To win prizes & help animals in need: play Bingo!

If fun, excitement and prizes for practically everyone aren't enough, just keep in mind that 100% of all money raised will go toward helping with veterinarian bills for animals in need. 

I refer of course to the 4^th annual Bingo event sponsored by the Animal Protection League of NJ (APLNJ) next Saturday, May 4, at the Flemington Elks Lodge, 165 Route 31, Flemington.  Now a proven success, this is the organization’s main money raiser, and satisfied bingo players have made it happen.   

The event offers more than 90 chances to win -- including early bird raffle tickets, 50-50 cash specials and raffles, door prizes and over 60 tricky tray baskets.  Contents of those baskets alone are valued over $10,000, and include a $300 Amazon gift card, Kate Spade luggage, scratch-off lottery tickets, an iPad, a Fitbit and a cash jar, as well as gift cards for local businesses.   

For the 12 bingo games that come with admission, prizes feature designer pocketbooks, in-demand electronic devices and a Kitchen Aid mixer. Those who donate cat or dog food destined for two area rescue partners will get raffle tickets -- and gratitude -- in return.

There’s still time and reason to purchase a $30 admission ticket: those who buy by Tuesday, April 30 will get one “early bird” raffle ticket too.  Phone 732-446-6808, x 101; order online via bingo4animals.com or email: info@aplnj.org.  (Use the same contacts if you have questions.)  Players must be at least 18 years old. 

If you still need to round up all your friends for a fun night, tickets will also be sold at the door.  The Elks venue holds 250 comfortably, so there’s time to gather the gang.  The building is handicap-accessible, with plenty of parking.  

Area residents who can’t attend but want to be part of the event can request that a volunteer proxy player stand in for them for a chance to win prizes.  Proxy packages start at $30 and winners must be able to pick up in Flemington.

APLNJ will provide hot beverages and vegan sweet treats.  Those who come to play -- and probably win! -- can bring their own dinners if desired.  Doors open at 5:30 pm and play starts at 7 pm.

Sandra Warren Obi, APLNJ’s “cat lady” and once-yearly Bingo caller “with the weird accent,” urges organization members to promote the event on social media, “so people are aware of how awesome it’ll be and they can come along!” 

She mentions that a $240 Star Wars prize is included in this year’s selection, honoring the date now known as “Star Wars Day.”  And so, “May the 4^th  be with you!”

Once again this year, Obi teamed with Janine Motta, APL’s Programs Director, to pull the Bingo event together.  It’s  part of a long heritage: invented in Italy centuries ago as part of the Italian lottery, the game gradually became popular the world over.  Today in the US, charitable Bingo is reportedly worth $3 billion.

Let the 4^{th  --}  and the (Bingo) force -- be with you: come to APLNJ’s Bingo event.

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                                                                                                       ASPCA pic

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2 burgers for non meat-eaters & 1 slaughter-based soup

"Impossible Burger"                            NYTimes pics

People are celebrating this week’s holidays with food -- thoughts of it, recipes for it and eating- anticipation in general. 

Because I celebrate animals this and every week, here’s some related news about food.  First up, something with a name prompting curiosity, then a taste-test:  the “impossible burger.”  

Sure, “veggie burgers” have been around for a while now.  I’ve found they range from passable to awful (think: dense black beans).  But then, a year or two ago, I discovered Field Roast “real meats made from grains, vegetables and spices,” which immediately consoled me for my vegetarian life without hot dogs and burgers.  Not even trying to mimic meat, these products are delicious -- and vegan!

Now comes the meat-like and meat-free “Impossible Burger,” or as Burger King calls it, “The Impossible Whopper” -- except that it’s now possible and being tested in the St. Louis area, with a nation-wide rollout planned.

"0 % beef" Impossible Whopper

As the newspaper story goes: “Burger King is introducing a Whopper made with a vegetarian patty . . . .  The deal is a big step toward the mainstream for start-ups trying to mimic and replace meat.”  It’s the same as the original “IB,” but this vegetarian patty’s shaped like Burger King’s meat Whopper.  

