Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Mia Farrow on Darfur, Divestment,
and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing

March 30th, 2007 · Activism, Business, Culture, Film, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, News, Peace, Politics

Darfur MapMia Farrow, in her role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, seems to be taking a real leadership role in drawing attention to the genocide in Darfur and putting pressure on those who have the ability to do something about it.

Earlier this week she had a great op-ed in The Boston Globe (free registration required) about the importance of divesting from Sudan:

To my horror I recently discovered that I had inadvertently been helping to finance the genocide in Darfur. My own pension money had been in Fidelity Investments mutual funds. Fidelity has more than $1 billion invested in PetroChina Co. and Sinopec Corp. , two oil companies that have poured billions of dollars into Khartoum’s coffers … Genocide is an expensive enterprise and more than 70 percent of oil revenues have been used by the government of Sudan to purchase weapons and train the janjaweed.

… I have taught my children that with knowledge comes responsibility. Who among us would knowingly be complicit in the murder of innocent people? Just as I must take responsibility for where my savings are invested, we each share the responsibility for where our tax dollars and public funds are invested … The moral necessity of divesting from investments in Sudan is broadly recognized and growing … The Sudanese government is starting to get the message, and their embassy in Washington has responded with numerous condemnations … I urge you to join me in sending a clear message to our elected officials that we refuse to have our money used to slaughter innocent people.

She also gave a slideshow presentation to Massachusetts lawmakers urging divestment, and governor Deval Patrick says he’s on board with the idea.

And she’s not letting anyone off the hook, criticizing Stephen Spielberg and the corporate sponsors of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing for helping to burnish China’s image as China continues to bankroll the genocide in Darfur.

China supplies arms to Sudan and also has huge oil investments in the country. Rights groups say its engagement is frustrating attempts to stop the civil war and atrocities.

“Beijing is uniquely positioned to put a stop to the slaughter, yet they have so far been unabashed in their refusal to do so,” [Farrow] wrote.

“But there is now one thing that China may hold more dear than their unfettered access to Sudanese oil: their successful staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics.”

It’s easy to feel helpless about the situation in Darfur. It’s very bracing to see someone finally taking this issue by the horns and pursuing practical strategies. Keep up the good work, Ms. Farrow.

Hat tip (again!) to Norm Sloan.

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The Roosters of the Peace

March 30th, 2007 · Culture, Nature, Peace, Video

And now for something completely different: Two chickens break up a fight between two rabbits. And we’ve got the video. You go, peace roosters!

What would El-ahrairah do?

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The Deep Dish Approach to Solar Power

March 30th, 2007 · Climate Change, Energy, News, Politics, Science, Tech

SuncloudsHere comes the sun: Sicily is building the world’s first solar power plant! According to a deal signed by the Italian government this week, the plant should by operational by 2009:

The project is named Archimedes, after the famous resident of the nearby city of Syracuse. The existing gas-fired power plant on the site will be augmented by Archimedes, which should produce 5 megawatts of electricity, enough for 4,500 families.

Archimedes’ trump card is the fact that it will produce solar energy 24 hours a day, not just when the sun is shining. The plant’s battery of parabolic mirrors will focus the sun’s rays on pipes, through which runs a saline liquid that can store heat up to 550C and retain it for hours.

Let’s hope those hip Italian trendsetters are about to spark another fad.

Hat tip to Norm Sloan.
Photo Credit: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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Music: Split Enz & Sparks

March 29th, 2007 · Blogroll, Blogs, Culture, Music, New Wave, Performance

Ooh, I think it’s high time for another musical interlude, before Ocelopotamus goes into New Wave withdrawal. We don’t want the Ocelopotamus getting antsy, hissing and splashing around in some kind of hypo-wave-onic panic and scaring the crocodiles.

In fact, let’s start off with a welcoming doff of the cap to all of Ocelopotamus’s new visitors from New Zealand, courtesy of the lovely welcome we just got from the fine folks at the NZBC.

So, here are those New Wave heroes from New Zealand, the immortal Split Enz, doing “I Walk Away”: a song from their last album that would also turn up in slightly different form on the first Crowded House album. In fact, with Neil Finn taking charge of the band and Paul Hester on drums, this is really the evolutionary missing link between the Enz and the House; between New Wave and Cardy Pop.

