Costa Rica’s Visual Arts Biennial (Bienarte) 2007 showcased a select group of artists. One of these artists, Guillermo Vargas Habakkuk, chained a lost dog to the wall of the exhibition and let it starve to death. That was his artistic contribution, which was appreciated so much that he has been invited to the Bienal de Artes Visuales de Honduras 2008 (The Biennial of Visual Arts of Honduras 2008), which is scheduled to take place in November in the country’s capital.

Half a million people have already signed the petition to drop this asshole from the art show and shame those that think there is artistic merit to animal abuse and murder.

This guy has a decent breakdown of the artist’s motivation. I see his point, I think, but it’s still abuse and murder.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot out there on this, at least in English. You can go to the artist’s website, but I don’t want to advertise for him. So if you really want to see messed up pictures of a dog starving to death in an art gallery as people stand by and do NOTHING, you can find them pretty easily.

This is about stopping cruelty and abuse. Please read and act.

The factory farming lobby is once again trying to stop animal advocates, concerned citizens and even local governments from having a say when it comes to the treatment of farm animals. S.B. 1373, introduced by Sens. Burns, Aguirre, Arzberger, and Flake, will prohibit city, state and county governments, as well as Arizona citizens from using the initiative process to advance any policy regarding how egg-laying hens are confined on factory farms. Only the Arizona Department of Agriculture will have authority over standards set for millions of animals in the state, preventing any improvements to farm animal protection policy.

If enacted, S.B. 1373 would uphold the factory farming industry’s cruel status quo, ensuring that laying hens continue to be crammed into battery cages inside windowless, ammonia-filled warehouses, where they never see the light of day. In addition to allowing for the continued cruel treatment of hens, S.B. 1373 would prevent any regulation of the egg industry by a county, city, town, or other political subdivision of the state. It would also set a dangerous precedent that, if successful for Arizona’s factory farming industry, is likely to be copied across the nation.

S.B. 1373 is yet another backlash against our recent success in Arizona, where the cruel factory farming practice of confining pigs in gestation crates has been banned. This legislation is a follow up to last year’s SCR 1035, also pushed by Sen. Flake, which sought to nullify the 2005 citizen passed ballot initiative that reformed the factory hog farming industry by banning gestation crates in Arizona. S.B. 1373 seems to be crafted as a preemptive measure to stop the passage of a similar ban on battery cages in the state.

More information and action info here

Who: ARN! (animal rights now! of NAU/flagstaff)
What: Demonstration.
When: 10:30 - 12:00.
Where: We are meeting on the east side of Wall Aquatic and in front of the Wettaw building- from there, we will march to the Biology Annex (21B)
http://home.nau.edu/maps.asp
Why: Animal Rights NOW! is holding a demonstration to protest the animal testing facility on campus. Members of ARN! have tried to contact employees of the facility, but they have ignored our requests for information and refuse to meet with us. Though NAU has said that students’ tuition does not go directly to animal testing (they like to call it “using animals for research”), our dollars DO go to pay for equipment, chemicals, and the salaries of these “scientists.”

To throw a little fuel on the fire, I suppose, a faculty member of NAU contacted the boss of one of the ARN! members (the same one I’ve been talking to recently about an article for December) and said this person is a threat to the university and should be fired (and that these views were shared with Pres. Haeger). So there will be increased security, including police. All this for an animal rights protest on campus? What are they hiding?

Come support ARN! and show NAU that we DEMAND answers.

First rally: Monday, Nov. 5, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., public sidewalk in front of Flagstaff Planned Parenthood on South Plaza Way.

As many of you know, Flagstaff Planned Parenthood has recently begun to experience weekly anti-choice protests by fundamentalist Christians (see background information below). The protestors are not simply exercising their First Amendment right to free speech – they are harassing patients, family and friends by shouting through bullhorns, taking photographs of people entering and leaving the clinic, standing in the shopping center parking lot and handing people pamphlets, and generally behaving in an abusive manner. Several protestors have been cited for disorderly conduct. Nearby business owners and patrons have also spoken of harassment. These protests take place on Thursdays.

If you are interested in volunteering, please contact me and I’ll send you a weekly e-mail to let you know the day and time of the weekly rally. Lisa Rayner, Lisa@LisaRayner.com

Background on the anti-choice protestors

The protestors belong to NAU Students for Life and the Flagstaff Chapter of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Members have also been tabling with graphic photographs of late term fetuses on the NAU campus and outside Flagstaff high schools. Members attended a fundamentalist “pro-life boot camp” this summer. They hold extremist views on sex and contraception. For example, they lie to people about hormonal birth control and emergency contraception, claiming that birth control causes abortion (in reality, hormonal birth control methods prevent ovulation). They consider a single-celled fertilized egg that has not yet implanted in a uterus to be the moral equivalent of an infant (or adult woman for that matter). “Survivors” chapter leader “Bud” Shaver was arrested in July in Wichita, Kansas for entering a Lutheran church during the Sunday service and screaming Bible verses at the congregation (a doctor who runs a women’s clinic is a church member).

From Klee,
Pass this info on:

“We Don’t Celebrate Genocide”
Candle Light Vigil
in front of City Hall, Flagstaff Arizona
5:30-7:30pm Monday October 8th
“we will make a collective statement that Columbus Day is nothing to celebrate.
please speak your truth and bring your art…and candle.”

Or, if you can’t make it, do your part and post this this everywhere. Email me if you want a large version to print out and post on the streets.

Listen here to the history of Columbus Day and why it is celebrated.

Columbus was a slave-trading-Indian-killer and we have no reason to celebrate him. It has nothing to do with Italian pride. It has nothing to do with the “birth of our nation,” or Christian ethics.

Columbus stole, he murdered, he raped; there is nothing virtuous about him or his life. Read anything about him in any text, beyond elementary school history books, and they all confirm this. They don’t celebrate him in Portugal; they don’t celebrate him in Italy. Why do we? Columbus Day is nothing more than propaganda build around mythology and a false sense of patriotism. It is a celebration of the legacy of colonialism and imperialism.

I’ll write more on this as the day approaches.

From Lisa via Grand Canyon Wildland’s Council

Please attend one of these meetings to comment on the Travel Management proposed action. Show the Forest Service and the media that environmental concerns are important to the people that enjoy our forests.

Help protect wildlife and natural quiet on the Coconino National Forest.
Let the Forest Service know that off-road travel:
- Destroys Crucial Wildlife Habitat
- Erodes Soil and has Negative Impacts in Important Watersheds
- Disturbs Your Natural and Quiet Experience in the Forest

!!Your Comments WILL Make a Difference!! Stop by the meeting and make your voice be heard.

**ATTEND A FOREST SERVICE OPEN HOUSE**

and SATURDAY August 4 12:00 - 5:00
at SINAGUA HIGH SCHOOL 3950 E. Butler Ave, Flagstaff