The Hen Report: “A Relatively Uncontroversial Proposition” | Animal Rights Strategy with Michael Dorf

Jasmin Singer: And this is The Hen Report. Our Hen House's, uh, one of our weekly podcasts. You know, I have to say I'm exhausted, but I was looking through the notes and I can't believe how exhausted I should have been like back when we started Our Hen House. I wonder if I was exhausted then 'cause we used to do a lot more than we do now.

Mariann Sullivan: Didn't have 12 other, you didn't have 12 other jobs.

Jasmin Singer: That's true.

Mariann Sullivan: It is true. Now you've kind of like buried the lead, but uh, but yeah, one of the things I wanted to talk, 'cause I was looking, I was looking at this old episode because Will Potter is gonna be on in next week

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: was our guest way back in 2011.

Jasmin Singer: That's

Mariann Sullivan: 2011. 2011. You were like, you were like in high school. Um.

Jasmin Singer: I was in my thirties, but you know, I acted like I was in high school. So I see

Mariann Sullivan: You kind of look like you were in high school too. Um. Alright, so I looked at the episode just to, you know, remind myself when he was last on and then I started looking at the show notes and I'm just gonna read it. Can I just read it? In today's episode, we will tell you all of... this isn't the part about Will.

This is just about, you know, like what we've been doing. In today's episode, we will tell you all about our trips to New Orleans and Boston, both of which took place this past week. In New Orleans, Mariann talked about animal law and in Boston, both of us talked about veganism. We'll give you the skinny on our experiences at the biggest veg fest of the country.

That was the Boston Veg Fest that were, I do remember speaking there. We'll also tell you about the workshop we attended back here in New York, where New York Times columnist, Mark Bitman, was the super special guest. I have no recollection of that.

Jasmin Singer: I don't either.

Mariann Sullivan: And uh, why? Like. I mean, I guess, you know, it was during his like, like, don't eat meat until like it's nighttime or something.

I don't know, something stupid.

Jasmin Singer: And then just only eat cows and

Mariann Sullivan: And then it says, our big Birthday bash fundraiser was this past week too. So we'll tell you about that. What, what? Like who were we?

Jasmin Singer: What was in our cereal in the morning like, 'cause...

Mariann Sullivan: even, I can't even, well, we were heroes. That's all I can say. Now we're, now we're losers, but we were heroes back in the day.

Jasmin Singer: We are producing a lot of content though.

Mariann Sullivan: That's that's true, that's true.

Jasmin Singer: I'm doing much of it from my recliner and you are doing like were

Mariann Sullivan: I'm, I'm sitting, I'm sitting at a table. I, I'm

Jasmin Singer: I'm not at my recliner right now, but it

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: was hard to, I actually recently changed from a manual recliner to an electric one.

That's what my future looked like from back in 2011. Uh, but anyway, Our Hen House. Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays. The Hen Report, which is this, comes out on Thursdays. The long form interview on Fridays. Bonus for our flock members comes out on Mondays. We are here on YouTube and on the audio podcast, so please subscribe.

Mariann Sullivan: Now, I was talking to some friends, I won't, I won't name names, and they were sort of intimated that we're doing too much content. Like it was hard to listen to it all. I was like, well, you don't have to listen to it all. Uh, like, like is that a problem? Doing too much content? I mean, assuming it's not bad content.

You know, I don't think they were saying it was bad. It was just, it was the quantity, not the quality, I think.

Jasmin Singer: went, uh, Moore, when she does the dishes, has a little phone stand and she has like, like TV on or something on her phone. I went downstairs and I was like, what is she watching? And I started talking. She's like, can you pause my show? And I pause it and I see it's Sherri Franklin. And I'm like,

Mariann Sullivan: Oh

Jasmin Singer: just interviewed her.

And then I'm like. Oh, which is what you're currently watching. Like, it took me a minute. It was very funny. She's like, don't

Mariann Sullivan: It's very, very, it's very well, she was listening to Sherri, not just to you

Jasmin Singer: I

Mariann Sullivan: to be fair, but it is very meta.

Jasmin Singer: Soups. Yeah. Uh, so

Mariann Sullivan: glad somebody's listening and I'm, I hope she doesn't think it's too much content.

Jasmin Singer: I, yeah, I, I

Mariann Sullivan: I.

Jasmin Singer: the, uh, so we are going, going, staying on a staycation here in beautiful upstate slash Western New York, depending upon who you ask.

Mariann Sullivan: I, you know, I've been saying Western New York 'cause I thought that's what they said. This is not of interest to the rest of you in the world, but if you're in New York and somebody who has lived here their whole life. Because I had to change from saying upstate. That's what, you know, that's what we always called it when we lived in New York City, and that's what everybody called it.

And, but I thought, well, up here they like to call it Western New York. And then I, um, I was speaking to someone who's lived here her whole life, and she said, we used to always call it upstate. I just used the term Western. She said, I don't know when they people started calling Western. I thought, what?

What's that all about?

Jasmin Singer: Hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: Probably not much, but I'm gonna call it upstate from now on. I think that there are some people who wanna detach the connection to New York City, and there are other people who wanna embrace the connection to New York City because like if you go to Philly and you say you're from the city, they're like, oh,

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Uh, there are, there are other cities.

What city do you possibly mean? And I understand that, you know.

Jasmin Singer: Cherry Hill?

Mariann Sullivan: New York City, uh, New York City does kind of dominate, but if you come up here, everybody knows what The City is. They're proud. They're, they, they go to Broad. They go down to the, to the city all the time. They go to Broadway shows. I like the fact that Upstate New York embraces its connection to New York City. Anyway, that had nothing to do with anything. I'm just perseverating.

Jasmin Singer: Well,

Mariann Sullivan: Ian.

Jasmin Singer: this is

Mariann Sullivan: Ian, I just wanna say I think we have to be very careful. About actually, staycations are delicate things, and I was thinking about this just before we started recording because I was thinking about the past and how we started doing Our Hen House, which wasn't that long before we did that episode I just talked about. It was about a year before that and, and we started Our Hen House because we, speaking of Philly, we went to Philly for the weekend. And getting away really does give you a new perspective and makes you start thinking in new ways. And we actually started a whole podcast which changed our lives.

Um, and I think that you wanna think of a staycation, not that we wanna start a new podcast 'cause we have enough of them, but, uh, but a staycation, you need to keep that mentality of getting away, whether it's for fun or to create a new idea like. Being at a new place helps you think in different ways. So I wanna use the staycation in that way, if it's possible, and not just like, you know, watch tv.

Jasmin Singer: I know I am struggling like a little bit with, uh, you know, Moore and I are just not gonna be on the same page with this staycation thing, and so I, I need it to feel a little bit like a, like a, little indulgent, I guess. And she just wants to just do crafts and not do anything else, which I also wanna do that, but, but I need to have it

Mariann Sullivan: I don't wanna do crafts. I don't wanna do crafts. I mean, we're not go, I'm not, we're not going on the same staycation, but we are doing some stuff together.

Jasmin Singer: Like a mani pedi, or I get like once a year

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: I think this might be the t, I don't know. Maybe I don't need that. I hate nail polish. It makes me feel claustrophobic, but there is a vegan cruelty-free nail place here called Pure Soul Nails. And, uh, it is nice to support them and to pretend that I'm doing something that I enjoy. In case, we are

Mariann Sullivan: That that was so sad.

Jasmin Singer: we're gonna be

Mariann Sullivan: I'm gonna pretend, do.

Jasmin Singer: What's, what is our schedule? I, we're doing one episode. The,

Mariann Sullivan: Yes, we will have one episode. This episode is our only episode for this week.

Jasmin Singer: Okay.

Mariann Sullivan: There will be one episode coming out next week and it will be a really special episode, um, because hopefully if everything goes to plan, we haven't recorded it yet. Uh, we're gonna be interviewing, um, Will Potter, as I mentioned, um, about his new book.

That's why I went back to that, the show notes for that show in 2011 because that was the last time Will Potter was on the show.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: And um, and we'll be talking about his new book, Little Red Barns, Hiding the Truth From Farm to Fable.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, it's getting out there. It really is. I mean, he, he does a great job of bridging the disconnect, I think. Uh, so that's cool that

Mariann Sullivan: So Will is an investigative reporter. He's a really good writer and you know, unlike most investigative reporters, he investigates the actual great, great, great harm and sin of ag animal agriculture and both on environmental and, and animal, uh, protection grounds. And aren't a lot of people doing it. And he's a really cool guy and he tells a great story.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah,

Mariann Sullivan: And I, I actually wanted to mention it in advance just in case some of you wanna read the book before the interview, which might be interesting

Jasmin Singer: Little

Mariann Sullivan: I'm gonna be reading it before the interview, so others may as well.

Jasmin Singer: uh, Little Red Barns, it's

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Little Red

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, he tells stories. I mean, you know, like, like, I think that's such a valuable, valuable way to get people's interest.

And actually that reminds me, I'm gonna, uh, go back to, there was a great quote on that episode too. Like, it, it was, it was all so good. Um, and, uh, talk while I look this up.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I was just, uh. I was thinking about storytelling just as a means of change making when you said he tells stories. I think that it is such an undervalued part of change making for animals, and I think you can't possibly talk about storytelling in terms of social change with enough vim and vigor. It is such an important part of any social change movement, and I love that Will does that.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, and listen to this quote from Malcolm X. Uh, we know we, this, this quote, we weren't associating it to the interview or anything. We just always used to start every episode with a quote and this particular quote was from Malcolm X. The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals.

You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action.

Jasmin Singer: That's good.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. You gotta appeal to people's emotions. I mean, of course everybody in this movement knows that, but it's a good reminder and telling stories is one way to wake people up.

Jasmin Singer: Was that a quote from like, when we used to start every show with quotes?

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Okay. Yeah. We did that for

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: was cool. That

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that was my idea,

Jasmin Singer: I'm, have no doubt

Mariann Sullivan: saying then. Then we stopped doing it even though it was cool.

Jasmin Singer: most, if not

Mariann Sullivan: All right. I have to, I have to do down here on our schedule of things to talk about Jasmin's PT story. Is that a real thing?

Jasmin Singer: It, yes.

Mariann Sullivan: All

Jasmin Singer: Okay.

Mariann Sullivan: right.

Jasmin Singer: Uh, so

Mariann Sullivan: Sounds exciting. Telling stories, that's how you changed the world.

Jasmin Singer: Let's talk about my back pain. So I've been going to PT now for a few months and it, I was, it has actually been really, really helpful for this like thing on my, a rib related, back related

Mariann Sullivan: right. TMI, TMI, TMI.

Jasmin Singer: So, but my PT person talks the entire time, which sometimes

Mariann Sullivan: Oh my God.

Jasmin Singer: like I'd say Uhhuh Oh, oh, oh. You know, the whole time. And her, her 20-year-old daughter is like a vet tech and, uh, she or is training to be or something, and she talks about animals a lot. So she's just like, know, but then she'll talk about eating meat or you know, like, oh, we, in one breath it's this dog who they rescued, and the next breath, it's this chicken that they

Mariann Sullivan: In other words, she's like everybody else.

Jasmin Singer: Everybody else, but I know that I've mentioned I'm vegan. I, I just wanna get the back pain in order when I'm there, you know?

Mariann Sullivan: Oh yeah. I mean, we all know that not every moment could be a, uh, can be in a moment of activism sometimes.

Jasmin Singer: so she's there like talking at me. And you, she's very good at the, PT stuff though, and she's sitting there talking at me, and then suddenly she says, someone made me a chicken salad the other day. And I'm like, oh, here we go again. And she goes, but it wasn't chicken, it was vegan. And I couldn't believe it. And like, I, I'm perking up, you know, like, and, and she's like, you know, how did they get it to taste like that? So we start talking about it and she's like, I went home and made it. I went to the store and I bought the ingredients and I made it. And then she said, I think next time my parents visit. Uh, I'm gonna make it for them and not tell them it's vegan. And then we start talking about like vegan places and vegan friendly places in Rochester. And I, I was telling her about Grass Fed vegan butcher. We've interviewed, uh, them on, uh, Our Hen House, uh, Nora Ruble and, um, Rob Nipe. And I was telling her about it and she's like, we have a lunch club here where like dozens of employees will get lunch from a different place.

And she was like, I think we'll, we'll do that one. And so it was just like, there's not a big tada to that story, but I just wanted to share it because it, it just shows to go, ya, it just, you know what I mean? Like there

Mariann Sullivan: I, I know exactly what you mean, like.

Jasmin Singer: in.

Mariann Sullivan: Like we tell ourselves, oh, I can't do this now. Oh, this is too hard. Because we reme, we re, we particularly remember the, the, the experiences that went badly when somebody like got annoyed with us or, I mean, everybody remembers bad things better than they remember good things, I think.

Or is that just me? Um,

Jasmin Singer: No,

Mariann Sullivan: so, uh, and so. It is easy to forget that it's not really that painful to do this most of the time. And sometimes it actually,

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: comes out nicely. Um, it's not like they all went vegan, but, uh,

Jasmin Singer: Yeah,

Mariann Sullivan: but that does bring up the other thing, which I didn't really wanna talk about, but, but it reminded me like I'm, I'm a complete wreck about the world.

Like I, I'm not gonna go into it. I know that a lot of you are as well. I even think that, you know, sometimes I mention it to people not that often, but, and, and they say, oh, I'm not paying any attention. I don't watch the news or anything. And I actually think they, maybe they're lying because they don't wanna talk about it either.

Because who could not? Who could be not

Jasmin Singer: does not watch the

Mariann Sullivan: all right?

Jasmin Singer: There's zero

Mariann Sullivan: I guess there's, there are people like that. And you know, I think that things are very bad and things are gonna get worse, and this is very scary. And so these little acts of activism. Sometimes I think they're really important, but I think it is a moment where I, anyway, really need to start, like to get some kind of vision of like the future.

Um, I actually saw Beto O'Rourke doing this about democracy, but I think we have to do it about animals too. Like this is the worst moment. I mean, I ever remember politically, um, in my life, but, uh, like it's not the worst moment for animals. Every single moment of my entire life has been bad for animals. So maybe this moment is, you know, we're talking about things are gonna change.

Gotta gotta grab those moments where things are crazy and in flux.

Jasmin Singer: I am

Mariann Sullivan: That's, that's, that's something I'm kind of holding on to. Uh,

Jasmin Singer: hard to find the positive in what you just said

Mariann Sullivan: there, isn't there because it's a, it's a time of enormous social change. It's, well, it's hopefully a time of enormous social change. Things are in turmoil, people are angry, things are, things are gonna happen.

Um. Our government is gonna shift, uh, in, in one way or another, and times of change can present opportunities. I'm not saying anything more specific than that, but most of the time most people's minds are like, um, our barber's and they're just like not thinking about anything. And, um, like, but now is the time when, when turmoil is entering almost everybody's lives.

And will even more so, and those are moments when people are thinking about things instead of just blindly going through their lives thinking, oh, this is the way life is this, you know, things are now different. And those are moments when people's minds may be more open. People like, we see this horrible, horrible thing that's going on, and other people do not see it.

If this is a moment where people's eyes open not because of good things, because of bad things, well, let's make sure or try to make sure that one of the things they see is animals.

Jasmin Singer: And I mean

Mariann Sullivan: Uh, I don't know. Did that, did that work? I don't know. Like it, it really came from, it came from my heart. It really did.

Jasmin Singer: a few months ago we talked, or maybe less than that, what is time? We talked about how big Ag is a supporter of Trump and how like why isn't that making more people go vegan? I did hear from listener after that saying like. Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot.

You're really onto something with that and obviously it wasn't, I'm sure it was your thought. Also like every other good idea we've had in Our Hen House

Mariann Sullivan: That that's not true.

Jasmin Singer: Mostly, but it seems to me like that would be a way, in fact, will you ask Will about that? 'cause I think he might.

Mariann Sullivan: Write that down and send it to me because I won't remember.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Uh, because I think that that would be a good question for him.

Like,

Mariann Sullivan: Also, I'm going to be reading the book over the next week, so maybe there will be things in there that will, that will ring this bell as well.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: I don't know. I'm kind of looking forward to reading the book. I am nervous that there's gonna be bad stuff in there, but he's pretty good. And I started the beginning and it was all about his origins in the punk scene and it was really fun to read.

It was really interesting. Um, so I bet the whole book is gonna be like that.

Jasmin Singer: So many people began in the punk scene. Like people around my age

Mariann Sullivan: Totally,

Jasmin Singer: bracket.

Mariann Sullivan: totally.

Jasmin Singer: I was, but uh,

Mariann Sullivan: Oh my God. We thought things were gonna change. I mean, not that I was in the punk scene, but everybody thought things were gonna change.

Jasmin Singer: Um,

Mariann Sullivan: The forces of evil are powerful, but they're, they're not unbeatable.

Jasmin Singer: Two things. One is. During our last, one of our last episodes, I was talking about how I was cast to play Judy Garland in a play about Judy Garland that's coming up in December. And I told you I was nervous about that they would make me wear fur 'cause she wore a lot of fur. So that day, Moore and I go to the bins, which is the clearance center for Goodwill.

We go a

Mariann Sullivan: They, they live there.

Jasmin Singer: we, we live

Mariann Sullivan: It's, it's an issue.

Jasmin Singer: It's like you, you pay by the pound. Oh, by look, I mean, look what I got there. Isn't this pretty, I'm sorry for our listeners, but it's just like a painting I got there of, um, Klimt is the artist Gustav Klimt. Um, anyway, I digress.

Mariann Sullivan: It's not an original

Jasmin Singer: were No, no. If it

Mariann Sullivan: that that

Jasmin Singer: at the bin.

Mariann Sullivan: would be a good one.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. But, uh. Anyway, that, so we found a faux fur, like that looks

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. I mean, fur is not really an issue like, like

Jasmin Singer: day, it was like a for faux

Mariann Sullivan: mm-hmm.

Jasmin Singer: So you, that was one, two, you were just talking about how you're gonna be reading a book. I just read a book

Mariann Sullivan: You read a book,

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, by, it's called Spent by

Mariann Sullivan: you read books all the time.

Jasmin Singer: I know, uh, by Alison Bechtel. And Alison Bechtel, of course, is the sort of iconic, uh, graphic novelist and graphic memoirist who you might know her work from Fun Home, which was her book that became the Broadway show. And she recently had a new, uh, I would say it's like, uh, it, it's a novel, but it's, it's, what do they call it, like auto fiction?

It's based on her life.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: I

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that's kind of a pop popular. Um, mean, I just read a, I just read a graphic novel. It was exactly the same genre, but go on.

Jasmin Singer: That's so funny. Okay. Uh, so Spent, I actually listened. There is an audiobook version of it that they sort of produce a little like a radio play. It had a whole cast, it had, um, you know, Foley sound effects. Um, it was really good. And then our friend Maya sent me the actual physical copy, which I enjoyed flipping through it too.

It was funny. I just wanted to talk about

Mariann Sullivan: You, you listened to a graphic novel.

