Popular Writing

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1. Animal Rights Made Simple
   
   This is less than two pages, available in PDF format, and can be printed up as a single double-sided sheet. It summarizes, in elementary terms, best caring's logical case for animal rights in the sense of abolishing animal exploitation. It is recommended for college and university campuses, internet discussion forums, and as a reserve sheet for thoughtful people who sometimes appear at information tabling, street education efforts and the like..
   
   
2. ANIMAL ACTION! A Guide for Animal Activists
   
   For a PDF version click HERE. This activism guide was initially designed for Brock University students whom I teach in the Critical Animal Studies program in the Department of Sociology. It was immediately adapted for general use in the form of "ANIMAL ACTION!" Features include:
   • reference to a speech by Karen Davis, PhD, on not being apologetic about one's animal activism;
   • how to be an activist in relation to yourself, dealing with feelings of apathy, guilt, rage, and despair;
   • how to be diplomatic;
   • how to get on with unsupportive individuals;
   • how to learn easy replies to common objections to animal activism;
   • how to easily obtain a totally free vegetarian starter kit;
   • how to access premium books on vegetarian/vegan nutrition;
   • links to vegetarian and vegan recipes;
   • lists of animal ingredients so you can easily avoid consuming them;
   • lists of the impacts of meat-eating on human health and the environment;
   • lists of companies that do and do not test on animals;
   • lists of charities that do and do not fund animal tests;
   • a table of Joan Dunayer's pioneering substitutes for speciesist language, drawn from her excellent book, Animal Equality: Language and Liberation;
   • perhaps the most extensive ever list of inspiring achievements in the animal protection movement;
   • how to take action as a more traditional animal welfarist, a partial abolitionist, or a total abolitionist; and
   • how to get involved with animal welfare legislation (a bit for my fellow Canadians)
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3. Facing the Facts of Animal Treatment
   
   This pamphlet was composed for a group I co-founded, called University of Toronto Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (U of T SETA). It was designed to inform fellow activists of some of the practices to which nonhuman animals are routinely subjected. Laws have scarcely changed since my work with SETA, and the same can be said of common practices described. One activist reported that she was as profoundly affected by its contents as anything she ever read--most people have little idea of what is actually done to animals behind closed doors of ultrasecure labs, and barricaded slaughter facilities.
   
   
4. Dances with Reason
   
   Once again, this was a companion piece to the previous one, for U of T SETA. It was intended to enable activists to respond to common objections to animal rights or equivalent. Many of the rationalizations that people commonly give to dismiss a stringent concern for animals may seem "lame," on closer examination, and perhaps would not be accepted if they arose in discussion of, for example, human rights.
   
   
5. Animal Liberation Language Guide
   
   This guide is freely adapted from Joan Dunayer's brilliant book, Animal Equality: Language and Liberation (2001). As she rightly point out, part of liberating animals means changing how we think of them, and that necessitates a questioning of the language that we use to think about animals.
   
   
6. Common Fallacies to Avoid
   
   The page is instructive of fallacies in reasoning that occur in any discourse, not just that pertaining to the ethical treatment of animals. In any case, examples of logical fallacies are drawn from arguments that reflect liberated views and also speciesist views.
   
   
7. The Canadian Council on Animal Care's Ethics Code: A Critical Evaluation
   
   Originally developed for a website on University of Toronto's practising of vivisection (the largest centre of invasive animal research in Canada), this critique was since picked up by the New-York-based Medical Research Modernization Committee (MRMC) website, run largely by doctors and scientists against animals used in medical research (for reasons that are ethical, health-related, and that concern actual waste of taxpayers' funds). It is also being used by Lesli Bisgould, Canada's only specialized animal rights lawyer, who is including it in a legal brief in her defamation suit against the Canadian Council of Animal Care (CCAC). The latter group had the temerity to indicate that she was violating confidentiality in her very general description of invasive experiments that occur in Canada, given that she is a member of an animal care committee. CCAC did this even though the descriptions she gave were general, and indeed common knowledge for anyone who is well-read on the subject. They picked on the "wrong" person, and Clayton Ruby will defend her in court.
   
   
8. Between the Silences: A Collection of David Sztybel's Aphorisms
   
   Sayings and maxims that I have written over the years.
   
   
9. Favourite Quotes from Various Sources, edited by David Sztybel
   
   
10. Selected Poems
    
    Written by David Sztybel, plus his favorite poem, with an analysis (Ulysses, by Tennyson)
    
    
11. Peace and Philosophy
    
    Originally given at Kingston Public Library in the fall of 2001, Oct. 29, in one of a series of talks sponsored by OPIRG (Ontario Public Interest Research Group, Kingston Branch), in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Tries to bring to bear rational principles of peace to a troubled situation.
    
    
12. Abraham Lincoln: Dark Side of a Liberator
    
    This brief study that liberators often need to be liberated from their own contradictions.
    
    
13. "MIRROR PRODUCTION"of "The Rights of Animal Persons"
    
    An academic article rendered into general audience terms. Summarizes Sztybel's assessment of speciesism, animal liberationist philosophies, and his animal rights theory based in his own theory of "best caring ethics."
    
    
14. "MIRROR PRODUCTION"of "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism"
    
    Another academic article in general audience language. Argues that legislation that merely reduces suffering can sometimes be ethically acceptable and effective in both the short- and long-terms.
    
    
15. Motivating Yourself to Study: a Student's Guide
    
    Are you a student with motivational difficulties? Or do you know someone who fits that description? Why not try to make a clean sweep of all potential "demotivators"? Sometimes a little insight can really help someone who is struggling turn the corner.
    
    

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