Been awhile...

Approaching a year since I did any updates.

Some of what I've been up to is over at the NARN blog.

In addition to running VegSeattle.com, I'm on the NARN board of directors now in addition to working full time, hence the utter lack of time for posting here. Even my creative blog BS Extract has seen little action (though I have a backlog of poetry and such to add).

I've also been posting to twitter in tiny bursts of poetic imagery, lately.

VegSeattle.com!

I've Just started maintaining VegSeattle.com and figured I'd plug it. It's a good directory for anyone interested in vegetarian and vegan food in Seattle, and includes restaurants and other types of businesses.

I haven't made many changes yet, but I hope to improve it more, bit by bit. check it out!

ACLU on FISA

"Congress & President Bush are giving away your rights"

The erosion of civil rights must be a gradual process, or else people will sit up and take notice.

The intention of lawmakers is probably not even to attack our rights, but they have overlooked the priority that civil liberties deserve in this case, in favor of capitulating to the Bush administration in order to look like they're doing something.

For that, they've compromised the justice system with respect to our privacy and granted the government the ability to spy on almost anyone for no reason.

Craving vs Suffering

Something that annoys me (and surely other vegans) is when people use reasons like "I like steak" or "I like cheese" to justify their cruelty-inducing eating habits.

Craving meat (or anything else) is a matter of flavor and nutrients. It's a chemical response to specific needs or desires, and there's no denying that there's a complete disconnect between how food was obtained and what it tastes like once in your mouth, so we can't expect our taste buds to reflect our conscience. When you consider that we're in an age when it's possible to grow meat without an animal, it becomes clear that the product and the ethics aren't so directly connected. This is why I lose respect for people when they seem somewhat aware of what goes in in the animal industry, but still eat something that probably caused suffering just because they really like it or crave it sometimes.

In a lot of conversations vegans talk about how gross animal products are, but I think focusing on the food is exactly the problem in society that allows people to compartmentalize and think only of how something tastes, ignoring how it was produced.

Logically speaking, saying you're not vegan because you like meat is an irrelevant response, because being vegan is not about meat (or eggs, etc), it's about the animals slaughtered or confined to create it. It's like a flier we often give out while tabling, 'even if you like meat, you can help stop this suffering...' It's a poor excuse used in place of a good reason.

The same problem extends beyond food to products that are often produced by sweatshops, or products that cause damage to the environment. People don't think beyond supermarket shelves, especially in an urban-suburban type environment, but it's true of any situation involving an industrialized means of production.

I would say that on a global level, it's more important in terms of the environment and reducing the suffering of others (human and non-human) to be a conscientious consumer in general than just to eat vegan foods. I think ignoring the way any product was produced is a bigger put-off to me than someone just eating meat, or consuming other animal products. On the other hand some people are 'conscious' omnivores, but to me that translates as 'apathetic', which is a personality trait that chafes me whether it's about politics, animals, or the environment.

To sum it up, the most important aspect of veganism, which can be applied to any purchase, is considering the source, and whether or not it involves actions you disagree with. I won't go into specific reasons to be vegan in this post, but the most important single reason is for animals. Everything else is a bonus.

[mostly a response to someone on facebook]

Guns for Home Defense?

Some interesting facts cited in this Washington Post opinion piece, written by Arthur Kellermann, a professor of emergency medicine and public health at Emory University"

More than 20 years ago, I conducted a study of firearm-related deaths in homes in Seattle and surrounding King County, Washington. Over the study's seven-year interval, more than half of all fatal shootings in the county took place in the home where the firearm involved was kept. Just nine of those shootings were legally justifiable homicides or acts of self-defense; guns kept in homes were also involved in 12 accidental deaths, 41 criminal homicides and a shocking 333 suicides. A subsequent study conducted in three U.S. cities found that guns kept in the home were 12 times more likely to be involved in the death or injury of a member of the household than in the killing or wounding of a bad guy in self-defense.

Oh, one more thing: Scalia's ludicrous vision of a little old lady clutching a handgun in one hand while dialing 911 with the other (try it sometime) doesn't fit the facts. According to the Justice Department, far more guns are lost each year to burglary or theft than are used to defend people or property. In Atlanta, a city where approximately a third of households contain guns, a study of 197 home-invasion crimes revealed only three instances (1.5 percent) in which the inhabitants resisted with a gun. Intruders got to the homeowner's gun twice as often as the homeowner did.

