Vegan bike ride/KFC Protest/Film Festival

Hello, again, you amazing animal lovers!!!! I hope you're having a lovely week, despite your several potential midterms. We have several announcements of upcoming events, to get excited about the potential fulfillment of your animal activist desires.

• KFC Protest and Corresponding Poster Creation: We are making signs at our next meeting on Tuesday, March 3rd. We will be going over to the student union to use their slightly less than satisfying supplies, after meeting in the Redwood building. If anyone has access to personal resources (large markers, acrylic paint, paint brushes, etc.), please bring them to add to the potential for impressive posters.
• BSA T-shirt: If you are coming to this week's meeting, please bring a design for a BSA T-shirt. We will be voting on the best design.
• "Go Veg" Campain: Em, one of our lovely members, has recently decided to spear-head this campain, in which omnivores and vegetarians sign up to become either vegetarian or vegan, respetively, for a week. She has obtained 30 signatures while tabling for BSA.
  
• Tabling: This lovely opportunity is starting up again this quarter. Feel free, if you are a part of the club, to come down to the Student Union to check out the BSA box of goodies (brown cardboard, with a green top, labled) from the back room with the approval of a worker. Then, go to the bookstore, use your ID card at the Customer Service center, and check out a table and chairs (the permit is on the underside of the box top). There is nothing more rewarding than spreading knowledge about the potential to create positive change within the animal industries.
• Dharma Bike Ride: At the next meeting, we will also be planning this lovely event as a way to raise awareness of this amazing Santa Cruz resource, a very positive vegan restauraunt (http://dharmaland.com/restaurant/index.php?id=3)

Some enjoyable events for the frustrated creature-lover within you:

• Van Jones, the author of the Green Collar Economy, will be speaking today at 4:00 pm at the 9/10 community room and at 7:30 at the Santa Cruz Civic Center (Church Street and Center Street).

• Vegan potluck next Wednesday, February 18th, from 4 until everyone's bloated. For directions, email slugsforanimals@gmail.com.

Exciting news for those of us with cravings to veg-out on some vegetarian friendly junk food:

• KFC has recently, within Canada (not the US), begun carrying a vegetarian sandwich. So, finally some recognition from this famously animal-abusing chain.

Activity for you to placate your frustration at dog-fighting rings:

• Does anyone remember Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons' quarterback, whose ownership of a dog-fighting complex recently put him on probation from the NFL? Dog-fighting, traditionally, is a very brutal sport, in which dogs (such as those that belonged to Vick's family) are completely abused, both psychologically and physically. Well, here's a way we can fight against his re-reinstatement into the NFL: http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/vick_psychopathy
  

First Entry

Hello, fellow vegetarians/vegans (or those interested in supporting animal rights),

Welcome to the Banana Slugs for Animals blog, sponsored by a creature-loving club housed on the beautiful University of California, Santa Cruz campus. Weekly, there will be postings of links to critter-friendly companies and groups and reminders of Santa Cruz events, for those who live within the area. We hope you enjoy, and feel free to stop by whenever possible.

Educational games for the animal lover in you:

• Peta2's Fast Food Nation Game: http://www.peta2.com/feat/fastfoodnation/
• Vegetarian Society's Veggie Invaders Game: http://www.vegsoc.org/nvw/2004/game/veggieinvade.html
• Cool Vegan Games: http://www.coolvegan.com/games.html#
• For those of you who have a little money to spend (I know I don't), but: http://www.steermadness.com/ (It's an award-winning game about a steer who escapes from a slaughter house)

For Those Interested in Activism:

• Images from several protests: http://www.thinkvegan.net/ (Warning: Slightly Graphic)
• Para los personas que pueden hablar en Español: http://www.igualdadanimal.org/ (muy importante, pero solo en Español)
• If you haven't become a vegetarian yet, why you should: http://www.rightsforanimals.org/liberation.php
• More about animal rights travesties: http://www.vegansoapbox.com/

We are going to have a potluck on Wednesday of this week, so look forward to it.
-Rosie Stevenson