Alex Curran: I absolutely love living in Liverpool
Alex Curran: I’m not speaking to Jordan everyday
Alex Curran: I used to eat 3 McDonald’s a week
Alex Curran: Even WAGs can’t spend as much during the credit crunch
Alex Curran: Don’t have a boob job until you’ve had children

That’s all I wanted to say on her.

The next one is Matthew Wright. I have been watching his chat show recently, and I cannot believe how he treats his viewers. It seems that when someone bravely decides to phone in to his show and discuss Matthew’s chosen topic of the day, as soon as he or she expresses an opinion that is not the same as Matthew’s, he insults them and cuts them off! He has a chip on his shoulder that would feed a family of four for a week. I can’t help but wonder what has made him so cynical in life. You can tell he was a tabloid writer. And what is with his obsession with Jeremy Kyle? (I presume he is jealous as Kyle gets higher ratings). And he hates all children and anyone who considers having children, but he was a child once! Maybe his mother shouldn’t have been selfish (as he would describe anyone wanting a child) and had him, and done us all a favour. He insults his own viewers regularly. He is provocative with his tone yet doesn’t like it when someone answers his questions more eloquently than he does. He is one of those people with the attitude ‘I am always right, and any opinion that differs from mine is wrong’. Plus, how much time off does Matthew Wright get?! He is not on his own show more than he is on it.

The final one is Peaches Geldoff. Is this silly little girl for real? She is desperately trying to appear ‘out of the box’ and shocking, that one can’t help but pity her. I wish Fearn Cotton would have quizzed her on the hadron collider, I bet she doesn’t know anything about it. I bet she isn’t really a Scientologist either, she just loves the idea of saying she is.

The final thing is the entity that is GMTV. Almost everyone on this program is extremely annoying, from Richard Arnold’s irritating laugh at his own ‘jokes’, to that guy who reports from America (but is actually in the room next door) and continually refers to Lorraine Kelly just as ‘Legend’. What’s that all about?!! Lorraine Kelly hates anyone skinnier than her. She uses the words ‘Wowzer’ and ‘Bonkers’ regularly. She gets her facts completely wrong. She thinks spending more than £20 on shoes is outrageous and anyone who does should be shot, yet she regularly wears labuton heels which are supplied to her by her employer. She is no legend, she’s an overweight annoying woman.

It’s no just American sitcoms, but english ones too.

The Simpsons. It used to be an absolute classic. Every episode packed with clever jokes on many different levels. Now, I have no idea what happened but it looks like an entirely different programme. I believe that is down to a change in the script writers, also the change co-incided with Futurama being produced. It has deteriorated incredibly. The storylines are very thin and the jokes are very week. At least The Simpsons knows it has now been unfunny for as long as it was funny and makes a jokes out of that.

Seinfeld. The early episodes were of course television gold, absolute genius. When Larry David left, the show took a slightly different turn. It still remained television gold, and didn’t go too downhill like other sitcoms, but was just not quite the same. It had gone on for so long that ideas were running out. I’m glad it ended when it did.

The Royle Family. Totally innovative when it started, but compare the early episodes to the recent ’09 Christmas special…well, there is no comparison. I didn’t laugh once during the Christmas special, it was cringe-worthy to watch. If they had done a Christmas special that felt like the good old episodes, with them all sat around in the lounge with not much happening, and maybe have a visit from Dave’s parents, (peg- leg), that could have been interesting. But seeing Dave and Jim in bed together farting; the chip-pan gag; the argument about the golden egg cup – just not at all funny. What was funny was the episode when Denise told her Parents that she was pregnant, and the gags about Dave not understanding what she meant when she told him, and Nana watching Coronation Street when they phoned to tell her. Visual gags aren’t funny, clever character based ones are. The writers seem to want the storyline to get more and more complex, when we just want the classic episodes which is about the characters relating to each other and nothing much happening in the way of the storyline.

Even the classics like Only Fools and Horses seem to lose their charm as the show goes on. Maybe because the characters age, I don’t know. What set that show on the slippery slope was the special where they had no studio audience and no canned laughter.

Red Dwarf. We all know that it lost its magic when Rob Grant left. So did Rimmer and they bought that bloody awful woman into it. The storylines were still genius, but the show lacked the Grant humour and has never been the same since.

The Office. Again, the first series was innovative – maybe that is why it was funny? But when they start thinking too much about more complex storylines instead of just watching the characters interact, it becomes dull. The most recent specials and the last series – boring and unfunny. Some funny moments, but as a whole just not entertaining. The new characters coming into it and the 2 offices merging was the beginning of the end. We grew to know and love the old characters. Once we love something how it is, we don’t want change.

Absolutely Fabulous. This was again a new and fresh idea, a little bit shocking. The first few series was just brilliant. The last ones weren’t. Again, there were a few moments of comic genius, but generally it was cringe-worthy watching them desperately trying to scrape some ideas together. It seemed as if it had been written at the last minute. They used a lot of old ideas as well, but they weren’t quite as funny as the first time round. The new wardrobe in Ab Fab was awful, instead of being OTT in every way, they actually looked well dressed. (Due to some socialite providing the costumes for the series to promote her new shop – why on earth did they allow that!).

I wish a new fresh sitcom would emerge that we could all fall in love with, but I don’t know what has happened to all the decent comedy writers. I guess we will have to make do with ‘Big Top’ instead?!

Ultimately, if you choose to eat dead animals, you must be of the belief that the reason animals are here is for us to eat them. But how can this be true when they were here first?!

It seems to me to be a contradiction in terms that we have animal rights laws, and will prosecute people for cruelty to animals, yet we have a blind spot when it comes to factory farming.

Under intensive farming, sows are kept for life in stalls so narrow they are unable to turn around. They never see the sun or roll in the mud. They must stand on concrete or wooden floors and are sometimes chained to the floor or wall (tethered). This is how they live each day, every day for their entire life.

Male pigs are ear-tagged, teeth clipped and their tails are cut off. They are crowded into darkened sheds until slaughtered at six months of age.

