Priorities

As I see these images of distruction from Hurricane Katrina, I can't help but wonder about an email I got from the Humane Society asking for a donation. They are launching a "massive relief effort to rescue animals and assist their caregivers in the disaster areas."

I hope the assistance of caregivers is emphasized. Because though animals are important, humans come first.

I'll simplify it. Here's the order in which you help:
injured or stranded children
injured or stranded adults
injured or stranded animals
healthy and safe children and adults
after everyone is safe, locate and collect the dead - humans first, then animals.

I know the Humane Society is about helping animals, but there are people stranded on roofs and in attics and people who are wounded. Hospitals have people dying. As much as I'd want someone to help my injured cat, please help the neighbor's kid first. Let's keep our priorities straight.

The Vegan Who Hates Cows

My husband hates cows. Really hates them. And he wrote about his deep and abiding hatred. I don't know why I want to share, but it cracks me up.

Bloody Prions

I know I already went over the joy that is Mad Cow in a previous post. But here's some more grist for that mill.

They're now developing a test to find CJD/BSE through a blood test. It'll work for humans or cows. Let's consider - if the prions are in the blood, how is it that muscle tissue is safe? I can see how it's safer than the spinal cord or brain. But it can't possibly be truly safe if the prions are present.

But hey, beef is yummy, so who the hell cares if some toddler dies in 15 years because his mommy gave him a bad burger? Keep the economy growing!

I get so pissed off about this issue, because innocent people are going to suffer, and there's not a thing I can do about it. After all, I'm just a nutty vegan who wants to be the food police, right? I'm just trying to blow it out of proportion to save the cute cows. The government says everything is ok. So go back to sleep America.

Book Review Part 3: Vegan Freak

This is part 3 of the book review for Vegan Freak

This is the third and final part of my three part book review. For this one, I just wanted to share a part that made me laugh.

"Male vegetarians are inevitably painted as "feminine" because we deny the very blood of other animals that is meant to invigorate us, make us dominant, and give us the bloodthirsty drive that the modern world demands of us as we sit on our asses in our cubilcles."

This is funny, because even I sometimes get kidded about how I'll be too weak to do stuff if I don't eat some animal bits. And some people will talk about killing animals like it's something they do all the time. Our ancestors did it, and we're carrying on this proud tradition. Most people have never even shot a squirrel, let alone hauled up a cow or pig up by its hind legs and slaughtered it. The meat is born on little styrofoam plates at Safeway, and everyone says "eeew" when some blood drips out of the wrapper. So much for human bloodlust.

I can't really speak about the feminization of males since the only vegan man I'm close to (my husband) uses more toenail polish than I do and doesn't mind being "feminized."


Now for the numerical rating.

I rate the book 9 out of 10 punk duckies. I am crochety and only give 10s to earth-shakers along the lines of John Robbin's Food Revolution, To Kill a Mockingbird or Hamlet. (Ok, maybe Food Revolution would only get 9.5 stars).

Book Review Part 2: Vegan Freak

This is Part 2 of the 3 part book review of Vegan Freak.

"Americans pride ourselves on our proud, individual spirit, but that's all bullshit at the end of the day. What we really value are people who toe the line, don't ask too many questions, buy a lot of stuff (prefereably on credit) and don't create too many problems."

We've come a long way since the days of slavery, child labor, or even the post-war conformity of the 50's, (with the misogyny, racism and anti-homosexual crap) but there are certain behavior and thought perameters that you have to exist within to be a functional member of society. And for the most part, that's right and good. No killing babies, no stealing, no burning down someone's house. But all of those actions hurt someone else. Some ideas don't. And in some ways, those ideas are the most violently opposed of all, because they threaten The Way Things Are - gays and lesbians who want to get married, neo-pagans who want to worship on military bases or lead prayers at town meetings, people who opt out of the "patriotic" consumer culture or who question our government too much, and of course, those who oppose supposedly benign big industries such as animal agriculture.

Don't get me wrong - it's great that anyone can say anything in our country and not be arrested. But for all of our American tolerance, if you slip too far out of the norm, people aren't going to admire your independant spirit. They're either going to laugh if you're not a threat, or they're going to set up political groups to oppose you and prove that you're a threat to the American Way of Life and our proud traditions.

As for being vegan, unless you consider a couple of snide remarks as political oppression, you're in the clear. No one is forcing anyone to eat anything. Unless you consider taxpayer-funded government subsidies of dairy and meat industries or the distribution of surplus animal-based food to school lunch programs to be forced. Subsidize my organic tomatoes damn it!

Book Review Part 1: Vegan Freak

I have enjoyed the Vegan Freaks blog, and was happy that their super secret vegan project was a book (though a Cheerio powered floor-cleaning robot would have been cool). I really liked this book since it is designed not just for people considering veganism, but for long-time vegans. It has a lot going for it - it's well researched and parts of it cracked me up.

Best of all, it made me think a bit. And most vegan books don't really have a whole lot to offer me in that area aside from new information about the horrors of the slaughterhouse or factory farm. I did so much thinkin' that I have to do my pseudo book review in three parts. It'll take the form of me selecting parts and commenting on them. So it's not really a book review so much as me doing some chin-stroking over it. Lucky you!

Part 1

"While on the one hand we're weak and starry-eyed fools who don't know any better, on the other, we're the terrorists in your own backyard who'd happily save animals while we'd kill researchers, brainwash your children and bomb the local research lab."

I had been considering this idea recently. I've had the opportunity to sit next to a conversation in which the the consensus was that if a vegetarian could see an actual cow, they'd see they were dumb and come to the logical conclusion that it's right and good to eat them. Vegetarians were just idealistic people who were out of touch with reality. The conversation immediately segued into people who want to bomb animal labs because there are cute bunnies inside.

This had been the first time that I had thought about the idealist/terrorist image, but coincidentally, this book had a section on it. It's then that I realized, of course people see us this way. It's the only way we've ever been presented on TV and in movies. There's Pheobe on Friends who just can't bear to eat a fuzzy widdle cow and Dharma from Dharma and Greg who cries when people eat veal. On the Drew Cary Show, some mentally unstable chick gets in trouble for throwing red paint on fur coats. And there are always mentions of the nuts bombing animal labs. People need to categorize the unfamiliar, so they go with what they know: The Hippy or The Terrorist. Is it really their fault or is it the ever- popular villain, the media?