So BK employees across the country may soon be asking customers, “Would you like that Whopper with or without beef?” 

Just think: when Burger King goes all out for the Impossible Whopper, that will mean 7,200 locations in the US.  White Castle has sold a slider version of the "IB" since last year, and the West Coast’s Red Robin chain (570 strong) started offering it early this month when Burger King did.  

The link below leads to the Impossible Burger’s ingredients, health benefits and history.  Behind the burger, Impossible Foods was founded in 2011 with the goal of “decreasing the world’s reliance on animal agriculture.”  And if you’re not familiar with what cows -- and meat production in general -- do to our environment, check it out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/technology/burger-king-impossible-whopper.html?emc=edit_th_190402&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=207602740402

But what kind of ‘soup’s on’?

Blue Shark

Not shark-fin soup, we trust!  By now, ever-alert animal advocates know that the demand for shark-fin soup -- and therefore the demand for shark fins -- is causing “the collapse of shark populations worldwide.”  For a lousy soup, these beautiful and crucial marine predators are being slaughtered?  

It’s too true.  A shark targeted for soup (how disgusting even to say that) is “finned” -- that is, the fins are cut off.  Then, often still alive, the animal is thrown back into the sea, where it sinks to the bottom, often bleeding to death, drowning or being eaten by other animals: a horrible, senseless, needless and merciless fate for such a majestic animal, one that has inhabited the oceans for more than 400 million years.

Yes, the ruthless practice of shark finning is already prohibited by federal law.  But . . . the sale of shark fins is still legal in New Jersey, where about a dozen restaurants sell them.  Needing support and passage, A4845/S2905 is a bill to ban the sale and trade of shark fins here.

That in turn would eliminate NJ’s contribution to the global trade in shark fins, which threatens to drive sharks to extinction.  The bill would not interfere with the sale of entire shark carcasses (including fins); nor would it prohibit the sale of shark meat.  

Please join the numerous organizations and individuals opposing the shark fin trade!  Contact your NJ assembly members and senators to urge them to vote YES in favor of A4845/S2905.   (With thanks to HSUS and HSUS-NJ for info.)

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When turnabout IS fair play

It’s a dream come true for those of us who hate the very word “poacher” and the awful things poachers do to innocent animals.  Shoot, poison, trap and torture, cut off tusks or horns and leave them to die a hideous death.  All for money, also aptly known as “filthy lucre.”

Is this a great world for animals, or what?

Well, not often enough but sometimes, the worm turns, and the baddie gets his.  It happened last week in South Africa, where a rhinoceros-horn poacher was killed by an elephant (the “Enforcer”!) and eaten by a pride of lions.  The animals’ actions gave new meaning to “poetic justice”: they took the law into their own . . . paws. 

This situation invites myriad plays on words, and this time, it’s not triumphant man exclaiming, but advocates for animals who shout “Huzzah!”  It’s great that one poacher got his just desserts, or served as same for the lions. That poacher got his comeuppance -- or the opposite, his go-down-ance.

The newspaper story said the poacher’s end was reported by his fellow poachers.  But who knows -- maybe they killed him for some reason (dividing the projected profit from sale of the rhino’s horn?) and then left his body to the lions, who in turn left only a skull and a pair of pants.  Even so: one fewer poacher to apprehend. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/africa/south-africa-poacher-rhino-lions.html?emc=edit_th_190408&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=207602740408\

                                                              Rex-Shutterstock pic

If the story’s true, what a great kids’ book plot: Evil poachers decide to make money by killing animals for their in-demand body parts, but the animals have had enough of slaughter, and decide to fight back.  The elephant -- representing animals threatened with extinction by poachers -- steps up to stop the lead poacher, forever, and then the hungry lions, in memory of Zimbabwa's Cecil, the majestic lion lured off his sanctuary to be killed, finish him off.  Literally.

Let kids learn that such crime comes with high risk and that poachers might pay the ultimate price for their cruelty.