And let’s make this a double-header, with the quintessential proto-New Wave band Sparks, who I think consorted with a similar comic muse as Split Enz. This is Sparks on Top of the Pops in 1974, doing “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” — one of their classics. Both of the Mael brothers are wonderful performers and the way they stay in character during this is brilliant.

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Brzezinski on Iraq: Escalation Is “A Nonstarter.”

March 29th, 2007 · Foreign Policy, History, Media, News, Peace, Politics

Brzezinski in 1977The April issue of Harper’s Magazine has a lengthy transcript of remarks by Zbigniew Brzezinski speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 1.

Brzezinski was the National Security Adviser in the Carter Administration, and is currently a professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University. I’m no expert on Brzezinski, and reading over his Wikipedia entry I’m not sure he’s someone I’d normally find myself nodding along with, but in this transcript he comes across as remarkably clear-eyed. (Maybe it’s just perceptual contrast compared to the level of analysis we get from mainstream media pundits these days.)

Harper’s doesn’t have the piece online, but I wanted to quote a couple of passages here because Brzezinski puts things in such well-framed and compelling terms that the effect is crystallizing.

SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. (D., DEL.): Thank you very much. The argument the president is making is that the conflict with Islam intensifies if we withdraw. You’re making the argument that continuing to be bogged down in Iraq is more likely to result in that outcome.

BRZEZINSKI: Conflict, by its very nature, is not self-containable. It either diminishes, because one side has prevailed or because there’s an accommodation, or it escalates. If we could prevail militarily and in a decisive fashion, even though I opposed the war, there would be a strong case to be made for it. But I think we know by now that to prevail we will need to have 500,000 troops in Iraq, wage the war with unlimited brutality, and altogether crush that society because it would probably intensify its resistance. So that’s a nonstarter. Escalating the war as a consequence of protracting it is hardly an attractive option for the United States, because before too long, we could be facing a twenty-year-long involvement not only in Iraq but in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And think how precarious Pakistan is and how uncertain the situation in Afghanistan is becoming. So it’s in our interest to isolate the conflicts and to terminate them.

BIDEN: You’re confident the present course will not succeed.

BRZEZINSKI: The situation is worsening, hostility toward the United States is intensifying, our isolation worldwide is both being perpetuated and in some respects becoming more culturally grounded. Now, I realize there are risks in a strategy whereby the goal is to find an outcome other than a military victory. But at the same time, we shouldn’t become prisoners of apocalyptic and horrific scenarios, in some respects reminiscent of those described and drawn in the latter phases of the Vietnam War, scenarios that did not take place. I’m not sure that if we were to disengage from Iraq the consequences would be this kind of horrific set of dominoes falling all over the Middle East.

Twenty-year involvement.

Pick up a copy of the April Harper’s to read the rest.

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Mandarin Dynamite!

March 29th, 2007 · Culture, Film, Food, Journal, Science

LorangeI was at the Whole Foods yesterday and they had something called a “Meyer’s Lemon” in the produce section, which looked like a lemon only much orangerer, and a helpful sign explained that it is indeed a cross between a lemon and an orange, developed in China.

My question: if you create a cross between a lemon and an orange, why on earth wouldn’t you call it a “lorange”?

Because then you could totally feed it to a liger.

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Seals, Global Warming, and the Canadian Seafood Boycott

March 29th, 2007 · Activism, Climate Change, Food, News, Politics, Science

Seal PupCanada is gearing up for its brutal annual slaughter of baby seals, setting its highest quota ever at a time when the seal populations are also threatened by climate change.

Harp and hooded seals rely on the presence of sea ice, on which they give birth to and nurse their pups. But over the past decade, global warming has caused a steady decline in the sea ice cover off Canada’s east coast …

When sea ice does not form properly, mother seals often abort in the water. If the ice forms but breaks up before the pups are strong enough to swim, thousands of the pups die in the water. In 2002, a particularly bad ice year, the Canadian government estimated that 75 percent of the pups born in the Gulf of St. Lawrence died when the ice melted too soon. This year’s ice conditions appear to be worse than those of 2002.

