The Carnivore in the Room

Veganism is a way of being that threatens the biosphere the least while threatening the destroyers of the biosphere the most.

The largest contributors to climate collapse are fossil-fuels, the consumption of sentient-animal body parts, consumption of sentient-animal byproducts, and their related purchases in the marketplace — including the fuel exhausted to get you there or the fuel exhausted to bring those purchases to you.

My suggestion to replace the familiar cacophony of beeps at the checkout lane with bleats, oinks, moos, clucks … no bites so far. Kroger headquarters are in a town just north of us, perhaps they could set up a trial to test my modest proposal.

Part of a serenity prayer : changing the things you can — do not consume the flesh, non-human breast milk, or the eggs of a sentient being and you cast one vote for preventing catastrophic climate change. It’s not just a concern expressed for creatures living near a coastline. See Humpty Dumpty for more on this principle.

I’ve been a climate watcher since the 1960s and have had the privilege of teaching climate vagaries back then. Nixon approved creating of the EPA in a political swap, he was never anything wiser than a consummate politician. Our current POTUS is a climate-change denier, doncha know.

When you encounter an article on climate change, search for the word “vegan.” It usually does not even get mentioned.

Thanks for Reading.

Talking Turkey About Climate

Let’s talk turkey…

For 245 million turkeys, a lifespan averages 4 months — 3 generations per year. A wild turkey can live up to 10 years, fly 55 miles an hour, and run 35 miles an hour.

…climate change does change everything. Adopting a vegan diet is powerful enough to slow the course, to stem a looming mega threat to the only planet we have. She has already shaken off five extinction events, a sixth won’t stop her. When climate goes rogue, the planet does not die. She’ll have to wait for the sun to extinguish under the weight of depleted helium atoms. She will still revolve around the sun and still rotate on her axis daily. The beings she nourished from Extinction Event 1 through Event 5 lived under the same star,  the Sun.

Once a rolling stone starts rolling downhill, you can’t stop it, unless:

  1. a miracle happens

OK, short list.

Humankind always abides every threat, doesn’t it? Where was humankind during the previous five extinction events? Not around, Ken Ham, of AnswersInGenesis notwithstanding. Scripture is not science.

Unpaid Political Announcement

What a terrible time to suffer a ne’er-do-well in the Oval Office. We’ve set a boulder atop Sysiphus’ boulder. Full speed aHell.

The Art of the Devil: A Memoir by D. Trump, forward by Alistair Crowley.

Become a vegan and take the single most effective step for stemming global warming. But that’s a non-starter, isn’t it?

There’s no way, man.

Get real, Bill. Who made you boss?

Yeah, I’m like, right.

My eyes roll in your general direction.

Nobody really knows.

A fable

A mythical Sysiphus rolls a mythical boulder up a mountain. Sisyphus’ twin meets his brother at the mountain’s peak. I’ll call him Sysiphus B. He accepts the boulder from Sysiphus. The twin’s task: keep the orb from rolling any farther downhill. His feet are slipping on some moss. He can’t push the boulder upwards, he can only slow its progress. Somewhere between marker 1.5 and marker 2.0, Sysiphus B has to stop the boulder, else:

#SR15

Game Over.

Replay? No replay option. We’re toast.

Editors note:

Dear Meat Eater, I used to be among the crowd you’re in with. A body gets very weary during detox. The more meat you eat, the more toxins you must excrete. I’ve had to detox from alcohol. In my experience, detox from animal cells takes longer, you get tired and feel depleted, but don’t blame a plant-based diet. Cold, dead turkey, sorry for piling my plate with your white and dark. I don’t expect an apology, cold dead turkey. I did the crime and served the time, but the animals I have consumed are still dead meat.

There is nothing great about being a mega-greedy species (the crowd I’m in with), one that drains the lifeblood of trillions of fish, billions of birds, billions of land creatures 24/7/365 (366 on leap years). It’s not a thing to be proud of. Karma presents as arterial plaque, over-burdened heart, stroke to the brain, diabetes. Statistically speaking. Who knows?

You may say I’m dreaming, but I’m not the only one.

Let’s talk some more turkey:

  • 245 million turkeys raised and killed every year in the U.S.
  • More than 46 million of them are killed each year at Thanksgiving alone,
  • more than 22 million die at Christmas.

Source

T’day is six weeks away, today is a good day to start a detox.

“We’ll see” means “never.”

Thanks for reading.

Who Made You the Boss of Ewe?

Imagine a legal system that recognizes animal rights as inalienable, slaughterhouses closed because they deny life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Impossible.

Imagine a planet made uninhabitable by a singularly rapacious species.

A near certainty.

Can the impossible and the near-certain be reconciled?

 

once.you.eliminate

Why do we never refer to “farmed” animals as cadavers or corpses?

Carcasses get hung by hooks that slide along ceiling rails and transport them into a sequence of production stations. We don’t do such things to human beings because we value life. Where did you go to school anyway, Bill?

By the sixth day, the Bible identifies certain animals as livestock (alive, caged, enslaved, dispatched). Sentient beings with a central nervous system — one that transmits data from brain to spleen — are complex emotional bemichael-maslin-which-came-first-mom-the-chicken-mcnugget-or-the-egg-mcmuffin-new-yorker-cartoon_a-l-9179842-8419447ings. Pet “owners” know this, but they also “know” that a meal without meat is an oxymoron.

Apples and oranges, Bill. Pets are lovable family members. Meat is matter that doesn’t matter. Just don’t think about it and we’ll all be better for it. You’re obsessed with animal so-called rights. You need help. I hope you get the help you need. Pets are simply lovable. They are not dead meat. But why do they eat pets in Korea? That’s just wrong.

