Vegetarianism Day #20

So, today was Day 20 of the 30 Day Veg and it’s still going brilliantly.  I’m loving it and today, in the grocery store, my daughter even said, “Hmm, lets try some new and interesting fruits today!” She decided on a cantaloupe.  

When I first started this 30 Day Veg I was tricked into ordering some propaganda from PETA via goveg.org.  I promptly recieved my brochure of empty headed celebrities saying stupid things, like “and stuff”.  The next several pages were pictures and horror stories of how animals are processed for food.  Now, I’m not the animal loving type and none of these torture stories surprised or shocked me in the least. Because I grew up in mid-Southern Missouri,  I’ve just never really seen farm animals as anything other than food.  I’m not like the little daughter of a friend of mine who was eating dinner one day and said “Heeeyyy, this is called ‘chicken’ and chickens are called ‘chicken’!”  Everyone in the room held their breath, but it either didn’t click, or didn’t bother her.  She just giggled and chowwed down.   For me, when I see a pig, it’s a porkchop and that field full of cattle, well that’s some Kansas City Steak right there.  What do you expect from a girl who’s favorite steak joint had a larger than life Hereford cattle as its sign?  It was no secret to us what was for dinner.  

The most interesting and impressive thing I’ve learned about vegetarianism and being vegan was on the back pages of that brochure.   Through all of this, it isn’t all the awesome food out there (although I can’t get enough of it) or even the way I feel (which is WONDERFUL), but it’s the impact that vegetarianism, particularly veganism has on the environment.  The facts are fascinating and endless.   The single biggest thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is to become a vegan!  I was shocked. 

So, even if you really don’t care that your dinner was once part of a living, breathing creature, don’t shut all the herbivores down.  We’re not all protesting the hunting of Bambi.

Book Review – Eden: A Novel With a Lot of Truth to It by D. Kevin May, PhD

Eden: A Novel with a Lot of Truth to It

by D. Kevin May Ph.D. 

Looking at Kevin May’s website, www.kev.net, I find myself asking this question, “Did Kev May set out to write a book, or did he set out to start a revolution?” This is a story about a carefully planned, seemingly exotic, journey. Kevin recounts his trip throughout Southern Asia and Europe in a language that emphasizes a “us and them” mentality. The contrast of lavish lifestyles against the backdrop of poverty grabs your attention and causes you to feel a bit of self-consciousness, with a shot of righteous indignation.

This story about Daniel, a.k.a. Kevin, is a true-story-blend of fact and unverifiable, admittedly embellished, detail that keeps you guessing. (Imagine if James Fray had been honest with Oprah from the start.) You’ll be so inclined to assess the meaning of every conversation and ruminate every exchange, you’ll put the book down, for a little while, in order to reconcile the words with your own worldview.

There is one rule to reading this book; opening its pages commits you reading every single page. (Well, except the explicit love scene, you can skip those two pages. I did.) Kevin’s writing style isn’t exactly the refined prose you may be used to reading, in fact, he admitted to me that it was dashed off in a matter of only four months. But don’t let that slow you down, the value of the story isn’t diminished by the author’s lack of linguistic precision.

The story calls into question the idea of “coincidence”. It’s filled with stark moments of clarity that slowly and unnoticeably slip into to Daniel’s confusion. Declarations are made with an immediate resolve and then as soon as they are made, they begin to fade so slowly, you barely notice. When you do realize what’s happening, you find yourself wanting to grab Daniel by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. You want to yell “What are you thinking?” Watching helplessly from the sidelines, the suspense keeps you turning the pages.

In the end, the resolutions are made, the sides are chosen and you’re faced with the Truth. The battle between good and evil is very much alive in this day and age and there are those who are out to get you. Let the revolution begin.

You can purchase Kev’s book here.

Nobody’s Perfect, Indeed

My daughter is a nine year old. And being a nine year old, she does the things most nine year olds do. We’ve protected her without coddling her. We’ve been able to talk about what’s acceptable and what’s right without violating her innocence and supporting her when she has to make her own decisions. But then again, she’s only 9, so those decisions aren’t monumental by any stretch of the imagination.  

One of the decisions she’s made and we’ve supported is her taste in music. Now, to be fair, we heavily influenced her preferences from a very early age. Instead of stars that twinkle, cows who poll-vault celestial bodies and boys who run through town in their nightshirts, she listened to what we listened to. Phish was probably the band heard most in our home. While their lyrics in songs like “Contact” (the tires are the things on the car that make contact with the road) and “Opossum” (the road is your end, and your end is the road) are as equally silly as nursery rhymes, the musical complexity of these jams rival the classical musicians that were being marketed to children at the time. She was exposed to good music.

So here we are nine years later and her playlists include Johnny Cash, that one radio edit from Rage Against the Machine, Waterdeep, The News Boys, and of course, what every nine year old girl has in their CD player, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus.

She snuck that last one in there all on her own. It was her choosing. We had all been sitting around one Saturday while her aunt and uncle were here for a visit and she asked “Mom, can I watch Hannah Montana?”

and being that I hadn’t seen it and hadn’t been too impressed with Disney Channel so far, I said “No.”

and her aunt spoke up, “Why not? I love that show!”

So we did the responsible thing and sat down together and all watched as a family. And we’ve seen every episode ever since. It’s a cute show, it’s punchy and funny and very far from “cutting edge”. It’s entertaining and the kids on the show deliver their lines with fantastic comical precision.

