Tag: VegSource.Com

Just How Gullible Is Robert Cohen?

Apparently there is no factual error enough to big or small for Robert Cohen to avoid. In his latest NotMilk Newsletter published on June 28, 2002, Cohen reprints an article he wrote about Charles Patterson’s Eternal Treblinka.

Patterson’s book compares animal agriculture with the Holocaust. Cohen writes,

I have just been informed by Mr. Patterson that his Eternal Treblinka has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Sorry, Robert, but this is yet another lie you have let slip in your newsletter.

Here’s the reality. According to online bookstores, Eternal Treblinka was published in February 2002. As such, if it wanted to be considered for the Pulitzer Prize, the author or publisher would have had to send $50 and four copies of the book to the Pulitzer Prize folks by July 1, 2002.

Patterson, along with probably 800 or 900 other people, apparently did this. Anybody who wants to pay $50 and supply four copies can enter any book published before June 30, 2002 into the Pulitzer Prize contest. This is about as impressive as Patterson saying that they may have won $10 million from the Publisher’s Clearing House.

When the media say a book has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, what they really mean is that it is a Pulitzer Prize Nominated Finalist. These are books that juries have selected as finalists for the ultimate Pulitzer Prize. As a Pulitzer Prize FAQ on terminology notes,

Work that has been submitted for Prize consideration but not chosen as either a nominated finalist or a winner is termed an entry or submission. No information on entrants is provided.

Eternal Treblinka has not been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Patterson just sent off his $50 check like anybody else who published a book in the first sixth months of 2001 could have done.

What is interesting is that Cohen is not the only animal rights activist pretending that an animal rights-oriented book has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In fact Cohen’s nemesis, VegSource.Com, has several articles (see here or here for just two examples) that claim that John Robbins’ Diet for a New America was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

This claim is widely repeated on animal rights sites on the Internet — including quite a few who upgrade Robbins’ alleged prize, claiming that “Diet for a New America” was a Pulitzer Prize winning book.

In fact, a quick look at the Pulitzer Prize web site finds it is not listed as either a Nominated Finalist nor a winner for any year between 1980 and 2000 (the book was published in 1987).

Isn’t there anybody in the animal rights movement with even a modicum of integrity?

Sources:

Eternal hell for cows. Robert Cohen, NotMilk Newsletter, June 28, 2002.

Pulitzer Prize Terminology.

Jeff Nelson vs. Robert Cohen: A Battle of Wits Between Disarmed Opponents

A few months ago Jeff Nelson of VegSource.Com and Robert Cohen, the anti-dairy activist who calls himself the Not Milk Man, had a public falling out which led Nelson to abruptly cease hosting Cohen’s web site. This month VegSource traded barbs online over who was more dishonest/deceitful. The answer, of course, is both of them.

Nelson tries to sell visitors to his site a bill of goods as slick and deceitful as any nonsense put out by Cohen. According to an essay posted to the VegSource.Com web site, Beware of Robert Cohen aka the NotMilk Man, Nelson and company have long knew that Cohen was full of it and have a duty to warn people away from Cohen,

No matter what reason brings a person to vegetarianism, ethics play a role. We do it because it’s the right thing to do for our health, our environment, or the animals we use for food.

. . .

Honesty and integrity — a respect for truth — has motivated numerous top vegetarian and vegan experts, scientists, MDs, authors and activists to arrive at the same conclusion: Robert Cohen is a fraud.

Cohen, who sometimes calls himself the “notmilk man,” is abusive and dishonest. He also has a propensity for fabricating scientific data which has time and again been shown to be not only worthless, but potentially dangerous.

. . .

VegSource has run numerous articles over time documenting Cohen’s unscrupulous excesses.

Oh yeah, the VegSource crowd have been really diligent about Cohen.

Jeff Nelson was so concerned about Cohen’s lies, that until February 2002, VegSource hosted Cohen’s web site, NotMilk.Com.

