#feedlot farming

[farmerstrend]

Focus on High Quality Beef: How Small-Scale Beef and Dairy Farmers Thrive in Urban Slums

Explore how Kenyan farmers are producing high quality beef by adopting modern feedlot practices and crossbreeding Bos taurus with traditional cattle breeds. Learn about the strategies behind producing high quality beef in Kenya, from selecting the right breeds to targeting premium markets for better profitability. Discover how feedlot farming and crossbreeding techniques are helping Kenyan…

[entegrasignaturestructures]

Entegra - Premier Partner for Complex Construction Projects

Entegra excels in managing Australia’s largest construction projects, offering unmatched quality and thorough site consultation. Our clients achieve productivity gains and sustainable growth with innovative infrastructure solutions, including clear-span spaces up to 80m wide. Visit our website to know more.

[doomsayersunited]

A Decade Of Doom!

I started this blog ten years ago to compile the growing evidence that our planet would not longer be able to sustain human life by 2050, thanks to our continued, capitalist-fueled efforts to destroy all the systems we rely upon to sustain life. The first thing I put up here was this essay, on February 20, 2014. Now, a decade later, I thought it might be "fun" to look at what's changed: 1) Earth Overshoot Day

In 2014, "Earth Overshoot Day" (the day that humanity collectively consumes more resources from nature than it can regenerate over a year) was August 19th. Now, in 2024, Earth Overshoot Day is August 1st, 2.5 weeks earlier. At this rate and assuming things don't accelerate (even though they are likely to), Earth Overshoot Day will be around June 17th by 2050. 2) Biocapacity Biocapacity is the amount of resources contained on the planet required available to sustain life, measured by area. In 2014, I calculated that the planet had a biocapacity of 1.7 hectares per person. By dividing the total available biocapacity today in 2024 with the current global population as I did then, it now appears that there are just 1.5 hectares of planetary resources left per person to extract all the materials needed to sustain life, as well as all the area available to dispose of waste. That's a 12% loss over ten years. At that rate, we can expect to lose another 30% of biocapacity by 2050, going down to just 1.05 hectares per person by then, and that's assuming that the rate of biocapacity loss does not accelerate further and that the global population suddenly stops increasing after a run of non-stop increases spanning five centuries. Oh, also a reminder that the average human requires 2.7 hectares of land to sustain its current consumption habits/levels. So. 3) Individual Conservation To illustrate the futility of individual conservation at this point in the apocalypse, let me give you an example: If you were: a fully-vegan localvore living in a one-bedroom apartment with nine other people and using 100% renewably-generated electricity; who did not ever use motorized transportation of any kind or buy new clothing, furnishings, electronics, books, magazines, or newspapers and recycled all the waste you generated that was recyclable, you'd only require 1.4 hectares of biocapacity to sustain yourself. That is close to the kind of lifestyle extremism it would take to live sustainably. Deviate from that level of stoicism even slightly (say by living in a two-bedroom apartment with three other people instead of a one-bedroom apartment with nine other people and taking a single, four-hour roundtrip flight, once a year) and you're now consuming 1.6 hectares of biocapacity, which means you're using more resources than the world has available for you if everything was divided evenly among everybody. Of course, biocapacity, like all resources, are not divvied up evenly among everybody, which is why there are currently 114 different armed conflicts happening worldwide - the highest number of armed conflicts since 1946. 2023 was the most violent year in the last three decades. 4) Other Signs Of The End Times In my 2014 essay, I referenced the work of geologist Dr. Evan Fraser, who studies civilization collapse. In his book Empires of Food, Dr. Fraser noted common signs of a civilization about to collapse, which began to appear about two decades before it all goes completely to hell. Those signs were: -a rapidly-increasing and rapidly-urbanizing population We've added 700 million people to the planet since I began this blog in 2014. And where is everyone moving to?

-farmers increasingly specializing in just a small number of crops " "As farm ecosystems have been simplified, so too are the organisms that populate the farm.  A farm that specializes in a limited number of crops in short rotations does not, for example, look for plant varieties that do well in more complex rotations with intercropping.  A beef feedlot operation wants breeds that gain weight quickly on grain diets and does not want cattle breeds that digest well pasture grasses and thrive in all year outdoor environments on the range." The result? Recent estimates put the loss of global food diversity over the last 100 years at 75%. Over the 300,000 species of edible plants that exist, humans only consume about 200 of them in notable quantities, with 90% of crop plants not being grown commercially. -endemic soil erosion Climate change and the need to raise more crops have combined to increase the rate of agricultural soil erosion globally. Back in 2014, when I started blogging about the end of everything, the UN had already determined that there was only enough fertile soil left to plant 60 more annual crops. So, by 2074, we won't be able to grow food, full stop. This of course comes at a time when the global population continues to increase, and with it the need to grow more food. If projections are accurate, we will need to increase food production by 50% over the next three decades to feed everyone. -a dramatic increase in the cost of food and raw materials When I started this blog in 2014, I noted that 2011-2013 had seen the highest food prices on record. So what's happened since then?

It's important to point out here that the current food price spike started in 2020, so if Dr. Fraser's calculations are correct, the food system will collapse sometime around 2034, taking civilization with it. I closed my debut essay on this blog with a quote from the (now deceased) climate scientist Dr. James Lovelock, who advised a Guardian journalist to "enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan." That interview was published in 2008. We have four years left to enjoy.

[devoted1989]

From the moment cows in the dairy industry are born they are treated like commodities.

Male calves—seen as “byproducts” of the dairy industry—are generally taken from their mothers when they’re less than a day old.

Much like humans, cows have strong maternal instincts but a mother’s bond with her calf has no place on factory dairy farms. A cow will have to go through this painful process every year of her life.

Many male calves are shipped off to barren feedlots to await slaughter. Others are kept in cramped pens or tiny crates, where they’re prevented from moving so that their flesh will stay tender so that they can be sold for veal.

Just like humans, dairy cows only produce milk for their offspring. Therefore, they are forcefully impregnated every year. The milk they produce for their calves is instead taken from them and sold to consumers.

Dairy calves are killed at around the age of 4 years of age. Their natural lifespan is 15 - 20 years.

Go cruelty free. Choose vegan.

Source: Animal Equality and Farm Transparency Project.

Image found on Pinterest.

[gatheringbones]

[“While “essential workers” in the poultry industry were made to feel dirty, nonessential workers in fields like finance and computer engineering—the “people with laptops”—were sheltering in place, more distant from what transpired in industrial slaughterhouses than ever before.

Thanks to FreshDirect and Instacart, consuming meat no longer even requires coming into contact with a deli butcher or grocery clerk. With a few taps on a keyboard or the swipe of a screen, consumers can get as much beef, pork, and chicken as they want delivered to their doors, without ever having to think about where it comes from. And yet, as the popularity of bestselling books like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals attests, a lot of Americans do think about this. In recent years, more and more consumers have begun to carefully scrutinize the labels on the packages of the meat and poultry they buy. The ranks of such consumers have grown exponentially, paralleling the rise of the “good food” movement, which promotes healthier eating habits and reform of the industrial food system.

Although the movement is, in Pollan’s words, a “big, lumpy tent,” composed of a broad coalition of advocacy organizations and citizens’ groups that sometimes push for competing agendas, one of its aims is to persuade consumers to become more conscientious shoppers and eaters. Among those who put this idea into practice are so-called locavores, who buy food directly from local farms, ideally from small family-run enterprises that embrace organic, sustainable practices: ranchers who raise grass-fed cows that never set foot in industrial feedlots; farmers who sell eggs that come from free-range chickens reared on a diet of seeds, plants, and insects rather than genetically engineered corn and antibiotics.

Locavores engage in what social scientists call “virtuous consumption,” using their purchasing power to buy food that aligns with their values. The movement appeals to the growing number of Americans who want to feel more connected to the food they eat and to the people who raise it, with whom locavores can interact directly at farmers markets or through community-supported agriculture programs. It is a captivating vision, and the benefits of eating locally grown food—which is likely to be more nutritious, to come from more humanely treated animals, and to be better for the environment—are manifold.