Maybe people are victims of the media, but let's not give them too much credit. By calling us radicals, the fringe-element or extremists (or the word du jour) they can immediately dismiss vegetarians/vegans and the concepts behind what they do. No discomfort involved. Everything goes back to normal.

That's not to say that all meat eaters do this. Certainly not! Our friends and family are very cool, and don't give us any crap. I think maybe it's mostly people who don't know many vegetarians or vegans who have to rely on the stereotype to make sense of it all.

VoldeMart made my child bleed

We have been appropriately punished. We try hard to avoid Wal Mart for various reasons (labor union issues, treatment of workers, I could go on), but after scouring everywhere, including the Goodwill, we could not find a hat for our three year old son. We're camping this weekend, and he's very fair, so the hat was a must.

We should have known something was wrong when both of my kids shrunk away from the happy face sticker that the greeter guy gave them. And our son was terrified by the life-sized Ronald McDonald statue. My husband and I telling him that Ronald is evil and scary was not our finest parenting moment.

In the checkout line, my son sticks his finger into a hole in the conveyor belt cabinet thing. And it gets stuck. He's screaming, I'm working on it as gently as I can. I'm trying to pull the skin a little away from the hole, I'm wiggling and he's pulling and screaming. All the while, I know that time is of the essence since it's turning red and swelling fast.

Finally, it comes out, but he has a hunk of skin hanging off and a little bloody cut on it. Poor guy, it really hurt him and he cried for a long time.

VoldeMart is out to get us. Once we passed by and the glowing sign was partly out, spelling ValMart. We knew it was an omen, but foolishly, we did not heed its warning.

And Now... The Beatles

This article about John Lennon was in The Observer, and long though it is, it's worth reading if you're interested or curious. John Lennon biography articles spring up now and then, usually at 5 year increments from the date of his death. Most just say he grew up in a working class environment in Liverpool, met McCartney, wrote songs, got lots of girls, met Yoko, went activist, got shot. Voice of a generation. Groundbreaking style. Blah blah. This article goes a little deeper, into the artistic psychosis and destructive habits.

I have a special place in my heart for the Beatles. When I was 15, my dad went through his extensive LP collection and asked me if I wanted any copies of anything. Since most of it was classical or Joni Mitchell, all I wanted was a Doors album, and the Beatles' Abbey Road. And nothing was ever quite the same after that.

It was kind of sad that the music that spoke to me came from the generation between my parents' and my own. My dad was born in 1935, my mom in 1941 and I was born in 1975. And it was the music they had in their late 20's and early 30's that I liked. In 1990, all I really had available to me was was the popular music of the time: Vanilla Ice, M.C. Hammer and New Kids on the Block. Nothing groundbreaking or even thoughtful. Even at that young age, I saw it for the bubbly pap it was. I know today that there was good music out there in the late 80's/early 90's, but at that age, with no internet, no car and friends who only listened to KIIS FM and Power 106 FM (top 40's stations), it was all I knew.

And then I found late Beatles work. And it was like a giant magifying glass appeared over me and set everything on fire. The poetry and dreams that had been dormant for a generation stirred in my dorky misfit teenage brain.

In a sense, the late Beatles (and later solo career) stuff was both dangerous and safe. It was enough outside of my suburban upbringing to be new and exciting, but it wasn't about suicide or anarchy or anything else that freaked out my geeky little honor-student self. No one I knew listened to it, so it was a little offbeat. My parents teased me about liking old music, and when I told them my generation's music was garbage, I wasn't sure if they were pleased or dissapointed.

In 10th grade, I listened to Breakfast With the Beatles on KLSX every Sunday morning while I did my biology homework. When I got a car in 11th grade, I'd tape Breakfast With the Beatles every week and listen to it (and Dr. Demento) in my car since the radio didn't work. I think I learned the lyrics to almost every Beatles song out there. Though the early bubble-gum stuff was cute, it was the drugged out psychadelic stuff that I truly loved. (And my husband and I debete the merits of early vs. late Beatles music to this day).

As I grew older, Paul Simon and Sting captured me (I'm a sucker for brilliant lyricists), but it was Lennon/McCartney - Lennon being the better lyricist and McCartney having the knack for the music - that was my benchmark.

I hate that the Beatles are considered the pinnacle of pop music for the 20th century. I dislike the commonality of it and the defining-a-generation thing. I hate having to share it with everyone else in the world. Because it was those disjointed psychadelic lyrics that influenced my early writing, which led me to read Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind, which led me to be a writer, which defined my college choice (UC Santa Cruz for undergrad and UC Santa Barbara for grad school) my career path, and much of who I became later.

So though liking the Beatles was not cool or dangerous or revolutionary, well, neither was I. My musical tastes have changed and evolved, but dorky and middle-class as it is, I still love the Beatles.

Cover of Abbey Road

And yes, I was totally smitten with the fact that Paul is barefoot - I've always hated wearing shoes.

New Sims 2 Expansion Pack

Squeeee! The new Sims 2 expansion pack is coming out in September. Ah, Sims 2. I have lost so many hours of my life to that game.

Pardon me while I geek out on it.

As soon as Sims 2 came out, I created all these characters for my Shakespeare-themed Sims 2 neighborhood (Veronaville). There's the Vampire Lestat (with ultra white skin), Mona (also from Vampire Chronicles), Harry Potter, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Draco, Dumbledore and McGonagal (both seniors). I made Harry and friends adults so I can breed them, you see. I also made John Lennon (in Sgt. Pepper outfit), Spock from the original Star Trek, an android named Tasha (because on Star Trek the Next Generation, Tasha Yar gave the android Data his first, uh, "experience." So this is their alternate-universe love child). I had a bunny headed guy, Galadriel from Lord of the Rings, Deja Thoris (Martian from Edgar Rice Burroughs novels). I have Hester and William Monk from Anne Perry's Victorian murder mystery series. I also have a family of generic green and purple aliens.

And I gave them all personalities to match their screen or book personalities. For example, Lestat is as outgoing as the little personality creator allows. So when he goes swimming, he strips buck naked and everyone screams turns away in shock. Spock is totally serious (no "playful" points).

The whole purpose to creating all of these characters was to then throw them together and see what happened. Spock and Hermione are getting along very well in the hot tub! Draco Malfoy and John Lennon love dancing together to salsa music. But the vampire Mona fights with everyone.

