22 April 2007 - Vol. # 25
Volunteering
- Horse
Slaughter -
Pedicabs -
Opinion Piece -
T-Shirt Sale
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Tabling on Saturday, April 28th- Christine Quinn's district
The
weather is great and the horses need your help. The Coalition to Ban
Horse-Drawn Carriages will be tabling on Saturday, April 28th in
Speaker Christine Quinn's district. We need volunteers to help us
get signatures on petitions to the Mayor and City Council -- and to
hold posters. This is not a demonstration but an educational event.
It is an excellent opportunity to help the horses and get to see how
supportive both tourists and New Yorkers are. You can volunteer for
one hour or four. We need to know when you will be there so we are
sure to have coverage. Please contact Teresa at verush@aol.com
if you can volunteer.
WHEN: Saturday, April 28, 2007 WHERE: midtown -
information will be given to volunteers. TIME: 1-5 PM
HORSE SLAUGHTER UPDATE
National Call-in Day - Tuesday, April 24th + Slaughter Video
UPDATE
IN A NUTSHELL: In the past several months, court rulings have
effectively closed down all three foreign-owned horse slaughter
plants in the United States -- two in Texas and one in Illinois.
However, it has not stopped the slaughter of horses from the U.S.
since they are now trucked into Mexico and Canada. The American
Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 249 and H.R. 503) will
settle the matter permanently since it also prohibits the export of
live horses to Mexico and Canada for slaughter.
HORSE SLAUGHTER VIDEO - HSUS uncovers the cruelty of American
horses exported to Mexico for slaughter in this
shocking video dated Jan 23, 2007. Be forewarned that this is
very graphic but is necessary viewing to enable you to bear witness
to these atrocities and to learn as much as you can. Among other
things, the video talks about New Holland, PA as one of the auctions
from which horses are sent on to slaughter. Many unwanted NYC
carriage horses end up at New Holland.
Lilly
O'Reilly was one - although she, fortunately, got lucky. The
video also mentions that the data on these horses is wiped clean,
leaving their origins untraceable.
HELP SAVE OUR HORSES FROM THE SLAUGHTER HOUSE: Ask
Congress to stop the grisly practice of horse slaughter in the
United States and the transport of America's horses for slaughter in
other countries-and save nearly 140,000 American horses each year.
Urge your U.S. representative to support H.R. 249 and H.R. 503
and your U.S. senators to support S. 311 to protect horses.
Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your
U.S. representative's and two U.S. senators' offices. Your 30-second
phone calls urging your legislators to "please support H.R.
249 and H.R. 503/S. 311 to protect horses from slaughter"
are critical.
PEDICABS IN NYC
Help defeat this bill! - Call Monday - April 23rd
A
bill to seriously curtail the burgeoning Pedicab industry has been
vetoed by Mayor Bloomberg. Although he originally supported it, he
came to accept that this bill was not the right way to regulate the
industry.
However, hell bent on squashing this industry, Speaker Christine
Quinn plans to call for a vote on Monday, April 23rd to override the
mayor's veto. The original Council vote was 38-7. 34 votes are
needed to override the Mayor's veto. Please call your Council Member
and ask that they not vote for this bill. It is wrong and unfair.
Everyone agrees that the Pedicab industry needs regulations - but
putting an unreasonable cap on the number of Pedicabs - and
requiring excessive insurance suggests that the carriage horse
industry may well be reaching into the City Council. Is this right?
Interesting factoid: Speaker Quinn has accepted donations from
two individuals (with matching contributions from their company) who
work for the lobbying firm that has represented the carriage
industry. This is perfectly legal - however - isn't something just a
bit wrong with this picture? All five horse-carriage stables just
happen to be in Quinn's Council district.
Please ask your Council Member to to act independently. After all
- they are supposed to represent you and not be a rubber stamp for
Christine Quinn. Suggest they go back to the drawing board and come
up with a fair bill to regulate the Pedicab industry. Tell them that
you do not want "politics as usual."
CARRIAGE
HORSES - A LIFE OF ENDLESS SERVITUDE
I avoid Central Park at all costs - by Mary Martin, Ph.D
I
was raised on Long Island by two highly-educated parents whose idea
of fun on weekends was to go to Manhattan and spend an afternoon at
The Met (my mother was an opera singer), MoMa, catching an
off-Broadway show or a matinee of some sort at Lincoln Center. I
loved going into Manhattan, but I always steered clear of Central
Park, if possible. Though the park is magnificent, and there's
nothing better than walking through it on a brisk autumn day, as
soon as I saw, smelled, or heard a carriage horse, I had a visceral
reaction. I'd become nauseated and my mind would whirl with visions
of the horses and what their lives were like. All year long,
regardless of weather, dealing with traffic, living a life of
endless servitude--it was all too much for me to think about.
Would we do what we do to the horses to dogs, I wondered? What makes
it acceptable, when we have cars, bicycles and motorbikes, to cling
to a bygone era, call it "romantic," and continue to use and abuse
the very creatures that helped our forefathers settle America?
Haven't they done enough for us? Or more important, what have they
done to deserve to serve, for their entire lives, as slaves, doing
nothing other than entertaining people and helping them make money?
I was raised by parents who had ethics at the forefront of their
minds, yet they weren't vegetarians, they took me to the circus, and
they took me to the zoo. But they would never condone the existence
of the horse carriages that line the streets around Central Park.
You don't have to be an animal person to know that there's simply no
justification for that kind of animal use and abuse.
I now live in South Florida, where carriage horses have been
banned in popular tourist destinations such as Palm Beach and Key
West. It's delightful that the governments of those areas and others
realize it's not safe for the horses or the people, and there are
ways to profit from visitors that don't include cruelty. I wish the
government of NYC felt the same way. To this day, when I go to visit
friends and family, I stay downtown and avoid Central Park at all
costs. I urge others to do so, as well. Mary Martin, Ph.D. is a
professional writer and editor whose work covers a myriad of
subjects and includes the blog www.animalperson.net where she
deconstructs the ethics, economics, and language of our relationship
with nonhuman animals See her blog of April 15th. -
Of Horse
Carriages and Incremental Abolition.
T-SHIRT SALE -
BAN HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGES
Promote our message to help the horses
The
warm weather is here and it is time to wear your t-shirts - ours
preferably. We have a sizable inventory of t-shirts in small, medium
and large -- style pictured here -- that we want to sell to raise
money. They run a little big. The slogan on this style is "Show
Compassion," "Say No to a Carriage Ride." We also have a
few left of the "women's cap sleeve t-shirt" in size medium, which
does not run big. The slogan on this shirt is "There's No Romance
in Cruelty".
We are offering these shirts at $15 including postage - a
$5-10 savings from our
internet store. If you are interested, please e-mail me at
coalitionbanhdc@gmail.com with the size needed. I will e-mail
you back to let you know if it is available. Only checks accepted.
However, if you want to purchase anything through
our store, credit
cards are accepted through Paypal.
Although all sizes are available, please wait until you hear from
me confirming it. At that time, checks should be made out to
Coalition for New York City Animals, Inc., P.O. Box 20247, New York,
NY 10025.
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who
do evil, but because of those who look and do nothing." -Albert
Einstein
| Thank you for caring about the horses, Elizabeth
Forel - Coalition for NYC Animals, Inc. for the
Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages |
