On Sunday, May 14th, activists gathered at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant in Palo Alto to protest the cruel treatment of veal calves, whose flesh Puck serves. The protest coincided with Mother’s Day to highlight the plight of calves, who are separated from their mothers at very young ages to be turned into veal. The protestors distributed leaflets about veal production and held signs urging customers to say no to veal.

Wolfgang Puck has refused to stop serving this inhumane and decadent item, and also serves foie gras, the artificially fattened livers of force-fed ducks. When representatives from Farm Sanctuary worked to educate Mr. Puck and his affiliates about the plight of veal calves, they responded with misinformation, excuses, and ultimately, silence. Read more

To mark the 19th annual World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL), activists in San Francisco and at Stanford University held a variety of events to bring light to the thousands of animals utilized in research facilities in the Bay Area every year.

Stanford: Animal Rights on the Farm, and the law school group, Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, held a series of events and protests, an annual event to highlight the suffering of animals used in research and testing. The students demands were modest: accountability for animal welfare violations, transparency of the procedures and animals used, shifting funds toward alternative models of research, and stopping some of the most gruesome experiments, such as the cocaine addiction studies on juvenile monkeys. ARF and SALDF have a new petition, urging the administration to implement some of these reforms. There were three protests, a talk on "Why Progressives should care about animal rights," and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had an animal liberation exhibit on campus.

UCSF: In Defense of Animals (IDA) joined with Vigil For Animals to protest the University of California, San Francisco's (UCSF's) use of dogs and other animals in controversial, taxpayer-funded medical experiments. These experiments include pumping hundreds of dogs' hearts to high speeds to cause heart attacks, puppies injected with drugs to cause their nerves to malfunction, monkeys having metal plates bolted onto their skulls and their eyes cut open with scalpels, monkeys restrained by the neck and waist to prevent their hands from reaching their heads for five hours a day five days a week, paralyzing infant monkeys and cats, and on and on. This past October UCSF paid one of the largest fines ever for Animal Welfare Act violations after the U.S. Department of Agriculture charged the lab with 75 counts of animal welfare violations. By educating the public and keeping pressure on the university to operate with greater transparency, the groups hope to help end what they call the pointless suffering of these exploited animals.

Stanford Events Report and Photos

UCSF Demo Report and Photos | More on UCSF's Lab

World Week for Animals in Laboratories

Past Indybay Coverage of Stanford's Animal Labs: 1 | 2
Past Indybay Coverage of UCSF's Animal Labs: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

On Friday, April 21st, President Bush was in San Jose. A protest was held at 1:00pm outside of Cisco Systems ( Audio | Photos: 1 | 2 ). Bush was then scheduled to meet with fellows at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, but thousands of protestors blocked the main entrance forcing him to change his plans. ( Photos | Video ) He spent Friday night in the Napa County town of St. Helena, where Friday evening's protest were renewed on Saturday 4/22. Later on Saturday, Bush made a stop in West Sacramento for Earth Day, and was met with hundreds of protesters. ( Photos )

Read More On Indybay's Government and California Pages

4/10/2006: Students organized a rally at Stanford in conjunction with the National Day of Action for Immigrant Rights. They blocked off two traffic arteries off White Plaza to draw attention to the problems of "borders." At the conclusion of the rally, borders were tossed down and the students jumped upon them in celebration before gathering on the lawn. They planned carpools to join other Immigrants Rights' rallies in San Jose and San Francisco later that day, but were also admonished to "Hurry, Don't cut class!"
Read More | Reports From More April 10th Protests | Indybay's Immigrant Rights Page

SERV, or Students Ending Rights Violations, will host an evening of food, music, and discussion to draw attention to the plight of political prisoners in the US empire. The event will take place on February 28th, at 6:00pm in the Library Quad Tent, at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. The event will celebrate the release of Father Gerard Jean Juste from illegal incarceration in Haiti, and is a fundraiser for the legal defense of political prisoners in Haiti through the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

A celebration with food and music will be followed by a panel discussion with former political prisoners about: their experiences, current political prisoners, why they are there, and what can be done. Speakers will include former political prisoners from Chile, the American Indian Movement, and the Black Panther Party, as well as an exiled pro-democracy activist from Haiti. Read more about the event

Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF) continued its campaign against Stanford University's animal experiments with a demonstration on Friday, February 10 at the University’s Research Animal Facility (RAF). Stanford undergraduates, law students, and graduate students converged on the RAF to voice their opposition to Stanford’s experiments involving up to 109,000 primates, dogs, mice, and numerous other types of animals. ARF seeks increased transparency and accountability for experiments at Stanford, since the private university is not subject to the California Public Records Act or the Freedom of Information Act. ARF also calls on the University to begin its shift to more humane alternatives by eliminating what it considers the worst experiments, such as cocaine research on adolescent squirrel monkeys, maternal deprivation research on infant squirrel monkeys, and sleep deprivation research on monkeys, rats, and mice.

