Update, 10/19/08: I left my squares in the fridge overnight, and the goo’s mostly congealed. Upon further reflection, I think I may have used too much egg substitute. The original recipe calls for six egg whites; I substituted for six whole eggs. So…maybe just use enough egg replacer for two to three eggs?

Either way, it’s super yummy.

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Today’s VeganMoFo recipe was really good, so I’m crossposting over here. Now, if you’ll ‘scuse me, I do believe I’m about to lapse into a sugar coma.

I’m too tired to write an introduction, so without further adieu, Pumpkin-Applesauce Squares, via Deseret News. Made with slight modifications, as explained below. Enjoy! (I sure did.)

Pumpkin-Applesauce Squares

Ingredients

Egg replacer for 6 eggs
1 cup unsweetened applesauce [I used fresh-out-of-the-pot pumpkin applesauce]
1 1/2 cups sugar [I reduced to 1 1/4 cups]
2 cups canned pumpkin
2 cups all-purpose flour [I used 2 cups wheat flour]
3 teaspoons low-sodium baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice

(More below the fold…)

A “real” feminist wouldn’t employ such a silly argument in defense of PETA’s campaigns, whether sexist or not:

MJ: One question I did have. I really do appreciate the work PETA has done but it has gotten a lot of criticism for using women in some of its ads. A lot of times in bikinis, or scantily clad, I think there was a striptease campaign that came online recently. What do you say to people who criticize PETA and say that it’s not women-friendly, that it denigrates women?

IN: Well, it’s rubbish because the organization is run by a woman, who is me. I marched in the earliest of rallies, I am an adamant feminist, but I’m not a prude and I think you can go to the beach and see people who are in less than you can in a PETA ad.

Let me guess: you also have a Black Friend ™, such that none of PETA’s campaigns could possibly be racist, either?

Seriously, this is such a ridiculous argument that I need only two words to refute it: Ann Coulter. Women are not immune from misogyny, you see. Sometimes, they’re even more vicious in their hatred of other women than are their male peers; because of the common (mis)perception that “women cannot be sexist,” women are oftentimes granted license to act in an even more misogynistic manner than their male counterparts. It’s not often that you hear a man argue that women’s suffrage was a mistake – yet Ann Coulter has posited as much, and she still manages to get speaking gigs.

You go on to say:

Our people are all volunteers, no one has asked a woman to take off her clothes. I’ve done it myself, we’ve all marched naked if we want to, and I think that it’s very restrictive and in fact wrong. I would expect someone in, say, Iran to tell us that we should cover up, but I don’t expect women or men in this country to criticize women who wish to use their bodies in a form of political statement, to tell them, you need to cover yourself up. There’s this idea of ‘naughty bits’ and I just think it’s funny more than anything else. It’s not sexist, it may be sexual, but no. No woman has ever been paid to strip. She has decided to use her body as a political instrument. That’s her prerogative and I think it is anti-feminist to dare to tell her that she needs to put her clothes back on.

Certainly, I agree that it’s “anti-feminist to dare to tell [a woman] that she needs to put her clothes back on”; however, there’s a difference between allowing your supporters to use their naked bodies as “political instrument[s]” and taking advantage of your [female] supporters’ willingness to get naked for the animals by playing into cultural stereotypes regarding gender roles, beauty, sex, class, race, etc. As I noted in my defense of your “Breast is Best” campaign, PETA does have a despicable habit of pornifying women in their photo/print campaigns while simultaneously portraying men as full human beings, complete with agency and personalities.

In PETA’s world, women are more likely to pose in the nude than men; and, if you were to objectively compare the PETA print campaigns which feature nude men and women, you’d see that the portrayals are drastically different. Strip away PETA’s logo and slogans, and the women’s photos look like they were pulled straight out of a recent edition of Playboy. Young, white, thin, feminine, (conventionally) attractive women are displayed on all fours, backs arched, gazes vacant, faces and torsos turned away from the camera, submissive in posture, ready for a good fuckin’. In contrast, the men’s shots are fun, funny, inspiring, humorous, and full of personality.

Yes, you can be sexual without being sexist; just look at these campaigns featuring naked men as proof:

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In the wake of the current credit and banking crises, many pundits have been predicting that the presidential candidates will have to curb their proposed spending plans drastically when the winner takes office in January. With home foreclosures skyrocketing, pumping money towards renewable energy may seem like a luxury. Yet, an investment in these technologies could create jobs and set us on the path to energy independence. Though the initial investment might be high, the cost of feeding our oil addiction may prove much higher.

