Archive for March 2021
Gretchen Primack, Kind
Gretchen Primack is a poet, educator, and indie bookseller living in New York’s Hudson Valley. She has taught and/or administrated with prison education programs (mostly college) since 2006. She’s the author of three poetry collections: Kind (Lantern Publishing), which explores the dynamic between humans and other animals in our time and place; Visiting Days (Willow Books), which imagines a maximum-security men’s NYS prison like the ones where she’s taught; and Doris’ Red Spaces (Mayapple Press), a more personal collection; along with a chapbook, The Slow Creaking of Planets (Finishing Line). She co-wrote The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals with Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary co-founder Jenny Brown (Penguin Avery). Her poetry publication credits include The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, FIELD, Poet Lore, The Massachusetts Review, The Antioch Review, New Orleans Review, Rhino, Tampa Review, and many others journals and anthologies. She’s also worked at the renowned indie bookstore The Golden Notebook for many years. Gretchen is a passionate advocate for the rights and welfare of non-human animals and lives with several of them, along with a beloved human named Gus. Reach out to her at www.gretchenprimack.com.
Hartglass & De Mattei talk about poetry and the Passover and Easter Holidays in the second part of the program.
Gary L. Francione, Why Veganism Matters, the Moral Value of Animals
Most people care about animals, but only a tiny fraction are vegan. The rest often think of veganism as an extreme position. They certainly do not believe that they have a moral obligation to become vegan.
Gary L. Francione—the leading and most provocative scholar of animal rights theory and law—demonstrates that veganism is a moral imperative and a matter of justice. He shows that there is a contradiction in thinking that animals matter morally if one is also not vegan, and he explains why this belief should logically lead all who hold it to veganism. Francione dismantles the conventional wisdom that it is acceptable to use and kill animals as long as we do so “humanely.” He argues that if animals matter morally, they must have the right not to be used as property. That means that we cannot eat them, wear them, use them, or otherwise treat them as resources or commodities.
Why Veganism Matters presents the case for the personhood of nonhuman animals and for veganism in a clear and accessible way that does not require any philosophical or legal background. This book offers a persuasive and powerful argument for all readers who care about animals but are not sure whether they have a moral obligation to be vegan.
Gary L. Francione is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law and Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University Law School and visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Lincoln (UK). He is the author of many books, including Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. More at AbolitionistApproach.com/ and HowDoIGoVegan.com.
Josh Balk, Farm Animal Protection
Josh Balk is vice president of Farm Animal Protection for the Humane Society of the United States. He’s led the country’s transformational legislative campaigns that criminalize factory farming practices, including spearheading the historic California Proposition 12 ballot measure, the world’s strongest law for farm animals. Since then he’s waged successful campaigns passing similar laws in Oregon, Washington, Michigan and Colorado. Josh also leads negotiations with the world’s largest corporations to enact animal farm welfare policies, including with McDonald’s, Walmart, Kroger and Denny’s. Prior to coming to HSUS, he worked as an undercover investigator exposing cruelties within factory farms and slaughterhouses. He’s also a co-founder of Eat Just, a company the makes the Just Egg product.
Ellen Ecker Ogden is a Vermont writer and the author of The Complete Kitchen Garden and other books on food and gardens. She cofounded The Cook’s Garden seed catalog, introducing cooks and gardeners to European specialty vegetables, herbs, and flowers. She graduated with a degree in fine arts, and attended cooking school with Marcella Hazan in Venice, Italy, and at the Ballymaloe School in Shanagarry, Ireland. Her articles and kitchen garden designs have appeared in numerous national publications, including The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and Country Gardens.
In Part 2, Hartglass & De Mattei share their garden dreams and stories.
Dan Pucci and Craig Cavallo, AMERICAN CIDER: A Modern Guide to a Historic Beverage
Dan Pucci is one of the nation’s leading cider experts. He was the founding beverage director at Wassail, New York City’s first cider bar and restaurant, and has since traveled the country in a continued pursuit of cider education, awareness, and research. He is a partner in Wallabout Hospitality, a New York City-based consulting and hospitality company.
Craig Cavallo lived in New York City for thirteen years, working in restaurants, blogging about food trends, and writing for Saveur. His work has been published in Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, New York magazine’s Grub Street, Thrillist, and Vice Munchies. He left New York City for the Hudson Valley, and when he’s not at Golden Russet Cafe & Grocery, the café that he owns and operates with his wife, Jenny, he can be found picking fenceline apples and dabbling in his own cellar cider experiments.
Interested in trying some ciders? Go to ShopCiders.com.
