Diet and Daytime TV

I've never been one to be choosy about what I eat. Granted, I try to eat healthy enough that I wont be going down with all the health problems associated with things like binge-eating and high cholestoral. Even so, though, I don't think I really have it in me to ever give up on meat. I'm a meat & potatoes sort of girl, you know?

I need a burger every now and then, and sometimes even something like a steak. I enjoy salads, and I enjoy fruit, but I can't live off of those. I need me my chicken, my turkey and my fish. A vegetarian diet, however healthy, just isn't for me. Never has been.

Believe me, I give credit to those that manage it- it takes a lot more drive and will-power to give up on half of what makes up the diet of most everybody else. Making the choice to give up meat is no doubt a choice that will let them live longer than I will. Even knowing that, though, I don't think I could just change my entire diet around for a few extra years. I'm comfortable with my eating habits (well okay, I could definitely eat healthier, even sticking with my omnivorous diet), and when you find something that works for you, why change it?

There are plenty of arguments in favor of a vegetarian diet (things like being nice to nonhuman animals, for instance), but again, as much as I love animals, I don't think I could just not consume them anymore. That kind of decision would be hard to do. Habits are hard to break, and humans are nothing if not creatures of habit. How else to explain daytime television? It's always the same exact plot, but people keep tuning in. Not because it's good (because, really, it's not), but because they tuned in yesterday, and are compelled to continue to tune in every day, just to find out what happens, next.

Letters, War, and Radishes: things to chew on

Being a copy-editor for the Beacon means that I often have the opporunity to read letters to the editor, as well as new editorials, before most everyone else. A great deal of buzz resulted from an editorial two issues ago about animal rights, and how "dumb" activists that support it, are.

The following week there were two biting letters to the editor protesting the editorial..and this week's issue will feature, it seems, a letter to the editor defending the original editorial against the two susequent protest letters.

The argument is against censorship over the opinions of the editorialist. I can understand that position, of course, but freedom of speach does not, or at least should not, cover name-calling. The editorial was juvenile in that respect, and this new letter fails to address that, in favor of attacking the administration, and the school, for censorship by printing the two protest letters.

Censorship is, to my mind, wrong. But so is making brash claims and attacks against something that has not been researched. How else can anyone form an intelligent argument without any facts? That is, I believe, the real reason behind the protest letters.

Why can't we all get along? No, never mind. I know why we can't. Humanity is stubborn, and we all feel that we are right in whatever it is we believe. How else can war be explained. There have been wars about land, about religion, about greed and about women named Hellen (if such myths can be believed). There just seems to need to be an excuse, and poof, there's a war.

The trouble is, there is no "winning" most wars. The death toll is always too high on both sides, or all sides, of the conflict for there to be any true winner. Not unless the "winner" just happens to be the one that gets the flag in the end. I don't agree, frankly. War is a tragedy, and never produces a triumph. It also seems to be, sadly, an aspect of human nature that we seem unable to avoid.

At this point, all I can think is that maybe vegetarians are right- I'm willing to gamble. What have I got to lose? If we stop killing animals, perhaps we'll stop killing eachother, too. I'd much rather kill a radish than a person.

A conversation

With permission from a friend, I'm posting up a discussion I had with her about the A&E class

Animals & Ethics is the class title
it's all about the evolution of morality, and whether or not animals can be moral creatures, or if its merely humanity that has that ability

ghost: wow
ghost: a bit mind-blowing

Yes. but the reading sometimes makes my brain want to explode.
it has so very many philosophy jargon and such that I'm constantly flipping through dictionaries

ghost: well morality is an odd word, hard to define, is it an agreement between two
ghost: as in morals about not killing eachother so a community can exist
ghost: kinda hard to live side by side if we are always injuring eachother in different ways

It's all of it. sociality as a moral construct, the argument for vegetarianism..

ghost: ahh, but i have eye teeth that are sharp
ghost: though i do adore animals
ghost: and eat very few

Yes, humans are omnivorous by physiology. That is one of the arguments against vegetarianism

ghost: no bunnies

But that's where morals come in. If it's wrong to kill, is it wrong to kill animals? or just SOME animals?

ghost:we kiss bunnies

Which ones? how can you choose? Is one more valuable than another because it's cute? That's the stuff this class discusses

ghost: ahh, i think its the domestic thing
ghost: livestock, and farms
ghost: um, is it wrong to kill animals? Animals kill animals, but being humane in the killing, that is a human issue.
ghost: this is great stuff ally

What about whales and fish and wolves and wild horses. birds?
It's not just about killing for consumption:
Animal testing for human products, circuses, zoos

ghost: definitely.

Why is it ok to boil a live lobster, but not something else?

ghost: does make the head spin
ghost: my sister is an ultra vegan
ghost:I know where her thoughts lay
ghost: meat = murder
ghost: I'm not as hard on that
ghost: but humane killing, is an issue

I eat meat, but now i'm developing a guilt complex from this class, haha.
It's like..I want to apologize every time I have chicken

ghost: me too actually
ghost: cause

oh, and things like puppy and exotic animal mills and such are also discussed in this class. breeding animals just for aesthetic value in fur farms and exotics black market sales.
The whole phenom of the white tiger, for instance..inbreeding. Most that are born are so disabled or disfigured that no circus will show them, and they are either killed or used for the fur trade. It's sad. I've done research.

ghost: see, thats why I'd end up like Rena (my sister)
ghost: i do eat cheese 24/7

You really do. I've noticed. Ah, but cheese comes from milk which comes from cows. Is it morally right to steal from cows?

ghost: yes it is, or you might ask, killing plants for salad, or microbes in water, is it time for me to die than hmm, what is left ? see

Exactly. almost everything a person does kills something. It's a tricky issue

ghost: yes

Even Vegans.

ghost:yes

They kill stuff all the time by breathing.

ghost: brown rice kills the rice plant.
ghost: and tofu kills the soy plant
ghost: so back to
ghost: raising livestock for food

Yeah.