But locavores have some blind spots of their own, most notably when it comes to the experiences of workers on small family farms. As the political scientist Margaret Gray discovered when she set about interviewing farm laborers in New York’s Hudson Valley, the vast majority of these workers are undocumented immigrants or guest workers who toil under abysmal conditions, often working sixty- to seventy-hour weeks for dismal pay. “We live in the shadows,” one worker told her. “They treat us like nothing,” said another. In her book Labor and the Locavore, Gray asked the butcher on a small farm why so few of his customers seemed to notice this.

“They don’t eat the workers,” the farmer told her.

“He went on to explain that, in his experience, his consumers’ primary concern is with what they put in their bodies,” Gray wrote, “and so the labor standards of farmworkers simply do not register as a priority.”]

eyal press, from dirty work: essential labor and the hidden toll of inequality in america, 2021

[lilithsaintcrow]

"Our online spaces are not ecosystems, though tech firms love that word. They’re plantations; highly concentrated and controlled environments, closer kin to the industrial farming of the cattle feedlot or battery chicken farms that madden the creatures trapped within."

[writingcold]

Hi there.  Welcome to Chapter 16.  We’ve had some fluffy healing.  It’s time to start buckling up.  We have a few chapters left of Act II, and Act III is… fast.  

If you are just joining us, you can find the Master List to the series here

A very huge hug and thank you goes out to @lvnterninthenight, @gardensgatedaisy and @whitesuitjake.  You’ve heard me gush about them all the way through, and there’s still more to go.  Yeah.  Pretty amazing humans there.

This is a work of fiction, and is totally mine.  Please do not take it for your own personal use.  I’ve put in hours of research, hours upon hours of writing, re-writing, screaming, yelling and vomiting over this epic of a story.  But it is mine.

Content warning:  Again, just saying this is an 18+ story for a reason.  This has elements of violence, so please be ready.  There is harm to women, there is harm to two major characters.  

Word count: approx. 6000

Chapter Sixteen: Dark Horizons - Cora

     Late Autumn storms shedding rain and snow had descended on Kingsford.  The last week of October was encroaching.  She felt like she blinked and six months had culminated in so much life that she scarcely believed it ever happened.  To be away from the farm and to be free of Kilbourne was a feat unto itself.  But to have the love of Jacob was unbelievable.  To have found an equal footing and beginning of a friendship with Joshua made her smile.  This family had welcomed her without hesitation, without warrant, supporting her, sheltering her and her own.  Jacob wanted a family - with her.  The notion filled her with something she had very little of six months prior: hope.

      “Morning, Joshua!”  she called as she walked through the back door, tucking her key into her bag.

      “Morning, lovely,”  he called back, his nose already buried in work.

      “Going to have lunch with Jacob today,”  she said as she started pulling out her first tasks.  “Are you going to come along?”

      He appeared in her doorway.  “Actually, I have lunch planned with the Reading brothers.”

      They laughed.  The Reading brothers owned the feedlot that Josh had offered to purchase several times.  It had become a running joke that the brothers so enjoyed Josh’s free lunches only to turn him down when it came time for him to pitch his deal.  Josh would shrug it off and continue laying in wait for the time that he would offer half of his original purchase offer and they would have to take it as they had no one else interested in their fading business.

     Cora settled in at her desk.  Josh had asked her to start looking into the balances of the bank in prior years, essentially making sure that the business of the bank itself was sound.  She had been reading line by line entries in the bank’s records, noting anything that looked odd or did not line up with accounts.  Though she had come across a few errors, she had yet to truly find anything that would be considered riveting. 

     Sitting up and looking away to refocus her eyes, Cora felt a shiver.  The bank was awfully silent for the hour at hand.  There seemed to be no customers in the lobby at all - a true rarity.  Closing her eyes to rest them just for a few moments, she felt her brain readjust.  Standing, she went to the bookcase by the door to retrieve the next ledger.  The scent of tobacco struck her nose and a grin tugged at her mouth, thinking perhaps Jacob had arrived early.  As she turned back to the desk, another scent struck, it was dark and mildewy.  The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as a chill touched her cheeks.  Pain flared at the back of her head as a hand grasped hold of her braided bun, yanking her frame backwards.  A surprised yelp was cut short as another hand wrapped around her throat, crushing the air from her.      “Where’s my wife, bitch,”  Harold Archer's voice filled her ears.

     Her body slammed against him but he slapped the side of her head.  Her ear exploded in a fit of ringing while stars cast across her right eye.  He yanked her backwards once more, dragging her from her office into the short hall.

     “Are you really this stupid?”  Josh’s voice came from behind.

     Archer spun them around, his free hand moving out to steady them.  She gurgled for air, her body flinching with shock.  

     “Think it through, Harold,”  Josh said calmly.  “This cannot end well for any of us if-”

     Cora felt something sharp run across her forearm like a thousand bees were being dragged by their wings, followed by pain that forced a whimper from the bottom of her gut.  Josh’s face grew hard.  His dark amber eyes went flat with rage.  Cora gritted her teeth as the sharp point was pushed into her ribs as she started to be dragged away from Josh, Archer’s hold on her tightened as he laughed over the situation.

     “Come on, little man.  Come on out here so that we have more room to play,”  Archer taunted.

     “Fine, Harold,”  Josh replied, his voice kept low and calm.

     Cora’s insides twisted and jostled as panic began to pool in her feet.  She could feel her arm bleeding, the shock of injury making it feel hot and itchy.  Once to the main area of the bank, her eyes went right to the tellers.  Both ladies were behind the locked counter, their faces wild with fear, but both seemed unharmed.  The windows were all covered.  Cora’s breath began to stutter as her own fear began to stab and twist in her, much like the knife that was digging in her side.

     “Cora,”  Josh called out, trying to get her attention.  “Cora, listen.  Don’t fight.  Hear me?”

     Archer laughed.  “Oh, I think she’s gonna want to fight.  If she knew what I wanted to do to her, she'd want to fight.  She owes me a wife, I can just take it from her.”

     Her body quivered.  This was Junie’s daily experience.  This man who presented such respectability was a monster.  Involuntarily, she strained, only to have him dig the blade deeper.

      “Cora,”  Josh soothed, despite his eyes widening with emotions.  “Please…”

      “On your knees, Kiszka,”  Archer seethed.

     She watched as Josh complied, sinking to his knees, hands out before him.  Her heart raced, but she stayed as still as she possibly could as the hand slid away from her neck, down her chest, grabbing a breast in a painful clutch.  She did not give him the satisfaction of a reaction, keeping her eyes directly on Joshua.  For a moment, there was comfort.  Whatever Archer planned, Josh would ensure they survived together.  She ignored the shredding of her pretty blue dress - the one that Molly had given her and had insisted she wear it on the last day of shop trial, and wear it for Jake.  She ignored the man’s hand as he attempted to humiliate her before Joshua.  However, the sight of Josh’s face flashing panic as he lunged forward cued icy fear to flood her brain.  Archer kicked him, landing a solid blow to his face.  The clerks screamed.  

      “You should’ve been mine,”  Archer oozed.  “That twin of his has been fattening you up, hasn’t he?  You’re not all skinny like your sister.  Has he put his cock in you yet?  Shown you what a man is?”

     “Harold!”  Josh said sharply, rising up again.

     Archer kicked him again, this time in the ribs.  Before she could move, Cora felt something sharp stab into her right buttock.  She hissed over the stark sting.  Archer laughed before planting a wet kiss against her cheek.  His body shifted against her as he reached into his pocket.  The knife dug against her side causing her to gasp.  Archer slammed his hand against her mouth and nose.  Cora choked as powder invaded her, chalky and bitter.

     “Yeah, I think I’ll enjoy taking that,”  he said crudely.

     “Please, no,”  she whispered, tears hitting her cheeks as Josh struggled forward once more, blood smeared across his face.