Pigs are clean, friendly and as intelligent as dogs, but no dog could be legally kept under these conditions. 

Pigs in typical farrowing crates. Most people who see this would say ‘Ah, that’s cruel’. But YOU are the reason this is happening! You are paying for this to continue every time you purchase meat.

Almost all pigs raised for meat in Britain are factory farmed indoors in overcrowded, ill-lit, filthy conditions that cause extreme discomfort and stress to these intelligent animals.

Every time they give birth, most breeding pigs spend a month or more in a metal farrowing crate so small they can barely move.

Contrary to the image painted by the British pig industry and the Government, most pigs never see any bedding and spend their lives on dirty, wet concrete. Unsurprisingly, diseases are rife and so is the use of drugs and antibiotics.

What is Factory Farming?

Intensive, industrialised, factory – they’re all terms that describe modern farming methods. Intensive because as many animals as possible are crammed together in the smallest possible space. Industrialised because feeding, watering and dung clearing are often performed automatically. Factory because the philosophy of mass production is what lies behind it all.

Can you conceive the mentality that looked at restlessly strutting creatures such as chickens – descendants of jungle fowl – and decided to cram them five to a wire cage no bigger than a microwave oven? Then they piled thousands of cages one on top of another. And forced the hens – through selection, lighting and feed – to produce an egg almost every day of their short lives, when their ancestors lay just 20 a year. So many that their bones break involuntarily from osteoporosis, the calcium leached to provide egg shells. That’s what happened and that’s how 80 per cent of all eggs are still obtained. The sad little by-products are day-old male chicks, too scrawny for meat and incapable of laying eggs – so they’re cruelly gassed with CO2 or crushed to death. Forty million of them every year.

The fate of those chickens selected to provide meat is little better. As many as 50,000 or more are crammed into a single shed to stand in their own excreta for the six weeks of their obscenely short lives. Huge, waddling babies, forced to grow unnaturally fast – so fast that their hearts can’t cope and many die. Legs give way and break under their ballooning weight. Despite the ordeal, these perversions of nature account for almost all chicken meat eaten. Ducks, turkeys and Guinea fowl all endure similar conditions – and shortly it will be geese, too.

What sane person would look at highly-intelligent animals such as pigs and force them into crowded, concrete cells? No bedding, no enrichment, filth and squalor and absolutely nothing to do – unable to fulfil even their most basic natural instincts. And as a bonus, cut off their tails and crush their teeth without anaesthetic in an attempt to control the resulting aggression.

A special barbarity is reserved for sows – female breeding pigs. Until recently they spent their entire lives encased in metal – narrow crates little wider then their bodies, ensuring they could never turn around or lie down properly. In Britain, continual campaigning has led to the abolition of these stalls while the sows are pregnant. They have been substituted with the same barren, concrete filth that meat pigs endure. But for 70 days a year, they are still confined in metal farrowing crates while they deliver and suckle their annual 2.5 litters. No wonder they go mad, gnawing at their bars in the bleak and desolate despair of mental collapse.

These are the obvious forms of factory farming but there are other, less obvious examples. Despite their seemingly free-range existence, dairy cows are probably the hardest worked of all farmed animals. They are one of the few to endure pregnancy and milking both at the same time. And what milking – up to 10 times the amount they need to produce to suckle a calf. Look at dairy cows in the field and you will see hip bones that protrude from their skin like coat hangers through a flimsy shirt. Watch them as they walk and you will see distended udders. They will limp and lurch along with difficulty. Hardly surprising as one third at any one time suffer foot and leg problems and excruciating laminitis. Another third experience the equally painful mastitis. Animals that can live into their mid twenties are exhausted after two or three pregnancies and are slaughtered – equivalent in age to a teenage girl.

And what of their offspring? All are removed from their mother at two or three days old, despite her bellows of despair and their own confusion and fear. Female calves will mostly be kept to replenish the herd while the teetering little male calves are shot in the head – another by-product of another cruel industry. Until BSE (mad cow disease) they were despatched into the barbaric solitary confinement of Continental veal crates, and purposely diseased with anaemia so their flesh would appear white on the dinner plates of uncaring and unconscionable gluttons.

Sheep, too, are touted as free range animals – and so they are. But that doesn’t tell the full story. Tricked into ovulating at the wrong time and tricked into producing too many babies – increasingly triplets – it is a struggle to survive, often on over-grazed, marginal land. Instead of giving birth in Spring, ewes often deliver their young as early as December. The result is cold, starvation, disease and death, which claims 20 per cent of all new born lambs – four million every year.

And when they’re marketed, each little creature which has known only the quiet of the countryside will be transported from market place to holding pen, from livestock dealer to exporter – an average of eight times each. Many will be subjected to days of road transport – often as far as Greece – crammed with others in unventilated, unheated transporters. Many will die – whole consignments have died – of stress, thirst and heat stroke.

And so it goes on. Beef cattle are no exception and it was unnaturally being fed the remains of their own kind that has given the world this terrifying and incurable outbreak of vCJD – the human form of BSE.

This whole cycle of exploitation took wing after the end of the World War II – or, to be more precise, after 1948 when antibiotics were first introduced. And it is these which are the key to this unnatural, cruel and ultimately dangerous abuse of animals. What began with greed is likely to end in catastrophe. There has been enough writing on the wall in the form of warnings to graffiti the Great Wall of China. But still the dosing goes on – often indiscriminately, on a daily basis, frequently incorporated in food and water.

A whole string of antibiotics and other drugs are administered for different purposes. Some are used to prevent disease, some are used to try and cure diseases and some, believe it or not, are used simply to make animals put on weight more quickly. The onslaught is relentless and the outcome is not even in doubt any more.

In evolutionary terms, the time from 1948 to today is no more than a twinkling of light. And yet the results are stark. One by one we have lost the ability to use specific antibiotics because the bacteria they are targeted at have developed resistance – the drugs no longer work. Worse than this, the mutated microbes have the ability to pass on their resistance to unrelated organisms in an example of microbial co-operation that no one understands. In severe food poisoning cases, where a human’s blood becomes infected, there is now only one antibiotic of last resort – and even a derivative of this is still being fed to animals. As for the rest – they simply no longer work.

