Volunteer of the Month: Claire Livingston

After graduating from school and moving back to the Twin Cities a year ago, Claire Livingston wasted no time in renewing her animal activism. She became an advocate for the animals shortly after going vegan four years ago, volunteering at the headquarters of Viva! USA and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. While in Minneapolis, she learned about CAA's New Volunteer Meeting, where she started her involvement with the group.

Claire has been active in a variety of areas, from staffing our office to recruiting volunteers for CAA's Walk for Justice, but her most significant contribution has been leafleting. Starting with her involvement as an on-site coordinator for Minnesota College Leafleting Day last spring, Claire has become a powerhouse for distributing vital information on factory-farm cruelties and vegetarianism. In just the past several months, she has leafleted at dozens of concerts, festivals, and colleges. Most recently she leafleted at the Warped Tour in Minneapolis and even drove to Milwaukee to leaflet the tour's stop in that city, resulting in a grand total of 10,500 leaflets being distributed!

Her drive for animal advocacy is derived from her strong sense of duty to the animals. "We should not be inflicting suffering on sentient animals - it's just horrible what humans do to animals," she explains. Volunteering with CAA has become an outlet for her activism. "I like what the organization stands for. It's easy to help, and meet good people, eat good food, and spread a good message."

Claire's future plans include acquiring a job where she can make a difference for the animals by educating people on the issues, and doing what she can to stop the pervasive cruelty.

Learn more about our volunteer program and fill out an application to help animals today!

Restaurant Review: Namaste Cafe

By Alana Horowitz-Friedman

Here in the Twin Cities, we are privileged to have a great variety of ethnic and exciting restaurants where "vegetarian" is understood (rightfully) as going hand-in-hand with "gourmet."

Take the Namaste Cafe, for example, where I recently dined with two of my friends. Though not all of us were even vegetarian, we ended up with an entirely vegan meal because of the large array of tasty options.

"In South Asia," the owner tells me, "meat is something that is really only eaten about once a week. Vegetarian food is eaten every day. It's a healthy lifestyle."

Open for lunch and dinner, the Namaste Cafe (pronounced nah-mah-STAY) has over 25 treats that either are vegan or can be prepared vegan upon request. And although it's only been open for about a year, they've already gotten a pretty good response from the masses. Mentioned in the 2007 Reader's Faves under Indian restaurants, it was also voted "Best Chai 2007" in City Pages - Chai that, by the way, is available with soy milk.

Read the full review here.

Article: Your Turn

Companies clamp down on cruelty

By Paul Shapiro as published in the St. Cloud Times
July 30, 2007

Across the country there's a movement afoot - one that has potential to change the way we view food and reduce the suffering of some of the most abused animals in the country. In Minneapolis, a number of institutions have become a central part of this movement.

Just recently, Minneapolis's Wedge Co-op formally announced that it refuses to sell eggs from caged hens or pork from suppliers that confine pigs in gestation crates. By offering a variety of vegetarian options and exclusively selling cage-free eggs and gestation-crate-free pork, the company is taking a stand against two of the most notorious factory farm abuses.

...Freeing animals from the confines of their tiny cages and allowing them the opportunity to walk and engage in some of their most basic behaviors is simply a matter of common decency.

That's not to say "cage-free" and "crate-free" necessarily mean "cruelty-free," because that's certainly not the case. But getting rid of battery cages and gestation crates is a step in the right direction that helps improve these animals' lives.

Read the full article here

Article: We Pet the Dog, and Then We Eat the Cow

Our idea of moral behavior toward animals varies by species.

Crispin Sartwell as published in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
July 28, 2007

The Michael Vick dogfighting case, and all of the attention on dogfighting and its attendant practices, show one thing very clearly: As a society, we have no idea what we think about animals.

I watched cable news recently, and almost every anchor interviewed an official of the Humane Society, and all expressed horror, especially that Vick's indictment had accused him and his fellow defendants of executing dogs in ways apparently designed to be as cruel as possible: drowning, strangling, electrocution. One official compared the practice to child pornography.

Then I went into town for some lunch, driving past all of the franchises peddling ground cow for human consumption.

If killing dogs is the equivalent of child pornography, while eating cows is simply a way to put off mowing the lawn, we seem to be conflicted - or reeking with hypocrisy and confusion.

Read the full article here.