Aside from voting and petitioning our state and federal representatives, there’s little we can do as individuals to impact federal spending on eco-friendly options. However, on a micro level, we have a chance to save both money and the earth through the many little (and the few big) choices we make on a daily basis. Just as with the federal government’s expenditures, being “green” may cost a little more up front, but could save us money in the long run.

In a recent piece at Grist, Miles Grant observes notes an obvious parallel between tips to help you save money – and tips to help you save the environment:

Who are you to deny me my two-car garage filled with junk, an elegant dining room I’ll never use, and massive heating/cooling bills?

That’s the basic response from critics when greens question McMansions in particular and our consumer culture in general. I mean, isn’t newer, bigger, better the American way? Didn’t President Bush urge us to go shopping more?

But one financial advisor says trying to look rich by buying so much stuff is keeping some Americans from being rich. And while he never once mentions the environment, his prescriptions for building your savings have a lot in common with tips for cutting your environmental impact.

Being green and being frugal aren’t mutually exclusive, you see. Oftentimes, the two go hand in hand.

This year’s Blog Action theme is poverty; because I’m all about intersecting oppressions (such as classism, environmental destruction and the role of the megatheocorporatocracy in each), I thought I might offer some food-related tips for positively impacting your cash flow and your ecological imprint. Since we’re in the midst of the Vegan Month of Foods – for which I’ve been baking, cooking, drying and otherwise experimenting like mad – I’d like to focus on food, specifically, how one can eat green to save green.

(More below the fold…)

Via Color of Change:

McCain-Palin rallies have started to look more like mob scenes than political events. The candidates keep asking “who is the real Barack Obama?” (a question that also kicks off almost every McCain television ad).In response, supporters have yelled “terrorist!” and “traitor!” And the venom goes beyond Obama–one McCain/Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at a Black member of a news crew, saying “sit down, boy.”

McCain and Palin are going down a dangerous path. Watching some of their supporters being interviewed shows the kind of fear their campaign is stoking and exploiting.McCain and Palin are clearly in the driver’s seat. They’ve personally made it a point to use “terrorist” and “Obama” in the same sentence; they have surrogates repeatedly refer to him by his middle-name;and they keep pushing the discredited guilt-by-association smears that have long been debunked.

All of it plays on the much more sinister rumors in anonymous smear emails which claim Obama is Muslim, anti-American, and is somehow connected with terrorists. This strategy is powerful because Obama is Black, and it’s designed to make Obama’s race a disadvantage without appearing overtly racist.

As Americans of all stripes, we’ve seen how Barack Obama’s historic candidacy has moved our friends and family to have a more honest conversation about race in this country. It’s inspired a lot of people to step out of their comfort zone and confront racism in their own communities, with their friends, neighbors and families.

In the final days of this campaign, we can’t let a desperate John McCain and Sarah Palin drag us down. If enough of us act, we can create a powerful story in the media about Black people and our allies of all races standing together against race-baiting and fear-mongering coming from the McCain/Palin campaign. But it will take a lot of us speaking in unison.

Will you sign an open letter to McCain and Palin, telling them who you are and why you won’t let them move our country backward? ColorofChange.org will publish the letter and make sure John McCain is forced to respond.

You can sign the letter here – or check out Shakesville’s Obama Racism/Muslim/Unpatriotic/Scary Black Dude Watch, now at part 96; the latest entry hails from my current state of residence, Missouri. Fucking awesome, right?

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Tagged: color of change actions alerts 2008 elections john mccain sarah palin barack obama racism xenophobia war on terra godbags video brave new films

Writer-slash-environmentalist Nick Jans gives us an Alaskan’s view of Sarah Palin and her run for the White House.

It’s a great piece – really, I could excerpt the whole damn thing – but this piece in particular is worth noting:

Palin pushed hard, along with sport hunting and guiding interests, to help defeat a ballot initiative that would have stopped the state’s current aerial wolf control program, which had been criticized by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council for flawed science. Now her administration has pointedly refused to respond to repeated public information requests (I’m one of the petitioners, and a potential litigant), regarding the apparently illegal killing of 14 wolf pups at their dens on the Alaska Peninsula this spring by state personnel, including two high-level Department of Fish and Game administrators. A biologist at the scene admitted to an independent wolf scientist that the 6-week-old pups were held down and shot in the head, one by one. This inhumane practice, known as “denning,” has been illegal for 40 years. But a simple request for information on the details of this operation, including to what extent the governor was involved in the decision, has resulted in a typical Palinesque roadblock and a string of untruths.

