Category: vegan

Sneaky Vegan Advertising

This is the story of a hypothetical broadcaster working an apocryphal news desk at an imaginary sports channel. Here’s the proverbial rub — he is a complete fraud, he has no sports credentials and he hasn’t followed team sports at any level since 1965. By sheer coincidence,  this fictional broadcaster goes by the name Bill Ziegler (no relation, or something).

Welcome to a narrow world of sports broadcast. All characters, statistics and coupon offers are spurious.

No sentient beings were consumed during the production of this broadcast. Go Vegan! Yay Veganism!

veganism.history

Transcript of today’s broadcast:

“Good evening sport, and welcome to our first post-Earth-Day program. We have four sports stories to cover today, so let’s get right to the latest news.

  1. Steve Dreadnought graduated from the NCAA (National Cademy of Academic Academies) in 2011, but it was all for naught until Nought got caught by the Astros on Shale Tuesday to become a doglegged free agent. Steve is a tight-end shaver with a bevy of linesman singing for the county of Paris in New Orleans. Nought controls the inside inch of the rail much better than Ben Bright’s Tights® Dawn’s Men and Seeping Cobwebs® is just about the only team remotely comparable to Ben Bright’s Tights. The team factors in with a ratio of twenty plays deep on the curve and thirty angstroms on the narrow —  each tight has the coarse battle scars earned on the course court to prove it.  Course they do. Write me for details.
  2. The Wave Continentals®are back in the wardrobe factory this season, filling in the gaps left by the Easter-Fry Warriors of Bangor®; as I recall, not a single Swigger Sweet could ravel the ball through the parallels as smoothly as Manfred Fried-Fries of Kenosha® — it’s the only place you can expect spectacular scurries thrown through the fourth wall. Seriously. My words say that they are second only to the Lads of Lancaster® I’ve been there — it ain’t never meant grease to donuts to me, but I’ve shelved Bangor Walnuts® for a living. A hard living, yet may the welts of dignity shine through, and with some decent resilience. I’m stowing my pine on the kitchen counter as my ante — they will make it to central division or drop into the Ides before April. Mark my broadcloth and send it to grandma if you don’t thank me later.
who-likes-vegans
Veganism is not just a trend

3. Moving on to the Autumn training hopes of the Gardenia Wafers® now. You just can’t find daylight between the Solid-Pack Drivers of Scant Regard® and the man who drove the wedgies home before breakfast. Sugar-toasted wedge bars are a new sponsor at ESPN-42®, they’re linked and liked everywhere, manufactured by Pistachio Penached Planchette, Inc.® Remember the name, it’s a double-dork franchise opportunity that you’ll only find on ESPN-42. We remain the only media outlet still located at Bent Beach, future home of the Pretense Machines of Machismo® and the Celery Bakers of West-North Eureka®. Try them soon or shoot the balloon.

a.truth.whose.time

Now, back to your program.

4. We’re introducing a new segment on the Big-Arse 42®— the outside line on the Neon Street Outlaws® those up-and-coming loot traders of the salvage yards begin a new season Thursday evening. Beaster the Baker and I are tracking them assiduously, with scented frame you play a wary game, it’s a tooth-swarm with a schoolmarm’s charm  — that’s what we claim and that’s what we tame. The guys and gals in the wardrobe garner their toes when they tracking a branded. Count down from 7 to 3 and you’ll know what I mean. We broadcast solid encounters with genuine street-incredulity — bouncing leatherettes sparring their claim to fame, as fisted and fancy as October’s Clancy®. Yes, it’s a retro-shot for the Donuts of Shame® a gifted pair of bozo twins who can wave a century-old limey bar faster than you can spin the coffee table to a screen-beveled level. Hey, we’ve all been there and this season promises more than pumpkin-scented jet-streams. You haven’t witnessed a charge more challenging than watching a brand expand into your dug-out chug-out — click SportWafers dot com for 50% off the second season-ticket. Take it to the general and sneer at the devil — it’s that kind of mango.”

northern-parula

Thanks for watching. Tune in tomorrow at 8 for more words from our sponsor 🙂

Disclaimer:

  • The information in this book is meant to supplement, not replace, proper (name your sport) training. Like any sport involving speed, equipment, balance and environmental factors, (this sport) poses some inherent risk. The authors and publisher advise readers to take full responsibility for their safety and know their limits. Before practicing the skills described in this book, be sure that your equipment is well maintained, and do not take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude, training, and comfort level.