Jasmin Singer: Okay. This is like, I may maybe one of the first times, if not like the first time that this has ever been done, but Allison Bechtel was given the challenge of like, if we bring in like a script writer, how do you feel about producing this also as an, an audio book?

And she was like, sure. So it was like an, you know, an all star cast sort

Mariann Sullivan: Weird.

Jasmin Singer: like all star for me 'cause it was a lot of Broadway people. Uh, and uh. It was very, very good. I, I highly recommend listening to it. It's also like episodes, so every episode is probably like 10 minutes, so you don't have to listen to the whole thing

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, no, I, I, I need something like that because I tend to, like, when I, I can't sleep, I tend to turn on podcasts about, about how, um, we're becoming an autocracy and it's really not the best way to put yourself to sleep.

Jasmin Singer: True. But

Mariann Sullivan: So I, I, I need that though. It might keep me, it might be too good. I have to kind of, when I can't sleep, I have to put on things that are boring though.

Jasmin Singer: Well, this, this would not be

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: wanna tell you about veganism as it relates to this conversation. Okay.

Mariann Sullivan: finally, we're gonna get to something that's actually relevant.

Jasmin Singer: was trying,

Mariann Sullivan: I know it's, it wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault.

Jasmin Singer: All right, so, Bechtel, who I, I have loved and admired for so long. In fact, I had an email conversation with her when my book came out 'cause I was asking her for a, a blurb about it. Which she said she would do. And then Fun Home came out like on Broadway and she apologized that she just didn't have time to read the book. But I was still like, I don't care. I can die happy now. 'cause we emailed, I didn't say that, I thought it. I knew she was like somewhere on the veg spectrum. I still don't know where she is on the veg spectrum.

Okay. But in her auto fiction book, there are mentions of veganism in, I would say every single episode or chapter, whatever you wanna call it. In, in a, in a, like, you know, kind of making fun of it, but not like, not the, the butt of the joke isn't veganism the butt of the joke is just sort of like the vibe of the characters.

They live in Vermont, as does she. They're like, you know, as you would call it, and I'm air quoting here to make a point like hyper woke, like there's a lot of that in it, but it's, it's all kind of a joke. Veganism is part of that, but it's, it's not in a way that would be offensive, I think to you. Uh, it, there's just a lot of like having tofurky instead of turkey and like they, there's a goat sanctuary.

Mariann Sullivan: But she's been vegetarian. I mean, that's not really, that's vegetarian to h

Jasmin Singer: she's

Mariann Sullivan: of Turkey. Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: specifically is mentioned constantly.

Mariann Sullivan: Interesting.

Jasmin Singer: in

Mariann Sullivan: she's probably, I bet she's in a, in a, in a shift.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Although I looked up like does she actually have a goat sanctuary? Because in it, her partner has a goat sanctuary and no, but it said on the internet machine, which is incredibly reliable for factual information all the time that. She lives on like a goat farm and helps take care of the goats in real life. I'm very confused by this.

Mariann Sullivan: Goat farm, that doesn't sound good.

Jasmin Singer: it doesn't sound good. Right. But, uh, I mean there's talks about like the Montpelier co-op, which we've been to, you know, like my mom lives in Vermont. There was just a lot of stuff that said, I was like, oh yeah, I've been there.

I've been there. Like, it, it, it was a, it was very much a joke that I could fit right into. All of it. But I was talking to Moore about this and she was like, interesting. But like, if she's not vegan, then why would someone write about veganism and not be vegan? And then I said, oh yeah, I mean, that's happened.

We interviewed the author of the book, The Vegan, I'm blanking on his name right now. Uh, I'll have, Vicki could put that in show notes if you wanna hear it. It's a fantastic interview. We've, we've definitely talked to other people who have written about veganism and not themselves been vegan. And Moore

Mariann Sullivan: Because they, I, as I recall. About him. He almost, it, it's almost like he felt like veganism was symbolic of a, a certain kind of thing that some people go through. Like, like it was an expression

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: of a changing your relationship with the world.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: know.

Jasmin Singer: Andrew Lipstein, uh, was the author, and, and loved that book, and I loved that interview despite that part of it. But we

Mariann Sullivan: I didn't love the fact that he wasn't vegan, though.

Jasmin Singer: I didn't either. We,

Mariann Sullivan: Some people hated. Some people hated that interview. I just wanna say.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. And we dug into a conversation

Mariann Sullivan: He was willing to talk about it, which not everybody is.

Jasmin Singer: He even was willing to come on our podcast, which props to that.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Well,

Jasmin Singer: him

Mariann Sullivan: yeah, he was selling a book.

Jasmin Singer: All right, so back to what Moore said, she's like, why would someone write about veganism? Like they know enough to know it's the right thing to do, but they have to be experiencing it through like a fictional character. And I thought that was a really good point.

Like, I don't know if Allison is vegan or not. My guess is she's like on the vegan spectrum somewhere. Uh, I hope she's vegan,

Mariann Sullivan: I don't think most vegans think there's a vegan spectrum.

Jasmin Singer: Well, I'm saying that

Mariann Sullivan: I'm just saying like that's a fairly controversial

Jasmin Singer: I

Mariann Sullivan: description.

Jasmin Singer: Like she,

Mariann Sullivan: She's on her, maybe on her way to being vegan.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, maybe. But, uh, so you. This does bring up an interesting point, bringing the storytelling aspect back in, you mentioned storytelling before. I think storytelling is a phenomenal way of changing the world. As I mentioned, graphic novels are one example of that was the book, you said you read a graphic novel.

Mariann Sullivan: Well, yeah, that's, that's the other thing we were gonna talk about. This, um, this book Just Another Meat-Eating Dirt Bag, um, by a memoir, by Michael Anthony. And it is also a graphic novel, which was fun to read. I don't read a lot of graphic novels and it, you know, it kind of reminds you of like being a kid and reading.

Jasmin Singer: I, I would just wanna say, I would come downstairs

Mariann Sullivan: I liked it.

Jasmin Singer: the funnies. The funnies were always, my mom would pull them out on Sundays from the Star Ledger and leave them

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: table. My brother would get the sports section. I would get the funnies,

Mariann Sullivan: We got the New York Times. It was so annoying. Um, anyway, they didn't have funnies. Um,

Jasmin Singer: Just tragedies.

Mariann Sullivan: This is, it's really good. I really enjoyed it. It's about, it's about this, uh, which I think is a, you know, a frequent theme in people's lives. You know, the struggle of a guy who's in love with a woman who's an animal rights activist and who becomes more and more of an animal rights activist and how he handles it.

Sometimes poorly then, then comes to handle it a little better. And I really enjoyed it. It brought up a lot of themes that, you know, really appealed to me. There was one thing that confused me. I'll show this to people, but I'll describe it for those listening at the end. The, there's an epilogue and it's a picture and there are two kids.

Um, and, and I guess this is a spoiler, but you know, and there's a signs pointing to the kids that say vegetarian, there's a sign saying vegan pointing to the, to the woman. And there's nothing pointing to the, to the guy. And I wonder

Jasmin Singer: The

Mariann Sullivan: like, is he trying Yeah. The author, is he trying to say he is not vegan?

But then I, I googled him and there were lots of like references to, to like vegan events he's worked on. I didn't really quite get that part. I just thought I should tell people that I'm not absolutely sure that he is vegan. But other than that, if you like graphic novels, I would recommend it.

Jasmin Singer: was it like, can you just give me the thousand foot high

Mariann Sullivan: It was about somebody, um, this guy, and I think it's a memoir, but I think it might be a somewhat fictionalized memoir.

Um, you know, as all memoirs are a little bit. But, uh, I'm, I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether, whether it's at all fictionalized or, or not, but who, you know, he is an Army veteran. He is been through a lot like, like he's really trying to get his life in order and he, he falls in love and and he's madly in love and he, she's a vegetarian and, but as, as their relationship develops for one reason or another, she becomes more and more of an activist.

And then a vegan. And it's about his struggle with how to manage this when he doesn't really wanna go vegan. And, um, and trying to like, change her and, and manipulate her in ways that, you know are, are, are bad. But you know, the, the theme of the book isn't that, that that's a good thing to do. About how, and I thought it was really interesting.

I think it brought up a lot of the issues of the ways that, that people deal with us sometimes. Um, you know, not wanting to confront it, but not really wanting to stop eating meat. And it's just about his struggles of like trying to manage that relationship and finding himself in, in, in that.

It was very clever. It was a good theme. It was one that I think can probably resonate with a lot of people. Um, I just wasn't absolutely, totally sure whether he was vegan, but it looks like he is. I don't know.

Jasmin Singer: Well, fingers crossed. That's cool. I love that we just talked about graphic novels. Who are we? Uh, alright, before we get to, we, well we haven't even mentioned it, but we are gonna be having a conversation shortly with, uh, our, our buddy, the brilliant Michael Dorf. But before we get to that, uh, I just wanted to shed light on something going on, which I think a lot of you know. Uh, if you're paying attention to the companion animal issues in your community, there is currently quite the emergency happening in animal shelters, and there's a clear the shelters effort, which is an ongoing, uh, effort across the nation for the month of August. And if you go to cleartheshelters.org, you can find a location near you. And so the ASPCA asked us to announce the clear the shelters effort in New York City, but they are all over the country.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I, I don't think the ASPCA is running this,

Jasmin Singer: no.

Mariann Sullivan: this effort, but they're participating in it.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. And there, and the New York City situation is quite severe just because of the amount of individuals there, but they, they are happening all over the country.