     “Cora?”  he asked, his eyes full of fright.  Each letter seemed suddenly drawn out, like she was watching him speak in symbols.  “Cora?  Lovely, stay with me.  Keep your eyes…”

     Pain exploded against her side as she was shoved down.  She brought her hand up, unable to understand the fluid that was so sticky that covered her hand and arm.  The world started to dim, as if colors were beginning to not exist.  Her head felt heavy and her neck could no longer hold the weight.  She shivered.  Her whole body felt cold and hot in intermittent waves as she struggled forward.  She knew Joshua was calling out to her, but the words made her eyes want to flutter.  She needed Jacob.  Her Jacob.  She needed his warmth and gentleness.  Each time her eyes drifted closed only to open again, leaving her more confused if it was real or dream.  Nightmare or hell.

Chapter Sixteen: Pt. 2, Jacob

     The sky was heavy with clouds that would eventually spill snow as he walked towards the bank.  He had set up Mr. Thornaby in the Tiger.  He had dropped in on Sam as he continued to make adjustments to the Moon now that he could take the time to really study and experiment on the rig.  When he arrived at the Northern Trust door, he was startled to find it locked.  The curtain on the main window was drawn obscuring anything that may have been going on.  His gut twisted.  His breath steadied as he listened to anything that may be happening on the other side of the door.  The quiet made his mind sizzle with panic.

      “You’re one of them Kiszka brothers,”  a voice called out.  “I’ve been waiting to get in there.”

      Jacob looked up at the man that was walking towards him.  “Oh, so sorry.  I’ll get right on that, sir.  It’ll only be a few more minutes.”

      Turning, he walked across to the post office, all the while trying to make his face look calm.  The clerk behind the counter looked up as he entered.

     “I’m sorry to be a bother,”  he said, forcing his voice to sound friendly.  “I’m -”

     “What can I help with, Mr. Kiszka?”  the gentleman asked.

     “I need to borrow your telephone,”  he said, looking back out the window across the street.  “I fear I have forgotten the key for the bank and it was my morning to open the doors…”

      “Oh, of course.  Here, step this way,”  the clerk said with a wave of his hand.

      He waited until the man moved out of earshot to call the garage phone.  Sam picked up, his tone annoyed.

      “Get heavy back up and meet me at the center with keys,”  he said firmly before hanging up.

      He flashed his biggest smile.  “Thank goodness for baby brothers, right?”

      He paused to glance out the window once more.  The thought that it was Archer in that bank with Cora and Josh prickled just underneath his skin.  There was no telling how long the man had been inside and what damage he had already been entailed.  He dug in his breast pocket for his cigarette holder as he crossed the street.  By the time he was rounding the back of the building in the alley, he had one out and lit.  He paused at the windows, listening for whatever was going on, only to be met with silence.  The minutes felt like days as he waited for Sam and Marcus and anyone else his brother would be able to rouse.  

      Two smokes lay crushed to the pavement beneath his feet.  Jake’s panic was beginning to choke his throat.  A muffled scream from inside chilled his heart.  His brain could not identify if it was Cora or someone else in the bank.  Was it one of the clerks?  Was it Cora?  His brain registered the tone as feminine sending his blood to raging.  His thoughts raced faster than his body could keep up with them.  Just as he was about to say the hell with it and break the door down, Marcus jumped down from the running boards of the Kissel as Sam parked.

      “What the hell is going on?”  Sam asked, holding out the keys.   

      “Everything’s locked up, windows are covered,”  Jake said, moving towards the doorknob.  “It’s gotta be Archer.  I can’t hear anything, and it’s been too long to be a fucking bank job.”

      Marcus stopped him, his face hard.  “You two stay behind me.  Jake, no matter what you see, do not feed into him.”

      The vein in his forehead began to throb.  Marcus had been the darkness of an enforcer for so long for the Diamante family that nothing surprised the man.  Jake nodded, turning the key in the knob as slow as possible to not make sound.  They moved through the short hall into the rear offices of the bank.  Jake noticed that Cora’s door was open and the room empty.  Josh’s door was closed, but it was easy to figure out that he was not in his office as Jacob heard his brother’s voice sharp and cold in the main lobby of the bank.  The words were followed by a hard slap and grunt.  Marcus had his pistol out.  The man’s grizzled face was hard with the duty at hand.

      He crouched his frame down and nearly crawled to the edge.  Jake and Sam followed suit.  

      “Don’t know what the fuck you think you’re going to get out of this Harold,”  Josh muttered, his voice thick.  “No one will trust you after this.  No one will allow a sick assed bastard who likes to hurt little girls to be a part of their community, let alone the head of their largest bank in town.”

      Jake felt Sam flinch as Josh was struck.  He couldn’t see anything around Marcus.  Mentally, he tried to picture anyone who would be in the space aside from Josh and Archer and Cora.  There would be two clerks.  Or, would there only be one…  His brain fuzzed over as he heard Archer hit something, but no sound followed except for Josh growling and spitting venom.  Marcus looked back at him hard.

     “Jacob, no matter what, do not come around this corner until I say.  Do you understand?”  the elder said, his voice thin with anger.

      “What the fuck did he do-”

      The man’s eyes held death.  This was the enforcer that Sastrato Torello had sent to them for protection of his daughter for a reason.  Jake felt himself melt into the wall behind him.  Sam held onto his shoulder as Marcus snuck out into the main space.  Archer was absolutely rambling in his fury.  He anticipated a gunshot, but instead was surprised by the sickening crunch of bone, followed by screaming.  Screaming of the women behind the counter bounced off the walls.  Screaming of a man in pain pierced the ears.  There were wet thuds that made his stomach turn.  

     “Marcus,”  Josh’s slurred voice called out as another hit landed.  “Marcus stop…”

     “Fuck it, Sam,”  Jacob hissed standing up.

     “Marcus!”  Josh called again, his voice a little stronger.

     Jake stepped out into the open with Sam right behind him.  The narrow room froze as his heart pounded like it was lurching from his chest and back.  Sam rushed forward as Josh was trying to reach out to Marcus.  The youngest grabbed hold of the enforcer’s arm to capture his attention, nearly incurring the man’s wrath.  Archer was gasping for air beneath him.  Josh was holding onto his ribs, cheek pressed to the wood floor.  Wild-eyed, he searched for Cora.  Following his twin’s gaze, he discovered she was hunched over between the wall and counter.  Her eyes were closed and her head was slumped against the brick of the wall.  No air reached his lungs.  His jaw grew slack.

     “Jacob,”  Josh groaned as Sam dragged him up to sit upright.  “I don’t know what he doped her up with, but I wouldn’t let him touch her, Jake.  I took it.”

     He looked at her, realizing that her dress was in pieces on the floor.  Shrugging out of his coat he started to move quickly towards her, but her head snapped up, panic in her face.  There was no recognition in those blue eyes he so loved.

     “Sam, go get Sheriff Moore,”  Josh was saying behind him.

     “Finch,”  Jacob whispered, holding his hand out to her.  He wanted to weep as she tried to claw herself away from him.  “Baby, it’s me.”

      He tried to hush and soothe.  All the while, he wanted to turn and rip the skin from the sick fuck that lay in a bloody mass behind him.  The fury that bubbled in his stomach made him want to vomit.  Cora’s body folded once more and took advantage of her weakness, covering her body with his coat and wrapping his arms around her.  He repeated his love over and over as he smoothed her hair.  

     Gentle hands came down on his shoulder.  He moved slowly so as not to startle Cora.  Mrs. Cooper and Miss Klass were behind him, their weary faces full of concern.  He was about to turn back, but Mrs. Cooper held out Cora’s long, lined coat.

     “This might work better, Mr. Jacob,”  she said.  “Can we help?  Maybe get her to a chair.  Marit, go get her chair from the office.”

     The younger lady moved away without a word.  Jacob slid himself backward, while trying to keep his hands soft on her.  The emotion choked him at the sight of the blood on her hand, arm, and on her side that seemed to be from a deep slice.  His breath rushed from him as her eyes flared but her mouth remained mute.

