Veganism 101

On Saturday Lisa and I met Peter Schreiner and his lovely family for an incomparable vegan celebration at their home. Anyone fortunate enough to know Peter’s steady mindful support for animal rights and the wisdom of veganism knows that this would become a singular moment. Of course it was much more than a wonderful experience, it was immensely fruitful and vegetable-full.
Here is a reblog from October 2016 that speaks to the power of Mr. Schreiner’s voice. Written a bit over a year ago, the sentiments still reverberate.
Dedicated here to all sentient creatures gifted with this planet.

Bill Ziegler's avatarbillziegler1947

Peter Schreiner is the voice of Crows Head Soup. His post Animal Welfare is stirring enthusiasm for the pillars of Veganism and the bedrock supporting those pillars.

veganism-is-not-a-sacrifice

Veganism happens one human at a time, one awesome realization at a time. As Peter suggests, the information is out there. And so is well funded disinformation.

Caveat emptor

I have found that adopting a vegan lifestyle is not privation. It’s not like “giving up something” at all, unless you view toxins as dietary supplements. Detoxing is uncomfortable and wearying. Eating a portion of animal or animal byproduct provides short term relief. It’s like waking up in the morning with a coughing fit that goes away when you light up the first cigarette of the day.

Nicotine is also a cough suppressant. But it takes a while for nicotine to excrete completely. Withdrawal is agony. I am an ex-smoker as well…

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Relax and Eat Clean

I wish the NYT had asked Andrew Kirschner to write this post on their editorial page. Aaron Carroll’s opinion piece should never have been approved by a media giant that proclaims itself the newspaper of record. I could not have done a better addressing the false statements myself — actually I would probably have lost myself to rants and ravings, so my grateful appreciation goes to Kirschner’s Korner for countering so much misinformation.

Solidarity for Sustainability

My thanks to all and each who inspire this blog 🙂

I appreciate my readers and am ever grateful for each of you — including those who disagree with some (or all) content here, or those who have tripped into my blog by entering a type O graphical error in a Google search bar. Say you’re interested in discovering something germane and find German instead. Many (most) might feel that nothing I write is germane to many (most) surfers’ interests.

sustain.pakistan

Today’s comment of the day is from Robert, creator of Words for Breakfast, a worthwhile blog I recommend to your attention on the basis of its inherent interest and merit:

“…Vegans, Vegetarians and proponents of sustainable living should work together more, be more receptive to each other instead of trying to convince each other of the rightness of their opinion…”

Please allow me to quote from my reply:

“… You are absolutely right about the need to work together with as many fellow travelers as possible. I believe in joining with others in solidarity, even if you disagree with them on many other issues. Creating enemies by edict solves nothing and poisons the soil… — crap drains no sewer…”

Vegans are not the only planetary inhabitants who recognize that a sustainable environment is not a luxury or a fantasy. Solidarity for sustainability unites many with whom you may disagree: mildly or vehemently. We have no Plan B Planet.

meatrix

I believe that sustainability is a rock-solid rule of Mother Nature, a rule enforced by her forces of evolution and devolution. You break the rules by stacking the deck in your favor, resulting in expulsion.

Before going any further, let me recommend a recent review and summation of a recent symposium in Sheffield UK by Mira Lieberman, a scholar who combines voice and verve at a sustained level of competence. Thorough and well written? Yes, indeed.

Sometimes the rules are blatantly not caused by planetary inhabitants. Sizable meteors are also a force of nature, as is a dying sun. The dinosaurs had been around far longer than mammals, for example. Extinction Event Number 5 was not of their doing. Sometimes being in the wrong place at the wrong time just happens. Sorry ’bout that.

Venus became enshrouded by clouds, setting hypothetical Venusians up for the heartbreak of The Greenhouse Effect. Your assignment: write an essay (50,000 words or less) on the topic: what I think happened to Venus.

greenhouse.smithsonian

Extinction Event Number 6 may be well on the way to completion, I’ve heard that nothing is completed until it is finished, or something. Unfortunately most other innocent fellow species are thus endangered. Many species have already disappeared through a process known as ‘extinction’ — something as natural as getting hit by a largish meteor or squeezed into a cul-de-sac by a human crave for lebensraum or some other geopolitical impulse.