The Canadian government’s own scientists are warning that the quota for the hunt needs to be dramatically lowered. But the government is still moving ahead with the highest quotas in history. In response, the Humane Society of the United States is renewing its boycott of Canadian seafood:

Why boycott Canadian seafood?
Canadian seafood exports to the United States contribute $3 billion annually to the Canadian economy — dwarfing the few million dollars provided by the seal hunt. The connection between the commercial fishing industry and the seal hunt in Canada gives consumers all over the world the power to end this cruel and brutal slaughter.

Go here to take the pledge or learn more.

The Canadian seal hunt was the reason I first heard of Greenpeace, as a grade school kid back in the mid 70s. I remember hearing about these courageous environmentalists who would go out onto the ice and spray the baby seals’ fur with a harmless orange dye, in order to render their pelts useless to the hunters. I thought that was the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard. I remember putting crumpled dollar bills from my allowance into envelopes to send to Greenpeace, and years later, canvassing for Greenpeace was my first job out of college. It’s beyond depressing that several decades later, Canada is still allowing harp seals to be slaughtered. Canada is a great country in so many ways — one expects better from them.

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News: The Hidden Cost of Margarine

March 27th, 2007 · Adobe, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Internet, Media, Music, News, Performance, Politics, Science, Software, Tech

Orangutan• Orangutans may be extinct within five years, thanks to a soaring demand for palm oil leading to the destruction of their forest habitat. This situation needs to be addressed in product labeling somehow, so consumers can know that they’re buying sustainable, “orangutan and rainforest-safe” palm oil. Via this DKos diary.

• Here’s a fascinating look at how Time magazine dumbs down its cover for America. Go take a look at the side by side covers for the American and European editions of Time magazine. For the edition that goes to Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific, the cover story is “Talibanistan,” about the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. For the US edition, the cover story is “Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School.” There are other telling differences, too, which Greg at This Modern World ably dissects.

• Adobe officially unveils Creative Suite 3.

• David Bowie curates the line-up for the High Line Festival in New York, including Ricky Gervais, Arcade Fire, Air, Polyphonic Spree, Secret Machines, Laurie Anderson and Ken Nordine.

• Digital comic books for your computer? Apparently you can buy 40 years of X-Men, Spider-Man, The Avengers, or the Fantastic Four in PDF form on a single CD-ROM. You get a round 500 comic books for $50. Jake Snell writes: “What’s needed here, of course, is something like an iTunes store for comic books. If I could buy comic books on iTunes, I’d start slapping down money today.”

• Take a photographic tour of The 10 most magnificent trees in the world (they really are magnificent) including the oldest living tree: a 4,838-year old bristlecone pine named Methuselah. Via Towleroad.

• This great essay in the Guardian describes how corporate chains function like invasive species, choking the retail ecosystem. Substitute Wal-Mart or Starbucks for Tesco and it applies to the US just as well as the UK.

• Ice in the Antartic is melting even faster than expected, “at the upper limits of projections,” and some centers of human population may already be past the point where they can cope with the effects.

• Four Albanian teachers get busted for getting it on behind a blackboard in a classroom. (Didn’t I see this plot on The Simpsons? And I’m pretty sure it was Ralph Wiggum who turned them in.)

• Ever wonder who has the longest domain names on the net, and what they are? Me neither. But it turns out to be a mildly amusing subject …

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Doctor Who Fires Up the Tardis

March 26th, 2007 · Culture, Doctor Who, News, Science Fiction, TV

The Doctor and MarthaIt’s a good week to be a Whovian — Season 3 of Russell T. Davies’ new Doctor Who series premieres on the BBC next Sunday, March 31. And a fourth season has been greenlit for 2008!

Hello Magazine has some tantalizing details about the premiere of Season 3, which will introduce the Doctor’s new sidekick Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman):

“I always asked for a clause in my contract that ensured a screen kiss with David Tennant,” joked Freema, 27, who has replaced Billie Piper as the Time Lord’s new companion. Things between the two characters get off to a good start after they meet in a London hospital which is dramatically transported to the Moon.