You could put your zip code in, find one near you. There are some special promotions. I know here in Rochester, they're waiving the fees a lot at the shelter. So if you're thinking of adopting, now is a good time to get out there 'cause homes are desperately needed. And when we interviewed Sherri Franklin very recently, she was saying that the, the pandemic puppies, you know, people who brought in puppies during the pandemic there, a lot of them are being surrendered, which is just heartbreaking.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, we also mentioned particularly in California where she was, um, but other places as well. Of course, people, immigrants who are here, who are frightened, like you know, that. They,

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: moving around, they might be leaving the country. Like there's so much terror going on

Jasmin Singer: This

Mariann Sullivan: that of course it's going to affect animals.

Um, so there's a lot going on. People are scared about the economy. Um, so a lot of people who might otherwise adopt are not gonna do it right now. So if you can, it's a really good time to do it. You, you gu you guys all know this, uh, but you know,

Jasmin Singer: Well, tell your friends and your family too. I am inspired by how Sherri Franklin from, uh, Muttville, who was just on Our Hen House had such a generous disposition about, about it. Like she

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: me to not just immediately think that that

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Not everyone who gives up an animal

Jasmin Singer: wants to

Mariann Sullivan: had a choice.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Uh, sometimes it was the only thing they were able to do and, you know,

Jasmin Singer: of spirit.

Mariann Sullivan: and like. Some people don't manage to get that animal to the shelter and it can be embarrassing to bring in an animal and turn them into the shelter. So for people who do

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: wanna be mean to them, 'cause you don't know what they're going through.

I mean, I think this is true in so many different ways right now, you just don't know what people are going through.

Jasmin Singer: Like a year, a year ago, maybe a little more than a year ago, I, I was doing a feature story for WXXI on the shelter system in Rochester, and I was sitting there at the shelter outside. They did not like that I was there. And there was this guy there who was very, very down and out and he had a pit bull with him and he was trying to surrender the dog. And he said he had to move and this and that, and the shelter workers came out and they wouldn't take that dog because this guy did not live in Rochester, like in the city of Rochester. And he didn't get the dog from this shelter.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh my God.

Jasmin Singer: And he was like, I have nowhere to bring this dog I need to get rid of.

You know? It was just

Mariann Sullivan: And, you know, and to be sympathetic or try to be to the shelter workers, they, they can only do what they can do. Like this was a city shelter. They're probably not allowed to take dogs from people who don't live in, like, everybody's stuck. The point isn't to find villains. The point is to do something for the animals.

Jasmin Singer: know, I'm, see I'm on

Mariann Sullivan: You know,

Jasmin Singer: neighbor,

Mariann Sullivan: I say, I feel the need to say, well, you guys know all of that. I feel like I'm preaching to the converted.

Jasmin Singer: But there are a lot of animals being dumped. I'm on all these like

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. That's not something that everyone is on top of. I didn't really know it was this bad until uh, people told me.

Jasmin Singer: Like this situation where I, that I just said like, it's very, know, possible that that dog wound up getting dumped because no one would

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I mean, I mean, people are desperate. They're desperate and there's too many desperate people right now.

Jasmin Singer: this is

Mariann Sullivan: And sometimes, you know, people aren't desperate and they're, they're not nice, but it's certainly not the animal's fault.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, let's talk about something better. Um. Vegan Summer Fest. You and I have never been to vegan

Mariann Sullivan: you know, which is ridiculous.

Jasmin Singer: annual event that

Mariann Sullivan: It's been going on for two, 250 years or something.

Jasmin Singer: It's, it's very old

Mariann Sullivan: It started before, before the, the revolution, I think.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. I think that, uh, Jesus was the original speaker, but I'm an atheist Jew, so don't believe that.

Mariann Sullivan: And unfortunately they didn't record it, so nobody believes to this day that that Jesus was vegan, which he was.

Jasmin Singer: But the, the time that Santa spoke, they did record that. So Santa's vegan, we know that. Uh, alright, our occasional wing man, Michael Dorf was not only there this year, but he gave a couple of talks and we figured you'd like to hear what he had to say. Seeing is he's quite the smarty pants.

Mariann Sullivan: He is.

Jasmin Singer: We recorded this just a few days ago, so let's turn to that now.

Well, once again, we are thrilled to welcome Michael Dorf to the podcast, our friend Michael. And let me just say welcome back to the podcast, Michael. I mean, it feels almost like I shouldn't be welcoming you 'cause you're just kind of, you're always here like in the best possible way.

Mariann Sullivan: I think we decided that Michael's title was honorary hen.

Michael Dorf: Thank you. Yeah, so we, we went with Rooster, but we decided against that for good reason. Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Let's not gender everything.

Michael Dorf: I like friend of the show.

Mariann Sullivan: I like wingman, but you know, also a little gendered. yeah. Wingman is good.

Michael Dorf: Wingperson.

Jasmin Singer: No friend of the show. Sounds like a euphemism or something like Friend of Dorothy or I don't, I don't know. Uh, so regardless of what you are, you're Michael and you teach constitutional law. Well, you know this. I'll tell our listeners. Michael teaches constitutional law at Cornell Law School and is a passionate animal advocate and vegan and no stranger to Our Hen House.

He is here to share with us some of the talks he gave at this year's Vegan Summer Fest, which Marianne and I yet again didn't go to. So we're here to hear from you, but we're also here to just be jealous of you. For anyone listening to this who might not be familiar, tell us what Summer Fest is.

Michael Dorf: Yeah, so this is a conference that's been going on for over 50 years now. It's sponsored by the North American Vegan Society, formerly North American Vegetarian Society. It used to be called Vegetarian Summer Fest, although it was always vegan. It meets on the campus of, uh, the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, which is a lovely, uh, satellite campus at the University of Pittsburgh. Uh, it's depending on how long you go, either four and a half or sort of two plus days of sessions, activities, uh, it's focused on, you know, what I think of as the three pillars of veganism, so animal rights, environment, and health. I invariably give talks on either animal rights or sort of activism around animal rights.

I started going in 2009. I've gone every year except for the pandemic years. I went originally just to, you know, listen and, uh, learn. Over the years as I integrated more of my veganism into my own scholarship, I started giving talks and uh, this summer I gave four brand new talks.

Uh, typically speakers will repeat at least one or two of their talks from past years for, you know, people who are first timers, but I decided that, um, the material I'd given before, while it might appeal to some newcomers, was a little stale for me. So I wanted to give four new talks and, um, I'll tell you about them. So one of them was called human rights, uh, for non-human animals. And the idea here was to talk about animal rights within the framework of, uh, human rights. Now, this, this was sort of new for me, but not entirely because back in the, uh, fall of 2019, uh, Sherry Kob and I gave a seminar at Cornell with roughly the same title. It was about the relation between, uh, human rights and animal rights. And, the upshot, I think is that you can think of human rights, and I think lots of people who are not in our movement think of human rights this way, as at best, indifferent, and arguably antagonistic towards animal rights, but it is also possible to see overlaps, uh, and ways in which they can work together. Uh, part of what I said, and this was completely new at this conference, was that if you actually go back to the origin of human rights, which is a actually a, a pretty new idea. Uh, it comes out of the, out of World War II and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is a uh, declaration by the United Nations. It is not itself a separate treaty, but it has the status of a treaty because, um, all of the member states of the UN have acceded to it. It talks about human rights, but I think two things are salient about it.

One is the use of the term human rights was not originally intended, for the most part, as a term of exclusion. So they weren't thinking of rights for humans as opposed to non-human animals, rather, the idea was to make it as universal as possible. So rather than rights of citizens, rights of adults, rights of competent persons, rights of people of particular races or gender or whatever, they wanted to go universal.

And they, and they use the term human. And I, I know this because many, many years ago I co-taught a class for a few years with a professor named Lou Hankin, who is sometimes referred to as the father of human rights law. Now, Lou didn't play a major role in the drafting of the universal declaration, but he knew everybody who did and studied it a lot, and he used to talk about it in just those terms, that the term human rights was an effort to go as broad as possible. So that was part of my pitch. Another piece of it was to actually go through the Universal Declaration and point out how many of the rights identified can apply to non-human animals. You know, rights against torture, rights to be, uh, you know, free of bondage, rights against exploitation, et cetera. Not all of them.

Some of the rights there are what we might think of as political rights, so, you know, right to vote, for example. Uh, but, you know, there is a great deal in which a lot, a lot of the ways it in which it can be, uh, seen as applicable. And then I talk a little bit about efforts by, uh, people in our movement to leverage human rights, either in the Universal Declaration or in other contexts.

So you think about the Non-human Rights Project leveraging, um, habeas corpus law to leverage human rights and apply them, uh, to animals. That's one way of thinking about it. Another way of thinking about it is to use documents like the Universal Declaration as a model for a broader notion of rights. So you can think about that, uh, in terms of things like, you know, the new book by John and Raphael who were on, um, the Animal Law Podcast relatively recently.

Um, they've got this new book called Animals and the Constitution, right, in which they are drawing on existing human rights documents to say, well, what would it look like if we had human rights in a constitution, could be in an international document, for animals? So that was, that was that talk.

And, uh, I, I enjoyed it. People had interesting questions. It was really a nice discussion.