We are staring into the abyss – not my words but those of an official enquiry into drug-resistant bacteria. As enquiry tumbles on the heels of enquiry, the farming industry refuses to respond, pleading poverty, and the government wrings its hands as only governments know how. Another enquiry will doubtless be launched to add to the many already held. Then a working party will be formed. Then trials will be held and then the government will change and we will go back to square one.

Already we have virulent new forms of Salmonella, E.coli and Campylobacter which have turned food poisoning into an epidemic. And we have superbugs, which are wreaking havoc in our hospitals. We don’t know the figures for the UK but in the US, between 20,000 and 60,000 people are dying every year from uncontrollable, deadly infections they contract while in hospital.

Despite the empty promises of genetic engineering, we are looking at a bleak future. If things continue as they are, we may return to the deadly infectious epidemics of the middle ages and where invasive surgery will be impossible. Even having a tooth out could become life threatening.

New animal diseases are developing apace and we have no idea if any of these will devastate humans in a similar way to BSE. We are on the brink and we have to force farmers and legislators into action. Factory farming has to end, we have stop this unhealthy and obsessive promotion of animal protein, we have to begin treating animals with respect and consideration – or pay the price.

Animal health and human health are both in the balance but so is the health of the planet. Livestock production is at the heart of most of the world’s environmental catastrophes – rainforest destruction, global warming, water depletion, spreading desserts, loss of soil fertility, soil erosion, ozone depletion and the collapse of the world’s oceans. Almost everything that humans currently do is unsustainable. And while we send in our pennies and pounds to Ethiopian and other famine appeals, no one makes the case that the west’s obsession with meat plays a direct role in starving the world’s poorest people. Meat is a killer in every sense of the word.

The most conclusive and effective decision anyone can take to stop this descent into insanity is to give up meat and become vegetarian or vegan. In the meantime, a huge step forward can be made by outlawing factory farming. It isn’t just rhetoric – we really do have to end factory farming before it ends us!

Egg laying Hens

Do chickens kept for their eggs fare better? After all you’ve seen all the ads and egg boxes that proudly declare “country fresh” and “fresh from the countryside”, “farm fresh”. Surely this means hens are free to roam the fields and woods? ‘Fraid not! Unless an egg box actually has the words FREE RANGE, it is certain that the eggs are from intensive systems – battery units, barn or deep litter sheds. (In 1998 Marks & Spencer stopped selling battery eggs and only sell free range; a positive move that came about from public pressure against the cage system.) However most of Britain’s eggs are produced on battery farms, where the hens are squashed together in small cages. They can never spread their wings, scratch in the earth, perch or make a nest, dust-bathe, search for food that is tasty and natural, or even walk or run.

Instead, five hens are packed into a cage of only 45 x 50cm. (slightly bigger than your average microwave oven) and are never allowed out again until they are taken for slaughter.

The average wing span of a hen is 76cm – so movement and natural behaviour is severely restricted. Thousands of cages are stacked into windowless sheds – with artificial lighting for about 17 hours a day to promote egg laying. Up to 90,000 birds are packed in these sheds and they are all fed, watered and their eggs collected by an automatic system. When a hen lays an egg, it rolls onto a conveyor belt and is taken away to be boxed. Birds of 18 weeks old are put into these cages and are not removed until they are 18 months to two years old, when they are killed. Try to imagine the frustration, the boredom, the anger that this system creates. Hens in more natural conditions will often live for 7 years – sometimes much more. Slaughtered battery hens are processed into soups, baby foods, stock cubes, school dinners or used in the restaurant trade.

And what of the male chicks? Because battery hens are bred to be lean, to eat little and lay a lot, 40 million male day old chicks are killed every year – too skinny for meat, unable to lay. Their bodies are used as fertilizer or as feed for farm animals.

Hens in the wild lay only 20 eggs a year, which will mostly have been fertilised by a cockerel and will hatch. There are no cockerels in battery sheds so all eggs are infertile. The battery hen has been bred to produce an unbelievable 300 eggs a year – nearly one a day. However, this breeding has not stripped them of their instincts and desires. Like hens in the wild, they need a safe, private place to lay their eggs, something which is not available when sharing a cage with so many other birds. The process can take up to an hour or more, during which time they will attempt to hide from their cagemates. The frustration often makes them become aggressive. Hens lay eggs because it is a bodily function which they have no control over, not because they are “happy”

Creatures whose nature is to move around almost ceaselessly during daylight hours must, when restricted like this, somehow substitute their desire to peck and scratch in the ground. The only source of interest left to them is the feathers and flesh of their cage mates which they frequently peck – sometimes to death. If you were squashed into a phone box with four other people – maybe people you didn’t even like – perhaps you would become aggressive after a few months (or a few days?!). These “vices” could be stopped by providing a decent amount of space but instead of this many farmers practice beaktrimming – a red-hot blade removes part of the beak when the birds are young. Some die from bleeding or shock.

The combination of a lack of fresh air and daylight, selective breeding, and caging in overcrowded conditions has led to the spread of diseases and to distress and suffering. Prolapses, egg peritonitis, cancers, infectious bronchitis and Gumboro disease are just a few of the conditions that thrive in battery houses. The bones of battery hens are often so brittle that they will snap like dry twigs. The Agricultural and Food Research Council states that one third of battery hens suffer from broken bones. A review of all scientific studies on battery farming by the University of Edinburgh concludes that “battery hens suffer” and that battery cages should be outlawed. But then you didn’t need a scientist to tell you that, did you? The two million battery hens that die each year in their cages are testimony to that.

Public protest has led to a small victory for hens. The EU agreed in 1999 to a phase-out of barren battery cages. From 1st of January 2012 the use of conventional cages is prohibited. Only ‘enriched’ cages will be permitted. This sounds great – but tragically “enriched cages” still mean hens being crammed together in small spaces.