"Thou Shalt Not Kill"

This is kind of a silly thing you can bring up in the context of vegetarianism, yet I see it happen more often than I'd expect. I suppose in a modern context it makes sense to people, but that just goes to show what people know about ancient cultures and religions, however much their own religions have ripped off from them.

So I kind of have to laugh when I see people applying it to vegetarianism because it couldn't be a worse fit. I'll explain.

First of all, it's probably best translated as "thou shalt not murder". This makes perfect sense if you consider that in the same era in the Bible, there are many conditions under which killing is not only acceptable, but deemed the correct course of action. So technically this commandment is misinterpreted by people who consider stoning people for witchcraft wrong. In fact according to the Bible, it is the right thing to too! Go fundamentalism...

Similarly, animal sacrifice to Jehovah was mandated under the same Bible laws from the Old Testament. No wonder people took to Christianity a lot more readily than Judaism (apart from the fact that they didn't proselytize, and the whole notion of Israel being the chosen of their god because they're specialer than everyone else, or something.)

This more or less strips the phrase of any application other than killing someone who hasn't committed a capital crime is an Israelite. If I recall, there was some protection for foreign slaves and other people's livestock, but pretty much old Jevovah never minded a bit (a lot) of slaughter and mayhem for his own. In this way there's a lot in common with gods of polytheistic pantheons, and not a lot in common with what people believe in today.

On the other side of things, screw Biblical law. On its own, it's hardly a more a consistent basis for morality than pure whim, and then only because it's written down (I'm overstating this, but not by much as far as I care). Religions today are so selective about what they take from the Bible that I don't think any of them can claim to take these old laws seriously. If any god wrote the Bible, he's probably wondering where his sacrifices are. Fortunately, humans have no problem committing genocide on their own, so he's probably happy that's still going on. (Of course there's all kinds of things about this that technically only apply to the chosen of this god, but that's a mantle Christianity and other post-Judaic religions (I'm looking at you Mohammed) are more than happy to assume. No need to dredge all those details up though.)

Commandments like 'thou shalt not kill' are more or less given meanings that have nothing to do with this ancient religious code nowadays. So it goes with ancient text. Sorry Jehov', we do things different now. To appeal to modern understanding of the Bible is to appeal to an idea completely different from the original--an oversimplification and misinterpretation of ancient Judaic law, though a sensible one to make in my view. To avoid mincing terminology, I'll lump it all together as 'the old stuff in that big book a lot of people take too seriously'.

Personally, I prefer to altogether avoid appealing to a commandment given by an insane god in an ancient text. (Okay, so it was obviously written by a human person who fancied himself a Hammurabi, but you get the point.)

I'm done. I may not be remotely religious, but I suppose ignorance bothers me. It's kind of sad that I'm probably more educated about the Bible than most people who read it and don't realize how much fiction and rubbish you have to sort through to get anything of worth out of it. So it goes.

I prefer the perhaps too new-age-associated 'do what ye will, an ye harm none'. We could argue over none of what, exactly, but for me it extends as far down as is practical. (For me that includes things like shrimp and clams. Regardless of if they even have feeling the way vertebrates do, why would I want to be an asshole to clams? They've got it rough enough as it is without a population of 6 billion digging them up at the beach.)

To put it in the words of a contemporary fictional character: "Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense."

(The author would possibly disagree with me on extending this to so many non-humans, but Heinlein's dead so I win the argument by default. Not to disrespect the guy or anything, but I'm free to interpret it however I like and regardless of the author's intention, right? Just like with this commandment.)

FISA spying bill

Read this/watch the video if you're wondering what's wrong with this and why it annoys all hell out of me. There's actually still time to put pressure on your senators to reject this garbage, try here for contact info if you're into civil liberties.

They've invoked cloture today, so they have to vote within the next 24 hours (30 from whenever they began the cloture).

I found out about this via the ACLU mailings...if you're concerned about this sort of thing, go to ACLU.org and sign up. The same sort of useless compromises on FISA have been going on for months now.

(PS, Obama fans: Obama's apparently going to vote YES on this capitulation to Bush.)

And I repeat: "How?"

Meat: it's not personal

Some people seem happy to become vegan and leave it at that, not regarding it as having much impact on lives besides their own.

For a few years, that characterized my stance, and was my reason for not advocating much or discussing about the issue with others—at least, not in an argumentative way that might provoke some thought. It's probably also the same reason I never looked critically enough at being a lacto-ovo vegetarian over the course of two years to realize that it is really no more animal-friendly than eating meat. (Some of this post applies to any form of vegetarianism, but the main thrust is veganism, specifically.)

