Category: veganism

November no vember

Veganism is gentle and genuine. It is a joy to join all the planet’s sentient inhabitants in sane sustained balance. Kind of the opposite of freneticism.

sustain

Veganism is also confrontational and anarchal. It is living gently with the carnivorous and the omnivorous.

But remember in November not to vember. Defined by the Urban Dictionary as an adrenaline rush, something that makes you nervous, neurotic, up-tight,etc.

In other words — an antonym for veganism

 

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BILL, tell me that you are not going to go there, where there equals a goofy-ass word like VEMBER.

Well I do like “v” words and I hadn’t heard of the word ‘vember’ before today. Anyway it fits well with this post’s title, or something.

What is sacrosanct? Answer: Norman Rockwell. Mom, pumpkin pie. It’s a warm up for Super Bowl Sunday. The day of Thanksgiving in this chunk of the world heralds an overdose of all things Rockwell. I prefer a warm hearth fire without football, Butterball hotlines and other heart-cooling and discomfiting suggestions that darken my day, so no white meat and no dark meat, s’il vous plait.

 

vegan-street-blogB  I  L  L , that’s another place we don’t want you to revisit for the 92nd time, so listen: meat means meals, meat means mom’s meals. And you don’t seem to mind sending the unemployment rate to 92% and my blood pressure to a hundred and 92. Do You!

I knew a guy who ate porcine vigorously, salivating at every tooth grind. But not before he gave a silent “thank you, kind sir” to the pig who gave its life for his palate.

Yeah, but we only “pig out” on Thanksgiving (see N. Rockwell). The following day we enjoy Black Friday and EAT MEAT at the All You Can Savage buffet, the one with the never-ending snow crab legs.

We’re always tired after Turkey Day’s  G-rated cooking. By the way, did I mention that Black Thursday means a paycheck for dad?

And you don’t mind if we have the last word, do you Bill?

wv-thanksgiving

 

 

Veganism 102: Think Outside the Asylum

According to a highly anonymous source the holiday season begins with monster-sized sales of Halloween junk food or junk ephemera. It peaks on Super Bowl Sunday to celebrate the nation’s Gross Decadent Product — it’s gross, it’s decadent, it’s a product.

Marketing term of the day: Bold Challenge: the perfect balance between perfidy and truth. Get away with whatever you can, whenever you can, whatever the stretch. Gain advantage. Think bottom line. Think Glengarry Glen Ross.

 

halloween-in-the-nfl
Meat is Violence

Well Bill, let me explain the game of American football. The NFL is life. In college I learned that football programs fund universities. Sports medicine is the sugar that keeps the doctor away. Concussions: a money-making bold challenge for research grant seekers. Research dollars flow to research grant holders. Jobs is jobs is jobs. Now that is a bold challenge. It’s where the smart money gravitates. Live with it.

What to do with all that depleted uranium? Proclaim it a natural resource. Naturally it’s a resource, one discovered by Americans for Americans in America. Does that star-spangled banner still wave?

What’s next? Well, in daydreams I fancy myself a broadcaster working for the sports at Fox.

What inspired that Bill?

Well, I read that math and science is superfluous for science reporters at Fox News (the balanced and the fair). One Fox science reporter majored in wrestling.

And so, my awe-inspiring paucity of sports knowledge qualifies me eminently. Bill Ziegler, sports expert for Fox Sports (or whatever it’s called).

Do I digress, or what?

Veganism is not even recognized in the WordPress dictionary of spellings. It’s simply not in the database. What gives?  That’s my question. Veganism reduces madness on befouled planets. Not a bad idea. Really. Think outside the asylum.

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Vote Big Coal Kentucky! Revive depleted uranium for military vehicles racing through the Middle East. Weapons proudly labelled “Made in the USA” and protected by the Second Amendment.

Mad in the USA.

 

Speaking of the sports metaphor, are they hiring at the white phosphorous plant up in Chemical Valley? The Charleston River flows into the Ohio River. They call it the chemical capital of the world. It’s in West Virginia, where the jobs aren’t. American jobs not already stolen by Indians in India or Indian-giving (tongue-in-cheek) Indians in North America.

Union Carbide once operated a plant in Bhopal India…

Look Bill. Get real and get with the program. ’nuff said?

Hey Bill, aluminum cans are flimsy, not like the steel ones we made right here in these States of the United. But do you know what’s not flimsy: beer cans tempered with depleted uranium. We have a lot of this raw material. It’s a resource, naturally enough.

 

depleted-uranium

The Graduate-level advice in two words: depleted uranium.

Thanks for reading.

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.

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 as an ex-drinker, I actually told myself that tobacco and alcohol were at least vegan. Craving will twist reason into whatever contortion necessary to rationalize consumption of more and more (and more) of the toxin that tastes and feels good. Thanksgiving?

Mad Men of the 50’s and the cigarettes they peddled. “Chesterfields are smoked by more doctors than any other cigarette.” The ads were Norman Rockwellesque. All the while the enormo-gigantic corporations losing customers to “quitting” can recoup losses by shifting capital into other craved crap. Philip Morris purchased Kraft (it’s the cheesiest).

meat-is-life-mad-men
Hey Bill, my body must be deficient of something found in Johnsonville sausages. Maybe my body is trying to tell me to eat more, due to a deficiency or something like that.  Anyway, my opinion is as good as your fact in this new post-truth era. I crave them so much, my dietary system knows it needs it. And I always feel better after eating four or six. I mean, it’s only natural, you know what I mean? Yes. comfort foods are satisfying heritages. Eat some more turkey and let’s retire to the parlor and light up a couple big-ass cigars! 

Palm oil is one such line item on a Nutrition Label that provides no nutrients. It simply excites a pleasure center in the brain, a chemical that induces a satisfying sensation for the palate. Must.eat.more.must… Eating just one is cheating.

palm-oil-carbon

Thanks for reading.

Discomfort Foods

A sentient being is a bag of chemicals, skin is its largest organ. Sentient beings walk, fly and swim around in a bag holding every other organ.

Each is a biochemical factory that absorbs nutrients and toxins, then discharges them as excreted waste products.

What happens when you consume something?

everytime

As vegan I affirm the right of fellow planetary inhabitants to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Veganism does not exclude other sentient beings from that life, liberty and pursuit.

Today’s theme: discomfort foods.

A discomfort food is as fulsome as the original definition of fulsome. Sentient-beings’ skin and the organs they contain are craved and craven. Douglas Adams suggested the disquieting breach of accepted protocol that comes upon meeting meat

Douglas Adams’ cow that wants to be eaten

discomfort-food

So when does craving become craven?

After a few years of pursuing veganism your body cleanses at the molecular level. Eventually each toxin-laden cell is replaced. Initially you feel sluggish because your body is going through detox. SOS is status quo cell replacement. Removing all flesh-based substances also replaces the craving for more and more.

A vegetarian diet that includes byproducts in the form of cheese and other dairy stuffs prevents that crave from leaving the organ bag. Those free-sample cubes of cheese in the supermarket spark an impulse to eat more.

Yes, it takes time to replace trillions of cells, but the cycle is broken. Once I conducted an experiment in the supermarket fish aisle. I ate a shrimp placed on the free samples table. Five minutes later my tongue yielded foam as toxic discharge.

It was uncomfortable. I felt like a cannibal.