The only down side to this tale is that the Asian consumers, whose willingness to pay exorbitant prices for various animals and animal parts are driving the poachers to begin with, can’t also feel the wrath of the animals.  Traditional Eastern medicine values donkeys’ boiled skin, crushed lion bones, pangolin scales and rhino horns. . . and the Asian demand for ivory trinkets from elephant tusks, shark fin soup and dog and cat meat only add to the horror.

The recent report from South Africa was the second time that animals in effect punished a poacher. Last July, three men suspected of being rhino-horn poachers were killed by lions.  Again, money was the lure, with rhino horn going for thousands per pound, and whole horns selling for far more.  To obtain an entire horn, poachers drug the animal, then use a machete to “hack away at the face,” before leaving the rhino to bleed to death.

                                                                                                   NYTimes pic 

It’s not unlike the fate of sharks, whose fins are cut off, leaving them unable to swim or defend themselves.  Often still alive, they sink slowly to the bottom of the sea, dying of suffocation or being eaten by other creatures.

The animals in South Africa who killed the poacher last week ignored the Biblical injunction: “. . . avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

And who can blame them for ignoring that?  After all, it was the "holy Bible" that gave men dominion over “the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” -- or so said the translators and others who for centuries needed a seemingly official authorization for their cruel and murderous tendencies.

You go, animals!  

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It can seem that destructive humans outnumber all others

The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous;

it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men. --Emile Zola (1840-1902)

  

So the condition of our troubled, climate-changing world appears to have come down to this:  A whale weighing 1,100-pounds died of bowel obstruction caused by ingesting 88 pounds of plastic.  Does it get any worse (or needless or cruel or maddening . . .) than that?

That whale didn’t have to die of unnatural causes.  The plastic that clogs the Pacific Ocean doesn’t have to be there.  But . . . it’s all happening, and inexorably getting worse.   

Here’s the comparison I’ve seen a few times:  Each year, between 8-12 metric tons of plastic waste are dumped into the sea.  That’s the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic being dumped into the ocean every minute.

Sickening, disgusting and criminal, right?  Imagine, then, how it is for sea creatures who must live in and navigate through that mess.  Humans are killing marine life just as they’re killing terrestrial life -- through carelessness, cruelty, laziness, greed, indifference, stupidity!  

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/world/asia/whale-plastics-philippines.html

Will plastic, in all its malign forms, be humanity’s most comprehensive legacy?  

Back to animal-killers on land, the two Lacey Township teens who beat a captive raccoon to death have still not been charged for their act of heinous cruelty.  This despite numerous contacts to New Jersey’s attorney general.  Those two murderers need to face justice for their cruel and mindless act. At this point, you have to wonder whether they will.

Ah, but then in the “restoring-faith-in-humankind” column, position two other boys who saved a drowning dog, somewhat to their own surprise.  Their act was shown on The Dodo.  And heard there too: these kids had boyish vocabularies but kind hearts -- all that really mattered as far as the dog was concerned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l336wfYz1cI&feature=youtu.be

Equines in extremis

Suspiciously high numbers of race horses are dying at California’s famous Santa Anita track -- 22 since late December ’18 -- and an investigation is finally underway, thanks to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).  That’s coupled with new track rules reportedly not liked at all by the people who live off this so-called “sport of kings” (never horse kings, of course).

Just imagine: the new rules ban administering drugs to horses on race days and forbid jockeys to use the whip.  (In practice, these rules would put US tracks in line with the rest of the world, but US horse racing, a multibillion dollar industry, “has resisted meaningful oversight for decades.”)

California boasts a strong animal rights movement, and it’s reasonable to think that if the new rules are not complied with, the next step could be 600,000 signatures on a ballot initiative to decide whether horse racing should exist in the state.  

The familiar platitude goes, “Those 22 horses should not have died in vain!” -- but it could come true this time if the current furor over equine deaths and humane rules results in a vote to end horse racing in California.  

That’s not the worst thing that could happen now, is it?  Think of it as parallel to Florida’s recent vote to end grayhound racing there.  Neither animal was born to be raced, and only humans profit from the “sport.”    

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/sports/santa-anita-horse-deaths.html?emc=edit_th_190316&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=207602740316

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