From 1st January 2002, enriched cages must provide:

750 cm_ per hen, of which at least 600 must be useable; a nest; litter for pecking and scratching; perches at least 15 cm per hen; claw-shortening devices

Barn systems basically means thousand of birds packed to a shed. They are not caged but still have very little space (25 hens per square metre). They are able to perch on raised perches or platforms. Deep litter systems are similar but perches are not provided.

Free range hens are usually kept in deep litter or barn sheds but must have continuous access to outdoors in the day – an area which is supposed to be “mainly covered with vegetation”. Current EU marketing rules allow 1000 hens per hectare of outdoor range. Some smaller scale operations exist where small flocks are kept in moveable houses on more natural landscapes of woodland. Obviously the genuine free range system is much better than the battery – however the negatives are often that the flocks are too large so that many birds never roam outside. Females are still killed at the end of their laying life for ‘low grade’ meat and the male chicks are all killed as they can’t lay eggs. Mother hens never meet their own chicks – their strong maternal feelings utterly denied.

Condemned to a crate

Cows produce milk for one reason only – to feed their young. No babies, no milk!

For dairy cows, the wonder of birth is short lived. After a day or two, their babies are cruelly torn from them.

Female calves become milk machines like their mothers, suffering chronic lameness, painful udder infections and constant hunger.

Unwanted male calves may endure lorry journeys of 36 hours – bewildered, overcrowded and exposed to the elements.

Their destination? Veal farms in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

These uncomprehending and fragile babies spend their desperately-short lives imprisoned in solitary confinement, in crates so small they are unable to turn around – a practice so obscenely cruel it was outlawed in Britain in 1990.

To keep their flesh white for ‘gourmet’ diners, calves are purposely diseased – fed gruel which leaves them anaemic. Slaughtered at just four or five months old, many will be weak and unable to walk.

It is a dreadful total – as many as 500,000 calves a year. Their birth has no meaning other than to keep their mother’s milk flowing.

THE ENVIRONMENT

Would you ever open your refrigerator, pull out 16 plates of pasta and toss them in the trash, and then eat just one plate of food? How about leveling 55 square feet of rain forest for a single meal or dumping 2,500 gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn’t. But if you’re eating chicken, fish, turkey, pork, or beef, that’s what you’re doing—wasting resources and destroying our environment.

Animals raised for food expend the vast majority of the calories that they are fed simply existing, just as we do. We feed more than 70 percent of the grains and cereals we grow to farmed animals, and almost all of those calories go into simply keeping the animals alive, not making them grow. Only a small fraction of the calories consumed by farmed animals are actually converted into the meat that people eat.

Growing all the crops to feed farmed animals requires massive amounts of water and land—in fact, nearly half of the water and 80 percent of the agricultural land in the United States are used to raise animals for food. Our taste for meat is also taking a toll on our supply of fuel and other nonrenewable resources—about one-third of the raw materials used in America each year is consumed by the farmed animal industry.

Farmed animals produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population of the United States, and since factory farms don’t have sewage treatment systems as our cities and towns do, this concentrated slop ends up polluting our water, destroying our topsoil, and contaminating our air. And meat-eaters are responsible for the production of 100 percent of this waste—about 89,000 pounds per second!⁹ Give up animal products, and you’ll be responsible for none of it.

Many leading environmental organizations, including the National Audubon Society, the WorldWatch Institute, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, have recognized that raising animals for food damages the environment more than just about anything else that we do. Whether it’s the overuse of resources, unchecked water or air pollution, or soil erosion, raising animals for food is wreaking havoc on the Earth. The most important step you can take to save the planet is to go vegetarian.

Vast tracts of land are needed to grow crops to feed the billions of animals we raise for food each year. Of all the agricultural land in the U.S., nearly 80 percent is used in some way to raise animals—that’s roughly half of the total land mass of the U.S. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals.

The U.S. certainly isn’t alone in its misuse of land for animal agriculture. As the world’s appetite for meat increases, countries across the globe are bulldozing huge swaths of land to make more room for animals and the crops to feed them. From tropical rain forests in Brazil to ancient pine forests in China, entire ecosystems are being destroyed to fuel our addiction to meat. According to scientists at the Smithsonian Institute, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals.

In the United States and around the world, overgrazing leads to the extinction of indigenous plant and animal species, soil erosion, and eventual desertification that renders once-fertile land barren. Livestock grazing is the number one cause of threatened and extinct species both in the United States and in other parts of the world. Philip Fradkin, of the National Audubon Society, states, “The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and subdivision developments combined.” As more and more land both in the U.S. and around the world is irreparably damaged at the hands of the meat industry, what little arable land does remain may not be enough to produce crops to feed the burgeoning world human population.

Vegetarian Stars

Why have so many of today’s famous faces taken the vegetarian plunge? Many, such as Russell Simmons and Pamela Anderson, don’t want to support the cruelty implicit in producing meat, dairy products, and eggs. According to Russell, “Cruelty is cruelty, whether it’s cruelty to children, to the elderly, to dogs and cats, or to chickens.” Pam agrees: “Chickens, pigs, and other animals … are interesting individuals with personalities and intelligence. … What people need to understand is that if they’re eating animals, they are promoting cruelty to animals.” Let’s face it: There’s nothing glamorous about chewing on the corpse of a tortured animal.

Alicia Silverstone notes how much better vegetarian diets are for your health: “Since I’ve gone vegetarian, my body has never felt better and my taste buds have been opened up to a whole new world. It’s one of the most rewarding choices I’ve ever made and I invite you to join me in living a healthy, cruelty-free lifestyle.” Indeed, studies show that a vegetarian diet promotes a healthy heart—and that helps stars maintain a youthful vigor and boundless stamina while on stage, in the studio, and on the field.

Sir Paul McCartney sums it all up: “If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.”