     “Steady, Mr. Jacob,”  Mrs. Cooper whispered, as she moved to his side, her hand wrapping around Cora’s other shoulder.  

     Together, they got her from the small space.  Cora started shrieking, clawing at the air, her blows landing on Jacob’s back in hard thunks.  Mrs. Cooper tried to catch the flailing arms, but could only catch one before the other broke free.  Marcus moved around to come behind them, clutching Cora around the middle.

      “Jacob, sit down,”  he directed.  “You’ll have to hold her.  Move that chair over, close to the wall.  She needs a small space.” 

      Jake sat down, uncertainty pounding through his body as Marcus lowered his girl into his lap.  He held on as tightly as she would allow.  He caught Josh’s gaze.  He could not hide the heaving emotions that pushed at him.  The fear that pulsed in his brain, to the love that quivered in his chest, all of it lay bare for everyone to see as Cora writhed against him, her whimpers piercing him like blades.  Marcus draped her coat over them, effectively covering her, and tucking it around her frame for modesty.  

      “Miss Klass, go fetch Doctor Boone.  Tell him it’s an emergency,”  Mrs. Cooper ordered, her voice firm, despite the tremble of fear that still resided in the moment.

      “Marcus,”  Josh said, his voice thin.  “You need to get out of here.  Sheriff Moore can’t see you.”

      The enforcer’s eyes closed for a few beats of breath.  Jake watched as the man was struggling.  

      “You take care of her, Jake,”  he said quietly, the hardness evaporating from his face, replaced by concern. 

      “I will,”  he whispered.  “Tell Rosemary for me.  Tell her mama that I will care for her.”

      He watched as Marcus moved quickly out the back door.  Cora’s cries softened.  Her body shook under his touch.  His eyes landed on the fabric of her dress, the swirls of color on silk that lay hidden just beneath the chiffon.  The tip of his tongue pressed against his upper lip as if trying to hold back the anger, the fear that was merely the front for the guilt that loitered along the fringes of his thoughts.  

      He vaguely recognized that Sheriff Moore had entered with Sam, a few deputies were with them.  Martin quickly posted the extra men around the front to control the crowd that had gathered.  At the sight of Archer, the man needed little explanation of events.  Josh was fading fast.  Jake kept whispering against the soft perfume of Cora’s hair, trying to will her back to him through the drug haze that the monster had unleashed on her.   

      Doc arrived.  One look at Cora and he was dismayed.  There was no telling what Archer had shot her with.  The hypodermic needle that he utilized would be helpful, but only if they had some notion of what was in it prior to injection.  The doctor identified the wounds as being knife stabs and slashes that needed stitches.  The puncture on her ribs was going to need attention.  Josh was in rough shape.  He had broken ribs, the left arm was dislocated at the shoulder, a few fingers were snapped.  Archer had yet to rouse from the beating that Marcus had unleashed.  Jake silently thanked the man for each shattered bone, each break of the skin, each bruise.  The remorse that he was not in the building pounded only as bright as the shame he felt for wanting to have been the one to dole out the terror that had been unleashed by Marcus.

     Josh’s sharp yelp brought him out of his thoughts.  Doc had popped the arm back into the socket.  He watched as his twin slumped to the floor, eyes closed, nearly mirroring the unchecked mass that Martin stood over.  Boone wanted all three to the hospital, just to have a quieter stage to clean everyone up.  Jake had not realized the noise outside the bank.  A crowd had gathered, some panicked about not being able to get inside the bank, others loudly yelling about a bank robbery.  Martin had the deputies load up Josh and help Jake get Cora into the Kissel.  Sam drove across town, leaving the sheriff and his men to figure out what to do with the now destroyed Harold Archer.

Chapter Sixteen: Pt. 3, Cora POV

     She could feel sunshine - cold - but sunshine on the skin on her face.  Her mouth felt like sand had been poured inside until she could hold no more.  She barely moved and her body erupted in hot, throbbing pain.  Cora instantly froze, keeping her eyes closed.  She drifted into the silence.  Sleep rolled across her like she pictured how waves would feel if she were ever to visit Lake Superior, or dared to really travel and see the ocean.  She could hear Jacob’s voice from time to time, leaving her to wonder if it was just in her dreams or if he was really talking to her but she was unable to answer.  Mingled in, she thought perhaps she heard her mother.  All the while, she longed for Junie.  The brutality that she faced - alone - was unforgivable to be put through such a state and still call her family for what they still needed to be: family.

     Cora wanted to move.  She wanted to whisper through the thick mud that resided in her throat.  Her limbs felt like concrete; heavy and unmoveable.  Her brain wanted nothing more than stillness.  She felt drawn under once more.  The dark was rich and velvety, like Jacob’s voice when he would whisper to her in the night against her ear.  The way he would talk to her as they made love.  The way he would tell her he loved her.  Her heart swelled over the notion that this man chose her.  This man saw his life with her.  The quiet stretched into dreams filled with color and warmth.

      The next time she surfaced above the sleep waves, she could hear Joshua talking.  His voice seemed so distant.  He had been her protector for as long as he could.  She wondered if her body accepted Archer in her frozen state.  If her body allowed him to be inside.  If her body betrayed her heart and mind.  How was Jacob going to look upon her when she did fully wake from her haze?  She wondered if she would still be the object of love for him.  She wondered if Josh would have to explain it to his twin what he was witness to.  The thoughts tore at her spirit.  How that monster clung to the fringes of her - did he have to touch her?  Did he have to violate her?  Would she even know fully what he had done not just to her, but to her sister?  They were not questions she needed to truly answer… did she?  Instead, she allowed the wave to carry her away once more, settling into remembrances of the way Jacob walked at her side, treating her as equal.

     “You would’ve been proud of her, Jake,”  Josh’s voice echoed through her thoughts.  “She gave that fucker no satisfaction of any kind of reaction.  She was beyond brave.”

     “I don’t want her to…”  Jacob’s voice cracked.  “Josh, I don't want her to remember.”

     There was silence.  Cora focused on the hurt in his voice.  The strain.  Whatever Archer did after the end of her memory must’ve been awful.  

     “Why would she need to?  He -”

     Josh’s words tumbled through the abyss as she plunged downwards once more.  How one could feel like they were underwater but walking through the desert at the same time was beyond her reckoning.  There was blood here.  There was pain.  That monster’s laugh pierced her with each twist of his knife.  But Joshua was there.  Those eyes, so much like her Jacob, but more like dark caramel, more bits of gold and mischief.  Those eyes kept her rooted, kept her with him.  It was not just her blood, her pain, was it?  He barked and badgered, insulted and whined, anything to bait Archer away from her.  So much of those moments were shrouded in gauze that was stickier than spider silk.  

      Sunshine on her face.  She could see the light on the outside of her eyelids.  It was a warm, fuzzy light that beckoned her; welcomed her home.  She experimented with sliding her arm up to touch her face.  Then she flexed her toes.  The pain wasn’t so bad.  She turned her face against the pillow, hoping to breathe Jacob’s scent in, but it was a sterile smell, one that was foreign.  Blowing out a breath, she tried to clear the debris from her throat.

     “Finch?”  Jacob whispered, his voice next to her.  

     Her fingers landed on her throat.  She tried to form words, but she was so dry.  The grit of whatever dirt was in her windpipe kept her from saying anything.  Instead, she tried to open her eyes to look upon him.  Sharp rays of sunshine stabbed at her and she was quick to shut them back out.  He pressed his hand to her shoulder and the sunshine dimmed against her.

     “Finch?”  he whispered again, his face close enough for her to feel his breath.  

     Cora tried again, opening her eyes to a haze of light.  Her eyelids felt like each one weighed tons, fighting against herself to look around.  His fingers touched her mouth before sliding across her cheek.  He let out a soft laugh as she struggled to focus.  She could only imagine what she looked like with her eyeballs feeling like they were moving in opposite directions.

     “I’m so glad to see you, baby,”  he whispered, planting little kisses across her face.