Sarah Palin, “my friends,” is a “pro-life,” God-fearing evangelical. And yet (according to her and hers), it’s atheists like moi who lack morals.

Anyway, Jans explains how Palin can claim to be a genuine Alaskan while simultaneously working to destroy the land she calls home, vis-à-vis her policy of pillaging the environment, to hell with the consequences:

In the broadest sense, Palin is a poseur. Alaska is too large and culturally diverse (it’s only a bit smaller than the entire lower 48 east of the Mississippi, and once was divided into four time zones) to be summed up by some abstract, romanticized notion. And even if it could be, it sure wouldn’t be symbolized by Palin. “The typical Alaskan? She couldn’t be farther from it,” says Alaska House Minority Leader Beth Kertulla.

Still, Palin is a genuine Alaskan — of a kind. The kind that flowed north in the wake of the ’70s oil boom, Bible Belt politics and attitudes under arm, and transformed this state from a free-thinking, independent bastion of genuine libertarianism and individuality into a reactionary fundamentalist enclave with dollar signs in its eyes and an all-for-me mentality.

Palin’s Alaska is embodied in Wasilla, a blue-collar, sharp-elbowed town of burgeoning big box stores, suburban subdivisions, evangelical pocket churches and car dealerships morphing across the landscape, outward from Anchorage, the state’s urban epicenter. She has lived in Wasilla practically all her life, and even now resides there, the first Alaska executive to eschew the white-pillared mansion in Juneau, down on the Southeast Panhandle.

Go read the whole thing.

Note to the rest of the Salon staff: this is a perfect example of how to criticize a female politician without resorting to misogyny and sexist slurs. It’s the policies, stupid! (As opposed to, you know, the vag-n-mams.)

(Crossposted to.)

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare 2008 elections sarah palin wolves aerial hutnign hunting aerial gunning denning pups wolf pups environment alaska nick jans

…I gave my true love 53 birthday biscuits!

(Crossposted from easyVegan.info, of course.)

As you can most likely infer from the post title, today is the Ralphster’s birthday. My little man, my first-born and -adopted, turns a gray old 11 today. He’s like the Wilford Brimley of the doggeh world, minus the dia-beddies.

I have plenty of Ralphie pix after the jump, of course, but first a recipe for Peanut Butter ‘Nilla Biscuits from Yummy for Dogs. If you like what you see, check out the website and/or order a copy of webmistress Veronica Noechel’s Yummy for Dogs: A Cook Book for Canines. Hey, it’s on my wishlist. I mean, Ralphie’s wishlist. Yeah, Ralphie. (Hint, hint, wink, wink!)

Peanut Butter ‘Nilla Biscuits

These smell incredible!

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup oil
3 tablespoons peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup oats

* In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, and oats.

* Stir in oil, peanut butter, vanilla, and water.

* Knead till smooth, adding more flour or water as needed.

* Roll out on a lightly floured surface.

* Cut with cookie cutters.

* Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

I stuck to the directions, but added some extra flour and rolled oats, as the dough was initially a little oily. I think I also used more like 5 tablespoons of peanut butter, since my “tablespoons” were heaped to overflowing. The dogs love the pb, though!

I have this cute little bone-shaped cookie cutter that the doggies’ grandmother bought for them/me, so I used that to cut the dough. I rolled the leftover scraps into a faux long rawhide bone with the cute little tied ends (for the birthday boy, natch!), as you can see in the photo. All in all, the recipe produced 53 cookies (40 long bones, 12 short bones and one “rawhide”), which fit on two sheets, no problem.

The dogs loved the treats, but don’t place too much trust in their critique; four out of the five of them eat their own poo! (And the fifth eats the cat’s poo – Rennie, I’m looking at you.) I did try the dough before rolling it into cookies, and it was on a little the bland side (for humans), but edible; and yet, definitely yummy for dogs!

(More below the fold…)

I love these new “Think Before You Speak” PSAs from The Ad Council – and not just because the first stars Wanda Sykes:

Now if only they’d tackle the word “bitch” in similar fashion. Double points for a PSA criticizing our collective tendency to judge powerful females by their physical appearance as opposed to, you know, their actual qualifications (think the Hillary Clinton/Sarah Palin SNL skit).