Nelson knew all along that Cohen was a fraud which is why Nelson invited to VegSource.Com’s Sept. 2001 E-Vent. Nelson addressed that E-Vent on Sept. 28, 2001 mentioning the speakers who would be featured, including this bit about Cohen,

Robert Cohen? WeÂ’ve got your case of White Wave Chocolate Silk out in the van. It was delivered this morning by a group of slaves. But seriously, weÂ’re thrilled to have Robert here, this is the first time IÂ’ve ever met him in person, and IÂ’m really looking forward to his talk tomorrow.

Nelson was just thrilled to have Cohen there.

Of course, Nelson has a newfound integrity and truth telling, so what was the first thing VegSource did after the falling out with Cohen? Why, with the sort of integrity we’ve come to expect from the animal rights movement, VegSource removed from its web site incriminating evidence of its prior support for Cohen.

This VegSource.Com web page is a full of photos from that 2001 E-vent at which Cohen was a speaker. The odd thing is if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, the last image is that of John Robbins. That’s odd, because back when it was first created, the page ended with three pictures of Robert Cohen speaking along with complimentary text.

You can see for yourself the Google cached version of the page, but in case that goes away, here is how the page looked earlier this year:


Batting in the
clean-up position was the NotMilkMan himself — Robert Cohen.

Jeff’s mom described
Rob as a “great speaker” — and Jeff’s mom is always right!

Said Jeff and Sabrina: “I think Rob Cohen just got us off dairy!”
🙂

I’m surprised Jeff and Sabrina let Jeff’s mom (not to mention others in attendance) get taken in by such a fraud. And if they knew Cohen was prone to citing faulty studies, distorting evidence and, apparently, outright lying, why did they find his talk so convincing?

The issue here is not whether or not Cohen was a fraud — that was obvious years ago to anyone who cared to actually look at the nonsense he was spewing. The problem with Cohen was that his nonsense was suddenly turned against people within the animal rights movement.

For example, on March 26, 2002, Nelson wrote an article about what he thinks is Cohen’s unfair attacks on White Wave, which makes Silk soy milk. Nelson claims that,

This charge is only the most recent in a long line of failed attempts by Cohen to damage White Wave. We’ve already responded to some of Cohen’s earlier attacks on White Wave with the article, “Does Silk Bilk?” At the time I wrote that article (September of 2001) and when I spoke to Cohen before publishing it, he told me he was making it his personal mission to try to “destroy” White Wave. He said the company had not been personally respectful to him. When I pointed out that he had made a number of unfair and untrue statements in his articles on White Wave, he told me he didn’t care whether his criticisms of the company were accurate or not, because any attack was justified because they were a “bad company.”

But look at the kid glove treatment Cohen got for unjustified attacks on White Wave:

1. Nelson’s September 2001 article does not even mention Robert Cohen by name.

2. Nelson’s article was written on Sept. 18, 2001 — more than a week before VegSource.Com had Cohen speak and sang his praises.

Ah, integrity at work.

Although Nelson apparently wants to recast VegSource.Com as willing to expose falsehoods within the animal rights movement, in fact VegSource.Com has actively nurtured a “hear no evil” policy in its discussion boards. VegSource.Com now claims that,

We have people who come onto our discussion board from time to time and state confidently that vegetarianism is a religion (we correct them).

In fact what VegSource.Com routinely done is delete posts and ban users of anyone who criticizes the animal rights movement, regardless of merit. Last June, for example, I wrote an article pointing out that VegSource.Com was using a faked photograph to illustrate a medical research story. I posted the URL on the VegSource.Com discussion group. Not only was all of the discussion about this deleted, but the discussion group was configured to reject any articles that linked to AnimalRights.Net (see VegSource “Censorship”).

VegSource.Com extolling its own integrity is a bit like Cohen recommending a good ice cream store.

As for Cohen, what can I say about Cohen. The guy is a nut case. But he’s a nut case who the animal rights movement welcomed into the fold for years despite his blatant distortions and inaccuracies. That it took Nelson until February 2002 to criticize Cohen says volumes about the alleged integrity of the animal rights movement.

