November 2015

A Vegetarian Journal for Quakers and Other People of Faith

The Peaceable Table is intended for the mutual support, education, and inspiration of

 people of faith in the practice of compassionate love for our fellow animals and Peaceful dining

Glimpses of the Peaceable Kingdom

Human Befriends Piglet

And Piglets Befriend Humans

Piglets have a remarkable gift for converting bacon-lovers into friends of live pigs, just by being the playful, lovable babies they are.  See Piglet Friends .  

Editor’s Corner Essay:  The Three Rings and the One Ring

Power and Social Justice

The issue of power is vital to any social-justice issue, and the cause of the animals is no exception.  All animal activists and many supporters know that the enormous wealth of the meat, dairy, egg, and pharmaceutical moguls gives them great political power over the public, in government, and in the areas of science that deal with nutrition and health.  Too often, their friends are the ones who receive lucrative consultancy fees and research grants, win elections, and get seats on government health advisory committees, while their foes tend to lose out.  It’s obvious that here we have examples of the Gold Rule--“Those with the gold make the rules.”   Indeed, great power seems to be the enemy of liberation and justice.

But Power, like the Force in Star Wars, has both a bright, day side and a night side.  Feminists of the Second Wave, conscious of awakening from centuries of patriarchal domination and coming into their own, typically distinguished between its two sides, power-over and empowerment.  Power-over meant the drive to name, control, and incorporate “lesser” beings and things for one’s own aggrandisement.  In contrast, empowerment meant the process of “hearing her into speech”--encouraging the other person, who is essentially an equal, to shake off the influence of demeaning labels and learn from within who she (or he) really is, and grow into her own power.  Something of the same distinction applies to the lords of the animal industries and those of us who seek to dismantle them and liberate their victims, though here it is more complex.

The Rings of Power

J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings provides a compelling image for these two sides in the Rings of Power.  As explained earlier in “To Seek the Bright Enchanted Gold”

( Issue 86 ), in the quasi-medieval world of the novel, all things are alive to a greater or lesser degree, and linked together, so that an individual’s will, words, and deeds have an impact on other beings and objects in his or her sphere of influence.  Elves and other beings who have great psycho-spiritual power could, by means of spells and skill with precious metals and gems, craft objects that incorporate and focus their powers, of whatever sort they might be.  These powerful objects could be wielded by others persons, though only those others who had considerable power of their own could engage the full power in the object.

Thus in the Second Age of the story’s distant past, the celebrated Elven-smith Celebrimbor made the Three Rings of the Elves, incorporating magical power with that of the elements: Vilya the Ring of Air (or Firmament) with its blue stone, Nenya the Ring of Water with its clear diamond, and Narya the Ring of Fire with its red stone.   (The stones, incidentally were probably domed in shape; faceting was unknown in the early Middle Ages that provided Tolkien’s models.)  The Three are intended to empower.   “[T]hey were not made as weapons of war or conquest: that is not their power.  Those who made them did not desire strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained” (p. 282).  Consistent with these life-giving intentions, their maker did not keep them for himself but gave them to other powerful Elves who shared his deep desire to understand, create, protect, and heal the world.  These Elves used them as  their maker intended, and, with real but limited success, to block the aggressions of Sauron, the Dark Lord.  However, they did not have the ability to defeat him ultimately.

Vilya, the Ring of Air or Firmament with its “great blue stone,” is held by the Elf-lord Elrond.  It is described as “mightiest of the Three,” but we know less about it for certain than about the other two.  We do know that Elrond is “a master of healing,” and that he practices a form of surgery, probably mind directly impacting matter.  He tended Frodo for days after he was pierced by the evil morgul-knife, his (Elrond’s) iherent healing power probably enhanced and focused by Vilya. He brought the stricken hobbit back from the edge of death and the permanent slavery of his spirit to the Dark Lord that would otherwise have resulted from the fragment of the blade that had lodged in his shoulder, and was working its way inward.  We also know that the river Bruinen which partially encircles Elrond’s home Rivendell was under the Elf-Lord’s power, so that when the first of the Black Riders tried to cross it to pursue Frodo, Elrond (with Gandalf’s help) summoned a sudden huge flood that swept away the invaders.  This was certainly an example of protection, so Vilya may have been involved in it, though one might have thought a windstorm more in keeping with the Ring of Air.