Even if people are vegan for the sake of animals (and not health or the environment), often enough they don't seem to think there's much reason to convince others to do likewise. For whatever reason, such vegetarians (as I was) don't seem to mind the killing and misery that other people's diets are causing, as if it's merely a personal preference, like having a favorite color or a favorite TV show. To take this stance is essentially to assume that it's a decision with minimal impact.

So my question is: is it just a personal choice if it affects other individuals and has a wider scope than oneself? I think the rather straightforward answer is: no, it's not. Decisions about food shape a lot of events and policy in the world, especially since the advent of industrialized agriculture, and it should be clear that what you buy impacts others (sellers, manufacturers, farmers, etc). Being a fundamental requirement to go on living, food is a more intrinsic and ubiquitous sector of the economy than anything else, at least qualitatively.

While in this respect it is a personal decision, people who eat meat are probably harming themselves. Increased risk of colon cancer is one example of this; so are kidney and heart disease, among other problems. But bill to this the protracted costs of health care due to complications preceding death in your average American omnivore. This clearly impacts one's family at the least, and generally affects society at large (for instance by raising the cost of insurance, or otherwise by taxing national health care systems).

As for harming others: the meat itself isn't going to harm them the way that smoke does. The negative consequences are all behind the scenes.

First there's the animal being slaughtered for its meat—not only is it killed, generally without much consideration for a 'humane' death, but in most cases, it spends its life in confinement. By the way, egg and milk producing animals go through hell for some years in such conditions before finally being slaughtered, so they have it worse than animals used for meat. Farm animals are granted essentially no protection against inhumane treatment in the US, as long as it's a 'standard agricultural practice (other countries really aren't much better. I think Canada is more or less the same, and Europe has only recently begun to set standards on this). Unsurprisingly, the animals are treated like pieces of meat rather than living things, and economically speaking, that's what they are--'protein production units'.

As an example of ways in which eating animal products like meat affects the quality of life of other humans, consider industrial-type animal farming. These operations produce massive amounts of sewage runoff, which has an impact on groundwater quality nearby. The confined spaces where employees of these facilities spend their time are also noxious, causing a high rate of respiratory disease. Besides this, there are factors such as air pollution; a UN study put animal agriculture at 18% of contributions of greenhouse emissions, and that includes a lot of methane. On a more aesthetic level, gigantic animal farms stink for miles, as anyone who's driven through central California on the I-5 freeway can attest (of course the same is true of the smaller operations I've passed as well, on a smaller scale).

Contamination of groundwater near large factory farms is not merely potential; it's already happening in the Midwest, and I shouldn't have to explain that this is very bad for people who need water (that's most of us, much to the chagrin of the soft drink companies) and the other species who inhabit the world. Obviously, there's too much shit happening.

Another problem with meat: food poisoning. Animal products are a very common cause of disease (salmonella, e. coli, etc). This would usually affect someone who consumes meat, but if improperly handled, infected meat sources contaminate other foods as well, so you don't have to be eating meat to get sick, necessarily. This is why you should store meat at the bottom of a fridge, so it doesn't drip contaminated juices on anything. There are other ways to get food poisoning, but those are easier to avoid than meat. You can wash your vegetables carefully, for example. (By the way, in the US, there are about 26,000 cases of food poisoning per 100,000 people per year—that's about 20 times as much as France. That makes me especially glad I don't eat the most common vehicles for several of the most common pathogens—milk, eggs, and meat.)

I can't find detailed information on how much food poisoning is caused by animal products. I've found the number 95% on a couple of vegetarian websites, but it wasn't cited. Looking at a list of the most common bacteria to cause food borne illness though, most of them are associated with animals (including humans) and consumption of animal products. So 95% doesn't sound completely ridiculous, but I would like to know where that figure came from. At any rate, I think it's safe to say that most food poisoning has its origin in animal products.

These are only some of the consequences of eating meat and other animal-derived products. There are many other environmental impacts, like deforestation and habitat destruction. Some of these are consequences of agriculture in general, but are compounded by animals used as food: animals are not highly efficient converters of food, and factory farms can only feed their animals via industrial agriculture—most cows do not just eat grass. This means that for every pound of beef, you have to produce more grain to feed them than you would for the same amount of vegetables.

What should be clear is that eating meat has a rather far-reaching impact, as does any economic decision in an industrialized society. Minor discrepancies in the details of the above won't really change this.

