Category: climate change

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.

 

 

Surprised by Arabic

At its largest extent, the Roman Empire surrounded Middle Earth, literally “The Mediterranean.”

inscription_cartilia2

 

In the parlance of social media, the Romans SHOUTED all their written words — minuscules would not arrive to soften the literal commotion until the 7th Century. Latin seems suited for chiseling into stone, mostly with straight lines that run from left to right. It’s not easy to curve while chiseling your way along a flat rock-face. A glance at the English alphabet reveals that individual letters also run from left to right, letters such as B D E F K L P R

The letter “J” is quite the exception. It’s one reason that some school children do this:

printable-letter-backwards-j

That letter never appears in Roman imperial inscriptions, nor did U, nor did W.

K, Y and Z were adopted to accommodate Greek vocabulary. They are not the Etruscan uttering way. Nay, they ain’t.

Let’s look at a language that appeals to my left-handedness. It’s quite a relief to see my writing as I write. Arabic was not designed with a chisel in mind. The language begins with cursive in mind, not a bland sequence of letters imprisoned within imaginary boxes, then proclaimed “words.”

My last post looked at a procrustean camel, an animal led to the eye of a needle by dint of faulty translation. Why are mistranslations carved into stone? Do not allow your metaphors to become stilted, clunky, confusing and hackneyed. That’s what I say.

Well, Arabic comes equipped with a J-sound. In fact, it’s standard equipment. However, the language does not permit a “P” letter, so please apply a “B” for words like Paris: call it Baris and learn to live with it. Palestine never needed a “P” because that name is an imposition anyway: they are the Philistines. Arabic comes equipped with an “F” sound.

 

 

arabic.jim
25+ Arabic Alphabet Letters

 

Instead of imaginary boxes, Arabic allows for up to four ways to write each letter of the alphabet. Learners of this language and readers of the Qur’an receive the gift of ten diacritical marks to aid the learning process in a clean and coherent manner. Should you ever decide to tackle Arabic, this is handy indeed. Those marks reveal the sound one millimeter at a time; however, once you become comfortable and confident with the words you can dispense with diacriticals altogether — you’ll recognize the pattern and you won’t need the training wheels.

Returning to the Romans for a moment: would you ever wish to return to Roman numerals once you’ve learned the efficacy of Arabic numerals? The word “cipher” in English is from the Arabic word for “zero”:صفر

Here is a tip for my readers who consider learning German or Arabic: if you can pronounce Cincinnati you can pronounce  صفر (sifr). Just pedanting.

Learning languages removes artificial separations between cultures and lifestyles. Those separations take the form of borders, walls and prejudice. In their stead you acquire perspectives that remove each border, wall and prejudice. They serve the minions of geopolitical advantage and the clarion to endless war, endless confusion and endless imprisonment. Producing propaganda is criminal activity. Always. Whatever your intention.

And go vegan while you’re at it. No sentient being benefits by closing the book on the Anthropocene 🙂

Thanks for reading.

Two Words for Two Worlds

There is a thick line between veganism and the celebration of violence. The chasm between the desperately impoverished and the decadently entitled widens by the hour.  We witness the disparity at broadband speed and with the suddenness of a tsunami.

Africa is an enormous continent that gets depicted as approximately the size of Greenland on the very faulty default Mercator projection, used to depict everything from an extraordinarily specious perspective — one where the North Pole and the South Pole are infinitely large. This is to say that a single point with no dimension gets presented as limited only by infinity. Altogether all you need to know about the specie that finds Mercator’s single-purpose map indispensable to everything.

WorldMapper, it is scaled according to meat consumption.

meat.production.world

“Meat, as shown here, refers to all animal products that are consumed by people. Meat consumption per person is highest in Western European territories. Nine of the top ten meat consuming populations live in Western Europe. The anomaly in this ranking is New Zealand, a territory that is famous for its high ratio of sheep to people and the production of lamb. The most meat is consumed in China, a quarter of the world total. A fifth of the world population lives in China, eating on average 510 calories of meat per person, which is above the world average of 432 calories of meat per person.”

— WorldMapper

pangea_supercontinent_map

Two very different journalists on Korea.

First the vegan, Charles Newkey-Burden, author and journalist. He also writes for Shortlist, the Daily Telegraph and Four Four Two.

Offended by Koreans eating dog? I trust you’ve never had a bacon butty

“Yes, dogs are smart and friendly – but so are pigs. Researchers from Cambridge University found pigs are as smart as three-year-old humans. They can play computer games and recognise people they met several years ago. They develop trust and empathy like we, and dogs, do. Few people relish the thought of any animals being slaughtered so it’s normal for those who eat meat to try to justify it. Just as westerners get angry about people in Asia eating dogs and cats, many Indians get outraged by westerners eating cows. People shake their heads in disbelief at guinea pigs and alpacas being served up in South America.” — Source

How much is your approach to meat a reflection of inculturation? Whom does the culture incarcerate and whom does it traffic?

The next article is by the non-vegan Andrew Keh, an international correspondent, covering sports from Berlin. He has previously covered Major League Baseball and the N.B.A. and has reported from the World Cup and the Olympics.

An Olympic Challenge: Eat All the Korean Food That Visitors Won’t

At a restaurant near Gangneung Olympic Park, a colleague and I slipped on plastic gloves and each grabbed scissors. (When I’m president, scissors will replace knives on everybody’s dinner tables.) We pulled crab parts from a bubbling pot as deep and wide as a witch’s caldron. We broke our busy silence only to marvel at the ribbons of red and white meat dangling between our fingertips: They were feathery soft and, yes, so sweet. When all the legs were gone, we asked for a couple packs of instant noodles to repurpose the cloudy russet broth. The place also serves sannakji, raw octopus so fresh that the slices quiver on the plate. For non-Korean visitors, the dish exists almost exclusively as a dare. — Sourcehttps://static01.nyt.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=unknown

If you have the stomach click on I have the stomach to eat menudo.
Is it ethical to eat an animal that is still alive when it arrives at your plate. Could you eat live octupus? Andrew Keh celebrates it. It’s not something that I can un-see, but as a vegan I must bear witness to the banal.

 

Thanks for reading.