Nenya, the Ring of Water, is held by the Elven-Lady Galadriel.  Although she has had and wielded it for millennia, she does not consider it her possession:  “This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper,” she tells Frodo, who is able to see it on her finger, as well as the intense light it sometimes emits.  Its particular powers seem to be clairvoyance (clear-seeing) and telepathy; it also enables her to foster and preserve the Edenic vitality and beauty of her land of Lorien, as well as protect the land and its inhabitants from Sauron’s aggression.  “‘I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves.  And he gropes ever to see me and my thought.  But still the door is closed!’ She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial” (p. 380).  Nenya is doubtless also involved in the workings of Galadriel’s Mirror, a silver basin located in a garden, into which the Elven-Lady pours water in order to see in it clairvoyant images of what goes on far away.  She can command the Mirror to reveal things she wants to see; it will also show other scenes, unbidden, to her or to those she invites to look into it.

Narya, the Ring of Fire, was held (but not owned) by Gandalf.  The Elf-Lord who had had it before passed it on to him when he appeared in Middle-Earth, about three thousand years before our story begins, to further strengthen the wizard in his task of resisting the tyranny of Sauron. This is appropriate, as fire is apparently Gandalf’s particular element: he says “I am a servant of the secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor” (p. 344).  The Flame of Anor may be Narya itself, or may refer to the way Narya increases the power he already has; perhaps Gandalf joined its power to that of Vilya when together they raised the flood.  This ring also has the ability to raise the courage of those around the wearer and hearten them to resist domination by evil, even though most of them cannot see it on his hand, and need not touch it to benefit. Narya doubtlessly also has a part in Gandalf’s creation of beauty in the fireworks that light up the dark sky, thus awakening joy.

Clearly the Three Rings are lifegiving; the One Ring is death-dealing. Sauron, who, appearing to the Elven-smiths as a friend millennia ago had taught them profound Ring lore and skills, meanwhile learning their secrets, then betrayed them.  He secretly forged the One Ring in order to gain control of the Three and of other, less powerful rings, and make use of them in his drive to dominate and devour all beings and things.  His is the ultimate Power-Over.  Any good that once was in him has turned to evil, and his Ring is “altogether evil.” Sauron corrupts many, directly and indirectly, ranging from the nine human beings to whom he had given rings of power, so that “they became Ringwraiths, shadows under his great Shadow, his most terrible servants” (p. 60), to Smeagol, the proto-hobbit who took possession of the One Ring with an act of deadly violence, and as a result endured for centuries the agony of severe, never-appeased addiction.  Sauron does not hesitate to torture those from whom he seeks information, or just for spite--to death if he chooses, and even beyond.  He destroys nations and cultures, massacres thousands, and, as he takes increasing control of Middle Earth, turns the fair green world into a desert like the Arthurian Waste Land.

