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What led you to start DawnWatch and what exactly is DawnWatch? DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch. I keep an eye out for animal stories in the media and send them to people who have signed up on my website to the free list. The point is to encourage people to respond, with letters to the editor, or feedback to TV shows who have done animal friendly story-lines. As for what led me to start it, well, that’s kind of long story I tell in the last chapter of Thanking the Monkey, as that chapter is about activism. And I tell it often when I speak to groups about reaching out to the media. The details are probably a bit more than we have room for here but I will say for now that I had worked in both print and television news media in Australia almost straight out of college, and had learned the impact of audience feedback. When I developed a keen interest in animal advocacy, I used what I had learned to help guide the media towards focusing on animal issues. What did you do before DawnWatch? After my time in the media in Australia, I traveled to New York with an interest in getting into TV news there. But I fell into personal fitness training while looking for a media job, and I absolutely loved it. And it was the perfect way to make a living when I started pursuing music somewhat seriously – playing the downtown music scene. Meanwhile my do-gooder side was nourished at the Saint Francis Xavier Church where I worked in the soup kitchen every Sunday through most of the 1990s. How did you get involved in the animal rights movement? I was always a person who loved animals. And I always had a taste for veggie food, partly because I was raised by an ex-beauty queen weight conscious mother, who was married for a while to a heart attack survivor whose doctor had told him to cut down on meat. I had not officially cut meat out of my diet but when I moved out of college and started shopping and cooking for myself and my boyfriend, I just found myself heading towards almost exclusively vegetarian cooking. I lived that way, mostly vegetarian, on and off fish, through my twenties. Was there a defining moment for you when you knew this is what you wanted to do or was it a series of events? There were two clear defining moments. The first was when I received a blind mailing from the Humane Farming Association, which showed pictures of sows in gestation crates. The brochure told me that these huge, intelligent animals spent months on end, basically their whole lives, in those individual metal crates, too small for them to turn around, or even lie down with their legs outstretched. All they could do was stare straight ahead of them, chomping on the metal bars as they went mad from the boredom. I remember my reaction: shock, then immediate denial. I told myself, “Those crazy animal rights activists must have found one farm somewhere, probably in some foreign country, which treats their pigs like that. And they’re trying to tell us this is typical.” A year or so later I got another mailing, this time from PETA. It was a brochure that included the first chapter of Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation. I read the chapter standing in my apartment that night, mesmerized. I bought the book and read it over the next week, which was Christmas 2008. It depressed me profoundly. While I had known our society we ate and experimented on animals, the extent of the institutionalized cruelty was news to me – devastating news. I learned that those animal rights activists who had sent out that earlier brochure hadn’t found some especially egregious pig farm. Those hideous crates were standard industry practice. And innumerable other standard horrors. What kind of impact has this made in your life? How has it changed since you started DawnWatch? From the moment I learned the truth I felt like I had no choice but to pursue this work. I gave the animals my word that I would do my best to help them. And it is hard to put into words the blessing one feels when one knows one’s destiny and moves towards it. This work is hard, and sorrowful, and it can be depressing if you let it. But to wake up in the morning and get to my work, work driven by passion, and to feel like I get to be part of making at least some sort of difference, has had a beautiful impact on my life. It gives my life a layer of meaning it just didn’t have before I was involved in activism. You recently wrote a new book! Can you tell us more about it? What led you to write it and how has it been received? 