The songs and music performed by Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus) is your typical pop music with inspirational lyrics. Songs about making mistakes and getting up to do better. Songs about not getting down on yourself too much, but trying again. Songs about being a pop star on the outside and being “just one of the girls” on the inside. Nothing controversial, nothing objectionable.

As we continued to watch the show and listen to the music along came tidbits, interviews and backstage tours featuring Miley Cyrus and her family, mostly her famous post-mullet father, Billy Ray Cyrus. They seemed above average. Her parents were still married, had other seemingly well adjusted kids and they all got along great.

Miley managed to stay out of tabloids for the most part, and her interviews were playful and funny and very, very innocent.

There were occasions, during this past year, that the idea would creep in. You know, Brittany Spears had a squeaky clean reputation once. She was a teen pop star. Everyone thought her dad was fantastic too. But I would suppress those ideas because you know, you can’t judge one teen pop princess by the actions of another. Can you? Besides, we’d cross that bridge when we got there. She’s only 15, what could possibly go wrong?

What could possibly wrong? Vanity Fair. That’s what could possibly go wrong.

Thank goodness for all those songs she sings about not being perfect and everybody making mistakes, otherwise, I wouldn’t know what to tell my nine year old.

My husband wonders why I think the subject will come up. I’m betting it will. I’m disappointed to say the least and now Miley is going on the record saying she’s “embarrassed” and the photographer,Annie Leibovitz, in her defense, quotes Miley as saying “”It wasn’t in a skanky way … And you can’t say no to Annie. She’s so cute. She gets this puppy dog look and you’re like, ‘O.K.’” (The fact that the photographer is quoting Miley as saying this makes me think she should be hiding her methods of manipulation, not flaunting them).

If you look at the candid shots, you can see what the atmosphere was like and how Miley saw it at the time. There doesn’t seem to be anything remarkable or controversial about this shot:
 

A lot of people are making a big stink out of all of this and quite frankly I think they don’t remember being 15. If Vanity Fair published the things I did publicly at 15, you’d all be too embarrassed to admit you know me. I think most of us could say that. But there is one BIG difference. I knew what I was doing was wrong. Mostly I knew it because I knew my parents would FLIP out if they found out. And at this photo shoot, her parents, according to Vanity Fair, were present. (But the publicist for Cyrus said her parents departed at the end of the day, prior to the pictures being taken and did not see any digital pictures.) Which makes me wonder how he feels today. Was he as naive as she was? Something tells me he shouldn’t have been. I think the firestorm is going to rain heavier on his head and that of the photographer than on Miley’s and that’s as it should be.

Sprawl-mart – 10/5/06

When we moved to our fantastic city of 90,000 people two years ago, I noticed something wonderful. The Wal-mart was your basic clothes, CDs, cleaning supplies, toys and toiletries type of Wal-mart. No groceries, no miles and miles of walking, no 50 check out lanes.

I thought that said something about our fair city. I thought it meant that this university town was conscientious enough to reject the world domination that company seeks. As a matter of fact, I later learned the city was in litigation with Wal-mart over the issues of its impending expansion. But to no avail, the corporate giant is crushing. They suck the life out of small businesses and use their insurmountable wealth to legally defend their right to do so.

While this case was being sorted out and then put on hold, it became a hot topic in the community. So, I did what every responsible well meaning American should do, evaluated my experiences and compiled some research.

I grew up shopping at Wal-mart. No one ever talked about the origins of the products, the low wages the employees were receiving or the insufficient heath care. As a matter of fact, my husband worked for Wal-mart in the auto department for a while. It was during his training that we got an indication that something was amiss.

It started when he was required to watch anti-union videos in his training and to pledge that he would not belong to, start or ask others to start a worker’s union. Things seem even more strange when he was introduced to the Wal-mart “cheer”. It eerily resembled spiritual gathers we’d been to. Where else do you stand with others and sing about how great something is?

Later, when I was a loan processor at a bank in Iowa the rumors (later confirmed when they submitted the necessary paperwork) were that Wal-mart was starting it’s own bank. That’s when I began accusing them of desiring world domination. First it was groceries, then gas, next is banks. Those three things cover just about every consumable product that is not delivered directly to your home, but on that note, they also have Wal-mart internet access and they’ve partnered with Netflix. Will Wal-mart utilities be next?

If you’ve still not grasped the unprecedented magnitude of the Wal-mart corporation, how about this: 5 of the top 10 richest people in the United States are Wal-mart benefactors. Read that again. Over half of the top 10 have income coming from the same source. Not only that, but Wal-mart corporation ranks 18th in charitable giving in this country. If there is enough income to produce half of the top 10 richest people then why do they rank 18th on the list of charitable giving?

That’s not the only unbelievable statistic.

“If Wal-Mart were an individual economy, it would rank as China’s eighth-biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia and Canada,” Xu said.

Wal-mart is hoarding billions from desperate people locked into poorer standards of living. They are missing an opportunity and doing it to the tune of billions of dollars in their pocket. Since Wal-mart HAS this kind of buying power, shouldn’t they take the lead in raising wages?

If you’re interested in more information, the movie High Cost of Low Price is very compelling in it’s arguments against Wal-mart. The web site, www.walmartwatch.com is adequate.

Some people like to point out that we live in a free enterprise system and this corporation is just the natural product of our economic system. Others agree with me and feel as though they have no choice or can do nothing about it. Let me state that we can use our free enterprise system against Wal-mart. Your dollar is your vote. Shopping locally is the smartest and easiest way to combat this corporate giant. Supporting your local business is not as costly as the large discount retailers would have you believe. Honestly, would you rather give your money to your neighbor, or to half of the top 10 richest people in the country?