Animal Agribusiness and Power-Over

The lords of agribusiness do not have the absolute power the One Ring gives, but the working of their empires is similar to that of Sauron, and produces many of these same death-dealing effects. They corrupt many:  their spokespersons, marketers, advertisers, and others who promote their sales with euphemisms, half-truths, concealments, and lies.  They also corrupt the unfortunates (often undocumented immigrants) who find they can get no better work than killing innocents day after day.  Some of these workers suffer perpetrator-PTSD as as result; some take out their intolerable stress in domestic violence, or sadistic abuse of the animals.  The frenetic speed of the massacre-lines causes workers many injuries, in some cases leading to job loss and unemployability (of course there are no insurance payments). The maximum-profit methods used for rearing and killing animal-slaves depend on casually inflicting tortures of the most atrocious sort, including dumping chickens and pigs alive into scalding water.  The millions of consumers, brainwashed into feasting daily on the resulting milk, eggs, and pieces of flesh, suffer heightened rates of chronic illness and premature death.  Thwarted in recent years by decreasing sales in the US, the moguls carry their products, with their inevitable train of sickness and earlier death, abroad. Disempowered third-world people go hungry while they watch the agribusiness empires take over large areas of their land.  The empires’ methods sweep across oceans burgeoning with life, and leave underwater moonscapes; they pollute streams, lakes, and oceans, bringing sickness and death to water-dwellers; via Wildlife Services they kill millions of free-living creatures that compete with their herds; they turn grasslands and rainforests, particularly in the Amazon, into pastures, then deserts;  they befoul the air with methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases that spur-on climate change, and may in time destroy all living beings.  Like Sauron, they, together others of their ilk, are turning our green earth into a Waste Land.

Animal Activism and Empowerment

But like the Elves who made and wield the Three Rings, we animal activists--at our best--do “not desire strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained (p. 282)”  We want to free and empower laboratory and farmed animals to be who they really are, to live as they evolved to live.  We want to empower our fellow humans who are imperceptibly being sickened  by eating animal products (and other non-foods) to realize abounding health through eating plants.  We want to see the oceans again burgeoning with living creatures, and the land green and fruitful.  We want the planet’s air to be fresh, fragrant, and life-giving.

But we are few compared to those working in the thrall of the empires.  We do not have the supernormal powers of the Elves or their Three Rings; we “must use such strength and heart and wits as [we] have” (p. 70).  Furthermore, we are not always at our best, alas, and some of us have a very long way to go.  No one reading The Peaceable Table needs to be told how hard it is for a compassionate person to expose her- or himself to pictures, videos, and accounts of what is done to innocents in the factory farms and slaughterhells (not to mention seeing the actual thing), and some degree of exposure is necessary if one is to inform oneself, and to gauge carefully just what and how much to present to which audience.  It is hard not to respond with anger against the perpetrators, and against people who resist appeals to open their hearts to the animals and stop supporting the empires with their dollars.  This is especially true when the stubborn ones are persons close to us.  But when we fail to subdue our anger and make it serve our compassion, it is as though we tried to use the One Ring against Sauron.  It doesn’t work.  We will often convince listeners we fit the stereotype of the intolerant, irate vegan; we will turn many people off and harm our own cause.

There are other ways we activists can sabotage our efforts, such as nasty infighting within and between groups, which drains our energy and spirits as well as supporting the stereotype; another is use of heavy power-over tactics within organizations, which contributes to burnout.  Still another is bad judgment in outreach.  With all that said, it must also be admitted that in many situations there is no one right way to respond; and that anxious, defensive listeners will project their guilt-feelings upon us whether we are hostile or not.  Though we are not Elves and very few of us are saints (yet), we must learn to speak with Grace if we are to awaken the numb of heart, either now or some time in the future.

But Isn’t There Good In Such Power?

For a long time, the drive to dominate, to wield power over others, was a complete mystery to me.  In my early life I saw more than enough of the way it blights tenderness and closeness and deep communication; it is the foot-binding of the soul.  Later, when I realized that a great deal of unconscious insecurity often underlies the drive, it became less opaque, but it still seemed completely undesirable.  It seemed so obvious to me (and still does) that tender mutual love between equals is the most precious thing of all; how can any contemptuous sense of superiority, of being feared and obeyed, compete with that joy?  A fortiori, the damage is much more horrifying when power-over is wielded on wider stages, especially global ones.  Absolute power does corrupt absolutely.

The One Ring may be altogether evil, but ”nothing is evil in the beginning.  Even Sauron was not so” (p. 281)  In fact, there is a common ground underlying the keepers of the Three Rings and the maker of the One Ring: namely, the desire to create structure out of chaos, to provide a center of meaningfulness where common values were lacking, people were adrift, and disorder ruled.  Examples of healthy power-over in our everyday life are not hard to find: the power of a white-gloved traffic cop to keep the streams of vehicles moving around an obstacle; the power of firm-but-loving parents over young children, who may resent hearing no but are taught, by strong limits, to check their own harmful feelings; the power of a skillful teacher to awaken interest and enthusiasm in a restless class.