Sources:

Beware of Robert Cohen aka the NotMilkMan. VegSource.Com, June 20, 2002.

The Notmilk Newsletter. Robert Cohen, June 22, 2002.

Revisiting Some AR2001 Complaints

Missed this the first time around, but someone dug up a fascinating message that Alex Hershaft posted to VegSource.Com describing the aftermath of last year’s Animal Rights 2001 conference. It seems that The Hilton used for this conference was less than pleased with some of the shenanigans that occurred at the July meeting.

Prior to the conference, The Hilton had spent millions of dollars renovating its site and, as a result, instituted a no pets policy. Apparently many visitors to AR2001 simply ignored that request,

In spite of it [the no pets policy], a number of people brought their dogs, and the hotel didn’t appreciate having to clean up after those animals who urinated on the new carpet. We will probably have to enforce a “no animal companion” policy of our own, unless someone can come up with a better solution.

Hmmm…what about the rights of the poor companion animals? (In fact several people replied to Hershaft that this was just a base prejudice against animals on the part of The Hilton).

The Hilton apparently did not appreciate the much-publicized protests at Nieman Marcus and Wendy’s (with the Wendy’s protest ending in several arrests).

The hotel is a member of the local merchants association, and the demonstrations at the nearby Wendy’s and Neiman Marcus gave them grief. We will have demonstrations at future conferences, but they will be part of the program, non-invasive, and well away from the hotel. However, here again, we will have to ask all participants to refrain from staging rump activities of their own

The Hilton was apparently not very happy when Neiman Marcus complained that protesters arrived in a Hilton van.

Of course when the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee set up protests areas for activists far from events, the activists acted as if the Constitution of the United States had been repealed. But scheduling demos so as to not offend The Hilton is apparently another story.

The message concludes that it is important to maintain the goodwill of The Hilton because, “We need a high-class venue, because of our size and because we are trying to project a middle class image.”

Yeah, wouldn’t want people to think they’re a bunch of nuts who protest Wendy’s and can’t keep their dogs from urinating on the carpet.

Source:

Hotel Grievances. Alex Hershaft, July 23, 2001.

Jeff Nelson Finally Gets Something Right

I did not think I’d ever find any sort of common ground with VegSource.Com’s Jeff Nelson, but then I stumbled across an article he wrote early last year that forced me to change my mind.

Nelson goes on and on about how many gallons of water it takes to produce a pound of beef (he claims 2,500 gallons; cattlemen claim 441 gallons) when he finally has some insight saying,

So what’s the beef with beef, when it comes to water?

Simply put: it’s wasteful and irresponsible to squander our precious resources on a luxury item like meat.

Hmmm… meat a luxury? Turning to my dictionary I find luxury defined as “sumptuous living or equipment : great ease or comfort : rich surroundings.” That definitely describes meat.

Is it really irresponsible to use so much water to produce such luxurious beef? Don’t we, after millions of years of evolution, finally deserve to bask in such luxuries? If Nelson wants to deprive himself of life’s pleasures that is his business, but I think I’ll still occasionally partake of a sumptuous, luxurious steak.

BTW, just as an example of how separated from reality Nelson is, he goes on about all the water used in producing beef and then adds,

How, as a vegetarian, do you feel about paying astronomical water rates when your lifestyle choices mean you’re likely consuming a fraction of the water each month that your meat-eating friends are guzzling each day?

I would like to know where in the United States Nelson is that he is paying “astronomical water rates.” The major problem with water in the United States is that it is almost always subsidized by federal, state and local officials and is far too cheap (because the subsidized price discourages conservation efforts). Regardless, water is hardly allocated in any sort of functioning market, so the idea that the amount of water that cattlemen use drives up the price of water is absurd.

(To get an idea of just how low the price of water is, the average price for water in the United State is just over 52 centers per cubic meter, or about one cent for every five gallons used.)

Source:

How much water to make one pound of beef? Jeff Nelson, VegSource.Com, March 1, 2001.