     She tried to say something… anything…  Only air escaped through the throb that pulsed on the inside of her throat.  She tried to whisper, to get something out, but the air caught, leaving her gasping to fill her lungs.

     His brows knit together as he shook his head.  “It’s all right, Cora.  Doc said things are bruised in your throat.  Don’t force it.”

     Joshua appeared behind Jacob’s shoulder.  His eyes were warm as he looked at her with a little wave.  His face was swollen and cut and bruised badly.  If he looked like that, she was sure she looked similar.  

     “Hello, lovely,”  he whispered.  “I’ll let you have your fella, hmmm?”

     She felt the corner of her mouth tug.  She grimaced as she tried to move, to create space.  Jacob tried to stop her, but  she frowned.  Cora continued to slide and rock until she was on her side and there was enough room for Jacob to lay down next to her, belly to belly.

     “Oh, Finch,”  he sighed, brushing back her hair.  “Are you sure?”

     She tapped against the pillow.  He smiled as he carefully lay next to her.  

     “You’re probably wondering where you are.  You’re in the hospital.  You’ve been here for two days.  You scared the shit out of me, baby.  I’m so glad you’re awake.”

     He was careful in where he set his fingers, where he touched and brushed against her.  However, each touch was full of light and love just for her.  Cora stared into his face, searching for what he saw in her in the moment.  There was only concern and honest joy.  He whispered against her, telling her about how Rosemary had stayed through the nights with him.  He had the boys at the house, sleeping in the parlor after too much sweets and hot cocoa each night.  Sam was already honed in on educating Matthew about auto engines and Jon about actual engineering.  It had been two days that she had lost.  Two days that she had slept.  She managed to ask about Joshua and Jacob smiled.

     “You find a scrap of voice and you ask about him?”  he teased, brushing his thumb across her bottom lip.  

     Broken fingers.  Fractured right arm.  Left arm was dislocated.  Four broken ribs.  Stabbed in the thigh and left arm.  She wanted to weep.  Joshua had placed himself before her as a sacrifice.  Jacob’s voice warbled as he whispered his love for her.  His fear for her.  His regret that he hadn’t been fifteen minutes earlier.  

     The next time she awoke, she was in her own bed, in her own home.  She remembered being wheeled out of the hospital and Jacob helping her into the Kissel.  She could recall Matthew grabbing Georgie’s collar and holding him back when she caught her toe as they moved through the front door.  She could remember her mother telling Jacob to take her into the bedroom and how his cheeks warmed as he helped her sit down on her bed.  When she stirred, she could hear the boys swarming around the house, and the base of Jacob’s voice calling to Matthew from the kitchen.  

      “He slept on the sofa last night,”  Rosemary whispered as she was buttoning up her dress.  Cora frowned, unsure of if her mother disapproved.  The woman smiled softly as she was reaching for her brush.  “He stayed with you the whole time.  By the time we got you here, he was completely exhausted.  He sat down and was asleep in moments.  I dared not wake him, and neither did the boys.”

      She smiled as her chin dipped.  The idea that he would not be far from her made her heart skip a bit.  Rosemary twisted her hair up into her typical thick bun before moving towards her with the brush.  She grimaced as her mother started on some of the blood matter in her hair.

     “Tell you what, I’ll get the boys through breakfast, then I’ll run you a bath,”  she said with a gentle squeeze on her shoulder.  

     “Thank you, Mama,”  she whispered through the fire that still burned in her throat.  

     “Still pretty raw,”  Rosemary remarked.  “I’ll send Jacob out for some honey.  It will help your throat and we can put that on the …  on the …”

     “Cuts, Mama,”  she answered, hurting over the struggle that her mother allowed herself to show.  “I’m sure he would be happy to.”

      Rosemary continued to brush through the thick hair, her fingers holding firm to each section.  “I do not expect you to understand fully, Cora.  To have one daughter harmed by my choices, only to have a second fall prey to the same hands…”

      Cora stopped her mother’s hands, looking up into her face.  She appeared old and young at the same time.  The woman had aged considerably since the loss of her husband, but all the more so in the past weeks after the plight of her daughters.  

     “I can send you and the boys to Junie if you wish,”  she whispered, enclosing her mother’s hand with her own.

     “I won’t go until my whole family can,”  Rosemary answered, her blue eyes sharp with care.  “And I don’t just mean you and the boys, Cora.”

     Her chin dipped at how her mother had brought back her own words, but tailored it to her own fashion.  “Thank you, Mama.”

     “You just sit back and rest.  I’ll have one of the boys bring you a plate,”  she said as she tied the thick hair back in a simple plait.

     She felt like a stranger in her skin.  Slipping underneath the blanket once more, Cora stayed up, sitting against the headboard, her hands quiet in her lap as her eyes drifted closed.  Her whole body still ached.  The wounds pulsed.  Not quite as bad as when they were fresh, but they throbbed in a way as if they were calling out to her attacker like he could hear the pain they still caused.  She focused on bringing breath in and pushing it back out as her ears took in the sounds of breakfast beyond the door.  Jacob’s voice wove in between Matthew’s and Jon’s with Georgie’s trill over top in excited bursts.  She sighed.  Jacob sitting at the table with their children trickled through her thoughts.  The smile that would grace the man’s face would incinerate the room in joy.  She felt herself drift upon that hope, her mind focusing on each detail in dreamlike quality as her breathing evened out and tugged her into the stillness of her heart's desire.

     The warmth of him drew her from her slumber before his touch against the ridge of her cheek.  Sleepily, she opened her eyes as she leaned into his touch.

     “Hey, Finch,”  he whispered.

     She realized the house was silent.  Her brows pinched as she sat up.  “Where is everyone?”  

     “Rosemary needed to get to work, the boys left for school,”  he said, trailing his fingers down her bare arm.  “You fell asleep and your mother did not want to wake you.  I volunteered to stay until after lunch.”

     Her gut began to sink as she continued to wake.  “She was going to run me a bath.”

     “I can do that, although I told your mother that Molly could help you,”  he smiled, his eyes soft with care.  “In fact, I don’t think it would be good to miss getting those cuts cleaned.”

     He stood and disappeared for a few moments.  She could hear the tap clunk on and the water hit the bottom of the enameled tub.  Jacob returned with a towel and a sleepy grin.  He helped to get her night dress off and covered her lean frame in the towel.  Into the tub and he knelt down beside it, keeping his fingertips at the water to make sure it stayed the right temperature.  He helped to take the linen bandage off her side, a near inaudible hiss escaping him at the sight of the bruising, puncture, and gash that marred her ribs.  

     Cora reached out to him, her fingers sinking into his hair as he rested his forehead against the rim of the tub.  “Jacob?”

     “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Finch,”  he whispered.  “I’d give anything for your body to not know violence.”

      When he looked at her, the emotion that was etched in his features stirred her, strengthened her.  He moved around her, washing her hair and limbs and body as if he loved each piece, each perfect and each flawed morsel of her.  He dried her and redressed her wounds before following her back to her room to help her dress.  

     “Rosemary left you some biscuits and jam.  Does that sound good?”  he asked as she finished buttoning up.

     When she nodded, he kissed her cheek before leading her out to the dining table.  He was talking about nothing important as he rummaged around the kitchen.  Cora just listened to his tone, the rumble of his words as they escaped him.  The vibration of him washed over, comforting, vanquishing the harm within and replaced it with a softness that was only for him.  She watched as he finally settled down next to her.  He reached for her, touching her cheek with the tip of his finger.

     “I’m glad I picked you,”  she whispered.  The sight of the joy in his eyes made her smile wider.  “I’m so glad you picked me.”

     He leaned forward, kissing her forehead.  “Always, Finch.  You’re my always.”

Yeah.  That just happened.  I hope you stayed with me through this chapter.  Like I said at the top, we only have two more chapters until the end of Act II.  Now that I said that, I guess I should say that there’s 25 total chapters and an epilogue.    So, we have a lot of story left, and much of that is going to be rough.  Be aware the violence only amps up as our characters hope to survive leaving Kingsford.