Yes! “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals.” I love to write, and have done a lot of writing over my years in animal advocacy, churning out my dawnwatch alerts. I have also done a lot of research, sifting through hundreds of animal media stories every day. From time to time somebody who enjoyed DawnWatch would ask me when I was going to write a book. But our movement already had beautiful books on the issues, and I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. Then a friend of mine changed jobs at a publishing company and was heading up the division aimed at “the 18-35 celebrity driven market.” Click went the switch – our movement did not have a book aimed at that market! And so was born the idea of “Thanking the Monkey”, a handbook, or a mini encyclopedia of animal issues, presented in full color with a fun cartoon or fabulous piece of art, or a celebrity photo and quote on almost every double page. Harper Collins beat out my friends’ publisher and picked it up, and chose to publish it as a fancy paperback so the price could stay under $20 and appeal to the college market. It was designed as the perfect gift item. While the look of the book is fun and pop culture, and the text will give you a few good laughs, it will probably also evoke some tears, and hopefully a lot of thought. I am so pleased and proud that it has received shining reviews in prestigious papers such as the Washington Post, and glowing endorsements from the likes of Gloria Steinem and JM Coetzee, while also getting fun plugs from pop icons like David Duchovny, Bill Maher and Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Do you have a personal philosophy that you try to follow and what is that? I have a few. One is that you cannot spread joy unless you are joyous. So while I take my work seriously and am committed to it, I also take it lightly, and am known in the movement as somebody who throws fun parties, and loves fashion and cocktails and some fine living. We are not going to get converts to the veggie lifestyle by radiating misery! Along those same lines is my tendency to steer away from purity. The vegan lifestyle is just that for me, a lifestyle, not a religion. I think it is a fun and a kind way to live, so I do it. If I was incredibly strict about it, it wouldn’t be fun for me, or kind to the people around me. So while I respect others who are much stricter, you won’t find me checking to see if my wine was produced in a vegan style or if the restaurant’s bread includes honey or whey. To me it is not an issue of all or nothing, as nobody can do absolutely all, and nobody and do nothing. I find I can do an awful lot without too much inconvenience – especially when I compare my minor inconveniences to the suffering the animals go through. But if my inconvenience were to become a real joy-killer -- like if I couldn’t go out for a drink or snack with friends without checking labels -- that would be past my personal limit. I would find it harder to have fun, to be joyous, and to spread the message that vegan living is both. I imagine, with all of the work you’ve done, that you have several touching stories. Is there one that really stands out for you? The book is actually full of some touching animal stories. One of everybody’s favorites is a personal story of my meeting with a turkey named Olivia. When I went to visit Poplar Spring animal sanctuary back in the year 2000, I knew nothing about turkeys, and had been told, like the rest of us, that they are stupid and feisty. What a shock when Olivia hobbled towards me on the lawn, then crawled into my lap and fell asleep. That story is told in much more detail in a piece that I read on Washington Post radio a few years ago, which is reprinted in Thanking the Monkey as “Thanking the Turkey Who Changed Thanksgiving.” What obstacles have you encountered and how did you overcome them? Working with a huge mainstream publisher, Harper Collins, turned out to be quite an obstacle for somebody like me who has a strong vision of what they want. I guess I have overcome the obstacle by taking everything as a wonderful lesson. I am so excited that New World Library, who published “The Power of Now” and other spiritual classics, will publish my next book. What advice can you give our readers who want to become more active? The last chapter of Thanking the Monkey, which is headed, “Compassion in Action” is about 30 pages of advice! The much abbreviated version, the place to begin, would be to sign up for some alert lists such as my list, DawnWatch.com, or the Humane Society of the United States action alert lists. Go to www.HSUS.org and click on “legislation” and then “action alerts” for starters. You must be incredibly busy! Do you still find time to cook at home or are you more of the eat-out type? Both. I love to cook, and I love to eat out. Because I am a decent cook, when I eat out I go for the atmosphere as much as the food, or for food I could not or just would not make at home. My kind of activism involves taking our message far and wide, so I like going out to support lovely non veggie restaurants that have at least one good vegan main course on the menu, so that they see it sells and are encouraged to provide more. The Viceroy in Santa Monica is a perfect example. And I love Japanese food, and find it easy to enjoy sake and edamame, and seaweed salad and avocado rolls, and tofu dishes – all stuff that I don’t make at home. What do you like to eat when you’re at home (or even on the road?) On the road I eat a lot of Asian food! Thank heavens PF Changs is in so many cities. At home I shop more at my local farmer’s market than anywhere else. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables – salads and soups. I have a big hearty vegetable soup of some sort, with beans or tofu or soy chicken added, many nights per week. A lot of activists who live in Los Angeles have had and loved my chili. I whip up a huge pot in about half an hour whenever a bunch of folks are coming over. This is not haute cuisine but gosh it’s a good fast feed for a lot of people. I don’t actually have a recipe, but I do have an idea so I will give it a go. In a BIG pot, saute a large onion and a cup of chopped celery in some olive oil. Open a bag of organic baby carrots, chop them, and simmer them on the stove in just an inch or two of water at the same time, to add them to the chili a little later. Chop a package of “Gimme Lean” beef flavored soy protein meat into cubes, and add to the sautéed onions and celery. Add a package of “Smart Ground” taco mix. If I have a package of seitan in the house, that gets chopped up and added, too. I also chop up a packet of Yves Veggie dogs. (Between them and the molasses that I add later, my chili has a slightly smoky, baked beans South-Western flavor.) Brown the “meats” a little. Add 2 jars of organic salsa (mild or hot according to your taste). Add a can of corn. Add 2 cans of mixed chili beans. Add that pan of now tenderized carrots, including the inch of water with all the nutrients. Add about a quarter cup of molasses. Add salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste, stir well and simmer for a few minutes. You’re done, and it serves about twenty and took less than twenty minutes. Can you tell I used to work in a soup kitchen? Serve it with Sangria and pretend you are at one of our July Fourth celebrations! - Karen You can visit Karen’s site at www.dawnwatch.com and check out her new book at www.thankingthemonkey.com. Thanks Karen! *PRIVACY POLICY - Contact information is never, ever given or sold to another individual or company By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service. |
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