Jeff Nelson is Either "Stupid or Intellectually Dishonest"

A study by researchers at the University of Minnesota made headlines this week because it found that teenagers who were vegetarians were actually less healthy than teenager who were meat eaters. Jeff Nelson of VegSource.Com wrote a reply arguing that this claim was contradicted by very data collected by the researchers and that, therefore, “the researchers conducting the study are either stupid or intellectually dishonest.” As usual, though, it is Nelson who is village idiot.

Nelson complains that the researchers relied on self-identified vegetarians who do not meet his definition of what a vegetarian is. Nelson write,

A mere 78 of the 215 “vegetarians” reported on in the study are actually vegetarians. Looking at the data of actual vegetarian kids against the rest of the group, there are little or no statistically significant differences in most categories, except that the vegetarian kids score better than the non-veg kids in a few — the opposite of what the researchers are trying to argue with the data.

Not surprisingly, given VegSource.Com’s track record, this is mostly a lie. The study did include 215 teenagers who self-described themselves as vegetarians. Of those 215 teenagers, researchers divided them into two groups: 78 restricted vegetarians, which included vegans and lacto- and lacto-ovo vegetarians); and 137 semi-vegetarians, who self-describe themselves as vegetarians but also indicated they ate chicken or fish.

Where Nelson outright lies, however, is in his claim that “there are little or no statistically significant differences in most categories.” In fact, the semi-vegetarians were more likely to engage in both healthy and unhealthy behaviors. But the research also found that the restricted vegetarian teenagers were twice as likely to be at risk for being overweight (and with a 95% confidence interval which is typically the bar set for statistical significance).

It is a little absurd for Nelson to whine that some of the “vegetarians” were still eating fish or chicken, since as the researchers note, people who move from meat eating to vegetarianism are likely to go through a transitional period where they gradually give up meat,

It may also be that semi-vegetarianism, for some, is the first step toward a more stable, restricted vegetarianism, and that once the transition is made or the vegetarianism is maintained for over 2 years, there might be fewer health-compromising weight control behaviors exhibited.

Nelson’s attack on the research is also a bit odd considering that the researchers are anything but hostile to vegetarianism. They do suggest that one approach might be to intervene with adolescent females who are using vegetarianism as an unhealthy weight loss technique, but they also add that,

Another approach may be to consider the choice of vegetarianism as an opportunity, and recruit adolescents to programs focussing on how to become a healthy vegetarian. Since adult vegetarians appear to be leaner and healthier than their nonvegetarian counterparts, learning how to become a “healthy” adolescent vegetarian may be one avenue for long-term and healthful changes in dietary patterns for adolescents.

Apparently, that’s Nelson’s idea of dishonest research. Pretty typical for VegSource.Com.

Source:

Characteristics of vegetarian adolescents in a multiethnic urban population. Cheryl L. Perry, Maureen T. Mcguire, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and Mary Story, Journal of Adolescent Health, December 2001.

VegSource "Censorship"

This had me laughing. After I finished the article about the inaccuracies in the VegSource.Com article, I thought I’d go over and post a link to the article on their discussion forum. But, of course, the last thing that animal rights activists can tolerate is an open discussion about their views. Here’s what you get if you try to post a message to their web site which contains a link back to this site:

Spamvertising not permitted on VegSource!

Your post contains information about or a link to a site which has been connected to repeated spamvertising on our site. Our site, and the 80-some non-profit sites we host, are kept online by the paid advertising on VegSource. While we do allow links to just about anywhere on the net, when a particular site is posted again and again on successive days and on different boards, we recognize that someone is using our site to try to get free advertising.

Please feel free to post on any other topic, and please be advised that if you try to get around this block and post a link to the site in question anyway, this is grounds for being banned from our site.

Thanks for your understanding. If you have any questions, please write to [email protected].

The only time I’ve ever posted a link on their site was last Friday when I posted a link to the first article about their fake photo. It worked fine then, but they did quickly deleted my message.

I’m not surprised. If I were publishing information with such blatant inaccuracies, I probably wouldn’t want anyone showing up to point out the truth either.