case of mad cow disease was detected in 2003, the first of three confirmed cases in the United States.

President Lee Myung-bak agreed to lift the import ban in April just before a summit with President George W. Bush — a deal that prompted near-daily street rallies by South Koreans concerned the country could be exposed to mad cow disease.

The protests forced the entire South Korean Cabinet to offer to resign and led Lee to replace his top advisers and several ministers.

How quickly people forget the 143 million pound recall that was mostly eaten by school children, elderly, and prisoners. Seems like just yesterday and nothing has changed. Case in point below -

My Beef With School Food

By Amy Kalafa

Just prior to the February 17, 2008 recall of 143 million pounds of ground beef, I received numerous emails pointing me to the Humane Society's video exposé of the killing floor at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino, California. The footage, low-resolution and fuzzy, is nevertheless gruesome, enhanced by the undercover activist's narration detailing the abuse of the animals.

What's hit the headlines is the fact that cows too sick to stand were being fork lifted into position and slaughtered against regulations, their potentially tainted meat ground up with that of hundreds of thousands of other cattle. It's been reported that 37 million pounds of that meat supplied schools across the country as a commodity item in the National School Lunch Program. "Downer" cows are forbidden for use as food because mad cow disease is one of several conditions that will cripple a cow. The USDA is minimizing the risk, but it takes about 20 years for mad cow to develop in humans and most of the recalled beef has already been consumed. With 20 million school children taking part in the program daily, that's nearly two pounds of contaminated beef per student. Scary.

Buzz up!on Yahoo!I eat meat. My family, my kids eat meat. One of the stories my 21-year-old daughter tells of her "traumatic" childhood describes the time I sent her into our neighbor's farmhouse to ask her dad a question. She found him with a group of men and women gathered around a table in the basement where they were engaged in butchering a calf. The calf had been tethered in the barn the day before, nursing from his mother. My daughter knew him as "Gumpy." My six-year-old child emerged from the basement in shock. "They killed Gumpy!" "Papa killed Gumpy!" For years after, whenever we had veal for dinner, she would ask, "Are we eating Gumpy?"

My husband is from France. When he moved to America 30 years ago, he couldn't find the quality of food he was used to in France, not even in the most expensive gourmet markets in New York City. Shortly after we were married, we became partners in a farm in upstate New York. There we raised certified organic poultry and game birds using traditional French and biodynamic farming methods. Our daughter, definitely a "hair and nails" kind of girl, saw a lot of blood and guts on the farm. And though she attends a college with perhaps the largest percentage of vegans of any school in the country, her French half dictates that for now at least, she remains an omnivore.

I wondered if my daughter's first-hand knowledge of life and death on the farm de-sensitized her to the killing of animals for food?

When we began farming, we expected to bring our tenderly raised birds to a local slaughterhouse. As neophytes coming from the city, it would have been so much simpler for us -- less messy, and certainly less vulgar, to let someone else deal the coup de grace. "You give me 100 chickens, and I'll give you 100 back plucked and dressed, but no guarantee they'll be your same chickens," is what we were told by every operation in the county. After months of research, equipment auctions, and USDA inspections, we hired a crew of Vietnam Vets and began "processing" our beautiful Muscovy ducks, Chinese geese, Guinea Fowl, Pheasants and "Poulet de Bresse" on the farm.

Slaughter days were somber, yet disciplined affairs. We were efficient and careful to follow our newly acquired USDA rules and responsibilities. Most of our birds were sold fresh to the best restaurants in the city. Many neighbors showed up on slaughter days as well. Often we'd have a rabbi at one door, blessing our birds before carting them off to the local Kosher resort, and the only Muslim couple in the county at our other door, eager for fowl that was not only Kosher, but Halal as well!

The city chefs, the Rabbi, the Muslim couple and the neighbors all knew us. They knew our farm, they knew our flock, and therefore, they knew their food. Just like my daughter knew Gumpy.

I showed my daughter the Humane Society's video. She was horrified. "When we eat meat in school, or in a restaurant, we just assume that someone else is looking out for us" she told me. "Our farm drew a community together, giving comfort even on the gruesome slaughter days. Those people all knew where their food came from and it made them feel safe. When the scale gets so big and anonymous, we just get disconnected. It takes videos like this to remind us," she observes.

The shocking Humane Society video is educational in a negative way. We need an educational system that teaches kids positive lessons about food -- sourcing, preparation, taste, presentation, nutrition, marketing and politics. I documented positive food system education in my film, Two Angry Moms. In the schools where "farm-to-school" programs take place, school children visit farms, sometimes working on them as a learning experience, or bringing their acquired knowledge back to school gardens and greenhouses. These schools had classes where students learned to prepare whole meals from fresh ingredients. In one district, a month of school lunch menus were entirely planned and tested by the students. Where school districts purchase fresh ingredients from a variety of sources, I observed that food service directors, administrators, parents and even students all join in taking responsibility for the quality of the meals.

I had a call from a reporter who wanted to know, "Who's in charge? Who's the go-to person for insuring the quality of school food?" He caught me a bit off-guard. The obvious answer is, "The USDA slaughterhouse inspectors." As a parent and a whole food advocate though, I've heard many stories about what goes on in factory farms. The USDA admits there aren't enough inspectors. The only reason the Chino plant made headlines is because of an undercover independent investigation. I suggested to the reporter that he call a school superintendent, or a Board of Education member. We entrust our children's education and their safety at school to these administrators. Ultimately though, it's up to you and me -- parents, to safeguard and teach our children. We're in charge.

Not all kids will have my daughter's first hand education on the farm, but they all need a connection with their food. Schools that utilize the cafeteria as part of the curriculum seek the same quality in the food and in the food service that they demand from teachers and from textbooks. Parents, Boards of Education and school administration need to take responsibility for the food fed to our children in school. The more we know about it, the better equipped we all are to make decisions about where that food comes from. Isn't that what education is all about?

---

Case in Point: Fox River Grove SD 3 Fed Children Beef from Westland

384 lbs of meat from Westland was made into taco meat and fed to the children at Fox River Grove Middle School in April and May of 2007. You can confirm this with Jim Copp, Principal Consultant Division of Nutrition Programs and Support Services Illinois State Board of Education. Of course they will down-play the risk - do not believe it! Although meat has been recalled, the children may have already been infected with a prion particle from an infected animal. Scientists have suggested that the incubation for this encephalitis-like brain disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE) or Mad Cow Disease) can be many years. Mad Cow is like a ticking time bomb. The children might already be infected and their symptoms might not appear until they are young adults... Don't say that SOMEBODY did not try to warn them. Who is responsible? The parents or the school system? Or?

http://inslide.com/foxrivergroveserveddowners.mp3
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/safety/Hallmark-Westland_byState.pdf
http://inslide.com/agencies.htm

Click here to see what the people in charge want to feed you but don't want you to know!https://community.hsus.org/campaign/CA_2008_investigation?qp_source=gaba89