Author: Dave Rolsky

Lately, I’ve been thinking a bit about how at Compassionate Action for Animals we often substitute volunteer labor for money. I think this is fundamental for any activist organization, and learning how to exploit this dynamic is a key to success. I’m thinking specifically of the conference we just put on. We got a lot of food donations. We served breakfast and lunch for two days to around 180 people. Amazingly, we were able to do this for a mere …

No, unfortunately not the programming kind. Those I can deal with. No, these are in my house, but mostly my home office, keeps getting full of these weird bugs. I think they’re Chinch Bugs, though my friend John swears he’s seen them before and they’re something else. Either way, it’s very annoying. They don’t bite or sting, but I just don’t like bugs. What’s even more disturbing is the vast hordes of them I can see out the windows. Here’s …

This was originally posted on the Voices of CAA Blog, which got fatally dismembered in a CMS upgrade. There’s been a lot of news about vegetarianism and global warming. The New York Times recently reported : The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with …

This was originally posted on the Voices of CAA Blog, which got fatally dismembered in a CMS upgrade. In my last post, AR2007 Thoughts – The Good, I discussed the things I liked about the conference. Now I’ll reveal my cranky side. “Reveal” probably isn’t the right word though, since it’s not exactly hidden. The Bad The bad part of the conference was basically the “official” stuff. The conference could be better organized in a number of ways. Logistically, it …

This was originally posted on the Voices of CAA Blog, which got fatally dismembered in a CMS upgrade. I got back from AR2007 late last night, and I’m brimming with thoughts on the conference, animal rights, and activism. I’ll be writing more on this over the next couple days, but I’ll start with my thoughts on the conference. The Good The best thing about the conference was meeting people (the “hallway track”). It was really cool to connect a face …

This was originally posted on the Voices of CAA Blog, which got fatally dismembered in a CMS upgrade. I’m at AR2007 here in sunny, smoggy LA, and last night was the opening plenary. I had a lot of thoughts during this session, which at a little over two hours, was way too long for me to focus. I guess I’m a child of video games when it comes to my attention span. Thought number one was that there seem to …

This was originally posted on the Voices of CAA Blog, which got fatally dismembered in a CMS upgrade. One of the reasons I wanted to start a CAA blog was because I was inspired by all the great essays that Jack Norris and Matt Ball of Vegan Outreach have written. Their most recent piece is entitled A New World, Piece by Piece, and is well worth reading. By and large, I agree with this essay, and it fits in well …

This was originally posted on the Voices of CAA Blog, which got fatally dismembered in a CMS upgrade. A while ago, I read parts of The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig. Rettig comes from a business background, and that strongly influences her take on how to be an effective activist. One idea she brought up was that a lot of what we do as activists is basically marketing. We are trying to “sell” an idea to people, and get them …