The challenge, of course, is to be able to provide the needed order, structure, and direction without the situation becoming All About Me.  And to achieve this most difficult balance, the person in power, the one in charge of creating and sustaining meaning, must be--of all things-- humble.  C. S. Lewis gives a vivid image of true humility in The Screwtape Letters:  Humility means “the state of mind in which [one] could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the the best . . . without being any more . . . glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another” (p. 73).  It means to be a keeper of a ring of power, not its owner; to be always ready to pass it on to another at the right time.

It is the power to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and to be a co-creator together with God.  

The photo shows the gorgeous Salisbury Cathedral, the work of two architects (the splendid central tower was added later).  The Tolkien quotations are from the 1993 hardback Houghton Mifflin edition of The Fellowship of the Ring.  The Lewis quotation is from the 1942, 1954 hardback G. Bles edition of The Screwtape Letters. 

Unset Gems

“Power tends to corrupt.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

--John Dalberg-Acton, First Baron Acton

 “. . . [F]aith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the well-being of other human beings to the broader concern for the well-being of the birds in our backyards, the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the earth.”

 --Attributed to John Wesley, founder of Methodism, who became a compassionate vegetarian

--Contributed by Lorena Mucke

The human palate for animal products is eating up rainforests, exterminating wild animals and habitats, ruining oceans, hurting birds, fish, and mammals, and supporting slaughter cultures of total sadism . . . . [But] if suddenly, this minute, all animal products vanished  . . . to be replaced with the smorgasbord of vegan entrees and desserts, people would be happy.  “Oh, this is delicious! I had no idea.”  . . . . So let’s make it happen.

--Karen Davis, founder of United Poultry Concerns

NewsNotes

Many British Dairymen Quitting

According to Mercy for Animals, half of British dairy farmers are leaving the industry as a result of falling milk prices.  See Dairy  This is very hopeful, but we must hold in the Light of Love the cows who will be summarily sent to the slaughterhells.

--Contributed by Angie Cordeiro

And Half of Ocean Fish Gone

According to a report from World Wildlife Fund and the London Zoological Society, the number of fish in the oceans has dropped by forty-nine percent since 1970; the piscine family that includes tuna and mackerel has plummeted seventy-five percent.  See Half Gone

--Contributed by MFA and Lorena Mucke

Canadian Meat Consumption Plummets

Since 1999, the percentage of cows eaten in Canada has dropped nineteen percent, and that of pigs thirty-one percent, although disposable income has actually risen.  See Meat Drop

--Contributed by MFA

Killing Lions for Fun

Ninety-three percent of wild lion populations have been killed or have otherwise died in the last fifty years.  Furthermore, an estimated ninety-five percent of hunter kills in S. Africa have been in canned hunts.  And hunters claim they’re conservationists!  What humans do to our cousins, bearers of the Divine Light, is almost unspeakable.  See Animal Spirit  (scroll down almost halfway) and LionAid

--Contributed by Marian Hussenbux

Animals Dream Too

Scientists have found evidence that dogs and orangutans dream, and that rats, octopuses and queen ants think while sleeping (which sounds very much like dreaming).  Smithsonian, October 2015

--Contributed by Gerald Niles

Recipes

Lentil Chili

3 cups chopped onion

3 tablespoons olive oil

1-2 tablespoons salt

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon granulated onion

1 tablespoon granulated garlic

14 oz. can tomato sauce

½ cup ketchup or 2 tablespoons tomato paste

4 ½ cups lentils

12 cups water (more as needed)

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

Spring onion, chopped (optional)

Cook lentils in water for 30 minutes on medium low heat after bringing to a boil.  Sauté onions in pan with olive oil until caramelized, about 10 minutes. Add to lentils.  Add remaining ingredients except for ketchup and paprika. Cook another 20 minutes or until broth gets creamy. Add more water as needed.  Add ketchup/tomato paste and paprika, garnish with spring onion if desired. and serve.