But the best part is breeding them. I love to breed them! I also like when they die and turn into ghosts and haunt the house, so in my original house I have a collection of graves and an elaborate crypt with candles and stained glass windows. All the generations of ghosts wander after dark. I murdered this one neighborhood chick a la The Cask of Amantillado, and since she peed herself and starved to death, her ghost always screams for showers and opens the refrigerator.

Ok, geek-out over. All my saying how TV isn't for us earlier? Well, computer games fill that void with mind wasting fun. It's like playing dollhouse with adult themes, gruesome murder and bizarre genetic experiments.

Slate's Article

This is a continuation of yesterday's post about PETA.

I found this article on Slate's site. It says, "Abuses of blacks, Native Americans, and women were products of a belief in subordinating the inferior, not the powerless. We learned to respect others not for their disabilities but for their abilities." So in essence, it's not until we see animals as our equals that we'll stop hurting them. The author goes on to point out that we're starting to see how animals can use tools and have complex communication.

I think there's a key point missing. You don't have to see a creature as equal to view it as being worthy of living a life free of torment. A lobster is not my equal - sorry. It's not the same thing to boil a lobster as it is to boil a human. But boiling the lobster alive is wrong because it has a nervous system and can feel pain.

Perhaps this equality idea would be valid if we see "equal" as being equal in the ability to feel pain or suffer. But does an animal truly suffer equally? Can we ever quantitatively measure that? Or can it be enough for us to say, well, it suffers to some extent, so let's not hurt it.

Little by little, society discovered that blacks, Jews and women were equal to white Protestant males, and that was that. We'll never really see that about animals, because though they have feelings, they are not the same. But I think that though we'll never see them as equal, we can still extend basic protections for them - just like we do with dogs, horses and other non-food animals. We don't see those animals as equal, but we still see them as worthy of protection.

PETA's Exhibit

Ach. We're back to PETA. They recently put up an exhibit that has been drawing fire from people saying that PETA is equating black people, Native Americans and Jews with animals.

This is absolutely facscinating to me, because when I first saw it, I didn't think that was the case. But I did think that it might not be the most tasteful thing I had ever seen. I saw it as PETA saying (in a very graphic way) that the powerful hurt the less powerful because they view them as different and as unworthy of protection or kindness. It was pointing out that throughout history, the powerful have always treated those below them with cruelty. It was wrong when it was people. And now it's wrong when they're animals. Abusing the weak because they're weak and because they're perceived as inferior is wrong.

But I can totally see how groups can see PETA as doing something racially offensive. They see PETA as using images of human suffering for their own radical agenda. PETA looks like they're trying to trivialize the suffering of oppressed groups, by comparing them to stupid animals. But if you know the way PETA thinks, you will understand that they're not trying to pull black people or Jews down to the level of animals. They're trying to raise animals up and make people see them as similar to people (of any gender or ethnicity).

The key to understanding the whole thing is that there is a difference between comparing humans and animals to equating humans with animals. And that's where things get muddy.

To say, black people and pigs are equal is ridiculous. To say, the slave owners were powerful, kept the slaves in terrible conditions, viewed them as lesser beings and used them because it was convenient and economically profitable is true. And then to say people are powerful, keep pigs in terrible conditions, view them as lesser beings and use them because it is convenient and economically profitable is also true. We're comparing, not equating.

PETA needs to look at its audience. The animal rights folks and philosophy majors out there might "get" the message, but the normal people of the world are disgusted and offended. They think that PETA thinks chickens are the same as black people, and that's horrible. So they won't listen to anything else PETA says, they'll discount their images of factory farming as propaganda, and will go about their lives, shaking their heads over those crazy vegans.



p.s. There has been a lot of discussion on The Post Punk Kitchen, which made me think about my opinions on it and post them here.

Why We Don't Nurse from the Glass Teat

We don't watch TV. We do own a TV set, but we only use it for watching movies we rent from Netflix. Our TV has no antennae, and I don't even know if our living room has a cable hookup. Our kids watch no TV, so though our three year old son can tell you about opening and closing a circuit to let electricity flow to a light, he doesn't know who Dora the Exporer is.

I'm not going to get all anti-TV on you and tell you how it makes everyone dumb and violent. There are some fabulous things on TV. But most shows are crap. How do I know? For three weeks last September we were in temporary housing and the kids and I watched way too much TV. I only allowed PBS for them, so our son now knows who Elmo is, and that the Teletubbies are creatures that freak Mommy out.

It's not until you pull out of the TV watching culture that you really see how much of a touchpoint it is for people. Aside from three weeks last September, the only reason I know what I do about current TV shows is because I'm always hearing about it on the radio or in articles or conversations. It's important enough that it doesn't just occupy the time people watch it, but bleeds into real life. I know that Donald Trump shouts "You're fired!" on The Apprentice. I know that people are always getting kicked off American Idol and there's controversy about it. And I know that Friends is no longer on the air.

So see? I'm not out of touch.

Our culture is fascinating. We lack large extended families and our neighborhoods are like neutron bomb zones between 8 and 5, so TV becomes a shared experience that you can talk about with anyone. Anyone except us, that is.

"Have you seen that ad with the singing lizard?"
No

"Did you catch that episode where the guy ate maggots?"
No

As an alien observer of TV culture, allow me to share my scientific findings.

There is much to learn on TV, but most of it is presented in such a fast and flashy way that after a five year break from TV, my head spins. Maybe you have to retrain your brain to absorb things at that speed. When I was a kid, nature shows had the sounds of nature - you know, when the monkey rifled through some foliage, you heard the leaves move. Not some goofy instrumental piece or some aggravating host spasmatically rattling off reasons that the monkey is so extreme. The History Chanel seems to keep things calm, and I appreciate that. I'm such an old fogey.

But TV does bring the best and brightest performers of our day right into our homes. We have unprecedented access to art and creative expression. But TV also brings the crap, and you can loose hours of your life watching fake people living fake lives instead of living your own.

But then, reading some trashy fiction book is doing the exact same thing right? It's all about escapism, so who cares what form it takes? The difference for me is participation. With TV, someone decides what to present to you and at what speed. The camera focuses in on Tiffany's diary, laying open on some reality show. All of us think in unison "There's the diary. Who will read it?" Then we all see Paco coming down the hall to call Tiffany to dinner. "Oh no, he's going to see it."

