A new relationship with animals, nature and each other.

Posts tagged ‘the fringe’

Poland Bans Kosher and Halal Slaughter

Poland’s top court has ruled that ritual slaughter of animals according to religious requirements is illegal. Specifically this means that the kosher and halal method of slaughter, by which a conscious animal is held upside down while her throat is slit, cannot be continued.

Could Your Sponge Eat You?

Well, only in the movies, perhaps. But here’s a real-life carnivorous sponge who lives two miles down in Monterey Bay, captures crustaceans with her barbed hooks,…

Count Dracula’s Kitties

Count Azul would love a little taste of your neck. He and his fellow Counts, below, were some of my favorite rescued kitties looking for good homes one October, several years ago, when I was part of Best Friends Animal sanctuary.

Cat Fight in British Politics

As an unprecedented political drama continued to unfold outside London’s 10 Downing Street, police had to be called to break up the catfight over who should inhabit the Prime Minister’s official residence.

Penguin Speed Secrets Revealed

How do emperor penguins manage to reach a maximum speed approaching 20 miles an hour when swimming in Antarctic waters where they have to avoid hungry leopard seals? The secret is in the bubbles!

‘I Was Raised by Monkeys’

Kidnapped by human traffickers at age four, Marina Chapman woke up to find herself abandoned in the rain forest of Colombia. She spent the next five years living with Capuchin monkeys – like a female Tarzan.

Now in her 60s, she’s finally telling her story.

How Your Wishes May Come True

We are not humans as something separate from other species, says India’s former Environment Minister Maneka Gandhi. You can only love yourself if you love all the other kinds of animals. “I love them because all of them are me and it is the ultimate self-love to see myself in every blade of grass and therefore to be respectful of it.”

World Animal Day and a Cathedral Cat

Carmina was a stray, struggling to care for her newborn kittens in a deserted parking lot in Washington, D.C. But on Sunday, October 3, 2010, she began her new life as the official Cathedral cat of the National Cathedral.

Blessings Galore at St. John the Divine

Inside Manhattan’s Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the pews fill quickly, and the air thickens with anticipation. As people await the Blessing of the Animals service, the hush is broken by music, whispered conversations and the occasional bark. Here and there, someone leans over to murmur a few words to the dog by his side, or to the cat or rabbit in a carrier at her feet. Soon, the clergy begin to offer communion to the faithful. Songs and prayers follow. Finally, the cathedral’s massive front doors swing open.

Animal Sacrifice and the Day of Atonement

It sounds like something out of some weird “primitive” religion in an “underdeveloped” country. But it’s going on right now, as it does at this time every year, in New York City, Los Angeles, Jerusalem and other cities around the world that have orthodox Jewish populations. In the “tradition” known as “kaporos”, you buy a live chicken, tie her up, wave or swing her around your head or someone else’s, and then kill her. This supposedly transfers your sins to the chicken, who then conveniently dies for those sins.

Feline Fashion Week?

I once talked with Mr. Blackwell, the fashion critic who published the annual “Ten Worst Dressed Women”list (and the book “From Rags to Bitches”.) He supported…