Serves 10.  Freezes well or keeps in the refrigerator as a handy go-to food for 4-7 days.

This savory dish is useful for pleasing the palate of folks transitioning to a veg diet.  Good accompaniments would be a corn muffin or corn chips.

(Non-stick frying pans have their own hazards, but enable us to drastically reduce the amount of oil, and  thus reduce the risk of cancers.)

--Angie Cordeiro

Quick and Creamy Carrot Soup

4 carrots, chopped in 2 inch rounds

2 cups filtered water

1 low sodium vegetable bouillon cube (such as Edward & Sons)

Cilantro or parsley for garnish

Bring carrots and water to boil in a small soup pot.  Simmer until carrots are very tender. Turn off heat.  Place carrots and half of the cooking water into a high speed blender.  Put vegetable bouillon cube in the water that is left in the soup pot to dissolve. Puree the carrots until creamy, return to the soup pot and stir until water is incorporated into the puree.  Garnish with fresh cilantro or parsley.

--Angie Cordeiro

Angie created this soup for us Ellwoods for an Emmaus Feast; it was pronounced “stellar.”--Ed.

Book Review:  The End of Captivity?

Tripp York, The End of Captivity? A Primate's Reflections on Zoos, Conservation, and Christian Ethics. Forward by Laura Hobgood-Oster. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015. Pp. xxi + 134. $19.00 paperback.

Unless we include certain ants who keep and milk aphids, humans are the only species who “domesticate” animals of other species, i.e., hold them in captivity. And what a variety of creatures! Beings of land and sea, from gigantic elephants and whales to the barely visible, from mammals not entirely unlike us to alien-seeming serpents and edible snails, exist in human-made prison cells along the labyrinths of life. They are confined for all sorts of purposes, from love to brutal labor or food, and in all sorts of ways, from almost regal bounty to conditions little different from those of a concentration camp.

This captive animal realm in the shadow of humanity is the burden of Tripp York's study, short and highly readable, yet by no means lightweight. He opens with an account of the 1514 gift by the king of Portugal of a small white elephant brought from his possessions in India, and presented to Pope Leo X, the pontiff who confronted Martin Luther. Whatever other faults that ruler of the church may have had, he loved and cared for the animal, named Hanno, with almost extreme devotion. (Indeed, certain grumpy Protestant critics took Hanno's favored status as one more sign of the hopeless corruption of the Vatican.) But only Hanno knew whether he enjoyed that indulged life in the eternal city, or would rather have been back with his family amid the jungles and dangers, but also the freedom, of his homeland.

This curious story leads York into a lengthy consideration of zoos. He knows whereof he speaks. While a religious studies professor and ethicist at Virginia Wesleyan in Norfolk, he also worked for two years as a volunteer in a nearby zoo, shoveling, he tells us, vast amount of elephant and giraffe manure. He also conversed with the zoo director, a thoughtful friend of animals; some of the dialogue is included here. The zoo dialectic offers much "on the one hand, but on the other hand" kind of writing, but it is hard to see how, when it comes to zoos, one can get much beyond that. Zoos imprison yet they also preserve; they distort the lives of animals yet they also educate humans. As habitats disappear in the wild, zoos maintain species even as their lives become increasingly artificial. The best York can hope for is for zoos to get better and better in terms of animals' living conditions, as the good ones have in recent years, and that the opportunity to see certain endangered species therein may inspire some attenders to devote serious effort to their preservation in freedom.

No such ambivalence obtains as York moves on to the immensely vaster and more tortured animal confinement of the food industry. He is totally against it, and as a Christian ethicist lines up a very helpful series of Bible quotes supporting what he convincingly holds is the biblical position on animals, summarized in four points: that animals do not belong to us but to God; that their ultimate purpose is not to serve us, but to serve God; that God cares for all animals, both human and nonhuman; and finally that animals like us will forever reside in God's kingdom.