Full Report and Photos · More Info

The Twentieth Annual Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival, honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s contribution to the civil rights and labor movements, will be held January 13th through 15th, 2006 at the Union Halls of the Machinists Local 1781, Plumbers Local 467, and Transport Workers Local 505, at 1511 Rollins Road in Burlingame. The Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival has become a Northern California tradition. Union artists, activists and supporters come together to celebrate the diverse culture of the labor movement.

The weekend of solidarity will include music, drama, visual arts, spoken word, poetry, photography and more. The event kicks off with a Friday evening Song, Story, and Poetry Circle and features Workshops and Presentations, a Sunday Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a Benefit Concert Sunday evening at 7 pm. The topics of the workshops will range from graphic arts, creating bumperstickers, anti-war activism, and using humor in songs and organizing. There will also be a discussion called "New Directions for Labor." The Sunday benefit concert will raise funds for needy workers. Flyer and registration form

Bearing signs saying “Liberate Primates” and “Stanford Kills Animals,” Stanford University graduate students, undergraduates, law students, and community members protested the use of animals in experiments at Stanford’s Research Animal Facility (RAF) on Friday, October 21. During a busy Friday rush hour that coincided with Stanford’s “Alumni Weekend,” the activists, members of Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF!), convened on El Camino Real, a major thoroughfare bordering Stanford University in Palo Alto. As passing vehicles honked enthusiastically in approval of the protest, the activists waived signs and distributed leaflets alerting drivers and pedestrians to the animal experimentation conducted on campus. The demonstration was held in commemoration of National Primate Liberation Week, and follows a recent on-campus press conference by Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN). Budkie presented his group’s findings on animal research at Stanford. SAEN’s report details the use of hundreds of primates at the RAF, which ranks 21st nationally in terms of federal research dollars received. Read more with photos.

Updates from Palo Alto:
10:20pm: Things are quieting down in Palo Alto according to reports. No arrests have been reported at this time.
9:05pm: Police pepper sprayed a woman on the sidewalk. There are 10 womyn sitting in the street (University Ave). Police are getting closer to protesters and "about to surround them," according to reports. Police declared "unlawful" assembly in a public plaza.
8:48pm: Police declared protest to be "unlawful". Caller reports police to possibly be pointing out an arrest.
8:43pm: Police on horseback, blocking protest in front of shopping district in downtown. Protesters dancing in street with a nice sound system.
8:00pm: Reports of heavy police presence, including many riot cops.

On Saturday June 25, there was an Anarchist-organized anti-war march in Palo Alto. At 7pm, several hundred people gathered at Lytton Plaza in downtown Palo Alto (University Ave. at Emerson 2 Blocks from Palo Alto Caltrain) for the start of the march.
Organizers of the event issued a statement before the march saying, "We will march against imperialist war, invasion, and occupation; against Bush and his corporate interests; against empire and against the systemic war machine. This is the new face of the anti-war movement. After a strong peak at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq and a two year ebb, the movement is again building momentum. But the movement is also growing louder, angrier, and more radical. As the occupation drags on with more and more casualties each day, popular outrage is growing, and with it popular support for the movement through which it is expressed."
Read More | Photos: 1 | Video
Anarchist Action | Event Announcements: 1 | 2 | Anarchists talk about demonstration | More Anti-war Protest Coverage

A Reclaim The Streets Party was held on Friday, May 20th in Palo Alto. Partygoers met at Lytton Plaza at University Ave. and Emerson at 8pm. Photos: 1 | 2 Report: 1

From the RTS Callout:
Our everyday lives are fucking boring. From where we work to when we sleep, when we go to school and where we play, every aspect of our lives is beyond our control. We have to work, to shop, and to go to school to survive, but these repetitive activities deprive us of what make us really alive: freedom, creativity, spontaneity, adventure, excitement, and love. Our cities are planned to keep us content, isolated, and passified - we want excitement, community, and revolt! When was the last time you danced like no one was watching - when was the last time you ran like it really mattered?"

Flyer for RTS | Palo Alto RTS Web Site

2/1: In the largest peace demonstration ever seen on the San Francisco Peninsula, five thousand people rallied and marched against war on Iraq. The rally and march was organized by the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center.
Photos: 1 | 2