Episode 174: “Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out.”

Welcome to the 174^th episode of Our Hen House, Official Honoree of the 2013 Webby Awards. Today’s episode features Lisa Kemmerer, with a special appearance by Jenny Brown.

In today’s episode, we bring you our recurring “Anxieties Rising” segment, dedicated to the animal agriculture industry. We’ll chat about an article from Beef Magazine entitled “Is It Fair to Use Religion in the Animal Rights Debate?” Beyond that, we’ll also chat about Jasmin’s recent and somewhat accidental interview for a major documentary by the filmmakers behind Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. And we’ll tell you all about a one-woman show we saw, Blondie of Arabia, which is full of various social justice themes – including animal rights. Plus, we’ll report back on last week’s fundraiser we attended for Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, aptly called Sanctuary in the City, held at the uber-chic Chelsea gallery, Alexander Gray Associates. While at that fabulous event, we had the opportunity to chat with Woodstock Sanctuary founder Jenny Brown, and today we’ll bring you that interview. You won’t want to miss it. Jenny, who is one of our heroes, will let us in on what the deal is with slaughterhouses in the city.

For our feature interview today we’ll be joined by philosopher, activist, and author Lisa Kemmerer, who will discuss her book Animals and World Religions. Lisa will tell us about why religion is an important part of her work vis a vis animals, and she’ll ruminate on why so many people who follow religions that seem to require ethical behavior behave in ways that are so unethical when it comes to animals. She’ll chat with us about so much more, too – this is a hefty subject indeed! – so don’t miss this eye-opening interview.

For our review, we will give you our list of 5 New-to-Us Chinatown Produce Finds, and we’ll tell you which ones you absolutely have to try, and which ones you can skip.

All that, vegan banter, and of course, current events from the world of animal rights.

For a list of the news items we discuss in today’s episode, and then some, take a look at the breaking news ticker at the top of ourhenhouse.org, and also check out our list of archived news items.

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“Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.” -Arundhati Roy