I do have a tag list - you can find it here

@lvnterninthenight @doodle417 @luverleaver @jakesgrapejuice @fictional-duchess @whitesuitjake @milkgemini @positivegvfthings @songbirds-sweet @streamingcolors-gvf @gretavanbitches @samsurfgreenbass @gardensgatedaisy @babyhoneygvfarchive @myownparadise96 @josh-iamyour-mama @starcatchercarol @loveisonaroll @jakesstarlight @reesetrippingthelight @builtby-gvf @ignite-my-fire @ohgodthefeeling-gvf @wetkleenex-gvf @gold-mines-melting @starsasone @puzzle-gvf @mysticalstarcatcher @montenegroisr @takenbythemadness @way-to-go-lad @cal-a-bungaa @lightmylove-gvf @thewritingbeforesunrise @leftjudgeempathsuitcase @brokenbells11 @imborrowedshesblue @vanfleeter @sammysvanfeet @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @jaketlove @redsierra1960 @gvfmarge @becinabubblegvf @wildbluesorbit @sinarainbows

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

About five miles south of Broken Bow, in the heart of central Nebraska, thousands of cattle stand in feedlots at Adams Land & Cattle Co., a supplier of beef to the meat giant Tyson Foods.

From the air, the feedlots look dusty brown and packed with cows—not a vision of happy animals grazing on open pastureland, enriching the soil with carbon. But when the animals are slaughtered, processed and sent onward to consumers, labels on the final product can claim that they were raised in a “climate friendly” way.  

In late 2022, Tyson—one of the country’s “big four” meat packers—applied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), seeking a “climate friendly” label for its Brazen Beef brand. The production of Brazen Beef, the label claims, achieves a “10 percent greenhouse gas reduction.” Soon after, the USDA approved the label.

Immediately, environmental groups questioned the claim and petitioned the agency to stop using it, citing livestock’s significant greenhouse gas emissions and the growing pile of research that documents them. These groups and journalism outlets, including Inside Climate News, have asked the agency for the data it used to support its rubber-stamping of Tyson’s label but have essentially gotten nowhere.

“There are lots of misleading claims on food, but it’s hard to imagine a claim that’s more misleading than ‘climate friendly’ beef,” said Scott Faber, a senior vice president at the Environmental Working Group (EWG). “It’s like putting a cancer-free label on a cigarette. There’s no worse food choice for the climate than beef.”

The USDA has since confirmed it is currently considering and has approved similar labels for more livestock companies, but would not say which ones.

On Wednesday, the EWG, a longtime watchdog of the USDA, published a new analysis, outlining its efforts over the last year to push the agency for more transparency, including asking it to provide the specific rationale for allowing Brazen Beef to carry the “climate friendly” label. Last year, the group filed a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking the data that Tyson supplied to the agency in support of its application, but received only a heavily redacted response. EWG also petitioned the agency to not allow climate friendly or low carbon claims on beef.

To earn the “climate friendly” label, Tyson requires ranchers to meet the criteria of its internal “Climate-Smart Beef” program, but EWG notes that the company fails to provide information about the practices that farmers are required to adopt or about which farmers participate in the program. The only farm it has publicly identified is the Adams company in Nebraska.

A USDA spokesperson told Inside Climate News it can only rely on a third-party verification company to substantiate a label claim and could not provide the data Tyson submitted for its review.  

[anti-workshop]

I dunno if we're gonna make it, y'all. Rode the train for about a thousand miles to see family, about to ride it back. I've been very comfortable and coddled in my little bubble of leftist unionists back home. I've never seen this much of the imperial core before. Capitalism's empire is too fucking big. It's everywhere and I don't think we can actually stop it. I don't think most people actually want to. I used to think we just needed to organize, help each other, fight power. Maybe it's because I haven't slept, but it all looks too big and insurmountable now. We passed gigantic factories literally shooting plumes of flame into the sky, massive factory farms and feedlots with cow trailers for what seemed like forever, advertising and strip malls everywhere, and so many unhoused people sleeping rough and begging. And of course I'm complicit. Freeways, a million million cars and enormous vanity trucks and semis criss crossing the vast, wasted landscape of concrete and garbage. I dunno. It doesn't help that I'm headed home to a struggling shop and a looming slow season. I feel old and pretty unemployable if the co-op fails. Mutuals here are all struggling with the shitty job market, so it scares me. What do you think, y'all? Am I being too pessimistic? Is there hope? Sitting in the train station surrounded by strangers in really nice clothes, drinking expensive coffees and posing for photos, I feel utterly disconnected from them. Not a great feeling. Help?

[hylianengineer]

We've been talking in sociology class about the concepts of Food From Nowhere vs Food From Somewhere.

Obviously, all food comes from somewhere, but Food From Nowhere is the concept where the people eating the food are very intentionally distanced, physically and mentally, from those origins. The people who grew it, processed it, prepared it, the land it grew on, the agricultural methods (usually industrial, with lots of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the case of plants or feedlots in the case of meat/other animal products - industrial ag has a vested interested in being Food From Nowhere because it's not from somewhere nice). It's called distanciation - the creation of that distance between people and where the food they rely on comes from. And for industrial agriculture this is the GOAL. It's seen as a good thing, more efficient, for food to be part of this big complex supply chain where it's almost impossible to sort out where things come from or how they got there.

But it's kind of... empty, isn't it? Disconnected. Hollow. Food From Somewhere is now a pushback against this system, instead of the default. Food From Somewhere is intentionally connecting people to where food comes from, to the people and places and knowledge involved in making that food. It says that place MATTERS, that how our food gets to us matters, that we should and do care about what happens to people at the other end of that supply chain. We care if the farm workers are getting paid well. We care if the factory workers have safe working conditions. We care about the environmental and human impacts of the things we eat - those hidden costs that Food From Nowhere tries to hide from us. They're there and they're real and we're not looking away.

[jessicafurseth]

Reading List, First Summer Flush edition.

"I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm." - Lee Krasner

Image: @80svintagepulps

*

"Our online spaces are not ecosystems, though tech firms love that word. They’re plantations; highly concentrated and controlled environments, closer kin to the industrial farming of the cattle feedlot or battery chicken farms that madden the creatures trapped within. We all know this. We see it each time we reach for our phones. But what most people have missed is how this concentration reaches deep into the internet’s infrastructure — the pipes and protocols, cables and networks, search engines and browsers. These structures determine how we build and use the internet, now and in the future." We Need To Rewild The Internet [Maria Farrell, Robin Berjon, Noema]

"I [now] see what I wanted the therapist to tell me. I wanted permission. I wanted to be told I could stop trying. I wanted her to tell me I had done everything I could — that we had indeed put in the work and shouldn’t feel ashamed for throwing in the towel." [Scaachi Koul, The Cut]

The new science of death [Alex Blasdel, The Guardian]

In praise of the dumbphone revolution [Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker]

“Tech is not supposed to be a master tool to colonize every aspect of our being. We need to reevaluate how it serves us.” The New Luddites are taking on AI [Brian Merchant, The Atlantic]

"Brand smells" and the people that make them [Aimee Levitt, The Guardian]

It's almost impossible to find actually interesting writing about polyamory - this is a rare exception [Brandy Jensen, The Yale Review]

"You probably have less effect on your kids than you think, with one major exception: Your love will make them happy." [Arthur Brooks, The Atlantic]

101 ways to make and maintain friendships [Madeleine Dore]

"Is what’s wrong with me what’s wrong with everyone else?" My anxiety[Lauren Oyler, The New Yorker]

"In my mind, dropping a ball or doing less invited intolerable risk. I worried that if I said no to a project, no one would ever want to work with me again, or if I stopped, I’d never be able to start again. But as OCD took up more and more of me, these actions and how I rationalized them became less and less clear, like if I didn’t read something 50 times, I’d be punished somehow, by something terrible happening in another area of my life. But because these behaviors came across as productive, pressure to just keep going mounted. Maybe this is just how ambition felt, I thought to myself. Maybe overworking is what I was good at, and what I was supposed to do." Could I Still Be Ambitious Without My OCD? [Rainesford Stauffer, The Cut]

"I am rattling my cage, grasping at the bars of my own constraints - my own slow motion - and trying to break my way out. There is so, so much to do in this life, so many ideas, so many ways I could help. I feel like I do so little. I am so slow. I get slower with age. My capacity does not match my desire." The Roaring [Katherine May]

Pie chart for bodies [@sophielucidojohnson on Instagram]

Pond life on Hampstead Heath in 1963 [The Guardian]

[entegrasignaturestructures]

Beekeepers in Australia | Battling the Varroa Mite Infection

Check out the challenges faced by Australian beekeepers as they work to combat the destructive varroa mite threat. The major cause of the shortage of hives is the ban on transporting honeybees from NSW to Victoria. To discover more articles related to bee yards and farm sheds, visit our website.