“She’s working flat out as a medical student, then in walks the most amazing man who saves the world in front of her, so you can’t blame her if her heart goes pitter patter,” explains executive producer Russell T Davies. Russell, who also writes the Cardiff-lensed show, has given fans of the hit programme a boost by promising a fourth series in 2008, although it is unknown yet whether David will return as the time-travelling hero.

BBC News has some details, too:

The opening episode — Smith and Jones — sees the Doctor meet Martha in a London hospital, which is dramatically transported to the Moon. There they battle a blood-sucking alien and the Judoon — a clan of galactic stormtroopers.

As you would expect from a Russell T Davies-penned episode, it’s full of witty one-liners, some nasty bits to scare the younger viewers and breathtaking special effects.

I love the new Doctor Who — I think it’s my favorite thing that’s been on television since the early days of The West Wing, or possibly The Kids in the Hall.

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Last Week’s Three Best Video Kerfuffles

March 26th, 2007 · Climate Change, Culture, Film, Human Rights, Media, News, Politics, Torture, TV

I don’t know what was in the air last week, but it was a banner week for jaw-dropping altercations, smackdowns and ruckuses (should that be ruckae?) caught on video. Here are the three that made a biggest impression on me.

1. Boxer vs. Inhofe vs. Gore.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe is one of those guys who doesn’t believe in global warming, or at least he pretends he doesn’t in order to please the people who pull his marionette strings. As Al Gore was testifying at the Senate hearing on global warming last week, Inhofe did his best to treat Gore like a doormat, attacking and insulting him, and then refusing to let Gore respond or defend himself. In the video (link below), he keeps cutting Gore off and telling him that if he wants to respond, he can respond “in writing.”

Barbara Boxer, the committee chairwoman, puts up with this for a while, patiently asking Inhofe to allow Gore time to respond. But when Inhofe refuses to behave himself, Boxer finally decides she’s had enough and it’s time to cut Inhofe into teeny tiny pieces by telling him, “You’re not making the rules. You used to when you did this. Elections have consequences. So I make the rules.”

… and the crowd goes wild. Watch the video here.

2. Rosie O’Donnell vs. Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

A remarkably similar situation to the one above. Filmmaker Rory Kennedy is on The View, talking about her new documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. Elisabeth Hasselbeck keeps interrupting Kennedy, insisting that torturing people is OK because it’s part of Keeping America Safe. Kennedy is very patient in explaining why engaging in torture isn’t effective and does our country more harm than good, but Hasselbeck thinks there’s a pony in the torture issue somewhere and won’t let Kennedy talk. Finally Rosie lets her have it.

3. Lily Tomlin vs. David O. Russell.

This isn’t something that happened last week, but wow. Just wow. Lily Tomlin and director David O. Russell tearing into at each other on the set of I Heart Huckabees.

This one isn’t really fair, because we don’t know enough about what led up to this to have a sense of why Tomlin and Russell are at each other’s throats like this, and who is really at fault here. Still, it’s astounding to see an actor of Tomlin’s stature being addressed in such reductive four-letter terms.

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The Waterboys: Mike Scott in The Guardian, and new album Book of Lightning

March 26th, 2007 · Books, Culture, History, Journal, Lit, Music, Mythology, Neo-Futurists, News, Performance, Poetry, Travel

Book of LightningMike Scott, singer, songwriter, and bandleader of The Waterboys, has a thoughtful and entertaining piece in The Guardian recounting his experiences trying to correct errors in the band’s entry on Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, the Waterboys have a new album coming out in April! It’s called Book of Lightning and you can hear samples of a couple of its songs on the Waterboys’ official MySpace page.

There’s also a video of The Waterboys performing the album’s first single, “Everybody Takes a Tumble,” live on on Irish TV. There’s a little interview with Mike at the end of it, too.

The album (which includes a PAL DVD) is available for pre-order from Amazon, and a CD single of “Everybody Takes a Tumble” (which includes a cover of George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass”) is already on sale.

I’m looking forward to hearing the new album. The Waterboys’ music has been the soundtrack to my life for two decades now — I generally say that they’re my all-time favorite band, right after The Beatles.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet Mike Scott in person twice — the first time was in 1996, after a show at the Park West support of his first solo album Bring ’em All In, and again in 2003. A couple of personal Waterboys anecdotes after the jump.

