Anthony Marr's CARE-7 tour blog #8
A busy few days:
April 17, Saturday, 4 pm, I gave an 80-minute speech at the Animal Liberation Forum, followed by a 20-minute discussion session. Again, I asked the 70-people audience if they had heard of the term "Latent Heat". Again, not a single hand came up.
But they know now, and the talk probably transformed the outlook of the entire audience.
My MS friend Cathy Garneau was there, whom I met for the first time - a very sweet lady
and talented artist.
I saw Paul Fusch come in about 3 quarters into my speech, but then, like a phantom, he disappeared again. After my speech, I met a remarkable women who exuded a sense of strength and solidity. She told me that she belonged to no group, but I read this as her being the personification of the power-of-one. Her name is Michelle Mars. I lightened it by joking, "If you marry me, all you'd have to do is to change one letter in your name. How's that for a 'marriage of convenience', eh? LOL" Subsequently, she told Anthony D that the movement could use more "powerful voices like Anthony Marr's". I'll have to try harder then.
Unfortunately, Marla Stormwolf-Patty, one of the GAHC team members and a leading anti-crush activist along with Nan Sea Love and Cristina Reyes (of GAHC Australia) was held up by traffic and could not attend. Admittedly, I was disappointed and a little upset, but soon, my "zen" took over, and I was happy again. In any case, we - Marla, Paul, Cathy, and of course Anthony D and I - all got together for a party at Coby's place afterward, and a good time was had by all.
We took some "naughty" pics of Anthony D. and Paul F. simultaneously kissing Marla's cheek,
and we all had a good laugh, joking that we should post it on the internet so that our detractors could blast us for having an "orgy". LOL
April 18, Sunday, 2 pm, vegan potluck at Coby's place. Just a small gathering, but a few old friends came by, including Janet Allen, now called Chicana, whom I've known since 2004. She and I will be going to the David Rubin potluck the next day. A notably person who came in late was Monique Lukens, a young woman with amazing intensity who began with contributing ideas as to how our next funeral for the animals events should be conducted, including dumpster diving for animal bones for the ceremony. After a while, I turned to talking about hunting, and she was flabbergasted by what I revealed. She stayed the entire evening and to work on an email to the organizer of a luncheon with Ed Asner on April 21, Wednesday, suggesting to the organizer that since Mr. Asner was an animal advocate, that the venue should be a veg restaurant, instead of the Eclectic Restaurant whose menu was full of meat dishes. I let her use my laptop,
and since I then could not use it, I went to Coby's piano. When I played the theme of Gone With the Wind, Monique loved it, and asked me to play it over again. After midnight, she did a short interview with me on her recorder for her new radio program. It took us about 7 takes to get it done. By then it was 2 a.m., and I walked her out to her car.
April 19, Monday, 6:30 pm, vegan potluck at David Rubin's place. About a dozen people present, including Armaiti May who introed my talk, Janet Allen, Bob Linden, Coby's daughter Noor, Julie Leibovitz, James Claire Lewis, and Plinio J. Garcia of JGreen Natural Foods Inc, who asked me to email him for him to send in a donation, among others.
It was a vegan group, so I started on that track, but did move on to hunting and global warming and again, no one had heard of "Latent Heat". The Q&A was concentrated on saving the planet from Runaway Global Heating. Plinio started by talking about converting the world to veganism "one plate at a time", but after a bit, he began to say that that would be too slow, and that I had given him a sense of urgency not there before. All were in a state of harmony in the discussion, but the gent from India criticized me for calling the hunters "serial killers", saying that I should not attack people but to sweet-talk to them. My retort was that of everybody in the room, he was the only person who attacked me, drawing a roomful of laughter. LOL
April 20, Tuesday: A rest day, but no rest for me. Monique called in the morning giving Coby the good news that she could bring a guest to the Asner luncheon, and asked Coby to go. Coby deferred to me, and wrote back to Monique, who called me later to invite me to be her guest. So, I spent the whole rest of the day writing a letter to Mr. Asner, which was still unfinished by night fall.
April 21, Wednesday: This was a sad day for the AR movement. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law that bans videos portraying cruelty to animals, which left crush videos and dog-fighting videos in limbo, sending the whole AR movement into an uproar and a tail-spin, centered upon anti-crush. This is a clear case of hunters grouping their hunting videos and the crush videos together so that, in order to protect the legality of the hunting videos, they are defending the crush videos - how contemptibly despicable, or despicably contemptible - your choice!
I spent the morning finishing my letter to Mr. Asner, award-winning actor, animal advocate, age 80. By 11:00, it was done.
(To read this letter, please go to www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com)
I packed up, went to the nearest Office Depot to get it printed out, and arrived at the Eclectic Restaurant on time, with the letter sandwiched between the pages of my second book [Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH!]. When settled, there were about 20 guests seated at a long table, with Mr. Asner at the head.
After the lunch, he came down to our end of the table to chat with us. I found him very personable, humble. genuine and approachable. In a momentary lull, I stood up at the tail end of the table and asked loudly, "Mr. Asner, do you have any influence over the Supreme Court or the Congress?" He laughed, and his answer showed that he was already keenly aware of what happened this morning. I presented my book and letter to him.
Monique loved him, and he seemed very fond of her. They talked for quite a while.
Towards the end of the luncheon, we took our group picture, and then, Mr. Asner called out, "Where is my book? Where is my book?!" meaning [Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH!]!!! Apparently, when he changed seats, he had left it at the previous seat. Someone found it and brought it to him. He hugged it. I am so gratified!
When I was walking Monique back to her car, she said how happy she was that I went with her. "It was meant to be," she said. Quite a remarkable woman.
Later this evening, Marla told us that the Congress is tabling a bill to ban crush videos, while stressing that hunting videos are to be forever unassailable. This is another case of hunter manipulation, except, now, perhaps due to the fury generated in the AR movement, they have separated the hunting videos from the crush videos, to allow banning the latter while iron-casting the former. Elementary, Watson! My new strategy, therefore, is to use the hideous hunting videos as weapons to destroy hunting.
Anthony Marr, Founder and President
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC)
Anthony-Marr@HOPE-CARE.org
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.YouTube.com/AnthonyMarr
www.myspace.com/Anti-Hunting_Coalition
www.facebook.com/Anthony.Marr.001
www.facebook.com/Global_Anti-Hunting_Coalition
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com (search for “Anthony Marr Heal Our Planet Earth”)
www.ARConference.org
Touring cell: 216- 386- 7362 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 216- 386- 7362 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 216- 386- 7362 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 216- 386- 7362 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 216- 386- 7362 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
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