Needless to say, not everyone agrees. The author in his characteristic fair-minded and entertaining way includes dialogues with students who, at best, were still wrestling with the issues. One, for example, was passionately committed to saving elephants, yet ate the meat of cows without a second thought. When York confronted him with this, he was dumbfounded, obviously having never thought about the contradiction, but finally could only say that cows are meant for humans to eat (differing here, York points out, with Hinduism), while elephants apparently are not. York himself lists sixteen reasons why he is a vegetarian, and has been since his college days, a catalog many readers may find helpful for their own thinking.

Toward the end, York resurrects yet another dialogue, this one with Fred, an old friend from graduate student days, now an experimental farmer who has developed a highly humane form of animal agriculture he offers as an alternative to factory farming. Fred is not a vegetarian; indeed he sees eating meat as a kind of sacrament, and considers vegetarianism to be "ecologically naive." Needless to say Tripp York, though respecting what Fred is trying to demonstrate through his model farm, does not agree, but their exchange of ideas is stimulating. I always end up on York's side, but appreciate his ability to enter into other lives, both human and animal, and give life both to the complexity and the excitement of animal issues. This highly recommended book can be read in an afternoon, but will leave you with much to think about for weeks.

--Robert Ellwood

Children’s Book Review: The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate

Kelly, Jacqueline.  The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate.  New York:  Henry Holt & Co., 2015.  312 pages Hardcover.  $16.99.

Calpurnia is a brave and intelligent twelve-year-old living in the town of Fentress, Texas, of yesteryear.  Her wise grandfather Capt. Walter Tate, a veteran, has left the military and the business world behind to channel all his energy and intelligence into scientific investigation and into teaching science to his granddaughter, who inherits his searching mind.  Were it not for him, Callie would be an unhappy child learning only cooking, knitting, sewing and other domestic arts, in which she has no interest or aptitude.

Her brother Travis, age eleven, is a great animal lover, an heir to Francis of Assisi and Radagast the Brown, who has already raised a blue-ribbon-winning Angora rabbit imaginatively named Bunny.  But he needs a playmate and companion  who can also learn to fetch.  He and Calpurnia are not only siblings but also friends and accomplices.  Together they find an armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus, whom Travis wants as his companion creature notwithstanding lack of skill at fetching.  Not a good idea, because the beasties are neither gregarious nor cuddly even with one another, much less with humans.  Travis, sweet optimist that he is, believes he can surmount this minor difficulty.  But there is a much worse problem:  armadillos, as was first discovered in this fateful year 1900, carry Hansen’s disease: leprosy, that long-dreaded scourge.  This fact is enough to frighten Travis into setting the armadillo free (and becoming something of a hypochondriac).

Next in the quest of Travis is his attempts to raise two chicks of Cyanocitta cristata, the lovely but unloved bluejay.  Though they share their color with the Bluebird of Happiness, they have personalities more akin to those of crows and ravens, which explains (most) humans’ dislike.  Travis’ birdies are cherished; but, alas, one of them dies in the night of natural causes.  Travis and Callie hold a funeral, with Callie “wondering if you are allowed to pray over a dead bird.” ( If she had been familiar with the Gospels, she would know their answer:  “Not one [sparrow] will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care” [Mt. 10:29].)  The second bird, sadly, also perishes, slain by the cook’s cat.

Then the story of Travis’ quest for the right animal friend is interrupted by a major event, foreshadowed by the appearance of a bird never seen before in inland Fentress:  Leucophaeus  atricilla, the laughing seagull.  The bird utters a “jeering, abrasive, unearthly cry” (p. 51), far worse than any raven proclaiming “Nevermore!”  Grandfather Tate realizes that the presence, 200 miles from shore, of a gull who is seldom more than twenty-five miles from the sea means that the coast of Texas is about to be hit by a major storm.  So he sends warning telegrams to the mayors of Galveston and several other Texas coastal cities, while his daughter-in-law telephones her sister in Galveston.  But, sadly, the captain’s warnings, like those of Homer’s Kassandra, are ignored, and there is no evacuation.  (The storm and flood are historical; of the 36,000 inhabitants of Galveston, between 6,000 and 12,000 perished in the waters, and of the buildings only a handful remained.)