Thanks for reading.

Working on Computers in 1975

Let’s flip the toggle switch on my steampunked time machine and head back to 1975 — the year Gordon Moore revised his hypothesis on the potential exponential growth of computing power, now known as Moore’s Law: computing power doubles every two years. He surprised himself at its curious accuracy.

moore.graph
Semi.Wiki (a semiconductor’s discussion site

Let’s go back to 1975, a year when Singer built business computers — I worked on a Singer System 10. That sewing-machine outfit made a foray into small business systems, a foray that ended abruptly in 1976.

 

singer.computer
A fine two-tone-dial phone with rotary dial.

Ten years later I was assigned the task of converting a completely manual order processing system at a Cincinnati Milacron division in Blanchester, Ohio. They obtained a small business computer, a wardrobe-sized unit called a CIP 2200B, from the Milacron Products Division. So it was a hand-me-down — with 64K core memory, 10 megabyte fixed disc, 10 megabyte removable disc and a 96 column card reader/punch.

I reported to the corporate boss of information: Pat Goggins. She was a wonderful iconoclast who ruffled many corporate functionaries. I have a soft spot in my soul for independent minds because they threaten the order of things. That is as it should be. Vegans pose a threat to the tyranny of the majority, and that is a very good thing.

vegan.humor

The Electronic Circuit Materials Division manufactured board bases for Ford automobiles, crappy scrap for Radio Shack and all manner of integrated circuit users. It was a fascinating place to work in the 1980’s At that time I was a single parent to my two children — my wife Jeanne died in 1983, and I wouldn’t meet Lisa until 1993. so I chucked my suit-and-tie collection into the closet and returned to German language and literatures, a world I had left in 1973. We moved closer to town in 1987. It was a hot and densely humid day. The cicadas sang, the car blew a radiator hose. We were at the shoulder of an interstate. Who populated that vehicle? Myself, my two kids, our cat and our bird.

Coding a program is a lot like learning a foreign language. Database records are words and relationships. Programs have syntax, grammar, logical thought — uttered or iterated.

Programming-816

One kind reader has expressed an interest in my use of pattern-matching techniques, a method called “regular expressions” — an invention of the 1960’s: it still supports many shells glommed around it — devices with modern application. The shoulders of those giants still support us. There is no such thing as a sky hook.

Meanwhile — in the “greater” world — folly tramples on dreams deferred. Do we stand at the rim of an abyss — perhaps of our own making? Dinosaurs peered skyward at the brink of yet another extinction. What other species unknown evolved over billions of years, to return all to primordial casseroles with a punch on the reset button. Five extinction events and counting. This planet is patient and resilient.  I like the way my friend Hariod expresses a gentle treasure — confronting imponderables with contentedness. Witness contentedness. Consider this photograph:

 

happy-indian-girls-in-kolkata-by-jorge-royan-argentina

Happy Easter 2017 🙂

Thanks for reading.

 

Veganism and the Sacred Cow

Meatism is a lifestyle choice very deeply rooted in a modern society based on Freneticism. Big lies fuel bigger enterprises. Veganism threatens the BIG LIE with mere truth, but that hardly stops Meatists does it?

Chicken wearing funny vegan sign.

Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Veganist Party? 

The land of the fruited plain and the home of the Atlanta Braves® knows what’s for dinner — boeuf. This place is always open for business. American students may not be able to locate India on a world map, but they know how to form a turkey by circumscribing the human hand.  Put it on the refrigerator and talk about the two (2) turkeys who will be pardoned this November.

vicious.vegan

Believe a whopper. Eat a Whopper®.

The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock to escape persecution (and to spread their own form of persecution). They invited savages (Native Americans) to dinner, the savages brought something hitherto unknown to Europeans — wild turkey. But the savages with red skin (just like the football team) turned on those settlers. Ungrateful beasts, behaving like animals.

Pop quiz: what is an Indian giver?

