animal photos | My Non Leather Life

Vegan Desert Boots, Vegan Mary Janes, Vegan Cyberpunk Shoes, Thoughts on the Movement, Book Recs, and Green Smoothies

October 10th, 2012

Some things.

1. Have you heard of Toronto Pig Save? I just listened to this amazing interview with the quietly heroic founder Anita Krajnc who explains the effective activism practice of “Bearing Witness”. It is so interesting. She got the idea from reading Tolstoy who was always trying to change whatever he saw that was sad or bad in his community. She is a regular but clearly very compassionate and intelligent person who one day decided to just do something, and it grew into a movement. She is a huge reader, who talks about the Grapes of Wrath and Tolstoy during the interview.

2. Remember the interview I did with Natalie. I got the book she recommended and it is amazing. Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko. I have been drinking green smoothies daily. It is so much fun grinding up all the fruit in the vitamix. I started giving them to my dad every morning too. (I work for him). You got to read this book if you are interested in improving your health. Natalie was right that instead of worrying about GOING vegan, simply becoming aware of how unhealthy your diet may be will make you almost naturally make a shift.

3. I read the book Free The Animals by Ingrid Newkirk that the documentary Behind The Mask was inspired by. It is incredible. Five stars. It has made me more and more interested in this whole movement of people trying in various ways to help animals and change the world. It makes me want to try to do more with this blog, like perhaps trying to submit my article about how to find non leather shoes online to different blogs and stuff so that more people could realize how truly simple it is to stop buying leather shoes. It is amazing how when you truly believe in something, the motivation comes naturally, and it’s not about marketing or networking or getting more followers but helping other people and getting what you know out there so other people can know too.

4. I have found some really cool shoe options on modcloth recently.

I found

a. Vegan Desert Boots.

b. Vegan Faux Suede Chunky Heeled Mary Jane Heels.

This is a shoe I always wished I could have because they remind me of the blogger Making Magique who I did a post on here. (Though not many of the pics I tried to add showed up).

and c.

Vegan Matrix Cyberpunk Shoes

I just thought these were really really cool. Unfortunately they run small and I’m a 10-11. Amazingly these are totally vegan.

You like?

As always, find my nonleather life on facebook. And let me know if you know of any other good websites about animal rights you guys like…I’m in research mode.

-Victoria

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The Documentary Behind The Mask and What I Learned From It

October 1st, 2012

(photo by Jo-Anne McArthur)

Hey Guys,

The mind brims with thoughts for new blog post ideas!

For one, I recently bought some of the shoes I write about and wanted to review them, as I have now seen them IRL (as they say (in real life)) as opposed to just on tiny little images online. I got some great new shoes!

Also…In a panic, I recently deleted a very good post I did about a certain animal rights organization because in doing further research about the cause I became shocked and horrified to learn that the FBI will basically you flag you as a person of interest for even saying you support or agree with what they do. At least that’s what they say in this documentary I watched about them. Paranoid? Maybe, but the internet is a very searchable place. I’m going to wait and do another post about them after I finish the book I just bought about them–Free The Animals: by Ingrid Newkirk (one of my heros).

However I wanted to post an amazing documentary I watched about them on youtube called Behind The Mask.

(creator of the film)

(the tagline says…”if she were your dog, what would you do?” !!)

Part 1

Part 2

(Hopefully you can find the rest…up to part 7…so worth watching them all…you won’t want to stop)

The documentary really made me think about a lot of things. Like everything about animal rights that really changes you, there were parts that were hard to watch. But.

This documentary taught me so much. Here are a few things it taught me:

1. It made me more fired up about veganism

2. It made me more aware of the horrors and the ineffectiveness of animal testing. There is a monkey in the film, who was very sweet natured and who made friends with, and tried to groom an undercover PETA investigator’s hair whenever she passed his cage…who was killed for a household cleaning product. The investigator cries when she talks to the camera about how she wished she could have saved him. I feel you, lady. It is an incredible moment caught on film that made me cry, and that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. When someone really feels something, you feel it too.

3. I realized how important it is to buy cruelty free household supplies and make-up and body care stuff too…hadn’t really been understanding why it was so important till now.

4. It made me more aware of how the government and large companies can hardly stop their own machine. Do I think they are evil? No, but I do feel they have made it impossible to do the right thing. How can McDonalds possibly stop producing big Macs without going bankrupt. It’s such a huge machine. But people probably felt the same way about slavery. They probably thought the world as they knew it would grind to a halt. And yet, they knew it was immoral (to say the least). Have you guys heard of The Ghosts in our Machine? It is a film coming out about this very subject. The animals, of course, are the ghosts, hidden from public view within this never ending machine of consuming meat and animal products, and animal testing. It follows the incredible photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, which I did a post about here, who documents animal cruelty basically but in the most beautiful way so that it is truly art and inspires you to rethink things and change your ways. I can’t wait for it to come out…I think they are wrapping up filming, according to their facebook page.

5. It made me more aware of how laws can be unjust. And how people justify to themselves breaking the law. One person in the doc said, “there is a duty to protect life that always takes precedence over the law.” It reminds me of the Hippocratic Oath doctors take in which they vow to protect human life (I believe). Or how a criminal is always treated before being tried in a court of law. Or how a doctor is obligated to help even the enemy on the front lines of battle. Some people said things like “laws are flexible…they reflect the demands of the people. The only way the laws have every been changed is by outcries, protests, and yes, even violence from the people”.

6. It made me more aware of how seriously the government takes animal rights protestors. If you publicly support animal rights, you may find yourself in what seems to be the plot of an action movie. The lead singer for Goldfinger who is very public about his support for animal rights found helicopters circling his home, which was then totally ransacked by the FBI, looking for spray cans or any sign he could have been involved in the aforementioned animal rights movement. The animal rights lawyer who so inspiringly made the documentary found her phone was being tapped, she was being video taped, and many records of hers had been acquired. She was under constant surveillance by the government. Incredible, and scary. Yet these people still stand up and do what they think is right.

One person said about a monkey in a lab, if there were a human baby in a lab being tortured, it would be my responsibility to remove the baby.

What is amazing you will find is the comments under these videos. Check them out. They are vicious.

Let me know if you watch the doc. It is really really good. Thrilling! Thought Provoking. Sad…and Happy too. Five stars!

Any thoughts anyone might like to add?

And expect some more good blog posts to come.

And also…

Like the blog on Facebook if you haven’t already, because I love to see your faces and I am more easily able to connect with you guys if you ever want to connect!

MyNonLeatherLife

I remain,

-V

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