With a book, the author decides what words to give you, but you do the real work in your head by imagining it all. You decide to pause over the description of the objects in a room, or to scan it fast and move on. You're co-creating an experience with the author instead of being a passive recipient of images and sound. With a book, you get something different each time. With TV, it's the identical sounds and images, without variation.

But by far the best part of abstinence from The Glass Teat is the absence of advertisements. Everyone thinks they're immune from advertising, maybe chuckling a little at some ad that really did work on them. But for the most part, we all think we're too sophisticated for that. I'm not though. I see beautiful women in bikinis, and I feel fat and plain. I see an ad for Coke, and I think about buying Coke. I see the fake worlds they create, and it does something intriguing - it makes me unhappy with what I have.

And this is really the reason we don't watch TV - it makes us unhappy. It takes hours from our lives that we could spend with each other or with a trashy book. We loose the cultural connection that binds America together, but in return, we get contentment, so fair trade. And we're not eschewing any mindless fun. We play stupid video games like Sims 2 and Second Life. But they bring no discontent, so no harm done. Right?

Tagged

I have been tagged by J

"List ten songs you are currently digging....it doesn't matter what genre, or if they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists and the tens songs on your Blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to"

I can only think of a few right now. My music listening is restricted to drives to and from work/daycare/preschool.

"Shut the Door" by the Motherhips - "Shut the, shut the, shut the, shut the...Door"

"Come Rain or Come Shine" by Billie Holiday "Happy together, unhappy together, and won't it be fine."

"Accidentally in Love" by Counting Crows "So I said I'm a snowball running. Running down into the spring that's coming all this love."

"I Died" by Bif Naked "Through this blinding hatred i see a lady on my right. She winked at me and said, "run for your life!""

"Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes " And I'm talking to myself at night because I can't forget. Back and forth through my mind behind a cigarette."

"City of the Damned" by Green Day " It says home is where your heart is, but what a shame cause everyone's heart doesn't beat the same."

"Facts of Life" by Black Box Recorder " As long as the distinction between fantasy and fiction remains, it's just a nature walk."

Zoo Exhibit Controversy

There was an interesting article in the Desmoine Register.

There's a zoo exhibit that's generating some controversy because it displays two mother pigs with piglets in gestation crates. Some groups oppose this, though pig industry people say it's fine because it allows individual attention for the sows, and keeps them from rolling over on the piglets.

I don't understand about the rolling over on the piglets part. Wild pigs have babies just fine and don't kill them all. The farm-raised pigs in times gone by did fine. Perhaps it's because modern pigs are bred to be so unnaturally large that they sometimes kill their piglets?

A pig farmer who uses more humane practices (raising pigs outside with natural feed) says, "I have a problem seeing an animal locked up like that."

Well yeah, I'd hope you would. Because you'd never do that to your dog if she had puppies.

The zoo said something that made me like them:
"It was a good discussion, and we were happy to listen to their ideas," Rich said, "but we looked at the facts of what modern hog production is and we talked with Iowa State University and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and we believe we are exhibiting what modern hog farming is."

That part is awesome. People are going to see these sows in gestation crates, and maybe, just maybe, they'll start to wonder about how the meat gets to their plate. I didn't think about it for years, and it wasn't until I accidentally ran across something on the internet that I found out about factory farming. So maybe this will make some people wonder about pigs, the most "human" of all the food animals.

One visitor commented on the exhibit, "I thought it was fine," she said. "The only thing that I thought was the mama pig was in kinda close . . . but that was probably the point for some safety reason."

I wonder if she's going to go home and wonder about the confined pig, or if she'll accept the assurances of the industry that this is what's best for the pigs (how perverse is that idea?) Rows upon rows of narrow cages in a giant stinking warehouse is best for the pigs? Aww, how sweet, we're protecting them and keeping them in cages so they get individual attention.

Though this exhibit has the potential to open people's eyes about the realities of factory farming, the Sierra Club wrote a letter opposing it, saying "We are concerned that this controversial, environmentally destructive and inhumane way of raising animals is being promoted to the public as beneficial, environmentally benign and humane," Mackey-Taylor said.

Since the exhibit took a $10,000 donation from the largest pig producer in Iowa to pay for the exhibit, I doubt that, aside from the crates, they're going to show anything negative.

I guess at the end of it all, I want people to have their conscience disturbed so they'll start to question. Go home with a funny feeling, people of Iowa! Don't allow the industry to lull you into complacency with their assurances that the pigs are happy like this.

Pig and Piglet in Farrowing Crate
Photo from Farm Sanctuary

Space Shuttle

I am glad the Discovery made it back in one piece. I was worried there for awhile.

Now I have one burning question: If they want the shuttle to stay cool on reentry, why is the bottom and nose black? If you know, please leave a comment.

I have read that if a black and a white thing are the same temperature, that the black one will transfer heat and burn you worse than the white one. So does that mean that the black parts of the shuttle cool faster?

And if they do, why isn't the whole shuttle black? I understand that they'd probably want to view it with instrumentation from Earth, so the black wouldn't show up very well. So maybe that's it.

This is what keeps me up at night!

My husband knows a guy at work who worked on the shuttles, so he asked, and the guy said maybe it was just an aesthetic choice. It does look pretty good.

I wonder if they'll make a next generation of shuttle, and if they do, will it look like the one in the opening credits for the show Enterprise. I also think it's a cool thing that the nerds at NASA named one of the shuttles Enterprise. Rock on geeks of the world! Just try not to blow anyone up. Ok?

PETA scores a victory

I have a love-hate relationship with PETA. On the downside - chicken costumes, silly ads, that case in which two PETA employees euthanized some healthy and adoptable animals and PETA did not denounce them. And Ingrid Newkirk, their head honcho, does not support the use of seeing eye dogs (though this is not PETA's position).

On the good side - PETA created Meet Your Meat, which is the best short video showing the treatment of animals on factory farms. And their PETA TV site has lots of good stuff. PETA also makes progress, and I have to give them credit for that. They're tenacious and relentless - do not cross them. On the whole, we're on the same side.

But back to the mulesing and live export issue. Click here to visit PETA's site describing the small success they've had.