Extinction events usually take millions or billions of years to complete. Leave it to the self-appointed kings of the hill, self-named topper of the food chain to deserve an “anthropocentric” geological era.

Perhaps robots invented by homo sapiens will begin a “cene” of their own after their creators leave the scene.

Vegan Venn Diagram o’ the Day

Venn diagrams are useful heuristics. Here is one from VeganStreet.com that departs from the conventional Meatist perspective. I’m calling it the Venn diagram o’ the day.

vegann.diagram.veganstreet

Hoping that you like the idea of complimenting a comment with a complementing commentary. 🙂

Thanks for reading.

 

Veganism vs. Extinction Event

Being out of synch with society is one way to identify iconoclasts.

Being out of synch with a jury of my peers is something I value, though it seems to preclude all those traits identified with career-ladder climbers.

Being out of synch with majority perspectives lends me a contented smile. However it’s not something I leverage and monetize.  For much and more on the phenomenon of contentedness, I recommend the works of Hariod Brawn.

Arcane topics of personal interest elicit mighty yawns, eye-rolls and eye-flinches among my fellow sapiens. This realization makes me most mindful and grateful for the readers who lend me their attention span, I am curious about the value systems of those who choose the seldom trod path for a living. I also suffer from “fear of not learning something.”

Now, let me test your patience with some more evidence supporting the existence of THE ANTHROPOCENE, something that elicits yawns, eye-rolls and eye-flinches among the masses of asses who would rather shrug shoulders, move bowels and move on.

ages

What are the odds of each of us actually being present on this planet as it prepares to shrug off the shoulder shruggers? Staggering or no? 

Consider the sheer number of homo sapiens presently residing on this orb.

Now consider that our population is increasing at an increasing rate, and now stands at 7.x billion, 97% of these guys consume 70.x billion edible and appetizing fellow Earth inhabitants per annum. Each of those non homo sapiens possesses a highly developed central nervous system, each has two eyes. There’s a market for every part of an animal, from fur to marrow, nose to tail. See my piece Inverting Pork Rectums for a Living for more. By the way, that article was inspired by William Brigg, statistician to the stars. 

Here’s the thing about veganism methinks: it removes a complicity with this butchering of 70.x billion this year and 70.x butchering of brand new beasts readied for butchering next year. By the way, I’ve an issue calling the slaughtered “beasts” and the slaughterers “consumers.”

AnimalsVeganManifesto_CVF

Did you know that only a few rodents survived the firestorm that accompanied Meteor Meets Planet. We are the descendants of those rodents.

In 1915 a chemist named Fritz Haber discovered a process for isolating nitrogen atoms from the atmosphere and combining them with hydrogen for the mass production of fertilizers, explosives and pesticides.

Not surprisingly Haber received Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918. Nobel knew a little chemistry himself.

Haber also invented Zyklon gas, a pesticide.  IG Farben removed the odor from the hydrogen cyanide product so that the exterminated in German death camps would not be alerted until it was too late.

fritz.haber

Ironically Fritz Haber’s achievement of  increasing population ultimately brings the concluding moment of the Anthropocene closer.

You may have read news items on the massive decimation of flying insects in the last few decades. I am old enough to remember wiping the windshield clean of accumulated flying bugs every hundred miles or so on Summer drives. Today your wipers clear dust and debris only. You could put off cleaning bugs from the grill until they built up by the thousands. I recall seeing massive tanks along the Ohio River at Cincinnati — mostly labelled Sohio and Monsanto.

Rex Tillerson began his career with Exxon at the same time that Exxon scientists discovered that their product would tip the scales in favor of runaway global warming.

Most hardware stores in my neighborhood stock massive aisles of their über money-maker Roundup® — don’t buy into their propaganda. Merely a suggestion of course.

Ending on a positive tone — vegans and proponents of sustainable living have much in common. Go team!

Discover veganism, another mere suggestion 🙂

Thanks for reading