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Tagged: glbt the ad council gay wanda sykes

Via Joselle @ Vegans of Color, an interesting article in The New York Times about the origins of the term “maverick” – and how the descendants of the original consummate maverick feel about McCain’s (McSame’s?) co-opting of the term:

But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.

“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.

Sam Maverick’s grandson, Fontaine Maury Maverick, was a two-term congressman and a mayor of San Antonio who lost his mayoral re-election bid when conservatives labeled him a Communist. He served in the Roosevelt administration on the Smaller War Plants Corporation and is best known for another coinage. He came up with the term “gobbledygook” in frustration at the convoluted language of bureaucrats.

This Maverick’s son, Maury Jr., was a firebrand civil libertarian and lawyer who defended draft resisters, atheists and others scorned by society. He served in the Texas Legislature during the McCarthy era and wrote fiery columns for The San Antonio Express-News. His final column, published on Feb. 2, 2003, just after he died at 82, was an attack on the coming war in Iraq.

Terrellita Maverick, sister of Maury Jr., is a member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Considering the family’s long history of association with liberalism and progressive ideals, it should come as no surprise that Ms. Maverick insists that John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, “is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase.”

“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’ ”

“He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”

(That’s all but the first paragraph of the article; it was just too doggone good to pick and choose excerpts.)

The delicious irony in McCain appropriating a term coined on the ideals of a progressive, civil liberty-heartin, atheist-defending, draft resister-hugging, ACLU card carrying lefties is not lost on this progressive vegan atheist terra-ist.

Man, what a fucknut.

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Tagged: 2008 elections john mccain sarah palin maverick language politics

UPDATE, 10/7/08: For today’s VeganMoFo recipe, I used some of the leftover applesauce in a bread recipe to make Sweet Strawberry Applesauce Bread. Check it here. Also, the fruit leather? Way yummy – better than the applesauce, even! When rolled up for storage, it resembles salami, which is a bit disconcerting.

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I’m cross-posting today’s VeganMoFo post because this strawberry applesauce recipe is soooooo ridiculously sweet and fruity and yummy and you simply must try it!

For more vegan food blogging, you can view my entries here, or check out the PPK blog for daily roundups.

Now that the season of the zucchini is winding down, I’m slowly turning my attention to using those 120+ bags of apples I picked in September. (OK, so I gave most of them away; we only have about 20 bags left, not counting the 20 or so that are still on the trees. But I digress.) While hunting around the internets for an apple-heavy recipe this afternoon, I stumbled upon a super-yummy strawberry applesauce recipe from www.recipezaar.com:

Applesauce With Strawberries

Ingredients

3 lbs macintosh apples or apples (about 9 apples)
10 large frozen strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 lemon, juice of
1/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon allspice

Directions

Peel, core and slice apples 1/4-inch thick. Place apple slices in a large saucepan. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until a sauce consistency, about 45 minutes. Use a potato masher, if necessary, to break up any lumps, but leave slightly chunky.

I more or less stuck to the recipe (I have a difficult time following directions – canyatell?); it’s both easy and insanely delicious. The sauce comes out on the sweet side, so if you prefer your applesauce tasting more like apples and less like candy, you may want to go a little easy on the sugar. If you love strawberries like moi, throw in a few extra berries. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.

This snack is best served warm, but I’m sure it’s quite good cold or at room temp, too.

(More below the fold…)

While I love that your latest issue features a cover story on “funny girls” Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho and Kirsten Schaal, I’m less than amused by your “green party” menu, which reads as follows:

Bread and cheese
Maple-glazed acorn squash
Green beans with onion sprinkles
Golden-crusted Brussels sprouts
Turkey with gravy
Sage, walnut, and dried-fig stuffing
Rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes
Cranberry sauce
Pumpkin pie
Vanilla ice cream with ginger-pear preserves
Artisanal dark chocolate bars
Hot apple cider
Beer, red wine, and sparkling cider

Turkey, cheese and ice cream are not “green” – not even close. Factory farmed cows – you know, the milk machines who produce all those bodily secretions found in your dairy products? – are, according to the U.N., “responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.”

As summarized at treehugger, the U.N. also reports that:

“Ranching, the report adds, is “the major driver of deforestation” worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.

Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.

The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating “dead zones” devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.”

Dairy is not “green.” I repeat: Dairy. Is. Not. Green.

Now let’s talk turkey – which, ahem, isn’t green, either.

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