A summary from their site:
"After hundreds of international demonstrations and other actions, PETA and Australian wool farmers represented by the Australian Wool Growers Association (AWGA) have come to an agreement that would phase out mulesing through a series of quantifiable steps, starting now and securing a total end to the practice by the end of 2009, and require that live export standards meet Australian domestic animal protection laws, with the provision that if, by September 2006, it is shown that the industry can’t meet these standards, sheep farmers who have signed on to this agreement will, within the next five years, stop shipping sheep overseas."

People think I'm nutty for not wearing wool, and when I first heard that vegans don't wear wool, I thought, count me out. They're nuts. Then I saw what they did to the sheep, and the practice of mulesing made me ill. So I stopped buying wool. Now people think I'm nuts.

So PETA scores a victory. Bravo PETA! Now maybe try not to make people who care about animals look like psychotic nutballs, and we could have a beautiful friendship.

Photo courtesy of PETA

Pig Patent Pending

For some reason, the title "Pig Patent Pending" sounds like a JK Rowling title to me.

Everyone's favorite corporate behemoth, Monsanto, is now trying to patent pigs . Greenpeace is the group who dug up this information, which was not publicized by Monsanto. Monsanto is the company that assured us that Agent Orange and DDT were safe, and now tells us that GMO's are perfectly safe. After gaining control over huge sectors of the seed business, they now want to patent a pig.

As for GMO's, I'll have to post on that another day. For today - the pig patent.

Monsanto isn't stupid. But I hope some clear heads in the patent beaurocracy tell them that they can fold their patent application until it's all corners and stick it.

For your perusal, Gentle Reader (from Greenpeace's article):

"In one application (WO 2005/015989 to be precise) Monsanto is describing very general methods of crossbreeding and selection, using artificial insemination and other breeding methods which are already in use. The main "invention" is nothing more than a particular combination of these elements designed to speed up the breeding cycle for selected traits, in order to make the animals more commercially profitable."

" If these patents are granted, Monsanto can legally prevent breeders and farmers from breeding pigs whose characteristics are described in the patent claims, or force them to pay royalties," says Then. "It's a first step toward the same kind of corporate control of an animal line that Monsanto is aggressively pursuing with various grain and vegetable lines."

* Claim 16 asks for a patent on: "A pig offspring produced by a method ..."
* Claim 17 asks for a patent on: "A pig herd having an increased frequency of a specific ...gene..."
* Claim 23 asks for a patent on: "A pig population produced by the method..."
* Claim 30 asks for a patent on: "A swine herd produced by a method..."


I'm back - my favorite part is that they seek a patent on "A pig herd having an increased frequency of a specific ...gene..." I'd like to know what goes into these elipses, but I'll write on it anyway. If more info comes up, or Greenpeace is hiding something, I'll post a correction here.

It doesn't look like Monsanto wants to make clone pigs or mess with their genes in a lab. It looks like they'll do good old fashioned pig-breeding through selecting which pigs will breed. (You know, the kind of technique that currently make pigs grow so large, so quickly that many have crippling leg deformities). So if they have a herd with this "increased frequency" of a gene, they own the patent. But it's "increased frequency" compared to what? Someone else's pig herd? Mutations pop up, and some might be beneficial. But for Monsanto to patent something they didn't create is rediculous.

Imagine patenting a dog. People breed them, and can breed them for any trait they like. Say you like guard dogs. Lots of people breed these dogs for sale, and so do you. Everyone selects breeding dogs from the best of the best - the most obedient, let's say. Then one day, you get a puppy that's super obedient. You breed him or her and only the ones that are the most obedient. Then you put a patent on obedient guard dogs.

Monsanto won't be patenting for obedience. I'd bet they'd patent an animal that grew extra fast or was disease resistant (the pig warehouses are so overcrowded that the pigs must have a constant intake of antibiotics in their feed so they don't all die). Maybe they'll patent ones that are more docile. Pigs tend to go nuts in cramped quarters, so they attack each other. Currently, the industry solves this by snapping their teeth with pliers and docking their tails - without anesthetic naturally. Wouldn't want to waste any money. So they'll probably find whatever traits make these intelligent and sensitive animals into perfect meat machines, and breed for that.

Rack Meat

This is encouraging. It's a press release from the University of Maryland saying that they've found a way to grow meat on racks.

This is great because animal cruelty would no longer be an issue and the environmental damage from animal agriculture would be eliminated.

Their claim that they'll make meat more nutritious is optimistic, in my opinion. That was the claim with genetically modified foods, and now look - they aren't any more nutritious, they just have odd genes that make them withstand massive doses of Roundup.

My guess is that they'd modify the rack meat to taste better, and health be damned. People will only buy rack meat if it tastes better. If it tastes worse but is healthier, they won't buy.

But the potential is there.

Will I eat it? Probably not. I may try it, just to see what it's like. But I've read enough on the effects of animal products on the human body to not want to make them a regular part of my diet. A good book is The China Study if you're interested in more.

It's like in Star Trek - the Vulcans are still vegetarians, even though the replicators make any kind of food by rearranging molecules. No animals have to die, but they still feel it's barbaric to eat animal flesh. Personally, I think that if there's no suffering involved, the ethics issue evaporates.

Rack meat is dead! Long live rack meat!

Book Review: The Pig Who Sang to the Moon

The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals
by
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

I was afraid to read this book when I ate meat, because it would make me feel guilty and uncomfortable. And then I was afraid to read it as a vegetarian and then vegan because it would bother me too much to think more about the suffering. It's one thing to say we shouldn't hurt animals on principle, but another to know all the details on how they can feel terror, boredom, joy, friendship and love.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson wrote When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. I don't think it's much of a stretch to acknowledge that dogs and cats feel emotion. Anyone who lives with them knows that. To extend that to crows or elephants isn't too out-there. So the author just takes that to the next step by following up with a book on farm animals.

His central premise is that these animals feel emotions, and the only reason we don't all know this is because either we do not look closely enough or we keep them in conditions under which they cannot express any natural tendencies. I can see how a hen being kept in a warehouse could be seen as an automaton while she would be seen differently if she were in the sunlight, with her favorite foods, resting places and companion animals.