Jasmin Singer: Let's pause before you tell us about the other talks. Uh, sorry, Mariann. Go ahead.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. 'cause I did wanna just, I, I also wanted to mention that Stephen Wise, of course, was very inspired in founding the Non-human Rights Project by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the, the ideas that it, it put forth. And I just had no, I, I mean, I've always thought of it as, as, something that we're so used to hearing about human rights, but it was a very, it's a very radical concept, like to extend rights to everyone. Only then all of a sudden, like we came along and said, well, it's not actually everyone. But one of the things you brought up in your blog that I just wanted to ask you about briefly, I know it's a complicated issue. Like, as you point out, the principle of equality, which is a really important part of, of thinking about human rights, it gets pretty hard when you're, I mean, it's easy when you're talking about one species, like all the humans, like, no matter if they're the smart humans or the stupid humans or the white humans or the Black humans or whatever, all the humans. But species, when you're including them all, which you start doing when you talk to, it gets a lot more complicated.

And the questions of equality become, I'm not sure, you thought that they were a stumbling block, but something that has to be discussed.

Michael Dorf: That, I think that's right. So you're referring to a, a blog post I had previewing this and the, uh... so here's the basic problem, right? Among the rights, is the right to equality. And uh, one way of thinking about that with respect to humans is, you know, you can't privilege one human over another based on their race, based on the fact that they're smarter, that they're younger, that they're older, that they have more money.

Although, of course there are all sorts of ways in which people who have more money can get more in various

ways.

Mariann Sullivan: Well, but these are fun, fun, a fundamental list, which you're not allowed to, even though that's broken.

Michael Dorf: That's right. That's

Mariann Sullivan: It's not that they can't be differentiated in any way, but in these fundamental ways.

Michael Dorf: And so I think there are, there are a number of ways of dealing with that. One way which you see in, um, I think most clearly in the work of Martha Nussbaum, who is, um, very sympathetic to animal rights. Um, she's not fully vegan, but she's been moving in that direction in recent years, um, is to say, well, equality means being treated equally, taking account of your capacities. So, um, it doesn't treat, uh, bears unequally to deny them the right to vote because they're not going to be able to exercise that Right uh, in a meaningful way. Um, and, and I think that gets you pretty far, but I don't think it gets you far enough to really embrace equality in the way we ordinarily mean it.

So, you know, think about something like eligibility for an organ transplant, right? Um, we have a system by which the ordinary rules of the market don't even apply to organ transplants. You're not supposed to be able to buy your way to the top of the list. Uh, it's supposed to be, you know, whoever has the greatest need, who's been waiting the longest time, et cetera.

And there are rules in place. Now, they're not executed perfectly as we've learned recently, but you could imagine the uproar if you said, well, equality means equality, and so if there's a squirrel who needs a kidney, um, that could go into a human. I, I

realize you would have to be a, a

gigantic squirrel.

Mariann Sullivan: The hypothetical has escaped

Michael Dorf: Right? Let, let's not, let's not make it a squirrel. Let's, let's make it a pig right? There are a lot of, a lot of organs that are

now transplanted from.

Mariann Sullivan: Even a chimpanzee.

Michael Dorf: Well, sure. Um, but let's say, you know, they're, they're using, uh, valves from pig hearts. They, they kill the pigs to put in humans. Well, you know, many of us can object to that, but you'd have to go, you'd say, well, if you had a real principle of equality, you might say, well, if a heart becomes available and it could be transplanted into either a human or a pig, equality means that the pig gets sort of equal billing. And I don't think the Nussbaum, you know, capacity approach differentiates between the pig and the human in that case. And I think that most, you know, the vast majority of people have the intuition that not only would it be wrong to give that heart to the pig, but that would be monstrous, right?

So I think you need some other approach. And my other approach is to actually reject the principle of equality, uh, which I don't think we need for our movement, right? That is to say that the basis for animal rights is the relatively, I think, uncontroversial proposition that one ought to cause suffering or other harm to a being capable of experiencing suffering or harm without a good reason. And we have no good reason to do all of the things that we do. You don't need the principle of equality to get you

that.

Mariann Sullivan: love it. I love it, that, that, uh, totally makes sense. And, and yeah, of course it doesn't work and doesn't need to.

Jasmin Singer: You mentioned that you had gotten some great questions on this. I'm just, you know, curious what people's reactions were.

Michael Dorf: Yeah, mostly they were of, uh, two forms. Uh, and this was a little bit like what I think some of the questions Mariann that you were asking of John and Raffael. One is, how realistic is this, right? You know, people trying to operationalize it. And then the other was sort of in the other direction were, um, examples of ways in which people might be able to take advantage of this.

So, you know, pointing, so I had, I had put the, you know, excerpts of the Universal Declaration up and I pointed to particular propositions that didn't have to be restricted to humans. And some people had interesting ideas about how, actually that's true of a lot of other documents as well, even some of the other provisions of the Universal Declaration. Um, you know, it reminded me of a talk I attended many, many years ago. It was at least 20 years ago, at which a, uh, then colleague of mine was talking about torture. Almost entirely about torture of humans. And it was, you know, if it was 20 years ago, you can see it was coming out of the, uh, Iraq war and Abu Ghraib and yeah. So, um, and of course he was against torture, but just sort of in passing, in the course of it, he talked about how this was a, you know, a denial of what it is fundamentally about to be human.

And so I raised my hand and said, no, that's not what it's fundamentally about. I said, there are some rights that are fundamentally about being human, but being free from torture is about being capable of experiencing torturous pain, which lots of animals can experience. And so this is not, uh, a distinctively human capacity. And he sort of said, oh, that's an interesting point. And then of course moved on and I heard him make the same point some other time.

But, uh, but it is remarkable to me, I think, that a lot of what we think of as the most basic human rights are, uh, easily applicable to animals as well.

Mariann Sullivan: You know, I, I know we have a lot more to cover. But I just also wanted to mention particularly vis-a-vis what you were just saying, that one of the things that really struck me about your blog post, and we'll link to that in the show notes, uh, was the fact that they put out this Universal Declaration for Human Rights and without any kind of philosophical basis. Like, it wasn't a utilitarian approach or a deontological approach it,

which made me so happy.

'cause I hate that shit.

Like, I don't know. I, you know, I'm an intuition kind of person, I guess. I don't know. I have no excuse for myself, but I really love that this incredibly important document didn't have to figure out why, they just did

Michael Dorf: Yeah. So, um, and this was a point that Lou Hankin had made when we taught that seminar, that, that that was seen as a feature, not a bug. That is, you're not going to get the nations of the world to agree that, okay, we're all, you know, utilitarians in the way of John Stewart Mill, or we're deontologists in the way of a Emmanuel Kant or to agree on some religious ground for human rights. So rather they just, they just sort of stipulated, we have these rights. There's a suggestion that, um, there's a kind of pragmatic basis for recognizing human rights, that it's going to prevent international military conflict. But it's not really, that's not really what's, what's at the core.

At the core is just a kind of stipulation that this, these are rights that we, we think we have. Uh, by the way, I think that's a nice segue if we can to uh, talk about one of my other talks. So, um, uh, one of my other talks was,

wasn't really a talk, it was, uh, just a sort of a q and a. And I did this together with Milan Engel, uh, who is, um, a philosophy professor at the University of Northern Illinois. Uh, and, uh, friend of mine, whom I first met at Summerfest. So he's got a number of really great papers about this. Uh, this was called Ask an Ethicist. Uh, now I don't, I didn't come up with a title. Mylan did. I don't think of myself as an ethicist or I think of myself as an aspiring ethical person, but I don't have any special expertise in, in this.

But in any event, it was sort of ask an ethicist and a lawyer. Uh, and the idea was, you know, bring your questions that you puzzle over and we'll try to address 'em. And the reason I think of this as a segue is that one of, uh, I think the distinctive features of Mylan's best work in animal rights is that he doesn't make any assumptions beyond the most minimal ones. He says, you don't need to be a utilitarian, you don't need to be a deontologist, don't need to be a virtue ethicist, any of those things. He just says, you just need to agree with the proposition that I stated a while ago right, which is that it is wrong to harm an animal for no good reason. Um, if you believe that for whatever reason you believe it, either it's just your intuition, you get it from your religion, you get it from some philosophical school of thought. If you believe that, he then wants to show that you should be vegan. Um, and most people will say they believe that and actually I think do believe it. It's just they don't realize that, um, their actions are not in conformity with that proposition once they sort of spell it out. Uh, so that was the sort of backdrop for this talk. And then we just sort of opened it up, um, to people's questions. And, you know, one of the things that was kind of interesting was, um, it wasn't clear that people were distinguishing between ethical questions and what I would think of as sort of tactical or a strategic question.

So we got a lot of, we spent about 20 minutes talking about, um, trying, trying not to talk about, but in response to a question, talking about whether it's ethical to feed meat to your cats.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh God. Like have you ever been at a vegan event where you didn't spend at least 20 minutes on that?

Michael Dorf: Right. Uh, so, you know, we talked about that. We talked, uh, we talked about agent relative duties and et cetera. And so we, you know, we, we got, we got through that. Um, and then a lot of the questions, uh, somewhat to my surprise, were of the, you know, what do you do? Sort of question, right? These are social situations, so they're less about what's the ethical thing to do. You know, you know, you're at a dinner party, somebody serves, uh, something that's not vegan. Do you eat it? Right? I think the ethical answer to that is, no, you don't eat it. But what do you say? Do you speak up? So, you know, this goes back to what you were saying a little bit earlier, Mariann, which is, uh, I don't think most people really want to think about philosophy in the way that academics sometimes do, which is, oh, here's an abstract question, what's the, you know, let me think about this systemically. Let me compare it to all these other possibilities and let me figure out how to make the whole system cohere, and then I'll come up with a fancy name for it and talk about how that fits with other people's jargon, right?

They just wanna know what should I do? Um, and uh, so that was, that was kind of interesting. It was, um, it was my least well attended talk only because they scheduled it for the Sunday as people were packing up.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh Yeah.

