Comments on: Petition to Oprah – Revisited

By: Lane

Lane — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:44:58 +0000

Hi Chrissy,
Thanks for the flattering comment. No, we were no where near first, breaking this story. We’ve both been pretty swamped this week, so by the time we got around to working on the blog post, we’d gotten email from a few of our readers and twitter friends, and Jane’s mom had called and told us about the segment, and it was on our news service too!
But we feel we’re pretty invested in this topic because of our petition.

By: Chrissy

Chrissy — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:06:06 +0000

Haha well I swear I had checked your site to see if you talked about it first.

By: Lane

Lane — Thu, 22 May 2008 06:58:30 +0000

Hi Chrissy,
Yes, that was actually our post today. If/when we receive a response from Oprah, we’ll let you know. So far, we just received the immediate auto-response thanking us for our comments, and letting us know that they get tons of email requests, so we may not be contacted at all.
Regardless, her guide in the 21-day cleanse is vegan herself and has a lot to say on the topic. And we are simply thrilled that the extremely huge Oprah audience is being exposed to veganism.

By: Chrissy

Chrissy — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:38:25 +0000

I just saw on another blog that Oprah is starting a 21 day vegan diet! How exciting is that!? Looking forward to hearing her response to the petition!

By: Lane

Lane — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:16:47 +0000

Hi K,
You’re right, it’s a long shot. But if we get enough people to sign, there is always the possibility she’d do the story. She’s much more influential now than she was back in the early 90s. We were talking about this as we were writing the petition. Personally, I believe she could take this on if she scripted her comments carefully. After all, she wouldn’t be singling out one particular industry… she’d (hopefully) be talking about all the ills of factory farming, across all the various species.

But, Oprah has other venues where she can discuss these more controversial topics… she’s got a radio station where she can have guest experts talk for her, but not necessarily represent her opinions (safe route). She’s got a whole slew of things on YouTube.

And Jane and I truly believe we’re on the vanguard of a major shift in thinking. We don’t believe there will be a huge increase in vegans, but we do think that people will be open to the occasional vegan meal or product in the grocery store. Certainly, they’ll be looking more vegetarian options as we all look for comfortable ways to ease our consciences about what we’re doing to the planet, and the other beings who reside here: the increase in starving humans, and the other species we treat so barbarously. (We refer to this as middle-class guilt — I don’t know who coined the phrase).

Anyway, you can’t change the world unless you try!

By: Lane

Lane — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:11:11 +0000

Hey Melissa, thanks for the details on the Ellen show which Alex referenced earlier.
Re Bush — he hasn’t been to great for the environment either!

By: Lane

Lane — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:08:01 +0000

Hi Savia,
Well… you had a very valid point, which we should have considered early on. If less than 5% of the US population classifies themselves as vegetarian, and less than 5% of those are vegans (source: Wikipedia) then asking for the public to consider going vegan is likely to result in an ongoing battle for her, which clearly, she doesn’t believe in.
Again, thank you for pointing this out. Especially early enough for us to make the modification without too much confusion for everyone.

By: Lane

Lane — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:01:08 +0000

Hi Alex,
I don’t watch much TV to begin with, and neither does Jane. Neither of us has ever seen the Ellen show, so we weren’t aware of this episode.

We wrote our petition to Oprah because she implied that it was okay to treat livestock in the manner in which the dogs at puppy mills were being treated (gestational crates, constant breeding, etc.), but not the dogs themselves.

Also, Oprah has a much further reach than Ellen, so if there is even the slightest chance that we can influence her, think of all the other people we can influence indirectly!

By: K

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:47:44 +0000

Hello – this sounds like a great idea, but I don’t think Oprah will ever do it. Do you remember what happened when she had Howard Lyman (the cowboy who won’t eat meat) on her show and they discussed factory farming? She claimed that she would never eat beef again. The beef industry sued her for it. The charges didn’t stick, but she did get a lot of pressure from the beef industry, and I believe she even renegged her statement that she wouldn’t eat beef because of the pressure. So I really don’t think she is going to want to go down that road again, although I would love to see someone so powerful and influential bring the subject to light. Although I do believe in “never say never” so I will definitely sign the petition and I wish you luck!

By: Melissa Maroff

Melissa Maroff — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:31:46 +0000

For those who are unaware, President Bush has been the worst president for animals. It should improve with each successive administration; not only did it not improve, but regressed…which certainly stands to reason given his record on human rights.