I especially liked how the author points out that emotions cannot ever be verified because we cannot get inside the minds of these animals. All we can do is observe their behavior. And their "love" behavior is the same as ours. Love is not just the domain of the "higher" animals like dogs, dolphins and humans. I remember when each of my children was born, I would press my nose into the tops of their heads and inhale their wonderful baby smell. My love for them was not based in intellect, but in an ancient mammal-brain part of me that adored them without reason - just because they were mine. So why should it be any different with a cow? Of course she enjoys licking her calf, and grieves when he is taken from her.

I'm not sure how a "normal" person would view this book, since it may be a radical idea to them to see farm animals as similar to dogs or cats. But to me, it didn't provide any earth-shattering revelations, just more reminders that harming these gentle animals is wrong.

Things I learned:
The ancient ancestors of cows died out in the 1600's. I always kind of wondered how they could live on their own - they seemed like pampered toy poodles - completely dependant on humans and unable to live without them.

Chickens like to roost on low branches at night. In groups, they have a few males, and when danger is near, one male sounds the "danger" call, then they all hide, and they don't come out until all the males have sounded the "all clear."

Turkeys look up in the rain so they expose as little of their bodies as possible to the water. They don't like to get wet. Maybe they only do this if there's no shelter? I have no idea.

Sheep, goats, turkeys, chickens, ducks, cows and pigs all have different vocalizations - and I don't just mean "danger" and "hello." Each animal has a large and complex range of sounds they make to communicate.

Baby chicks make sounds in the egg, and hens make sounds back. The mother has a comfort sound she makes, and it soothes the baby chick. After they hatch, the baby chicks will be able to recognize their mother's voice.

When pigs are slaughtered, their vocalizations are identical to the ones they make as piglets calling for their mothers.

I rate this book 7 out of 10 duckies - recommended, but get it from the library.

Kung Fu Veganism

One of the things I hear sometimes regarding animals is that they're stupid, and we're smart. We're the superior species, so we should eat them if we want to.

Now, setting aside the people who honestly believe that meat consumption is needed for health, most people view it as a personal preference issue. As humans, we have superior intelligence, so we should do as we see fit with the animals of the earth. We're at the top of the food chain, therefore, we are perfectly entitled to kill and eat other creatures.

Similarly, a shark or tiger is entitled to his prey. They must kill, and it's part of the natural order.

The key for me are the dual issues of choice and nutritional requirements. A tiger or shark is required to eat meat. They can't eat veggie dogs and bean burritos, even if they wanted to. They do not choose their diet. We do. Humans can live a long and healthy life on a vegan or vegetarian diet.

Most people are capable of killing an animal, but would never do to animals what we do to them on factory farms. But most people only think about the first part - I'd kill a chicken, therefore I should eat as much chicken as I want.

The question they should ask is, would you raise a chicken in a dark shed where she cannot ever see sunlight or dust bathe, debeak her when she's a chick, watch her grow so fast that her legs cannot hold up and she ends up scooting around on her stomach on the filthy floor (you can't clean it), and then throw dice to see if you will scald her alive or if she's lucky enough to have her throat slit first.

No one I know would ever ever do any of that, dominant species or no. It's all about Kung Fu.

You know how in the movies there's the old Kung Fu master? He can kill everyone around him with one finger, but he chooses not to. Why? Because he's weak? He's squemish? It's because he is compassionate and chooses not to kill. He only kills when forced to.

We see forms of this throughout literature and film. The theme is clear - when the superior person shows kindness to those below him/her, it demonstrates that they are worthy of the power they possess.

It's like Anakin Skywalker and Yoda. Both were very powerful, but while Yoda only used his power to end life when he had to, Anakin did it because he could. His ability to kill using the Force, in his opinion, gave him inherent superiority and the right to use his power however he wished. Yoda, on the other hand, did not feel entitled to end life, only to defend his own (or the lives of innocent others).

"Ohhh. Great warrior. Wars not make one great." ~ Yoda

We can also look at Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books. He's the most powerful wizard the world has ever known, next to Voldemort, but he never uses his powers to dominate. He could rule the world in a way similar to the way Voldemort attempted, but he does not. Like Yoda, he only uses violence in defense of himself or the innocent.

"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
~ Albus Dumbledore

And then there's Professor Xavier of the X-Men. Professor Xavier wants mutants and humans to live together in peace. He's the most powerful mutant in the world, but he will not use his powers to dominate those weaker than himself. Magneto, on the other hand, wants mutants to rule the world because they have superior abilities to normal humans. In his mind, might makes right.

I think Professor Xavier is the most poignant example because he is physically disabled, but mentally far superior to humans. Humans are slower and weaker than many animals, but it is our intelligence that sets us apart. Intelligence is often our criteria for what creatures are more valuable than others. Chimpanzees and dolphins hold a special place in our hearts because they are so intelligent and therefore so much like us.

In that sense, Professor Xavier is the most like us - intellectually superior, but physically less able than those he might control.

Professor Xavier of the X-Men

In some ways, the seeds of compassion for those weaker than ourselves are all around us. Over and over we see and admire the choice of the strong to act with mercy instead of brutality.

It's just like Ben Parker says to Peter Parker in Spider Man: With great power comes great responsibility.

And just to bring in a little bit of the real-world. This is by Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, written in the Concentration Camp Dachau.

"You asked me why I do not eat meat.... I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own sufferings. ... These creatures are smaller and more helpless than I am, but can you imagine a reasonable man of noble feelings who would like to base on such a difference a claim or right to abuse the weakness and the smallness of others? Don't you think that it is just the bigger, the stronger, the superior's duty to protect the weaker creatures instead of persecuting them, instead of killing them? 'Noblesse oblige.' I want to act in a noble way."

White Tea!

White Tea

I don't like coffee, not even coffee ice cream. Tea is ok, and though I like Chamomile tea, no tea ever gave me so much enjoyment that I'd want to drink it daily. Until now.

White tea! Ah, sweet imperial brew! The perfect cup for morning, evening or afternoon. Relaxing yet invigorating. A taste that is both mellow yet crisp. And a lovely, low sweet aftertaste.

Now I get it. I get how my husband can go all nutty about coffee (he roasts his own, grinds it by hand, even has coffee plants growing at home).

Let me tell you about my new love. All tea comes from one plant - the Camilla Sinensis tea bush. White tea is the least processed of all teas. Black tea is fermented. Green tea is allowed to dry but then steamed or pan fried. But my beloved white tea is simply dried. It retains more antioxidants than any other tea, including the famous green tea, and tastes the best in my opinion.