Alec Baldwin: “Every time we sit down to eat, we make a choice. Please choose vegetarianism. Do it for … animals. Do it for the environment, and do it for your health.”  Ben Taylor: On why he went vegan: “I finally spent enough time around enough animals. I wasn’t prepared to eat anything whose death I wasn’t personally responsible for. I mean … so the way I look at it is, people ask me how hard-core of a vegan I am, and I say, well, I’ll eat anything I kill myself; I am just not willing to kill anything.” Brandy: “I am a vegan now, and it was a conscious decision. I studied a lot about African culture and health and the best way to take care of the body. … I really wanted to be healthy. I found out a lot about the body and what [drugs] they put in meat. My taste buds started changing, and I didn’t crave [meat and dairy products] anymore.” Cameron Diaz: When she learned that pigs have the same mental capacity as 3-year-old children, Cameron Diaz exclaimed, “Oh my God, it’s like eating my niece!” She has since gone vegetarian. 

Chrissie Hynde: “The meat industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars lying to the public about their product. But no amount of false propaganda can sanitize meat. The facts are absolutely clear: Eating meat is bad for human health, catastrophic for the environment, and a living nightmare for animals.” 

Clint Eastwood: “I try to stick to a vegan diet—heavy on fruit, vegetables, tofu, and other soy products.”

 His Holiness the Dalai Lama: “I have been particularly concerned with the sufferings of chickens for many years. It was the death of a chicken that finally strengthened my resolve to become vegetarian. … These days, when I see a row of plucked chickens hanging in a meat shop, it hurts. I find it unacceptable that violence is the basis of some of our food habits.” 

Jack Johnson: “I saw a semitruck of chickens drive by one day when we were on the road, and it had really decrepit-looking chickens, and I felt so sorry for them. I was like, ‘Man, I can’t eat chicken after seeing that.’ It’s been about three months. I love animals, and sometimes I feel like a hypocrite eating chicken or beef, because I know I wouldn’t be able to kill one myself. If I was looking at a cow and I had a gun, I don’t think I’d actually be able to shoot it.” 

James Cromwell: “So-called farms today treat animals like so many boxes in a warehouse, chopping off beaks and tails and genitals with no painkillers at all, inflicting third-degree burns repeatedly by branding cows, … and just a horrible catalog of abuses that, if done to dogs or cats, would be illegal on grounds of animal cruelty.” 

Joaquin Phoenix: “Animal rights is a part of my everyday life. When you live by example, you create a certain level of awareness. Friends of mine—people I have never discussed animal rights or vegetarianism with—are adopting vegetarian habits because they see it.” 

Josh Hartnett: “I gave up meat when I was 12. … One day I was cutting up a chicken for my mom, and I hit a tumor with the knife. There was [pus] and blood all over the place. That was enough for me.” 

Kim Basinger: “If you could feel or see the suffering, you wouldn’t think twice. Give back life. Don’t eat meat.”

Mary Tyler Moore: “It may take a while, but there will probably come a time when we look back and say, ‘Good Lord, do you believe that in the 20th century and early part of the 21st, people were still eating animals?’” 

Moby: “Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it’s pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It’s easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe and moo and walk around.” 

Morrissey: “Nobody can come up with a good argument for eating animals—nobody can. People as some kind of a joke say, well, ‘It’s tasty,’ but it’s only tasty once you garnish it and you put salt and pepper, and you cook it, and you have to do 300 things to it to disguise its true taste. If you put garnishes on a chair or fabric, it would probably taste quite nice.” 

Pamela Anderson: “Chickens, pigs, and other animals—they are interesting individuals with personalities and intelligence. But if farmers did to dogs and cats what they do to animals they’re raising for food, they could be prosecuted for animal abuse and locked up.” 

Russell Simmons: “Chickens raised for food today are … covered in excrement, they’re diseased, and they’re drugged up with all sorts of toxins that you are ingesting if you eat chickens. One recent study found that chicken flesh in this country has four times as much arsenic—yes, arsenic, the poison (which is used in the drugs the chickens are given) as any other meat … I have been a vegan for many years.” 

Shania Twain: “I think there’s something odd about eating another living anything.” 

Wu Tang Clan’s Masta Killa: “I never really liked meat. I was a child that had to be forced to eat my meat. Whatever you ate before [going vegetarian] that you loved—like turkey slices—they’ve got a substitute now that’s not hard to find.” 

IF YOU DON’T NEED TO EAT DEAD ANIMALS IN ORDER TO SURVIVE – WHY WOULD YOU?

The simple reasons:

Environment: Human meat consumption is directly responsible for more damage to the environment than the CO2 emissions from all of the worlds transport, plains, trains and cars, put together.

Welfare: See Cameron Diaz’ quote above. Would you eat a 3-year-old child? 

Health: Meat clogs up your arteries and kills you!

THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! Change your ways. We used to kill people for being witches. We used to treat people as slaves. In the future it will be possible to grow animal parts for consumption by cloning, essentially all animal food will come from one animal, and suffering will be eliminated. Until that time, please have a conscience. Have a heart. Have a brain. Think for yourself.

Please visit Pamela Anderson’s expose on KFC here: http://action.peta.org.uk/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=5&ea.campaign.id=1547

Please visit Viva! for more information about becoming a Vegetarian or vegan:  http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/index.html

For a list of top sports stars who are vegetarian or vegan visit:
http://www.veganathlete.com/vegan_vegetarian_athletes.php

HEALTH

There is now absolutely no doubt that eating meat is bad for you. Study after study prove that eating meat causes and contributes to many deseases and problems in humans such as arthritis, many cancers, indigestion, heart desease, diabetes, gall stones, constipation, anemia, and many many more. It has been proved that these problems are more likely to affect meat eaters than vegetarians.

Every time you eat dead animals you are likely eating arsenic (fed to chickens), and other hormones, drugs and chemicals that have been given to the animal.

Vegetarians visit the hospital 22% less than meat eaters. Vegetarians are fitter and healthier than meat eaters. Many of today’s top athletes follow a strict vegetarian or vegan diet, (see http://www.veganathlete.com/vegan_vegetarian_athletes.php).