Talking to people

Now on to vegans themselves. Some people talk about not imposing their beliefs on others, and that's fine. But when the desire avoid 'imposing' a nonviolent view causes us to be completely silent and avoid discussing the issue, we are turning a blind eye to the suffering of animals. Now we can't expect other people to instantly accept our beliefs (I know it took me long enough to get to where I am now), but we can try and talk about the issues.

Really, that's all we can do, because there's very little we could do to actually impose vegetarianism on others, even if we really wanted to try. Especially keeping in mind how few people are vegetarian, let alone vegan. More often, the opposite happens, and vegans are imposed upon by a meat-hungry, cheese-lovin' culture that doesn't bat an eye at what's being done to produce these products at the rate it demands them. In the face of this culture, attempting to 'impose' veg beliefs by simply decrying or insulting people who eat animal products is counterproductive, if it supplants discussion.

I think anything less confrontational than empty insults or rhetoric is too polite to be considered an imposition, so unless you're being a loudmouthed ass, I don't think there's much risk of imposing on anyone—there are always polite ways of stating the problem without necessarily offending people, though a vegan position is going to contradict a meat-eater's. It seems that the best approach to take is to get informed and take any opportunity for serious discussion of the reasons for being vegan.

I think the only excuses anyone can have for silence on this matter are ignorance or apathy: in other words, if you believe that what's being done to animals is wrong but don't advocate for them in some capacity, you have a motivation problem. If you believe something is wrong, it seems pretty clear that at least talking about why with people in your life is a must. Being informed on and caring about any such issue is really all you need to do. Skill in finding opportunities for discussion and discussion itself has to be learned, and can only be done most effectively with an open and educated mind.

These are also the only excuses for eating eggs, milk and dairy: ignorance and apathy. Neither ignorance nor apathy validates a choice of cruelty, but they are the only support for statements like 'I like meat/cheese' and 'it's too hard to be vegetarian'. These are not only poor excuses to harm others and irrelevant to ethics and the treatment of animals, but they also depend entirely upon ignorance of the treatment of farm animals or apathy for the plight of these animals.

Either you don't know, or you don't care.

But my point is not to point the finger, but to point out that there's more that many of us could be doing to support the cause of compassion.

Personally, I just never realized what animals were being put through for the longest time—for meat, or for eggs and dairy. I went vegetarian on an almost theoretical basis, with only a tenuous connection to what actually goes on in slaughterhouses. So looking back, it's not a surprise that it took another two years before I went vegan, and that it took me another year after that before I realized the importance of talking about it and encouraging others to do the same (tis all in the last few months). My only excuse was that I didn't want to be 'one of those animal rights people'.

Much like an omnivore who won't go vegan because it's not socially convenient, the decision to remain silent is a matter of putting social normalcy above the suffering and death that normalcy causes—not an equitable trade. (I'm planning to write a post about animal rights, its stigmatization, and the inconsistent animal rights already-present in society.)

To wrap it all up

So what it all boils down to is this: if you eat meat, it's not a personal choice because it affects the creature you're eating as well as other people. If you are vegetarian or vegan for the sake of animals, it's not just a personal choice; it's a compassionate choice made for the sake of others, and therefore is by definition not just a personal decision.

That alone seems to make it a message worth spreading. If you're vegetarian for the sake of other creatures, you should speak up. You can help far more animals by making others aware of your diet and lifestyle, even if it only persuades them to reduce the amount of animal products they consume. And if you persuade others to become vegan, you will have done good to still more fellow creatures, human and otherwise.

To me, it seems better to address the issues more than the person, but we have to keep in mind that culinary choices are at the heart of the matter.

Once you start trying, skill in taking advantages of opportunities and in discussing vegan issues will develop with time. I often find myself passing up opportunities to casually spread awareness of veganism and the reasons behind it, but I'm learning how to catch them more and more. Talking about this sort of thing is an acquired skill, so of course anyone will pass up opportunities like this, especially in the beginning.

While you can't expect others to share your ethics (especially if you took as long to develop them as I did), you can talk about why they don't. You can talk about what's wrong with the animal industry. You can speak up for creatures that have no voice, no protection, and virtually no consideration for their well-being.

I've been working on this for a little while, finally decided to finish. Hopefully it's enlightening or interesting to non-vegans and vegans alike.

Global Warming again

Just thought I'd share a link.

http://www.realclimate.org/

It's a site about climate science by climate scientists. The nice thing is that they address a number of topics and respond to comments.

It can be a bit technical, but as far as global warming science goes, I don't know a better resource.

(this makes my last post a lie, but only partially)