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Puck Soup: Wolfgang Puck Gets a Shiny New Conscience

March 26th, 2007 · Activism, Business, Factory Farming, Food, Health, News, Politics

Puck SoupI haven’t exactly been a fan of Wolfgang Puck, to put it mildly, because in the past he’s been a major promoter of animal cruelty — he bears a lot of responsibility for the popularization of foie gras over the last few years. I give his restaurant in Evanston a wide berth, and have been known to mutter various creative phrases that rhyme with his last name when I pass the shelf full of his soup cans at Whole Foods.

So it’s good to see that Mr. Puck appears to have had a change of heart — or at least has figured out that there’s good marketing value in appealing to environmentally conscious, animal-friendly consumers.

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck and the Humane Society of the United States plan to announce today that Puck’s $300-million-a-year food empire is beginning a program to fight animal cruelty.

If the plan is carried out as promised, it means no foie gras — fatty liver produced by overfeeding ducks and geese — would be served at Spago or any of Puck’s 14 other fine-dining restaurants. Spago’s famous weiner schnitzel would be made exclusively using veal from roaming, not shackled, calves. Eggs to make souffles and custards would come only from hens that have lived cage-free. And lobsters for Chinois’ renowned Shanghai lobster would be removed from their ocean traps quickly to arrive at his restaurant without spending time in overcrowded holding tanks.

That sounds like a pretty good start. Of course, he’s not all the way there yet:

For the time being, however, Puck is not embracing the full animal-rights agenda. Puck chefs will continue to kill lobsters by cutting them in half while they’re still alive, rather than by using stun guns.

And skate and Russian caviar, both of which Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch has on its “avoid” list, remain on his menus.

… but at least he’s taken a big step in the right direction. Big kudos to both The Humane Society of the United States and Farm Sanctuary for helping Mr. Puck see the light.

Of course, time will tell whether he honors these commitments — but if he does, in a year or two I might even smile when I pass his soup cans.

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In Chicago: The Return of the Partly Dave Show, Plus Jellybeans, Oobleck, and Jane Goodall

March 23rd, 2007 · Books, Chicago, Culture, Fringe, Journal, LGBT, Lit, Neo-Futurists, News, Performance, Poetry, Theater

Jellybean HeadI was at the Landmark shop in Andersonville yesterday, and the nice lady behind the counter asked me to guess how many jellybeans were inside the glass human head and write my answer on a slip of paper. I guessed 425. No wait, 450! 17,034! A zillion! Oh my heavens, the pressure.

I seem to remember reading that the human brain has roughly 100 billion neurons. Do you think that might be the answer? Jellybeans = neurons. A fiendishly clever riddle on the part of the Landmark shop, if true.

Well, I’ve never been much of a bean counter, but it’s always nice to be asked your opinion about something.

Now, let’s talk Chicago theater and performance, shall we?

• The following hot little bit of breaking news is an Ocelopotamus WORLD EXCLUSIVE, people. Just the first of many, we hope.

We here at Ocelopotamus are tickled a hot shade of magenta to announce that The Partly Dave Show will be ending its recent hiatus on Wednesday night, May 2nd, with a very special edition of the show at The Neo-Futurarium.

The line-up and other details are still being worked out, but I can tell you that my co-host Christopher Piatt will be on board that night, as well as our newly anointed co-co-host, Diana Slickman. And with a little luck, Even in Blackouts are going to be playing live. But that’s all you get till next week. Or so. In the meantime, save that date!

• This weekend is your last chance to see The Strangerer — it closes Sunday, and according to Theater Oobleck’s Web site, Saturday night’s show is sold out. You can still catch it Friday or Sunday, but be sure to make reservations.

I saw last Saturday’s sold-out show and I have to say that Mickle Maher’s performance as John Kerry is downright eerie, both vocally and physically — I hadn’t really thought Kerry had so many mannerisms to play off of, but Mickle proved me very wrong about that. Ditto for Colm O’Reilly as Jim Lehrer, supplying an understatedness that was brilliantly over the top. Guy Massey is very good as GWB as well, but I’ve seen a lot more GWB impressions so the bar is set a little higher there. Nonetheless, all three of them turn in finely crafted performances, and the show is as good as you’ve heard.