And there is a mystique around white tea too! Emperor Hui Tsung lost an empire because he was more obsessed with getting the perfect cup of white tea than defending his land. The tea farmers pick the tea buds before they fully open. This can only be done two days a year, so the tea is rare.

Aside from the mad quantity of antioxidants, a recent study found that white tea stimulates the body to fight off viruses and bacterial infections. Behold:

"Past studies have shown that green tea stimulates the immune system to fight disease," says Milton Schiffenbauer, Ph.D., a microbiologist and professor in the Department of Biology at Pace University's Dyson College of Arts & Sciences and primary author of the research. "Our research shows White Tea Extract can actually destroy in vitro the organisms that cause disease. Study after study with tea extract proves that it has many healing properties. This is not an old wives tale, it's a fact."

It's also good for dental health because of its antibacterial properties. "The anti-viral and anti-bacterial effect of several toothpastes including Aim, Aquafresh, Colgate, Crest and Orajel was enhanced by the addition ofwhite tea extract."

From what I hear, white tea is becoming more popular. Marketers will probably have a field day putting it in pills or adding it to nasty toxic face creams. (I say that face creams and cosmetics are toxic because of the bizarre chemical brew that most are made of and the fact that most contain goo from the rendered bodies of euthanized pets, roadkill and any animals too putrid to be made into hot dogs or pet feed. And that's pretty putrid. But on the good side, it's a very efficient use of the dead critters! And it makes stuff nice and creamy.)

But back to the white tea. It's fantastic. Yes, it's expensive. But look at how much coffee is, especially if you buy it pre-made at Starbucks. And then think of how much you'd pay for a bottle of antioxidant pills or a tube of enhanced toothpaste. Now white tea is not so bad, yes? A great purveyor of white tea is Upton Tea Imports. My current favorite is the Organic Shou Mei.

White Tea, fireworks, pasta, tofu - while my European ancestors were clubbing each other over the head, the folks of Asia were creating marvelous things to last the ages.

My Calendar

I finally bought a calendar for my desk at work. Yes, I know it's August. Kind of sad. But I keep needing one. So I bought one from Farm Sanctuary. It was super cheap, so that was nice, and the money goes to a great cause. Farm Sanctuary takes in abused farm animals from factory farms, abuse cases, wherever. They do wonderful work, and my husband and I are going to be volunteering at the L.A. area sanctuary called Animal Acres.

Maybe I'm insensitive, but I really don't like August's picture. It's a goat that was so abused that he developed facial deformities and has trouble keeping food in his mouth (according to the blurb). He's looking straight at the camera and his teeth stick out funny.

In the past year, I've toughened up about seeing suffering. One of my personal growth goals has been to look at suffering without turning away, and try to alleviate it where I can. And where I can't, be grateful for what I have. This applies to starving children, abused animals, whatever. So I hate to flinch away from a simple goat with an odd looking mouth. A debeaked chicken wouldn't bug me so much I guess, because maybe someone would ask me about why it had part of its beak cut off. A teachable moment!

But the goat? I feel guilty that I don't like looking at him for a month. In person, fine. I'm sure he's a lovely goat, happy just to be alive. Bravo for him. But I have 27 more days of him before I move on to Hombre, a flatteringly photographed goat.

Purpose of The Blog

I suppose I should clarify the purpose of this blog. First of all, I'm kind of torn on the audience. My non-veg friends and family might read it, but other vegan or vegetarian people may read it too. So there are two audiences, and two ways that I'd approach them.

For the non-veg folk, some animal welfare awareness stuff. Or some explanation of why I'm vegan. I'd put down the information I wish they knew. I'd say the things that I'm too polite to say when they're eating lunch. Or any other time for that matter.

For the veg folk, I would chat about how none of the pastries at our departmental breakfast are vegan or about a yummy new vegan food I found. Maybe about how to find vegan kids shoes that aren't made of hemp and old tires.

I really want to do both. I have thoughts on each, and I don't want a "safe" blog. I kind of have to be honest. After all, if a non-veg friend thinks I'm a nut for not wearing leather, then they'll just have to think that. Or if a vegan reader thinks I'm insensitive for posting about pig gestation crates, then I guess I'll just have to offend because it's what I'm thinking about.

So there we go - dual purposes.

If you "only" eat chicken

Warning to sensitive readers - this entry contains info on chicken slaughter. If you eat chicken though, you should probably know what you're paying for.

PETA released a video of the inside of a chicken slaughterhouse. If you don't know, the typical procedure is to slit the chicken's throat before he/she hits the scalding tanks. They have to scald them to get the feathers off of course. The lines move really fast, so this isn't easy. So many chickens (and pigs, but that's another story) hit the scalding tanks alive. I don't know about you, but being drowned in scalding water while hanging upside down is not a death I'd wish on any creature. Even a "stupid" chicken.

So PETA sends in this undercover person and he gets footage of this happening. Then a man named Virgil Butler, the former "best killer in Arkansas" for Tyson, went through it frame by frame and wrote an article on it.

Personally, I'd have thought that just seeing it is enough. But reading his commentary on the video was horrifying and enlightening. Here's a link to the article. Of course, at the bottom is Tyson's rebuttal. It's the typical thing where they deflect attention from their terrible animal welfare practices by saying PETA staged it. Honestly, there's enough animal abuse in the world that PETA has no need to create its own. To see what goes on, please click on the Meet Your Meat link on the left.

Now, since I'm vegan, you may wonder why I bother to learn about this stuff. It's painful to watch, and I'm not contributing to it, so why do I care? Because it's still happening, and the more people I can share that information with, the better.

My vegan mantra: Find out where your food comes from. Then make your own decision if you want to support those industries or not.

I went to Virgil Butler's site. After being the best chicken killer for Tyson, he now speaks at animal welfare conferences and such. Now, if the "best killer in Arkansas" can change, anyone can. I'm always amazed at people who can turn their lives around like that.

Mad Cows

These are sane and rational cows.

USA Today published an editorial on the mad cow issue.


In case you haven't been following, the "firewalls" in effect are a joke. The USDA has a conflict of interest. They have to simultaneously protect the beef industry and the the consumers. If they truly wanted to protect consumers, they'd test every animal. Don't test, don't find.