The Sunday talks never get

Michael Dorf: So anyway, I felt very well prepared to talk about those kinds of questions, even though that's not what I had expected, because that, that aspect of it, like, you know, what do you do when someone asks you this, that, or the other thing, um, was, you know, came out of a talk and eventually the book that, uh, Sherry wrote, uh, that became Mind Order the Cheeseburger.

Mariann Sullivan: The master work.

Michael Dorf: So that was, you know, in, in that sense, although this was a, you know, doing this particular talk as it was labeled with Mylan was new. Uh, it wasn't really a new talk for me.

Mariann Sullivan: I think it does bring up a little bit of an issue, which I don't wanna complain about vegans, but, but sometimes I think people worry so much about their personal behavior and whether they're doing the right thing, which is important, but being the perfect vegan isn't as important as being an activist.

I mean, to the extent that you can be. Um, and so it's not just about your own behavior, it's also about trying to communicate with other people your thoughts about their behavior.

Michael Dorf: Yeah, I think that's right, and I think that part of being a good activist is modeling how it is possible to be a principled vegan in the world without driving yourself or other people crazy.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I haven't, I haven't figured that one out yet.

Jasmin Singer: The part about being driven crazy or the part about driving other

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, I, I was talking about driving other people

crazy, but uh, yeah,

they both kind of fit.

Michael Dorf: Uh, okay, so lemme talk about, uh, the other two talks. So this one was fun. It was called Activism for Introverts. And,

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I Can we say first of all that you are not qualified to teach

Michael Dorf: Um, so, okay, so first of all, uh,

Mariann Sullivan: I could have

Michael Dorf: it depends on what you mean by introvert, and that was part of my pitch.

Mariann Sullivan: That's what the extroverts always say. They say, oh no, I'm not a total extrovert. I have this introvert like moment.

Michael Dorf: Yeah, so, okay. Uh, it is sometimes said that, uh, an extrovert is somebody who gets energized by being around people. An introvert gets energized by sort of being off on their own. Uh, I would think of myself if that, if that's the definition, I think of myself as a mesovert. That is, I get a little bit of each from both situations. If I'm by myself too much, that makes me a little stir crazy. If I'm around people too much, I sometimes need to, you know, retreat. Um, but I made clear that really I chose that title simply as a teaser to bring people in. The main topic of the talk was how to be an activist.

If you are not comfortable doing stereotypically activist things like handing out leaflets. Um, like tabling and talking to strangers, like going to demonstrations and chanting slogans, right? If all of that makes you uncomfortable, does that mean you have to either not be an activist or just get over it and go outside your comfort zone?

And so I wanted to offer a third option, which is other ways of being an activist. Uh, and so, you know, there are lots of other ways of doing that. It's interesting, I don't think of myself as an activist, although other people refer to me that way. Um, because I don't think of like what I write, which is my principle form of activity, uh, as activism.

I think of it as just, you know, sharing my views about things. And it's true I hope to persuade people, but I guess, you know, that's a kind of activism.

Mariann Sullivan: Well, we take a very broad view of what counts as activism here at Our Hen House, and we always have so on, on our view. You would be an activist for

Michael Dorf: No, and on my view now as well, but I didn't,

I didn't use to think of myself that way. So I talked about, you know, doing work for organizations that are promoting animal rights behind the scenes, right? You can work off camera, uh, you can do organizational work. Uh, here's an idea that came up during the sort of workshop period of this session. Somebody said, well, you know, if you're shy or uncomfortable talking to strangers when you're tabling, do the setup and the cleanup for the tabling rather than the actual talking to people. Uh, that way the people who are sitting at the table will really appreciate that, that they don't have to set up and clean up afterwards. I suggested that if you have artistic skills, you can, you know, make posters, uh, you can compose slogans, whatever it is. Uh, and so it was really a way of getting people to understand that, just as you said, there are many forms of activism. It did include one bit of, um, I would say coerced, uh, activity in that at the end for the last like 15 minutes, I broke people up into, uh, groups of three, uh, and I had them.

Marianne, you're looking

Mariann Sullivan: You did that to introverts? You're a monster!

Michael Dorf: Well, it was voluntary. I mean, I said coerced, but I, you know, I said you, I said you don't have to do this if you really don't want to. Um, but everybody stayed and did it, and I broke them up into three and I assigned them. Um, you know, different roles to play in a sort of social situation about how you would handle it.

And then we, then we came back together and reported and discussed it and, you know, I mean, I guess this was a group of self-identifying introverts, but they all seemed pretty comfortable. Maybe because they felt like they were among friends and, you know, there were no stakes after all.

Jasmin Singer: Can I ask a question? I don't quite know how to, how to word this, but do you think that the, like the culture of activism or animal activism over relies on extroversion and, and what we might be missing by sidelining quieter voices?

Michael Dorf: Uh, yeah, probably. And I don't think that's unique to the animal rights

Mariann Sullivan: No, it's, that's the, that would be known as the

world.

Michael Dorf: Yeah. Right. Um, you know, I, I can't remember the name now, but there was this great book, uh, the name, the name of the author called Quiet.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh yeah. I loved that book.

Michael Dorf: Uh, about like all the ways in which we benefit from listening to introverts.

Mariann Sullivan: Who are much smarter than extroverts. That was one of the points of that book.

Michael Dorf: So, it's not just doing stuff behind the scenes, but it's, you know, it's being sort of more thoughtful. This is a digression, but I've often thought about this in the context of law faculty hiring. So your sort of stereotypical law professor is somebody who's very performative, but I've often found that the teachers I, I learned from the most were sort of quieter, and their presentations weren't dramatic, but they weren't boring because if you paid attention to the ideas, they flowed very nicely. It, it's just that they weren't, you know, bombastic, uh, about it.

So. You know, certainly these days when there seems to be a premium on, you know, yelling and we have the so-called attention economy, I think we are absolutely undervaluing, uh, introverts in activism and everything else.

Mariann Sullivan: You know, one of the ways this plays out, I think is in, I don't wanna get wound down into this, but social media, I mean, a lot of people, all of their activism is social media related, which I think social media can be a very valuable form of activism. And it completely, I mean, I was in animal activism before there was social media, and it completely changed everything. Um, but you know, at the same time, it can be limiting. So I think it's something everybody has to,

has to keep an eye on whether they're using their social media well.

Michael Dorf: We talked a lot about social media in this session and you know. Um, one of the ways I think that social media is undoubtedly helpful is as an organizing tool, right? So you just, you bring people together through social media and then if possible, you bring them together in the real world to actually do things. Um, uh, although they don't have to be in the same space to do that, they can be getting ideas from one another and then taking them out into their respective communities. But there's also a question of, you know, how you are coming across in social media. Are you alienating more people than you're winning over?

Mariann Sullivan: Absolutely. No, there's, there's a lot of skill in doing social media well, and if you're doing it well, you can reach a lot of people.

Michael Dorf: Yeah. Uh, alright, lemme talk about my fourth and final talk, uh, which was called Free Speech for Animals. Uh, which I began with a little joke, which was, you know, well wait a second by the animals talking? And then, you know, I had a picture of Koko the gorilla, who of course was capable of, uh uh communicating with through language.

This was focused mostly on issues of free speech that intersect our movement. So I talked quite a bit about ag gag.

Um, I talked a bit about labeling laws, and how they infringe on the ability of people in firms to sell vegan products labeled as, you know, uh, soy milk, oat milk, uh, cheese, with, you know, uh, spelled with Z or whatever it is. And, uh, talked about ways in which one might successfully, uh, attack those sorts of laws using free speech. So in that sense, it's free speech for animals. Um, but then I also talked about ways in which, uh, free speech can be used against our movement. So I focus there on the Stevens case right from the Supreme Court is a 2010 case in which, uh, the Supreme Court on freedom of speech grounds struck down the law that, uh, made it a federal crime to depict illegal acts of animal cruelty. Uh, was passed in response to this phenomenon of crush videos, which are these, you know, awful videos of people torturing small animals and killing them, basically snuff films for animals. Supreme Court nonetheless struck it down eight to one. Uh, I highlighted there, uh, Justice Samuel Alito's dissent because, you know, I disagree with Justice Alito almost all the time, so it was my one opportunity to say, but actually, you know on animals, he's probably the least bad of all nine of them. Uh,

Mariann Sullivan: It's bizarre. It's bizarre.

Michael Dorf: and, uh, you know, we talked about, so I ended up talking for something like, you know, 45 or 50 minutes of the hour. Uh, 'cause there's a lot to get through. Um.

Mariann Sullivan: Fascinating case. It's a fascinating

Michael Dorf: And there are lots of, we talked, you know, I mean we talked about some of the Non-human Rights Project stuff, which is not, uh, free speech exactly, but it's connected. This was great for me, not only because I, the sessions I thought were went really well, and I learned a lot, but also because I'm gonna be teaching a, uh, seminar, uh, this fall, starting next month, at Cornell called Animals and the Constitution, which is the same title without the subtitle, as John and Raffael's book. Um, but we'll spend, uh, sort of a day and a half on, uh, free speech issues, uh, which I think are, are super important. Actually, I think it's two days, all total. Uh, so this was a way of, uh,

Mariann Sullivan: So exciting. I wish I could take that.

Michael Dorf: Well, you know, Mariann, it's uh, it's only a two hour drive from Rochester to Ithaca.