It is not necessary to eat meat. All the old fashioned myths about meat eaters not getting enough protein, vitamins and minerals, we now know of course is absolute rubbish. As a vegetarian I get all the nutrients I need from my food, and don’t expose myself to the dangers of eating dead animals. I can also live with a clean conscience! Remember, animals suffer from fear and pain. Why choose to have a pet dog, and spend thousands of pounds on it giving it a wonderful life, yet decide to eat a pig, (whom is probably more intelligent than the dog)?

There are so many vegetarian meat substitutes available today which mimic the texture of meat, that eating meat really is not necessary. Every supermarket and even corner shops now sell quorn sausages, bacon, mince, pies, burgers, sausage rolls, frankfurters, chicken style pieces, chicken dippers, currys … you name it! There is NO excuse to eat dead animals.

When some people have had colonic irrigations, meat has been found stuck inside their colon that has been there for years! The most common cause for indigestion and stomach problems are people who have eaten dairy, meat and processed foods for years.

Designed to eat meat?

Many scientists believe that early humans were vegetarian. Did you know the Roman Gladiators were vegetarian? Eating meat is a luxury we enjoy, it is not essential for our survival. We are capable of digesting meat, but we are also capable of digesting cardboard – it doesn’t mean we should or that it is good for us. Humans do not have sharp claws. We do not get excited about eating our prey. (We leave it to someone else to ‘make the kill’ and turn a blind eye to it). Any human who killed an animal with his bear hands and then delved into eating its raw flesh, or started eating road kill, would be considered deranged. Does the sight of a dead fox or bird on the road make you salivate? Do you dream about killing a cow and eating it raw? If not, I propose you are not a natural carnivore.

Religion

Many people might be wondering why, if eating meat is so bad, Jesus ate meat? The word used in the bible and translated as meat is trophe or brome. The literal meaning of these words are ‘food’ or ‘eating’. The word ’kreas’ means meat, and is never once used in the bible in relation to Jesus. The early Cristians are said to have abstained from flesh food. Animals are a creation of God the same as humans are, and one surely cannot deny being violent to humans, yet allow the unbelieveable violence to animals that is happening right now, all over the world, for human glutons to eat them. Remember: “thou shalt not kill”, “do unto others as you would have done unto yourself”, and “sow so shall you reap”. 

Here are some quotes from the bible: 

Peter … “whose food was bread, olives and herbs ..” 

(Hoer 15;cf clem. Hom. X11,6)

(Romans 14. 20,21)

Ever since I remember, I have always longed to have a strong faith. How I would love to be able to go to a Church/Synagogue/Mosque and worship my chosen god with like-minded people. Having grown up in England, the most likely faith for me would of course be a ‘Western’ faith such as Christianity/Catholicism. Like a lot of people, when asked to fill in the ‘religion’ box on a form, I would put ‘Christian’. But I have to question whether I am a Christian. I honestly do not know the answer.

I have never felt like I need to worship God in a church or any other designated place. I feel like I can talk to my God wherever and whenever. But I would love to go to church and worship with others. I have always loved being in church and I always feel extremely emotional when I am inside any place of worship.

I have always had a lot of problems with organised religion, and Christianity is the one I struggle with the most because there are so many inconsistencies within the bible and the church. Any story gets exaggerated and sensationalized within a few minutes of an event happening, let alone one that happened thousands of years ago, and the only detail we have of it are some writings by people who never had never met the main character, who had been told about the events down through the generations, and even then it was at a time when people wrote in a metaphoric and not factual way, and the few stories about an event totally contradict each other.

I desperately want to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and all the events in the bible written about him are true, but I just cannot believe it. I cannot believe that God created Eve from Adam’s rib bone. I cannot believe that Jesus walked on water. I cannot believe that Jesus’ Mother was a Virgin when she gave birth to Jesus.

I Do, however, believe that a man called Jesus did exist, and that he was a remarkable man. He was a man without prejudice. A man without judgement. I’ll say that again because it is so important. A man without judgement. That sounds impossible I know, what sort of a human being was he to not judge anyone! No wonder people at the time saw something divine in him.

To me, that is what God is. Love. I don’t believe a God would order a judgement day where everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will be taken to Heaven, and everyone else, all the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, who I am sure many of which are better people than some Christians, will be left on earth to suffer! What an absurd and ridiculous notion.

I suppose I am a Christian in my own way, but the Jesus I believe in is a different one to the one written about in the bible.

We do know that Christianity has been an extremely violent religion. Millions of people have been murdered and tortured for not believing in Christ, (and for believing in him, of course). The old testament contains a lot of violence as well, such as Psalm 1 37:9: Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones [Babylonian babies] and dashes them against the rock.  

The racism, homophobia and violence of some Christians, though, does not represent the love that came from the man, Jesus. So how do we know who Jesus was? 

The way writers in that time interpreted what they saw as divinity in this man, was to write about Jesus as if he was the actual son of God. They used Jewish religious stories and added Jesus in them as a holy person. Of course the story of the three wise men, the guiding star, the stable etc, we now know are not fact, but common metaphors used in many ancient religious stories. We also know that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, not born on 25th December, was regarded as quite mad by his family, and probably died alone. He probably never proclaimed himself as the son of God, but in fact said we are all the sons of God. Whether you believe he was in fact put here by God to take away our sins, is your choice. Would a God make it that easy for a murderer to be forgiven, for example, just because they decide that they believe Jesus is the son of God? 

How can we believe that a loving God would say ‘If you are a Christian you can come to heaven, but if you aren’t, you will go to hell’? How can a loving God zap all the Christians up to heaven on the judgement day, and leave everyone else on earth to suffer and die? By that rationale, a Buddhist lady who might have ten times the love in her heart than a Christian, would be left by God to die while the Christian woman saved and taken to heaven! Would the loving Jesus have taught or even believed this? 

Some people do take the bible literally, and believe what it says in the old testament, despite over-whelming evidence to the contrary. Things like the earth being created in seven days by God, just thousands of years ago. 