Two refugees from the  Galveston storm do come to Fentress.  One is Cousin Aggie, who is greedy and selfish, but teaches Calpurnia about two useful inventions:  the typewriter and the savings bank account.  The other is Dr. Pritzker, a Texan originally from Ohio who studied veterinary science in Chicago. Of all the Tates the ones happiest to welcome Dr. Pritzker are of course Calpurnia and Travis, who hope he will teach them how to become veterinarians.  It is ironic that the family and the doctor think Travis should be the one to study it; how could anyone of the Fair Sex possibly learn and follow a profession which so obviously demands the Manly Mind?  In fact, though both children love animals greatly, Travis faints at the sight and sometimes the mere thought of blood, whereas Callie could do the work capably. In any case, she makes herself useful to the doctor in his vet duties, typing prescriptions, letters, medicine labels, and assisting in operations.

Travis adopts yet another potential animal companion, a raccoon (Pocyon lotor).  Unfortunately she is a predator and a great danger to the chickens, and must be expelled.  Poor Travis again sheds a flood of tears. But brother and sister also find a strange animal which they have trouble identifying.  This turns out to be, by some divine miracle, the sole survivor of a litter of half-dog, half-coyote litter of puppies, nearly all of whom were drowned (not in the Galveston flood).  Travis pleads for the poor little canine’s life, and Calpurnia and Dr. Pritzker together manage to save him.  This coydog, now named Scruffy, finally proves to be a viable and useful member of the family, and is adopted.  Permanently!

In the Acknowledgements, author Kelly reveals that Scruffy is based on a real-life Scruffy the Coydog--Scruffy à clef, one might say.  The latter is a female half-chow, whereas the fictional one is a male half-terrier, but both are very lovable.  If there is only one lesson to be learned from this entertaining book, it is that coydogs are wonderful creatures who should be cherished and loved, not persecuted.  But of course there are other truths here to expand our minds and hearts: much about animals, both wild ones and those we choose as companions, and the vexing question of where we should draw the borderline betwixt the twain.  The book also has a great deal to teach us about children, education, families, natural history and natural disasters, the Texas of a century ago, and weather forecasting.  I especially recommend the book for bright children who find their education inadequate.

--Benjamin Urrutia

Poetry:  J.R.R. Tolkien, 1893-1973

Untitled

Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Issue copyright © 2015 by VegetarianFriends

The Peaceable Table is a project of Quaker Animal Kinship / Animal Kinship Committee of Orange Grove Friends Meeting, Pasadena, California. It is intended to resume the witness of that excellent vehicle of the Friends Vegetarian Society of North America, The Friendly Vegetarian, which appeared quarterly between 1982 and 1995. Following its example, and sometimes borrowing from its treasures, we publish articles for toe-in-the-water vegetarians as well as long-term ones.

We manage on the traditional shoestring budget, with most funds for domain name, server, and advertisements coming out of our own pockets; so we welcome donations (we’re tax-exempt)  either by PayPal or check.  Make checks out to Quaker Animal Kinship, and send to treasurer Robert Ellwood, 14 Krotona Hill, Ojai, CA 93023.

This journal is intended to be interactive; contributions, including illustrations, are invited for the next issue. Deadline for the December, 2015 issue will be November 25.  Send to graciafay@gmail.com or 14 Krotona Hill, Ojai, CA 93023. We operate primarily online in order to conserve trees and labor, but hard copy is available for interested persons who are not online. The latter are asked, if their funds permit, to donate $12 (USD) per year.

Website: www.vegetarianfriends.net

Editor: Gracia Fay Ellwood

Book and Film Reviewers: Benjamin Urrutia and Robert Ellwood

NewsNotes Reporters:  Lorena Mucke, Marian Hussenbux

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