I don’t know if this is the author’s intention or not — I would never try to fathom the unfathomable mind of Mickle Maher — but for me, the show effectively captures the profoundly disturbing feeling of watching a president literally get away with murder, while the media and many Democrats — as well as the entire Republican party, of course — maintain an anesthetized business-as-usual attitude that becomes pointedly surreal when juxtaposed against what’s taking place on the stage. You know, just like the last six years.

• The Neo-Futurists are gearing up for their next prime time show, Sean Benjamin’s Poker Night at the White House, which opens April 19. And apparently it involves a life-size old man puppet.

• Chicago poet Yvonne Zipter has a new book of poems about her greyhounds, called Like Some Bookie God. I’ve long thought of Yvonne as one of the very best poets in Chicago, mainly because of her beautifully wrought 1990 collection The Patience of Metal. (And though she’s a friend, I thought that for years before I ever met her.) I found out about her reading at Women & Children First Books this past Wednesday too late to attend, but I’m looking forward to reading the new book.

• Jane Goodall will be giving a lecture entitled “Inside the Mind of the Chimpanzee” in the Navy Pier Grand Ballroom this Sunday the 25th, from 2-5pm. And it’s sold out. Jane Goodall is one of my personal heroes, so even though I can’t attend this, I feel good just knowing she’ll be in town.

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The Big Pet Food Recall, Continued

March 23rd, 2007 · Advertising, Business, Cats, Factory Farming, Food, Health, Kiwi, Mr. Blue, News, Pet Food, Pets, Politics

Kiwi Hangs OutIn the comments to my post about the Big Pet Food Recall earlier this week, AmyC pointed out that the pet food industry isn’t regulated by the FDA; instead it’s self-regulated by an industry group called the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials). And then Grendel posted this link: What’s Really in Pet Food, and he’s right, it’s truly horrifying. And if you buy commercial pet food, you should read it.

Here’s just a little, um, taste:

You may have noticed a unique, pungent odor when you open a new bag of pet food — what is the source of that delightful smell? It is most often rendered animal fat, restaurant grease, or other oils too rancid or deemed inedible for humans.

Restaurant grease has become a major component of feed grade animal fat over the last fifteen years. This grease, often held in fifty-gallon drums, may be kept outside for weeks, exposed to extreme temperatures with no regard for its future use. “Fat blenders” or rendering companies then pick up this used grease and mix the different types of fat together, stabilize them with powerful antioxidants to retard further spoilage, and then sell the blended products to pet food companies and other end users.

These fats are sprayed directly onto extruded kibbles and pellets to make an otherwise bland or distasteful product palatable. The fat also acts as a binding agent to which manufacturers add other flavor enhancers such as digests. Pet food scientists have discovered that animals love the taste of these sprayed fats.

… and those of us who have cats are left to wonder why so many of our friends wind up being diagnosed with cancer.

At this point, even Newsweek is asking whether pet food needs to be better regulated:

But on Tuesday, FDA officials admitted that the regulation of pet food takes a back seat to its regulatory obligations of other food and drug sectors, and that inspections of pet-food processing plants are done only on a for-cause basis.

“There are limited resources,” said David Elder, director of the Office of Surveillance and Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine in Rockville, Md.

… and why are the resources too limited for the FDA to effectively regulate pet food? Blame the Republican party and its decades-long campaign to deregulate everything and starve the federal government of money for necessary programs, so that billionaires can get those sweet, sweet tax cuts. Remember how Grover Norquist famously said he wanted to drown the federal government in the bathtub? Well, he may have just drowned a bunch of cats and dogs, too.

As for me, after reading this article, I’m considering switching to Newman’s Own Organics.

Take a look at this ingredient list.

… That sounds like the right answer to me. I really like that the only meat in it is free-range chicken; as an animal lover I hate having to buy cat food with factory-farmed animals in it. That’s a conflict I felt every time I bought a bag of Science Diet, and it will feel good to leave that behind. I was only buying Science Diet because my vets have always recommended it; but after learning a little more about the money system behind those recommendations, I’m no longer willing to be held hostage by that.

So — anyone out there have any experience with Newman’s Own pet food, or know anything about it I should consider before switching? Chime in if you do, in the comments.

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