Unfortunately, most wars are caused by religious disputes and conflicting beliefs. We have to decide whether we take the bible literally, and interpret the messages in it in a violent way, or read between the lines of the bible and try to see who the real Jesus was and what he was trying to teach. That message has been difficult to find because the church has hidden and changed it over the years to suit their own means. They told us that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, which led to women being second class citizens for thousands of years. We know now that she wasn’t. It has covered up the real message of Jesus and taught us a different one; one that has scared us into behaving in a certain way and living in fear of God and his punishment rather than living in God’s love and forgiveness, which Jesus showed us. 

I think that if Jesus were here now, he would not recognise the church, and he would be outraged by its false teachings and desperation. I believe in Jesus Christ, and he does bring light and hope to my life, but just in a different way to most other Christians.

If anyone reading this feels the same way as me, you might enjoy a book entitled ‘Jesus for the non-religious’ (don’t be fooled by the title) by John Shelby Spong. I have taken excerpts of this article from my website www.whoisgod.org.uk

Thank-you for reading.

Ever since I discovered I could think for myself and form my own opinions, it has always puzzled me that a large majority of people seem to enjoy paying money to have their opinions dictated to them, quite often in the form of tabloid journalism. To think that some bloke who gets paid to, well, lie, and then sensationalize the lie to within an inch of its life, actually holds such power over the general population, is quite frightening. Those journalists must be laughing all the way to the bank.

For my first blog, and following the recent deaths of the two protagonists in this tale, I decided to present the facts about the strange man Evan Chandler, and his extortion plot against Michael Jackson.

It is important to add here that Jordan Chandler never sued Michael Jackson for anything. His Father did. It is also important to point out that suing someone for money in the civil court is a totally different thing to a criminal court trial relating to a crime, (Michael was never taken to criminal court due to lack of evidence). Evan chose to take Michael to civil and not criminal court, proving he wanted money and not ‘justice’. If you believed your son or daughter had been the victim of a pedophile, which would you choose?

I believe in my heart that one day, the truth will prevail, and Jordan will speak out about the false allegations his father made back in the early 1990s.

Evan Chandler was a violent man, who had a string of lawsuits filed against his dental practice. He eventually moved to Beverley Hills to seek fame and money, and he set up a practice there. The story all started in 1993 when he saw his ex-wife and son Jordy on TV at a Music Awards show in Monaco, having the time of their lives as Michael’s guests. He wanted in. Almost at once he began inviting Michael over to his house to visit Jordan, and his demands began in a very short space of time. He wanted Michael to pay for him to have a new house to be built. He wanted a multi-film deal from Michael’s production company. Evan liked this guy; he liked his fame and money. He even invited Michael to build an extra wing on (Evan’s) house so Michael could come and stay over when ever he wanted! When Michael declined Evan’s increasing demands, Evan saw red. Well, to be more precise, he saw dollar signs. Evan’s threats began. If his demands were not met, he informed Michael Jackson that he would accuse him of molesting his son. Michael did not give in, and without a second thought about what he was about to put his son through, Evan carried his threat out.

So what might one expect a father to do once he had just discovered his son had been sexually abused? Go to the police? Rush his son to a doctor or psychiatrist? Hunt the monster down and punch his lights out? Oh no. He went straight to a celebrity lawyer and told him he wanted a movie deal from Michael involving three of his scripts being commissioned, and if he didn’t get it, he would go public with the ‘story’ of his son’s abuse and sue Michael in a civil court to get his money. One problem. Jordan didn’t know anything about the allegations – because they never happened. Jordan continued to confirm that Michael had never inappropriately touched him. He denied it for months. 

Evan was taped discussing his extortion plot where his hurt about Michael (now) disowning him was obvious:

“There was no reason why he [Jackson] had to stop calling me … I picked the nastiest son of a bitch I could find [Evan Chandler's lawyer, Barry Rothman] … He’s nasty, he’s mean, he’s smart and he’s hungry for publicity … Once I make that phone call, this guy is going to destroy everybody in sight in any devious, nasty, cruel way that he can do it. I’ve given him full authority to do that … If I go through with this, I win big time. I get everything I want.”

When asked about how all this would affect his son – what was Evan’s reply? Maybe you can guess:

“That’s irrelevant to me…It will be a massacre if I don’t get what I want. It’s going to be bigger than all us put together…This man [Jackson] is going to be humiliated beyond belief…He will not sell one more record.”

‘That’s irrelevant to me’ ??!

What else was Evan capable of? Well, he couldn’t risk Jordan not testifying for him in his case against Michael, so Evan did what any caring father would do. Whilst carrying out some dental work on his son, he and his anesthesiologist Mark Tobiner injected Jordan with a powerful memory altering drug, Amytal sodium. This is a barbiturate; under its influence a person becomes highly suggestable. It also has a similar effect to being drunk. Anyone under the influence of this powerful drug, who tried to give evidence in a court of law, would be refused. It was after this incident, and only after it, Jordan suddenly ‘recalled’ the memories of being abused by Michael Jackson. The memories weren’t very clear or convincing though. It was only after Evan later took Jordy to see a phyciatrist that the story suddenly became more structured and Evan felt it was convincing enough to go ahead with suing Michael for money.

Negotiations began. Michael not giving in to Evan’s demands, and Evan slowly dropping the amount he was willing to take. When Michael still would not meet Evan’s huge demands, Evan then decided it was time to play hard ball and go ahead with his threat of suing Michael Jackson in the civil court. 

Evan had to have legal custody of his son before he could go ahead with the alligations. He did not have it at the time and his ex-wife was not going along with his plan or the alligations. To gain custody, Evan and his lawyer came up with a plan to threaten Evan’s ex-wife with a stipulation which ended up with him having custody of Evan for 1 month, long enough for him to put his plan into action. It was the final day of this month when Evan took to his son to the phyiciatrist whom then reported what he was told to the police.

Jordan’s testimony was so unbelievable and full of holes, inaccuracies and contradictions, that the case was thrown out of three separate courts before the prosecutor was able to find one that would allow the trial. Jordan Chandler still refused to testify even if it did come to trial. Jordan Chandler’s Mother was adamant that Michael had not molested her son. Michael’s houses were searched. No evidence was ever found that would support the fact that Michael was a child abuser or indeed abused Jordan Chandler. Jordan gave a description of Michael’s genitals to the police, which contrary to reports, were totally inaccurate and did not match police photographs of Michael’s genitals at all. He claimed Michael was circumcised for a start, which is not true.