Apples and oranges are both fruits. Piglets and human children are both mammals.

No animal wishes to suffer lifelong torture, brutal death, family separation, mechanized dissection, mechanical separation, supermarket aisles with nutrition labels. A dead food-animal isn’t even graced with the nicer post-life identity of cadaver or corpse.

What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery—beware of enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For Vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery. (41).

— Epictetus “Golden Saying of Epictetus” (as translated by Hastings Crossley)

us our they

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over

  1. the fish in the sea and
  2. the birds in the sky,
  3. over livestock and
  4. all the wild animals, and
  5. over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

so that“???

Did a God create mankind in his own image or was it the other way around?

  1. in the image of God he created them; 
  2. male and female he created them.”

Again, who made us the boss of them? Why is an animal killed by homo sapiens called a meat carcass, not a cadaver or a corpse?

Bill, did you know that Mannwich® is a meal? It’s not annimal fodder.

culture.mother.child

Control the narrative and own the outcome. The cadaver/corpse you ate yesterday, the corpse/cadaver you’ll eat today, the cadaver/corpse you plan to eat tomorrow. Eat all your fodder, son.

Animals don’t feel pain the way that WE do. Hunters know this. You should try hunting and you’ll know too, Bill

Certain faiths grant animals mortal souls. They grant themselves immortal souls.

Bill, do you recognize the difference between cannibals and meat-eaters?

Use them, consume them, tan their hides, chew their jerky. Search for even more markets that promise additional markets for each cadaver part, create a demand for a wide range of corpse parts.

Bill, you should read Rhys Southan’s blog “Let Them Eat Meat,”  a restful place for former vegans:

“As a meat-eater-to-be, however, this was more of an issue, because I would presumably need to stop caring about animals. How does one stop caring?

The answer to that question in my case was severe depression. I had always been prone to depression, and still am, but as a vegan I finally became so utterly indifferent to my own life that it led to this epiphany of sorts: “If my life doesn’t matter,” I thought, “a cow’s life definitely doesn’t matter.” Eating meat no longer seemed impossible to justify. If it had to be me or the cow… it might as well be the cow.”

Animals do not wish to be husbanded.  They do not enjoy a caged or crated existence. Freedom for me, but not for thee? Gaze into an animal’s eyes and see what those eyes scream back at you. Or don’t.

Why don’t “meat processing facilities” provide tours? Advertisers proclaim their thorough quality control, cleanliness and wholesome products. A family business for family folks.

From lip to anus He/we created them; male and female we/He created them.

A male calf cannot produce breast milk. Cow milk is calf nourishment.  A mother cow is a fellow mammal. She produces breast milk for her young in the same way that all mammal mothers do. She wouldn’t seek to divert her breast milk to supermarkets. Veal is a tender flesh that draws ever fewer consumers, and not because it’s illegal. A proxy agent crates them, force-feeds them, kills them, sells them. A product code triggers a beep.

A male chick does not lay eggs. This severely limits his value in a poultry processing facility. It yields marginal protein content and cannot be inventoried. If management doesn’t do something about animals who cannot produce eggs they get stuck with useless inventory. Fortunately, there is customer demand for pet food and school cafeteria fare. Male chicks serve this market. Once you have separated the egg-layers from the useless-as-bull-teat chicks you need to send them down a chute, pump the protein-rich slurry into tankers and truck them to rendering facilities.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Barnyard-Animal Values

Humans are not the only Earth residents born with an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Homo sapiens are not the only Earthly beings born to thrive, to live long and prosper, to experience joie de vivre. They do not show up at your door intending to be killed and dissected for humane consumption. More likely, they will run as soon as you open the door.

comparative anatomy

Running for your life: is it instinctual?

Vegan humans reject a conventional “wisdom” that deems beasts naturally occurring resources, food options, and fashion statements. NonVegan humans devise clever ways to subdue and conquer, to enslave, to transport “livestock” to butcheries, tanneries, renderers. Dominion (dominance) over animals is an arbitrary human conceit.

How many animals can you name that have intensely complex central nervous systems? Highly developed processes relay sensory and autonomic information to the brain. Gaze into a pig’s eye and know how much you share, how much you communicate, how much information transfers in the blink of each eye. Is it comparable to looking into a child’s eyes? That’s a loaded question. A barnyard animal’s heart was already beating prenatally inside her mother’s womb. Her fate was already decided, but not by her mother.

Does a pregnant cow know that her calves will disappear immediately upon departing the womb? Is she relieved at having her children separated from her teat so that bovine milk might be redirected into ice cream and casein? Is her boy prepared for a vealy good future?

Where are the bovine fathers? Insemination is artificial, so the point is moot. Long ago sets of bovine ancestors lived as nuclear families. Is this irrelevant information?

Does a sow wish her piglet a brutish life, an incarcerated existence and an early death?

plants.feel.pain

Anthropomorphism does not explain the enormous emotional and physical characteristics that humans share with barnyard animals. I envisage a book about such animals as a sanctuary that offers a refuge from the colossal carnage that occurs every second of every day.

Veganism is the only conceivable way to counter global warming. Many nonvegans recognize that reality but consider it unrealistic, unfortunately, the reality is as realistic as real can possibly get.

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?

A. To get hit by the truck that conveyed her family to death camps: meat-processing facilities, if you will.

Please consider reading my earlier posts on vegan alternatives

Thanks for reading.

 

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