Mariann Sullivan: You know, can I ask you a question? I mean, this is obnoxious, but I have you here, and I have this question about Stevens and I could be making it up. Um, but one of the arguments that the, I think that the majority set forth for finding the statute to be over broad. I found these arguments to be so uh, uh, not cynical, like so revealing of society's attitudes that they said, well, it would ban hunting videos because, you know, they did have exceptions for like educational or cultural things, but they're like, hunting videos are just really, you know, entertainment. I was like, well, why can't they ban hunting videos?

It was so obvious to the court that of course they didn't wanna ban hunting videos. I mean, you know. That's fine. So, so it was clearly overly broad, but to me it's just obvious that if, if we wanna ban hunting videos, you know,

we should be able to ban

hunting videos under the first amendment. Doesn't make anything overly

Michael Dorf: Yeah, there were, there were really two, um, this, this might be more appropriate for the Animal Law podcast than for The Hen Report, but I'll go ahead.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I knew I was, I was getting a, I knew I was getting into the weeds, but I had to grab the

Michael Dorf: Yeah, there, there are really

two issues in the case. The first is whether depictions of animal cruelty are what's called a prescribable category. That is a category that is removed from free speech protection. So obscenity is such a, a category most, most relevantly, so is child pornography. And the reason why, why child pornography is considered prescribable is that it incentivizes the creation of the child pornography, which is a, uh, a direct harm to the children who are by definition, can't legally give their consent. Um, and so the government in defending the law had argued, well, the same thing applies here. You don't want to incentivize the creation of these videos 'cause they're cruel to the animals. And of course, the way in which that failed both for the prescribable category and then for the second issue, which is whether the law was over broad, was that the court was like, well, wait a second, we don't wanna disincentivize hunting. Hunting is a, you know, a legally protected, in some states it's constitutionally protected activity that's perfectly innocuous.

Uh, and so, you know, this to me highlights, um, one of the challenges of making legal arguments to people who are a little bit on board, but not fully on board with you. Uh, so this will, this will certainly come up when in my seminar we talk about, now Chief Judge Wilson's dissent in the, um, Happy the Elephant case, which is a wonderful dissent, but it does, you know, have to draw the line between elephants and animals used in animal agriculture.

Now I think he does, you know, he does as much as you possibly can for somebody who's not like a committed vegan wanting to overthrow animal agriculture in saying, well, we don't have to address that case now, rather than saying that case is completely different. Um, but certainly at the Supreme Court in the Stevens case, that was part of the, the dilemma, right? Which is that lots of things that are legal to do to animals are actually cruel. So if if you right, if you criminalize depictions of animal cruelty, you're criminalizing, you know what we do to, you know, the vast majority of animals that come into contact with humans.

Mariann Sullivan: It

Jasmin Singer: Wanna bring it back to a more of a non non-legal focus question about this, because I too am fascinated by this subject, but most of what you just said went completely above my head. Um, so in, in the upcoming seminar that you're talking about on Animals and the Constitution, you are zeroing in on speech.

So what, what are your, some of your favorite, or I don't know, maybe most surprising constitutional cases that touch on animals?

Michael Dorf: So it's not just speech. Um, we're gonna talk about lots of things. We'll talk about, uh, standing is one of the questions that I think this, this bores a lot of lawyers, so, especially non-lawyers. But a way to think of it that's.

Mariann Sullivan: I though I have said, had so many students say that when they took constitutional law, not from you, not from you, like standing, was just a total snooze fest and they never understood it. But when, and they weren't compliment... well, they were, they were complimenting me 'cause they were students and you know what the hell?

But, but they really meant was that if you, if you study standing in the context of animals, it's so much more interesting and it's so much clearer, like the, the issues. We just gain clarity because you see what, what, uh, I'm sorry. Now, now, now we're getting back like, like, I'm talking about legal stuff again. I'm

Michael Dorf: So, lemme let me make it sort of more broadly relevant. So all that standing means is who can come into court, right? Who has the right to be recognized by the law? Uh, and this is not just an arcane question, it has been at the center of some of our most divisive controversies. So if you think about the Dred Scott Case, the holding of the Dred Scott Case is that Black Americans were not citizens and could not be made citizens under the Antebellum Constitution. Um, the holding therefore was that there was no case there. Now, it wasn't technically about standing, it was technically about whether there was so-called diversity of citizenship, but it's about the same thing. It's about who, who is a person before the law or if you think about, you know, Citizens United, right? About the campaign finance structure, that's about corporations having the ability to assert rights. It's about their ability to assert First Amendment rights, but it's related to the question of standing. So we're gonna explore that using a variety of cases.

Um, you know, another, uh, set of issues is about the relation between environmental protection and animal rights, uh, that comes up in the context of federalism. So here's a constitutional issue that is, uh, sort of the heart of the original constitution, the division of power between the federal government and the state governments. Right? So I'm assigning an article that has the title is The Endangered Species Act constitutional? Because there's an argument that, well, this is about regulation of species, many of which don't have real economic value, but they might cross state lines. Is that something the federal government can do?

Is it something, uh, that the states can do? There's a very recent article, um, that's, just published, uh, by Kristen Stilt, a professor at Harvard and a co-author, um, called Naturalized Rights of Animals and Animalized Rights of Nature that I'm assigning them. And this is really about how animal rights can be used to inform environmentalism and vice versa. This, by the way, I think is, uh, is something that is, I hope, a growth area. Something that I, I think I've noticed anecdotally in the last five years or so, is that increasingly those of my students who are vegan, uh, are vegan, at least originally, primarily for environmental reasons. Uh, and that this, I think, is the way to reach young people who are quite understandably freaked out about what we have done to the earth. And they recognize that repairing the earth requires weaning ourselves off of animal agriculture. And so, uh, what this article by Professor Stilton, her co-author, tries to do is to show that there is a path, uh, for getting there.

Mariann Sullivan: That is such important work. The, the insane divide between environmentalism and animal rights activism that has existed as long as I've been doing this is just, it's insane. Like these movements have to be recognized that they're the same thing.

Jasmin Singer: I do see a shift. I mean, I remember when I first went vegan having in my apartment, this is, you know, 20 some odd years ago, having in my apartment a like a sign that said you can't be a meat eating environmentalist. And I do feel like it's shifting now, especially as I've been dipping my toe more and more in like environmental work. I, I'm seeing more and more vegans that I didn't even know were vegan before the conversation. But that being said, I'm also seeing that there are a lot of exceptions for many of these people. Like, there, there isn't the ethic, you know, there isn't that sort of like, animals are not there for us to use in any way, shape, or form.

I don't, I feel very, I'm happy that more and more people, anecdotally speaking, seem to be making the connection, but at the same time,

are they? Are they making the

connection? Or? I dunno.

Michael Dorf: So I, I, I guess I'll say two things. So first, this is a line that I've stolen from your fellow Rochesterian, Ted Barnett, which is the animals don't care why you don't eat them. Uh, so, um, to the extent that they are eating, no, or at least fewer animals, you know, count that as a, as a W. On the other hand, I do understand why there is the tendency you've described, right?

Which is, if you're, if you're vegan for the environment, um, you're going to feel the sort of logic of marginal difference, right? Which is, well, if I have this, you know, one cheese steak, or this one whatever it is, animal product, that's not gonna make much of a difference. Overall, I am reducing my impact. In the same way that they might think about like, I drive an electric car, but if I rent a car and it's a gas powered vehicle, you know, overall I'm reducing my carbon footprint.

Right? So there's a kind of aggregative logic about environmentalism that I think that doesn't really apply if you're being vegan on animal ethics grounds because you know, I'm not gonna eat that one animal, even if there are, you know, uh, millions more of animals like that. But this is the one that was killed for me, so I'm not gonna eat the animal.

Uh, so I do think that if you want people to be fully vegan, they have to at some point get the animal rights piece. But I also think, and I've seen this with people who've gone vegan for health reasons, once people stop eating animals and animal products, they're much more open to the ethical argument for being and then staying vegan because they're not gonna try to rationalize what they're doing.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, no, you have to get the meat outta

their ears, as I always used to say. I haven't said that in a while, and it doesn't work for everybody. But if, if you can get people to stop eating meat, you are well on the way to having them be not just vegan, but, but to understanding the full ethic of, of caring about animals. But they go together so much because caring about animals and caring about the earth are, you know, inextricably intertwined.

So if people would just get that. If everybody would just listen to me, we'd be, be much better

Michael Dorf: So this is something I heard, um, Milan say at a talk at Summerfest a few years ago, which is that, you know, we ought to think of our environmental impact as an ethical matter as well, right? That is to say, you know, if the reason you're not eating animals is because it harms them, well then you have similar reasons to not participate in activities that are going to lead to greater deforestation and habitat loss that are also gonna harm, uh, the animals. Not to mention harming humans, which is, you know, something that we should want to not do also.

Mariann Sullivan: Right. No. If you're gonna be an animal rights activist, you have to be an environmentalist. There's no way around that.

Jasmin Singer: So DII have one final question. Uh, and I don't know if you have any more, Mariann, but I'm just curious. Like you were at Summer Fest, you were talking to e either a group of vegans or you know, people who were just about to go vegan, presumably. And yet you are very involved in other circles as well. Uh, obviously you have this class coming up at Cornell.

Do you feel like there would be a wildly different response from, for example, your students, if you were giving, let's say the talk about free speech for animals, you know, or any of these, uh, sort of intersectional topics? Like how do

you foresee the difference in reaction being?

Michael Dorf: Yeah, I mean, I tend to not get a lot of direct blowback. I'm sure that there are things that I say to non-vegan audiences that people come away disagreeing with, but you know, for the most part, if people are either in a class or they're coming to a talk, you know, they're not there to argue with me.

