Me: Vegan

Ah, this week we have Vancouver’s good friend Robert Belcham.  First I’d like to take a moment to make fun of his weight.  Ah, that was fun.   The only reason making fun of his weight is a fun as it is for me is because he runs a restaurant which sells the most foie gras (fatty liver) in Vancouver.  That is a seriously dubious honor Robert.  In his facility one may perchase a foie gras appitizer for $30, or an entire “lobe” of it for $125.  Beyond that, he offers Pigeon and foie gras,  a foie gras mousse terrine, among other things…  When his shit hole of a restaurant became the target of local animal rights groups (many, many of them) rather than do the right thing and remove this cruel, disgusting, unpopular item from his menu, he turned around and added foie gras to nearly every item on the menu.  That’s like saying ‘fuck you to all the customers and non customers, I’m gonna do what I want coz I can!’

Several weeks ago, Robert felt it fitting with his total hatred of all animals, human and non human alike, to host a infant pig roast.  He then stuffed the little tiny baby pig’s dead body FULL of foie gras and served it to humans, the poor, poor sods.  A few weeks after this, Belcham was caught assulting two young, female activists who were, legally protesting outside his restaurant.  One woman was grabbed and yanked by the arm, and another had a pail of water dumped on her head!   Robert Belcham is insane.  He is a deeply disturbed individual in serious need of a hug, advanced therapy and a long period away from the general public.

Please give him a call at: 604-288-7905  and send him and e-mail at: info@fuelrestaurant.ca

Let him know that it’s time to drop the foie gras and do what’s right!

Continued from The Vegan Files #1…

Many years went by before I first heard the word Vegan.  I heard the word for the first time when I met one.  He was an enigma, though also a closet level 5 douchebag.  Someone who actually managed to survive on no animal products at all!  I couln’t believe it!  I thought about it for a while and decided that he must live on a diet of exclusively salad greens, olive oil, orange juice and tofu.  That was too crazy for me, no siree, I could never do such a thing and never would!

At that time I had a beautiful, though adorably naive, vision in my mind of a farm.  In my vision, there was a huge pasture that stretched farther than the eye could see, with chickens nesting happily wherever their hearts desired.  The woul peck around for food, drink water from the stream, take naps underneath the big apple tree, and lay their eggs whevever they were ready.  Then, the friendly farmer, naturally wearing his trusty overalls, would come out and collect the unnecessary eggs from the ladies. Then he would pack them up to be sent to market where people like me would buy them with pride.

This fairytale was marred one day, when I was visiting my Vegan friend’s house and saw a copy of the Vancouver Humane Society’s monthly newsletter sitting on his kitchen table.  Since he turned out to be a level 5 douche bag, I tended to spend most of my time at his place alone, reading magazines.  This allowed my a long opportunity to read their cover story on battery cages.  I had never heard the term, nor imagined the concept.

A battery cage is approximately 33 inches by 25.5 inches and holds nine to twelve live, egg laying hens.  These women are imprisoned in these cages their entire lives, and you’re dreaming if you think they get to leave to go outside, eat their meals, or receive veterinary care!  A hen’s natural lifespan is 6 years, while these imprisioned egg laying hens live a short, tortured 9 months.  These chickens suffer from stress so severe that they are reduced to self mutilation, feather pecking, and even caniblism.  One hen lives her entire live in the same amount of space as a regular sheet of school/note paper.

This image haunted me, but fortunately for me, all my eggs came from Idylic McHappyville farms, so I had nothing I could do better to improve the lives of these poor tortured souls.  Thus, several more years passed with me not thinking twice about the egg and dairy that I regularly consumed.  Nonetheless, the good that did come from my friendship with Douchie McLooser was that I was able to see that not only was a Vegan diet physically possible, but that he ate wicked food at all the same restaurants I regularly went to, he just got to be more creative.

It has been a while since my last post.  I suffered some “technical difficulties” which lead to me not being in a writing mood for a few weeks.

This past weekend was the annual Animal Law Conference at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR.  Lewis & Clark is a wonderful school of Law, specialising in Environmental and Animal Law.  The conference features several panels per day each with two expert speakers on a wide variety of topics from dog fighting, factory farming and street level activism, to a Holocaust Survivor’s views on Animal issues, global warming, media relations, and criminal prosecutions.  Virtually everyone in attendance is either a lawyer or law student.   Anyone would benefit from attending, however the majority of the subject matter is quite “wordy” and industry related, thus it is recommended to have some amount of legal education.

This year crowd favorite author Steven Wise spoke about factory farming issues and his new book informally titled “The 3 holocausts of Bladen County”  though formally titled:  “An American Trilogy.”  He spoke about the minascule town of Tar Heel, North Carolina which, according to the 2000 census has a population of 70 people.  Tar Heel is also home to the world’s largest slaughterhouse owned by Smithfield Foods.   The plant is nearly 1,000,000 square feet, has approx 5000 employees, and murders nearly 40,000 pigs EVERY GOD FORSAKEN DAY!

Former and current prosecutors Scott Heiser and Heidi Moawad spoke about recent or landmark animal cruelty cases and some of the challenged of convincing prosecutors to proceed with charging the offenders.

This year’s conference was a great success!  I had the priviledge to attend even though I am not a lawyer or law student.  Each session is 1 1/2 hours long with 15 minute breaks between, and 100% VEGAN breakfasts and lunchs are served each day.  It is a two full day conference that runs from 9am-5pm.  I found this to be the ideal set-up having gone to other conferences during the summer where each session was much too short given the wonderful speakers, and the talks often ran very late into the night, up to 11pm!

Conferences are best enjoyed when the speakers and attendees are well rested, well fed, well informed, and given enough time to fully appreciate each set of speakers with time for questions.