Thursday 7 January 2010

some links and outrage

I may or may not be back with a food post today, but briefly:

Kekovich takes Australia Day lamb campaign global
After five years of campaigning against ‘unAustralian’ behaviour across the nation and urging us to unite over a lamb chop on Australia Day, Sam Kekovich is set to take his cause global.Convinced that mankind is facing a pandemic that threatens its very existence - unAustralianism - Sam will ask the United Nations to declare 26 January ‘International Australia Day’ in his 2010 Address.
OH GOOD because nothing makes me feel better about being a Chinese-Australian vegan than being told I have to kill lambs in order to count as an actual Australian.

Some other links for the morning:

On meat consumption, equity and human rights by Sarah at the Vegan Benefits Blog

Why vegans were right all along at the Guardian.
As a meat-eater, I've long found it convenient to categorise veganism as a response to animal suffering or a health fad. But, faced with these figures, it now seems plain that it's the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue. We stuff ourselves, and the poor get stuffed.
I regularly read vegan.com because Erik Marcus is always talking about and linking to interesting stuff, and he has written The Year in Meat 2009, a really interesting read on animal agribusiness and vegarianism (mostly US-centric) in 2009.

5 comments:

Penny said...

Ohmygod. Sometimes I wish one of those lambs would turn feral and eat Sam Kekovich. I know that's not how it works, but still.

Anonymous said...

The unAustralian/eat lamb for Australia day "campaign" with Sam Kekovich has been an ongoing advertising campaign by Meat & Livestock Australia for several years now. In 2005 it said vegetarians were unAustralian and a bunch of people wrote letters of complaint to the Advertising Standards Board who said it was "satirical". It's annoying they have bought out a media outlet so badly this year (not that you'd really describe "Sunrise" as high class media, but they do seem to have wide appeal).

(unAustralian for 22 years!)

Theresa said...

Sweet jesus. First of all, if killing lambs is Australian then I'm not sure I want to be here! Secondly, Australia Day is such a contentious issue here in Australia in terms of the history of race relations. Surely making it global is a Very Bad Idea, not to mention a major slap in the face to all the Indigenous people here.

steph said...

I feel like I should just let the lamb thing just slide by, it's not worth getting angry about, but OH I just. I feel annoyance! And some rage.

Theresa, I agree! On all counts!

Anonymous said...

From a meat-eater's perspective, I love Sam, even if I do think the whole unAustralian thing is a bit rich. Its a surpise that Vegans and vegitarians don't have a similar campaign.

Somthing to consider.