Consider:
We only test downers, when many cows don't show symptoms (9 of the 20 BSE cows in Japan were completely healthy). Japan tests all of their cows.

US beef ranchers who want to test all of their animals are prohibited by the USDA. The government will not allow them to pay for testing their own animals.

The ruminant feed ban is not enforced. As it mentions in this article, calves are fed cow blood and chicken litter, after the chickens are fed cows. Birds are messy eaters, so they spill the raw beef. If they do eat it, the prions go through their digestive tract just fine.

Cows get BSE from contaminated feed. The feed that the mad cow born in the US ate was also consumed by other cows and calves. There is no way to track where the feed went or how many cows ate it.

Cows are shot in the head with a captive bolt gun (if they're lucky, some end up cut up alive, but that's another post). When the bolt smashes into the brain, pieces of tissue circulate through the bloodstream, even though the heart ceases to beat. So the muscle tissue is exposed to prions.

The prions can remain infectious even after an hour at the melting point of lead (680 degrees F). They withstand all antibiotics, bleach and formaldehyde. We know of no way to destroy them.

Prions stick to everything. If a BSE cow is slaughtered, that slaughterhouse equipment is contaminated and has the potential to conaminate thousands of pounds of meat. When they autopsy a human with CJD, they cannot reuse the instruments because they cannot be sterilized. Similarly, there is no way to sterilize slaughterhouse equipment.

In lab tests, we have found that both types of CJD, variant (beef induced) and sporadic (random occurance) can occur from eating bad beef. So the "random" occurances have a chance of being from bad beef.

GlaxoSmithKline is working on a treatment for mad cow. Being the pharmaceutical giant that they are, I doubt they're doing this for the few people who contracted CJD from the December 2003 cow (which entered the human food supply). There has to be money to be made by this treatment. And that means that many many people would have to contract CJD for this treatment to be profitable.

Alzheimers is indistinguishable from CJD until after an autopsy. In a study at Yale, people who had died of Alzheimers were autopsied. 13% actually had CJD. There are currently four million people with Alzheimers in the US. I'll do the math for you - 16% of 4 million is 520,000.

Added 8/29/05:
They're now developing a test to find CJD/BSE through a blood test. It'll work for humans or cows. If prions are in the blood, and blood flows through all muscle tissue, then prions will be in all the muscle tissue of an infected animal, albeit in lower concentrations than in the spine and brain. You eat the muscle tissue, and you will ingest the prions.

Added 11/5/05:
The prions are transmittable through milk.

Added 1/24/06:
The Canadian government has found another BSE cow. The language of the Powers That Be has now shifted to complete prevention and safety of the food supply to "acceptable limits."

Added 2/11/06 - The USDA Inspector General is now saying that downer cows are entering the human food supply.

Added 3/15/06- The US government has decided to reduce testing, claiming that the testing was never about making sure the food supply was safe. The USDA tells the public that the meat is safe, the public believes it, and thus the meat is deemed "safe" because the public perceives it that way.

Added 4/11/06 - Using the USDA's own statistics, 777 BSE-positive cows have now entered the human food supply.

*My appologies if some of the older links don't work. Some news sites take down their old articles, but feel free to google on your own.

Why Nerds are Unpopular

This is a great article - Why Nerds are Unpopular by Paul Graham. The central idea is that teenage nerds don't truly want to be popular. They would rather be smart and "create beautiful things," whether that be poetry, rockets, explosive chemical reactions or comic book drawings.

Back when I troubled myself with such concerns, I mulled the idea that popularity might be matter of choice. I entered public high school after a year at a private Catholic school. One of the girls from my 8th grade class transfered with me, and we hung out together the first week. She was very pretty, nice, and smart - but not smart enough to be an outcast. I was not pretty, shy and smart. She naturally gravitated toward the popular kids, and we ended up eating lunch with them. I liked this, since I had been a social pariah in elementary school. But then things started to unravel. I remember getting teased about some word I used - I think it was "indeed." And their conversations were dull. So I sought some nerds I had known in 7th grade, and we hung out together for the next four years. At times, I looked back and wondered what would have happened if I had stayed with the popular kids.

So yeah, I chose interesting conversations over popularity. But honestly, had I stayed with the popular lunch group, I think I would have ceased to be an amusing oddity and started being a geeky target. I was probably lucky to get out when I did.

The author says that if geek kids put as much effort into being popular as they did into being smart, they would be successful at it. Perhaps. Or perhaps they'd be driven mad by playing dumb.

A second point the author makes is that school is a useless and closed society - like groups of socialite wives and prison inmates. Like the author, I remember the bizarre pep rallies and the savage enthusiasm of the other students over our football victories. I found it both amusing and frightening.

I taught high school for three years, and one of the many reasons I left was the pointlessness of it all. Yes, I taught some interesting lessons, but many were just miserable. I taught was I had to - what book did we have 36 intact copies of? That's what I taught, and if it was terrible (Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees for example) well, that's just tough. We're spending eight weeks on it, and that's that.

So I left, to persue life outside the school walls. Though I'm a book geek and not a computer geek, I'm technologically literate and found better work elsewhere.

As a student graduating in 1993, escape to the real world was sweet. The real world rewards geeks - especially since the late 90's. In the 80's, I think a lot of wealth came from people who were powerful - stockbrokers and the like. So popularity and charisma were valued more. Now, in the computer age, the nerds rule. Of course, it's not because of the value of their ideas, but because of money.

Mad Cow Cartoon

Mad Cow

About Me

It's time to start out with a little about me. I'm 30, a mother of two, a technical writer by profession (though I was a high school English teacher to begin with). My husband and I have been vegan since March of 2004, and we're raising our children vegan.

I like reading - historical fiction, historical mysteries, some non-fiction. I just finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and it was awesome. I'll post some book reviews as I go along. I think I'll skip the Harry Potter review because too many people wouldn't want to read the spoilers.

I'm also a writer, though I haven't written much fiction in the past two years. Perhaps as life becomes less hectic, I'll find some time.

I love white tea, dark chocolate (vegan), Indian food, cats, parchment paper, thunderstorms, tie dye, long skirts, my two gorgeous children, my one gorgeous husband, sparkly colored glass, windchimes, the Toyota Prius, nursing babies, fountain pens, Hello Kitty, and pictures of redish brown cows. There's more, but I'll leave it at that for now.