http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/11/florida.cats.killed/index.html

I cried.

Vegans in the Media

So there's a show called The Goode Family airing on Wednesday, May 27 at 9pm on ABC. The whole premise is that they're liberal vegan acivist do-gooders. I'm never too optimistic about how vegans are portrayed in the media, but since this show has no other plot line to focus on than "here is a vegan family," maybe they will come out as multidimensional characters, rather than a stereotype? Or maybe my hopes are too high...

According to Wikipedia, "The family dog, Che, is also vegan: he craves meat and often tries to eat neighborhood animals and pets." This part doesn't look so promising. If a dog had been raised without meat, then why would he crave it? Additionally, dogs are omnivores and can therefore live a vegetarian lifestyle. This aspect of the show worries me as it makes this vegan family appear to torture a companion animal.

An Argument for Veganism

I was thinking that this might be a logical thought processes to get people thinking about veganism:

Meat is actually more natural for us to eat than dairy, eggs, and other harvested animal products. We were hunter gatherers before we were sedentary agriculturalists. Humans have had a longer history of gathering plant matter and occasionally hunting for meat than they have of cultivating honey in bees, milk in cows, and eggs in chickens. The Skinny Bitch authors target dairy specifically for being unnatural:

"When we have babies, we breastfeed them, and then at a certain point, we stop. We don’t breastfeed our grown children, or our husbands or friends, for that matter. It is exactly the same for cows and every other mammal on the planet. They produce milk when they give birth, they feed their young, and then they stop. We are the only species on the planet that drinks the milk of another species. We are the only species on the planet that drinks milk as adults. Why? Because the multi-million dollar dairy industry has convinced us that we need milk for healthy bones. That without cows’ milk, we will shrivel up or shatter. However, Yale researchers found that countries with the highest dairy and meat intakes also suffer the highest osteoporosis rates.

The truth is, we can get adequate calcium from leafy greens, vegetables, raw nuts and seeds, and beans."

I would argue much the same for other animal products. While there are some species that eat the eggs of other animals, human can't eat them without cooking them first like these other species can, and we can't get many other animal products, like wool and honey, without farming, which, again, is a more recent phenomenon than hunter gatherer lifestyles.

Once you point out that, in fact, all animal products except maybe meat are nonsensical (I mean, meat is nonsensical since we can't eat that raw either and what other species has to cook its food?? it clearly demonstrates our bodies weren't equipped to eat meat. but just for the sake of winning the argument...), you could mention something about "maybe there should be a diet that is vegan plus meat"? But then you can discuss that even if humans historically have eaten meat and are meant to eat meat (which I guess some might consider debatable), meat ruins the environment so badly that there is no ethical justification for it (since some people might also be able to argue against the ethics of eating meat, but the environmental damage is a cold hard fact).

Anyways, I was just brainstorming about attacking dairy and eggs before going in for the meat kill.

Yes, PETA kills.

By now everyone has seen the website put out by the Center of Consumer Freedom concerning the "high" number of companion animals members of PETA euthanized every year.
Very rarely will you see Ingrid's response. CCF considers this response lame, than again they also represent big alcohol, tobacco, meat, and dairy, and have even apposed MADD. I wonder what their response would be to the countless humans that die every year due to the very industries they support.

Ingrid's reply:
http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/03/why_we_euthaniz.php?c=pfbm

Crabs 'feel and remember pain', suggests new study

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/27/crabs.memorypain/index.html

This is from the same guy (PhD!) who published a study suggesting prawns feel pain:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/08/animalrights.sciencenews

As a young lady of science, I feel much more uplifted to know that people like Dr. Elwood are out there...but how ironic is it that he conducts animal experiments?

I'm sorry.

Every day I say "I'm sorry" in a prayer to non-human animals everywhere being used for humans. You could call it my "moment of zen". I try to imagine their pain, fear, anxiety, and sadness, it really helps put anything I'm going through in perspective.
I drove down to Charlottesville, VA from Pittsburgh last weekend. For 5 hours I passed fields full of cattle, lamas, goats, and horses. In the fields of cattle, babies suckled, they ate grass, many simply laid there basking in the sun. As serene as this was, it made my heart heavy and my eyes fill with tears. I said "I'm sorry" to each and every field we passed. To the field we passed with a barn that had "Eat Dairy" spray painted in large letters, I gave it the finger. How many omnivores pass theses fields and think "These are the cows I'm eating, their lives are gentle, and their death is humane"? Sometimes the fight for animal rights seems incredibly big and out of reach.
There are multiple images that have branded themselves in my brain since starting this journey. I added another one Saturday morning while passing a truck full of cattle. One large cow was turned looking out of the steel wall, I looked into his large brown eyes, he seemed worried but at the same time indifferent. Like he had excepted his fate, and knew it would be over soon. I said, "I'm sorry".

Fur real?

I'm not sure what it is like in other cities but here in the 'burgh full length fur coats are all the rage, and so is my temper. Maybe I expect a bit to much out of this city, although considering that most of the population roots for an ever failing baseball team, thinks "yinz" and "n'at" are proper English, and considers sauerkraut and kielbasa a delicacy I'm not sure why, but seriously. Floor length fur coats at the movie theater?
I hope I'm not the only person that makes wide detours around these pudgy, middle aged low lives as they waddle seemingly unaware of the torture barely sheathing their bulging waist lines. Or glares relentlessly at the skinny debutante who is seated beside you at a restaurant stroking her mink wrap, muttering under my breath what I'd like to do with her skin. Yes, aside from ill prepared tofu, nothing makes me quite as irate as fur clothing. They say ignorance is bliss, and in the case of fur I might have to agree. After seeing videos of anal electrocution, dogs being skinned alive, and the naked bodies of these tiny creatures tossed in shallow graves I can't not be angry. It's hard to explain to the ignorant how just passing a fur store, or a person wearing fur makes me want to cry, vomit, and hit something. That's why I'll be protesting this Saturday in 27 degree weather, because to get through this season I need those honks, cheers, and raised fists. To know that I'm not alone.
Thanks for adding me to the group Popey!