The Police did everything they could to find any dirt on Michael Jackson. They even told young boys who were friends of Michael’s that they had photos of them naked to try and get them to corroborate Evan’s story. They did not really have photos, and the boys backed Michael Jackson up all the way saying he had been nothing but loving and generous towards them, and a great friend. The Police did find out one thing – Evan Chandler was found to be almost $70 000 behind in his child support payments.

Despite Michael Jackson never being arrested and never being charged, the media had already found him guilty and were having a field day, paying just about anyone for a story on Michael. So called ‘experts’ on the trial were on every chat show going, (people who had never met Michael, never been to the court, and never looked at the evidence). There were maids who claimed to have witnessed recent abuse, who had not even worked at Neverland for years (but they sold their stories to the tabloids anyway). Many people tried copycat allegations, trying to get their share of money, all with no evidence and thrown out of court. One couple tried to get $150 000 for a story about witnessing Michael abuse MacCauley Culkin. Once Culkin ridiculed the claim, the couple admitted they had never met either Michael or Culkin. (Culkin would in later years make Michael the god-father to his own children). No corroborating evidence was ever found to support Evan’s claim. The media of course never printed actual facts about the case or about Michael Jackson. Facts like him giving every penny of his £100 Million he made from the Dangerous world tour to charity. They reported unsubstiantiated rumour, and witheld news that made Michael look innocent. As a result, the same, repeated false rumours that were reported as facy became embedded in people’s minds. By this time, Michael was a nervous wreck, and strongly addicted to prescription painkillers.

Michael wanted the trial to go away – he didn’t want to have to sit in a court room every day for what could be years, with TV cameras beaming live ’evidence’ (including photographs of his genitals) around the world. He asked his lawyers whether they could guarantee that justice would prevail. They couldn’t. Yet still Michael did not want to settle the case and make it look as though he had something to hide. And he never did. His insurance company negotiated with and paid Evan Chandler, against the wishes of Michael Jackson and his legal team. Michael himself did not and has not paid Evan Chandler anything. The court statement stated that the settlement was actually ‘against Mr. Jackson’s wishes’.

The insurance company paying the settlement against Michael’s wishes confuses a lot of people. Briefly, the reason they did this, was because of the potential cost of a trial. If it had gone ahead, a civil suit could have dragged on for over 5 years. This would have cost the insurance company a lot more than the settlement (which was not $20 Million as often reported, but nearer $15 Million). Once a person has been sued, the insurance company can make a decision which is in their best interest, which they did. This information was released to the general public in 2005 and can be viewed by searching online.

Once the case had been settled, and Evan Chandler was indeed a very wealthy man, there was nothing to stop Evan pursuing the case in a criminal court. Nothing to stop him finally getting justice for his son; seeing the man who he believed sexually abused his son for months go to prison. When would the criminal case begin? Immediately you might think - uh, no. It didn’t. Mainly because Jordan would not testify. Oh yes, and there was no money for Evan in a criminal case. So, surely the police or grand jury would persue the case in a criminal court? Uh, no. Why? Lack of evidence. It wouldn’t stand up in court. It wouldn’t last 5 minutes before being thrown out. The Prosecution’s DA, Tom Sneddon, literally went to the ends of the earth trying to find someone, anyone, who could back up Evan’s claims, but he came up with absolutely nothing. Had he have found any evidence, Michael would have been locked up. Ten different warrants were issued for several of Michael’s properties to be thoroughly searched, but no evidence was found. None.

Then comes the best bit. After a while of being out of the limelight, Evan wasn’t happy again – he wanted more money. How could he get it this time? Well, he decided to sue Michael Jackson again. Oh, and 300 others including Lisa Marie Presley, The Walt Disney Company and the Sony Music Corporation, for conspiring against him. This time he claimed that Michael had denied abusing Jordan in some of the lyrics on the HIStory album – and Evan wanted compensation. A mere $60 Million this time. Oh, and he also wanted an album deal out of it - an album called ’EVANstory’ about the civil case. No, I am not joking. He wanted to release a musical album about his son being sexually abused. What a great dad. The court threw out his case.

David Schwartz, the new Husband of June Chandler, (Jordy’s Mother), filed a lawsuit against Evan Chandler for brain damage, two counts of assault, and two counts for battery. Schwartz said Evan threatened to kill his entire famile, including his children. He said Chandler had knocked him to the floor, spat on him, beaten him , and rendered him unconscious.

Evan Chandler went on to have several plastic surgery operations. Jordan Chandler in later years spoke about the abuse he had received. Abuse from his Father, Evan. Jordan Chandler accused his father Evan of being abusive and violent, and of attacking him with a barbell, choking him, and spraying mace in his face. He took out a restraining order against his father and has now legally ’divorced’ both his parents.  

Jordan refused to testify at the more recent trial, (that’s a whole other story! The parents of that boy visited the same celebrity lawyer that Evan used in 1993 before reporting anything to the police), and it has been suggested that had he have been forced to testify, the defence had witnesses (friends of Jordan) who would testify that Jordan had on many occasions quite openly discussed the fact that Michael had not ever touched him and the allegations were totally made up. He has apparently openly admitted this for years.

I can only hope that one day he will have the courage to come forward and tell the world the truth.

As a side note, I would like to add a small piece about journalism. Being a good journalist means presenting facts, not presenting your own personal opinion as fact. Many journalists in the UK are a total embarrassment and routinely, throughout the trial, discussed ridiculous rumour, hyperbole, and their own opinion as concrete evidence of Michael’s guilt. These journalists include Lorraine Kelly, Eamon Holmes, Philip Schofield, and Mathew Wright, among many others. How they were allowed to get away with this slander is totally beyond me, but they still seem to be doing the same thing today. It is a total embarrassment to British journalism. Then we get on to Martin Bashir ...