[acti-veg]

Someone recently posited that dismissing "harvesting grain kills mice tho" with statistics about how much grain is fed to livestock is too detached and akin to "repeating propaganda" because that's not true everywhere.

They used Australia as an example of a place that "doesn't do COFA" and has a huge problem with the astronomical numbers of rodents dying in grain harvest. They claim that over there there are way more animal lives lost to grain harvesting than slaughter and that grain consumption is as optional as meat consumption, but vegans "dismissing" those concerns are doing nothing to help. They also said something about some vegans thinking intentional slaughter is objectively worse than incidental death due to monoculture, but that "utilitarians are held to a stricter moral standard" and that the sheer number of deaths should make it worse.

I don't even know where to begin learning the details of the food systems in Australia. I know the statistics and some details globally and in my home country but I feel out of my depth with this conversation. Do you have any guidance you could share?

Well the first thing to recognise is that Australia absolutely does do intensive feeding operations, that’s a frankly bizarre claim. There is no way they could feed the number of animals they farm and kill without it. Here is a farming consultancy talking about it and advocating it, here is the department of agriculture acknowledging pigs, sheep and cattle in feedlots, here is meat and livestock Australia discussing it, here is RSPCA Australia discussing it.

It took me about five minutes to find all of these, so they can’t have done much honest research on this topic. The same thing is true of the ‘huge problems of astronomical numbers of animal lives lost to grain. Australia is currently experiencing an ‘epidemic’ of mice due to sustainable unseasonable weather and rainfall, every reference I could find on this topic was talking about how we can get rid of them - there doesn’t seem to be any such concern about mice being lost to grain harvesting.

In fact, the only source I could find talking about this (making the exact same points you’ve included here) was written by the Center For Consumer Freedom, a notorious animal agriculture lobbying group. It’s literal propaganda. The sole reference in that piece is a ‘study’ they link to, which is actually just an opinion piece in The Conversation. The only actual source there is a paper that actually supports the opposite conclusion.

“While the number of mice found in fields substantially decreased after harvest, their numbers substantially increased in the border regions. When it came to disappearances, a category that included both mouse deaths and migration out of the study area, there was no significant difference between the three habitats. The study concluded that changes in the number of field animals were “the consequences of movement and not of high[er] mortality in crops”.

So the factual basis of this argument is obviously deeply questionable, but you can still make the argument ‘ok we don’t know details but it’s highly likely some animals do die to provide plants for human consumption.’ This is undoubtedly true. However, it’s not just true of grain, it’s true of all the plants, it’s true of medicine, building materials, electronics - everything. If we stopped eating grain they’d be calling us hypocrites for not boycotting sprouts.

Furthermore, who is dismissing these problems? I don’t know any vegan who doesn’t want to improve plant agriculture, arguing for agriculture without animal inputs is a fundamental part of what veganism is about. Acknowledging the reality that whatever we eat will cause harm is not hypocrisy, nor is trying to reduce that harm by boycotting industries who directly and purposely exploit and kill billions of animals for profit.

Veganism is, as we all know, about doing whatever is possible and practicable to avoid animal exploitation. We have to eat something. Incidental vs purposeful deaths absolutely do matter, animals die as a result of grain harvesting, but they’re not exploited for grain. Those things are ethically very different, even if both are wrong. We can harvest crops without harming animals, that is what veganic farming is, there is no way to produce animal products without exploiting animals.

As for ‘utilitarians are held to a stricter moral standard,’ since when? If we feed more humans from harvesting grain than we kill in producing it, that’d be fine for most utilitarians. Interestingly, it’d also create the moral imperative to feed that grain to humans directly rather than farmed animals, since those farmed animals will suffer to produce less food and produce less good than would have been produced had that grain been fed to humans directly.

However, that data just does not exist. It is a hugely speculative assumption that more animals are killed to produce grain than to produce meat, there isn’t anything even resembling reliable statistics on that front. It is also an argument only relevant to utilitarians which… is fine for them, but for anyone is not a utilitarian the response is just… okay, so what? I’m not a utilitarian.

This is phrased as if veganism is dependent on utilitarianism as part of its ethical principles, which they may have gotten from someone like Singer but it’s a misunderstanding to suggest that is what vegsnism is, and arrogant to insist we should all hold ourselves to the same ‘strict standard’ as utilitarians, whatever the hell that means.

In conclusion, it’s a confused piece of pseudo-philosophy, likely sourced from corporate propaganda, which is based on assumptions, the misrepresentation of data and some odd assumptions about the ethical basis for veganism. You don’t need to learn anything about the food systems of Australia to debunk this argument, since evidently the person making it didn’t bother to learn about it themselves.

[devoted1989]

This week is farm animal awareness week

What’s wrong about factory farms?

While it might be tempting to believe the meat on your plate comes from an idyllic childhood version of a family farm the reality is very different.Today the vast majority of our meat and eggs come from large - scale operations, what are often called “factory farms.” In the U.S., more than 21 000 of these industrial operations raise billions of animals each year to satisfy our insatiable demand for cheap meat and eggs.

So just what is a factory farm? And why is the most common source for meat and dairy in this country so bad for animals? Factory farms were created on the assumption that the ‘factory’ concept could be applied to animal farming.

It refers to a method of breeding and raising farmed animals for food with the goal of maximizing production and minimizing costs.

This approach comes at the expense of animals, who are treated as commodities. To house such a large number of animals, these farms intensively confine them to small spaces such as cages or crates. They are unable to carry out their natural behaviours. Most spend their lives inside a shed - never to feel the sunlight or breathe fresh air. This is the reality for farmed animals used for meat, dairy and eggs.

On factory farms, animals live brief lives filled with cruelty and suffering. Pigs and chickens live as long as just a few weeks to several months. Dairy cows live longer, but spend most of their lives standing for hours on concrete floors.

Here are some of the most striking examples of animal suffering on factory farms:

1. Male calves are surplus to the dairy industry

About half of all calves born on dairy farms are killed simply because they are born male and can’t produce milk. These unwanted male calves are slaughtered for veal at anywhere from a couple of weeks to just under a year old.  Others are sold at auction - destined for feedlots, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

2. Cages the size of a piece of paper

In the U.S., around 80 percent of layer hens are still kept in battery cages typically sized anywhere from 67 to 86 square inches per bird or less than a standard sized sheet of printer paper.

3. Chickens used for meat can hardly stand

In 1920 the average chicken was slaughtered at 112 days old weighing just over 2 pounds. Fast forward and the average chicken is now slaughtered at around only 47 days but now weighing nearly 6 pounds. That rapid growth and extreme size can eventually cause chickens raised for meat, also called “broiler chickens,” to become unable to stand on their own. 

4. Mutilations are common on egg and pig farms

In the U.S., baby piglets are typically castrated and their tails are docked to prevent tail - biting outbreaks at just a few days old — without anesthesia. Overcrowding, forced - lighting and unnatural feeding causes a great deal of stress to factory chickens. These otherwise peaceful birds start attacking and hurting each other. To minimise this behaviour farmers routinely cut off the chicken’s beak. This practice is called ‘debeaking’. Debeaked birds suffer acute and chronic pain in their beaks, heads and faces.