On September 1, 1914 the last Passenger Pigeon died in captivity. Unfortunately the pigeons were tasty fowl that dropped to the ground when you shot at the sky. Dress them for dinner.

Needlepoint project: “A Passenger Pigeon in every pot.” Good luck students!

The American Bison numbered thunderous thousands. Print the photograph of a mound of bison skulls for your refrigerator door.

bison.skulls.1870s
From Smithsonian.org. This is not a photoshopped image. Would that it were.

American ingenuity solved the extinction problem by creating the factory farm.

If those silly Hindus would eat the sacred cows walking and defecating in the marketplace, no one would starve in India.

Philip Morris® purchased Kraft Foods® in 1985. Both industries are in the addiction business, so it was a good marriage. Cigarette companies know much about carving out markets and expanding them. Japanese women don’t smoke? Make them customers. Chinese women don’t smoke? Make them customers.

Nestlé®owns Hot Pockets® Eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and middle-of-the-night craves.

hot_pocket

Kraft® owns Lunchables® Throw Lunchables® into your shopping cart after a frenetic day at the office. Throw them in by the fistful. You ate the Lunchables® that the kids wouldn’t eat while you were working. You didn’t break for lunch, but the lunch will probably break you.

What about the customers who become too grown up for your product? Carve a new niche that keeps ’em buying. Choosy Jif® mothers read magazine ads.

The more you waste, the greater the gross national product — by definition.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Palestinian Animal League

When you announce your vegan beliefs expect incredulity, perhaps not visceral, perhaps visceral. Make public your support of Palestinians to self-determination and expect raw nerves to flare — it comes with the territory. Or am I tilting at windmills? Why must Palestine be a verboten topic?

pal

Misunderstanding happens to “the least of these, my brethren” (Matthew 25:34). I mentioned recently that I am the green sheep in the family. Do I hold a lightning rod aloft, inviting impending doom? I guess.

I live in an area of the country noted for its borders — political, racial, climatic, geomorphic, social: there are others.  Our planet does not need more division and more rancor. Welcome the green, the black and the rainbow. Welcome the stranger.

 

sudfeh.vegan.cafe
Sudfeh Vegan Cafe

Languages fascinate me intensely. Learning them lightens my spirit and dispels an illusory separation. We are all one. I lived and studied in Germany, a country that knows something of borders — their erection and their dissolution. Loving languages is a joy that requires patience, but it rewards that patience by several orders of magnitude. Or is it a waste of time, a conceit if you already speak THE international language — one dipped in the blood of imperious arrogance. Just saying. Colonialism is not dead. Were that it were.

 

berlin.wall
Berlin Wall

My intense interest in the Middle East began in 1967 when I began to seriously study its physical, cultural and religious geography. Study makes friends of pain and joy. I was living in West Germany in 1972, at the time of an ill-fated Olympics in Munich. Stasi was still going strong in East Germany. That same year I learned about Savak and the Shah of Iran from my fellow exchange students of the University of Tehran — a full seven years before the revolution in their ancient land, one with the longest continuous civilization in history, one that started with Cyrus the Great. Many cool people are Persian. Yes they are 🙂

Perhaps this is an overlong preface to my topic. I hope not, but please accept my apology if it is.

 

PALlogo
Source

Let me meld two curiously similar joys and pains — veganism and Palestine. Mix them together and you have The Palestinian Animal League. That kind group of animal activists knows that “acting like an animal” is an expression to deflect misbehavior of a specie with an overdeveloped ego that imposes their self-righteous “superiority” to the innocent fellow sentient beings possessing inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, though it be inexpedient to the self-described exceptional.

We’re not the top dog, we are the arrogant yapping selfish being that always takes advantage. Are we not a part of the cycle of life? Who made us the boss? What is the difference between cannibalism and meatism? I suggest that the difference between eating the flesh of your own and eating the flesh of an other is as trivial as the difference between apples and oranges — both are fruit. Human flesh and the flesh of any other sentient being — both are meat.

Let me now lighten the burden of writing. I yield the pen to The PAL. They know more about themselves than I. Expect joy.

arabic-public-art-qma
Arabic public art

Thanks for reading.