Um, I gave a version of the Human Rights for Non-Human Animals Talk actually before Summer Fest, in an undergraduate class at Cornell. So my, uh, my colleague Sandra Babcock, teaches a class in human rights. And, you know, to her great credit, she's a vegetarian. Uh, she asked me to teach a class, uh, on animal rights.

And so I gave basically the talk that I gave at Summer Fest there. And, um, you know, I didn't get the kind of gotcha questions that people who are opposed to animal rights would typically ask. Uh, people listened respectfully and I, you know, I got a few interesting questions. I don't know whether that, you know, says more about the places I'm talking. I'm sure there are places I could give my talks where I would get that kind of a kind of blowback, but I tend to talk the same way when I'm talking to vegans as to non-vegan. Uh, maybe I tell slightly different jokes, or I use the word we a little less.

Um, but, I have one volume.

Jasmin Singer: Well, okay, so let me, I said that was my last question, but I lied. I can't find it, uh, right now in front of me, unfortunately. But I wanna know how, what you would say to this. I, I shared something on my Instagram stories about Fairlife and the recent Vox article about Fairlife and how problematic it is and, and this and that. And, and someone who I don't know, replied to me and said, this is why I get all of my meat local, and this is why I don't support factory farming. And I just was like, I'm sometimes shocked at how idiotic people are, to be honest. And I, I, I'm just wondering if you were on the o other end of a message like that, A, would you bother responding?

And B, if you did, what would you say? Asking

for a friend. Of

Michael Dorf: Yeah, so I think I, I don't think it would be useful to respond publicly in a way that is performing for the rest of your Instagram followers and your friend's Instagram followers. Oh, was a dm. I mean,

Jasmin Singer: it was a

Michael Dorf: dm. Okay. So I actually think that, um, written communication is not very effective on that sort of thing because you're gonna go back and forth asynchronously. I think a good response might be to say something like, It's great that you really care about this too. Um. You know, it turns out that a lot of the abuses that have been reported among the suppliers to Fairlife, some of these same problems also impact people who are selling more locally. I'd be eager to talk about this with you, if that's something you want. Right. So that invite them for, to have a conversation rather than argue with them on social media or even, even in the dm.

Jasmin Singer: I love that last bit. Like if it's something you'd want, I think like giving them, giving them the choice might immediately, you know, take someone off the defense. And I, I have never done that before, so thank you for that idea.

I really

Michael Dorf: I mean, one of the things that I don't always succeed in doing, but I've, I, I try to do it when I remember to, is that when I get something obnoxious, this happened to me literally today, um, on the Facebook fans page for my blog, which was, today is not about an animal issue, but somebody wrote like a, um, a kind of snide, rhetorical question that, if they had actually read the piece I linked, or even actually the, the little snippet for it carefully, they would've realized that I was not asserting the position that they thought they were mocking. But rather than say something like, you know, Hey asshole, how about reading before you post? Um. I decided to just play it straight.

And I said, oh, actually, you know, I don't, I don't take that position. You know, here's what, and I did not invite a, a further conversation because this guy seems to be kind of a troll. But, um, but I've had the experience that people I thought were trolls then being sort of disarmed and then engaging in a fruitful conversation where they seem to soften their position.

Mariann Sullivan: You do never know on social media cause so many people behave poorly on social media. Who actually, once you engage with them as a human being, they, you know, they think they're just making a comment, but it can come off very, very poorly.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I mean for, I, I, I'm sorry I keep talking to you. I can't stop. I promise. I'll stop in a second. Uh.

Mariann Sullivan: an com

Jasmin Singer: I know, I know, I know, I know. But lemme just say two quick things. One is, do you think you're hardwired to have a thicker skin or is this something that you've worked on? And, uh, well actually, lemme just ask you that first.

Like, do you feel like this is just inherent to who you are?

Michael Dorf: Um, I, I don't think I have an especially thick, I don't think I have a especially thin skin, but I don't think I have an especially thick skin. Uh, I think that in virtue of my sort of status as a, you know, old white guy who's a law professor at an Ivy League institution, people tend to be sort of somewhat deferential.

I mean, you know, I do get the occasional comment like, Hey, professor, in quotation marks, um, and, uh,

you know,

Mariann Sullivan: Well, if that's the worst

Michael Dorf: Right. You know, or they'll, you know, they'll call me an idiot or whatever, but I laugh those off. Um, mostly because it, it strikes me as anomalous, I'm sure if that were like, you know, the, the, a constant barrage, uh, it would get to me in the way that it would get to most people.

Jasmin Singer: I think I was just born as like a, as they say, like an HSP, like a highly sensitive person. And I, I've, I've worked on it strategically, like, you know, I've worked on myself and therefore I've worked on that. But it, it just, I wonder sometimes if some people are just hardwired. And then the, and the last, last, last, last, last thing probably, maybe, perhaps I will say is that I'm in this, the buy nothing group.

And, uh, I love it so much. And someone asked for a, a, a ride to a doctor's appointment, which occasionally happens. And, uh, all of these people came down on him saying, I, I was going to offer you one, but I looked at your page and all you are doing is spewing racism. And then they got into a fight, you know, like this guy at everyone, and it was, he was very Trumpy and this and that.

And then someone commented and said, you know, whatever his name was, let's say Dave, uh, Dave, I'll drive you. Like, I'll, I'll do that for a neighbor. I don't care like who you are, what your perspective is. And I, you know, it's, it's the, it's the internet, right? Like, it, it's not real life. But this was a few months ago and I still think about it.

And I just sort of like, I'm putting it, I'm looking at it through a vegan gaze for a second here. And I guess I'm curious what your impression is of that. And like if you, if if it was like a, a vegan version of that, which person would you be in, in the, in the mix? Would you be the kind one who was like, I'll just do this anyway, even though all you're doing is talking about how much you love to eat animals?

Or like, what, what do you

Michael Dorf: So that actually implicates a talk that I've given in the past at Summerfest, which is on intersectional vegan activism. And the big picture takeaway from that talk is that it's not helpful to our movement to be too restrictive about the views people take on other collateral issues because then you're going to lose the opportunity to form alliances, right?

So you want the Matthew Scullys of the world, who are conservative in other respects and might not share our views on lots of other issues, but are committed to the vegan movement. You wanna be able to form alliances with them, but I caveat that by saying, but there are certain positions even on issues that have nothing to do with animals that are so odious that you're not going to want to associate with them. So that you know you're not gonna want to give space at your vegan fest to, you know, Klansman for animals, um, or, or whatever the organization might be. Right? Um, and of course where that line is, you know, how, how odious does it have to be along what dimension, what makes it odious, that itself is going to be contested. So I don't, I don't know. I

Mariann Sullivan: And to some extent

Michael Dorf: Right, exactly

Mariann Sullivan: we have different levels of

Michael Dorf: Right. so so I'd have to know

know like what exactly was the nature of this person's other post that made him a racist?

Jasmin Singer: Right. Well, the,

Mariann Sullivan: Also like in today's, in today's world, like we all have to think about these issues kind of every single day. Not just, I mean, not particularly about animals, but you know, we're so divided and in such host incredibly hostile ways. If we can get through this, it would be a miracle.

Jasmin Singer: you. This was great. I really appreciate it. I, I'm, I'm, I'm biting my tongue to not ask you my one more question. I, I really am. I won't do it. Hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: Well, we're going to have Michael on again. I would like if he, if he will do it once he starts teaching that course, because I want some updates.

Michael Dorf: I'm, super curious about the students because, um, the, the seminar is full and I know there aren't enough vegans for them to all be vegans in the seminar. So I wanna see how it, uh, how it lands.

Mariann Sullivan: Well, I'm sure they'll all be vegan at the end.

Michael Dorf: Uh, they'll, they'll, they'll all be vegan during the two hours we're meeting each, each

time because that...

Mariann Sullivan: presumably, hopefully nobody brings in a, a burger to eat while you're, while you're talking.

Michael Dorf: Alright.

Jasmin Singer: Well, thank you Michael. Don't, don't hang up when we hang up because we need to make sure you're uploaded. But thank you so much for joining us today on Our Hen House for The Hen report and for being an

Michael Dorf: Thanks for having me.

Jasmin Singer: I appreciate that conversation so much, especially because he let me continue to ask him questions at the end that had absolutely nothing to do with Summer Fest, but it was just like, Michael, what do you think about this?

Mariann Sullivan: You?

Jasmin Singer: That,

Mariann Sullivan: You going off topic? I,

Jasmin Singer: reminds me of

Mariann Sullivan: I can't even believe that.

Jasmin Singer: That reminds me of the time I bought this chair. No, I'm kidding. Um, alright, so

Mariann Sullivan: It is a nice, a really nice chair.

Jasmin Singer: My chair?

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah,

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: for like people with back issues and it's pretty great. I have to say. The

Mariann Sullivan: It's also quite attractive. I'm sorry for people who are listening, not watching.

Jasmin Singer: but you know, that frigging asshole, Joe Rogan, this is his chair, not his person.

I didn't take his chair, but like I found out after I ordered it that this is the chair

Mariann Sullivan: I don't think you should like blame the chair.

Jasmin Singer: I know, I know. It's, love this. It's, it moves with me. It, it's like weee! Alright, so this week, don't forget, we are gonna be on staycay. Uh. But, and next week will be a truncated schedule. But next Friday, I don't know what days I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'm already lost. But we're gonna soon have Will Potter talking about his new book, Little Red Barns, Hiding the Truth From Farm to Table. Great title. It promises to be an absolute blockbuster and you're not gonna wanna miss that. So thank you for tuning in and we hope that you are enjoying your summer and we'll see you next time.