5. Pregnant pigs are confined to small stalls

The standard housing system for pregnant pigs are gestation crates usually 7 ft by 2 ft. These crates provide only enough space for the animal to stand, sit and lay down but not enough room to turn around. About a week before she is due to give birth, the mother pig is moved to a farrowing crate that allows her piglets access for feeding, yet these are no bigger. The pork industry continues to insist farrowing crates are necessary to prevent mother pigs from crushing their piglets, despite the existence alternative systems. 

6. Male chicks are redundant to the egg industry

They are killed on the day they hatch. Worldwide, around 7 billion male chicks are culled each year in the egg industry.

If you want to reduce the amount of suffering caused by what’s on your plate, choose peace - choose vegan.

Sources: Sentient Media and Animal Equality.

Images with kind permission from Lindsay Leigh Lewis.

@lindsayleighart

[stellernorth]

sam going vegan at stanford. no more hunting people saving things has left him with a compulsion to Do Good and Reduce Harm in his day to day life, and after traveling the midwest constantly as a kid he has some idea of what beef feedlots at least look like. he decides one way to reduce harm is to stop supporting the killing of those animals.

so he stops eating beef. it's not like he's only eating fast food still and hamburgers are the only option anyway; he eats at the stanford dining hall. there's pumpkin soup and oatmeal and a salad bar and curry and plain pasta and fruit and fries.

then he thinks about it and decides to treat this decision like a little bit of a case. so he goes to the library and researches for himself which is a weird kind of not-exactly-nostalgia. and he learns about the factory farming industry and dairy production. and he doesn't do half-measures and he's trying to be committed to his choices and beliefs so he decides there in the library that he's vegan, starting from that moment.

socially, he expects to be the odd one out anyway, he's seen that way anyway, he knows it; he can feel it. how he's a little too alert; how his casual interactions with others aren't a practiced reflex. refusing some food just seems like another small thing in the long list of reasons he's unusual to the other students, even his friends.

anyway, jess, who's been vegetarian for awhile, likes that he's vegan. she eats vegan at their house, but will have some dairy if she's out somewhere. it bothers sam a little in the back of his mind but he doesn't want to control her. and he knows their belief systems aren't exactly aligned anyway; he's always scanning for monsters.

brady makes fun of him a little once or twice, playful, friendly. then after sophmore year's thanksgiving break he makes a few more comments that are a bit more cruel.

although dean made sure sam never was hungry for long as a kid, this new mentality that the food selection in many places is now limited for sam comes pretty easily. the sparse vegan options in the stanford dining hall are a way more plentiful spread than the options in one of the motel rooms he grew up in.

sam does get a weird sense of simultaneous satisfaction and guilt at seeing hamburgers like he'd share with his dad and dean and knowing, more and more as the months go on, that he's not the kind of person who eats them anymore. but he feels that way about a lot of things he does at stanford.

then years later, keeping to veganism as best he can, back in the family business (he keeps reminding himself, "as far as possible and practical"), he meets ruby. for the most part, he keeps his own personal definition of veganism and decides about eating things like honey on his own terms, rather than by what others seem to think. but he does remember dryly, as his mouth is metallic with ruby's blood, that human products are accepted as vegan if given consensually. later he thinks somehow maybe it's vegan for her to give it but not for him to take; maybe he is the animal harmed in the interaction.

time goes on and he's more wary than ever of being poisoned possesed altered he wants his body to be his own. this becomes another reason to be vegan, not consuming other beings into his body so it remains his.

[felxnefxne]

Boo's Backstory

Pauline Elizabeth Thurman, who later became better known as Boo, was born in 1926 to a father she didn't remember, but to a mother who loved her very dearly from the moment she began to exist. Memories of her father were non-existent due to her parents parting ways before she could form any. From what she'd been told in later years, however, she wasn't missing much. The man had been distant; cold; even vulgar and aggressive at times.

"He became a husk of his former self," Pauline's mother had said.

She'd grown so weary of the man, in fact, that she took her daughter, not quite yet five years of age, and moved out of state: to South Dakota, where they knew no one, and no one knew them. They could start over, start fresh, carve their own paths and live their own lives. Unfortunately, several economic and climatic conditions combined with disastrous results for their new home: a lack of rainfall, extremely high temperatures and inappropriate cultivation techniques created the Dust Bowl.

That, combined with local bank foreclosures and the general economic effects of the Great Depression, resulted in Pauline, not quite yet having turned ten, and her mother both moving once again.

Perhaps the third time would be the charm.

As it turned out, it was.

Saint Paul, Minnesota was their final stop. Here, Pauline settled in and grew up. She went to school, made friends and good grades, and graduated. And when she turned 18 in 1944, she expressed an interest in joining the army's efforts. World War 2 was still ongoing, and she wanted to help in any way she can. That was simply Pauline's way: altruistic to far past those that were in her personal circle.

It was the first and last time she ever truly argued with her mother, who had vehemently objected to her desire; something Pauline never truly came to understand. Nevertheless, she won. She was old enough to make her own decisions now, and she wasn't going to let anyone stand in her way -- not even Mother Dearest. 

For roughly a year and a half, Pauline drove trucks for the army. Times were different back then; tilted far more in favor of man than woman. Women could join the army, but they couldn't fight alongside the men -- or fight at all, really. Instead, they drove trucks, repaired airplanes, took up nursing duties, and provided clerical services. When the war ended, she returned home to find that new technology was on the rise in her state. Automation of feedlots for hogs and cattle, machine milking at dairy farms, and machinery like tractors and combines were becoming the norm.

She found a new path, becoming a secretary for her county's agricultural office. The rampant sexism continued, of course. Certain colors of nail polish and lipstick were forbidden, she was expected to wear clothes outside her budget, and of course, that budget was tight. Not to mention the indecent stares she'd sometimes get from the men at the office, both customers and employees.

Just smile and nod, Pauline, she told herself. Smile and nod and hope they choke on their cigars.

Despite the environment not always being ideal, Pauline enjoyed her work. It kept her busy, kept her mind engaged, and it let her live comfortably enough. She even managed to earn enough to move into her own small home and purchase a cream-colored Plymouth Deluxe of her very own.

Over the years, however, a curiosity had grown -- one she'd had ever since she was a young girl, in complete honesty. Who and where was her father? Her duties as a secretary had given her skills with finding and collecting paperwork, so that was the route she took instead of going through her mother. Somehow, she figured an argument similar to the one she'd had about her joining the army might take place, and Pauline wasn't sure if she could stomach the drama this time.

Her search was fruitful, but not in a satisfactory manner. It was 1954 by then, and the obituary she managed to get her hands on said that her father had passed away in 1951. From self-inflicted injuries, no less.

She was too late. There was no chance for her to try and make a connection with him now.

Despite her never knowing the man, Pauline still felt like she'd lost something. Not quite a person, there weren't any memories to hold onto to form that in her mind's eye, but still.

It couldn't stop her from living, though. Nothing should. Nothing could.

...except for the DeSoto Adventurer Convertible that slammed into the driver's side door of her Plymouth Deluxe one sunny Tuesday morning in June as she was on her way to work.

That could stop her from living.

And it did.

When she woke up, Pauline wasn't herself anymore.

She wasn't the same girl with bobbed brunette hair and blue-gray eyes. She was a monster, covered in black fur, with bright orange cat eyes, claws long and sharp enough to be knives, and a catty tail with a ghostly purple light at its tip.

As it turned out, her assessment wasn't too far off from the truth. It took her several hours to get her bearings and find someone that would bother to explain things to her, but she was, indeed, dead, and now she was in Hell.

Why? Who knows. She hadn't really believed in Hell before. She hadn't believed in the existence of anything after death. And besides, the why didn't matter. She was here, wasn't she? She was still sentient and conscious and able to live, albeit in a different sort of sense. That's what mattered.

As far as she was concerned, Pauline -- or, rather, Boo, if she was going to shed her old life and start new just like she had when she was barely old enough to recall it -- was going to continue living as best as she can, in whatever manner she can attain it.