Mother of the World

You know what I like to do? Look at people while they drive to work in the morning. My husband usually drives in the morning, and I love to look at people while they're unguarded. They're more loveable that way. I practice loving people, because when I see things like this, it's hard. Oh God, it's hard. (Found it on Veg Blog. Warning! Graphic images).

I had an epiphany when I was a new mom four years ago. I was in a diner-type restaurant with my husband and infant son. The bar had some real salt-of-the-earth type people there, which is nice in the San Francisco Bay area because looking at hip urbanites all the time is dull. One guy was overweight, greasy looking and his pants were a little low. He was hunched over the bar, eating something, looking through a newspaper. My immediate reaction was "ick" because he was not physically attractive to me. Then I thought of my son, and if he looked like that, my love for him would not change. I would love him with all my heart, ugly, beautiful, old or young. And this man had a mother, and she loved him that way. And in that moment, I kind of got it. I found myself feeling love toward him, as if he was my son.

It was such an odd feeling that I decided to try it more often. I pretended that other people were my children. Homeless people, grouchy people at the market, snooty looking people in expensive clothes - I found I could love them if I was their mother.

So now I do it with commuters. I look at them in their cars while they're staring straight ahead, listening to radios or drinking coffee from Starbucks cups. I find that I still judge them by what they drive (Hummer= self-absorbed, beat up truck = hard working) or by their bumper stickers ("W" stickers make me think they're ignorant or uncaring, liberal-type stickers make me thing "ah, kindred spirit"). But if they're my sons and daughters, that stuff doesn't matter and I can wish blessings on them without judging first to see if I think they're worthy. I can sort of think of them as innocent, as having good hearts.

And that's a big step for me, because I like individual humans, but as a group, I think they're violent, selfish barbarians who have such marvelous potential which they squander for greed and pleasure.

Vegan Preschool

My children's school is taking the older kids (potty trained) to Chuck E Cheese tomorrow. I'm packing vegan pizza for my son to eat, so he can enjoy the fun.

Check out this menu from a preschool in Colorado.

http://www.bellavitaschool.com/nutrition.html

Sigh. I wish there was a school like that here. How marvelous.

Prayer for the Dead

Tyson is now offering prayer booklets for free on their website. They're prayers of thanks at mealtimes.

http://www.tyson.com/GivingThanks/

Because I'm perfecting my cranky vegan persona, I wrote my own:

Dear God,
Thank you for the carcass of this bird of whose body we are about to partake. As we gather together, we are grateful to the underpaid workers who endure unhealthy working conditions, low pay, and the highest injury rate of any profession so that we can get the animal for ten cents less per pound.

Thank you for the billions of birds who will live crammed together by the thousands covered in their own feces, their eyes infected from the fumes of their own waste, who will be debeaked without anesthetic, thrown into transport cages, sustain broken bones, and be transported without food or water. Please bless the ones who die of exposure or injury.

Thank you for the slaughterhouses where the panicking birds will be attached to the conveyor lines by their legs. Please bless these birds as they flap and peep (they are too young to cluck, because they grow so fast). Thank you for the birds who get their throats slit and bleed out quickly. Please give peace to the thousands who are scalded alive.

Bless the children that mysteriously develop tumors and diseases in areas near poultry farms. Bless the rivers that are so full of poison from poultry farm runoff that the fish and plants die. Bless my family as we eat the product of torture, greed and environmental destruction. Thank you for allowing us not to care because it's hidden. Please let us keep pretending that everything is ok.


My real prayer:
Please let all people in the world be filled with such compassion that they cannot bear to cause suffering. Please bless the souls of all tortured beings. May they find the peace in the afterlife that we have denied them here on Earth.

Kid's Movies are Animal Rights Movies

As I have mentioned, my children are 4 and 2. They're old enough now to have Movie Night, and we curl up with popcorn and watch a movie on Fridays or Saturdays.

My dad sent us a copy of The Fox and the Hound, which I haven't seen in ages. And I'm coming to the conclusion that many kids movies have animal rights/vegetarian themes. It's weird really. These are movies made by adults, for children, and they undermine the very systems that the adults foist upon the kids as "normal." It's almost like the adults are trying to plant ideas that other adults are immune to, but children are open to.


The Fox and the Hound:
In the first 5 minutes, the mama fox is carrying her baby and running from the hunter and his dogs. Then, she leaves the baby, snuzzles him goodbye, leads the hunter away from the baby and gets shot.

The skins of the animals that the hunter killed are shown as horrific and scary.

The hunter puts out leg hold traps to catch the fox, and later gets caught in one of his own traps, prompting me to educate my children on the concept of "poetic justice."

The whole movie is sympathetic to the fox, and the hunter is shown as a bit of a lunatic, shooting all over the place. However, at the end, the hunter spares the fox because the hound steps in front of him to defend him. So here, an individual animal is spared because of his "specialness," but other foxes who are not "special" will still be killed.

My poor son, sensitive soul that he is, was really agitated and wanted to turn it off during some of the more intense parts, like when the hunter hides behind a tree to shoot the terrified fox. My little daughter is starting to display empathy and was actually sad when the nice old lady (who rescued and raised the fox) had to take him out to the forest and let him go.


Chicken Run:
Ah, that famous line, "I don't want to be a pie!" Here we see chickens who don't want to be slaughtered plan their escape. My favorite part is the teeth.







Bambi:
We haven't watched this one with the kids, partially because of Bambi's mom getting shot. I remember getting really upset when I was a kid. In time, we'll watch it. But again, we have the idea of the hunter being this monster who kills for no good reason.





Charlotte's Web:

The new movie is coming out in December, and yes, I'll take my kids. How many vegans or vegetarians out there remember reading the story or seeing the movie and having something within you say that killing pigs was somehow not quite right? Then we buried it for awhile after our families told us that it was The Way Things Are.

Wilbur only escapes death because he moves out of the "pig" role to "pet" role. He'll be spared, but other pigs will not. So again we see this idea of a "special" animal being saved, because he's different from the rest of his kind.



Shark Tale:
There's a shark who is a vegetarian. He's ridiculed by his family members, who try to make him be a "real" shark by making him eat fish. Adults can easily read it as an analogy for a young gay man in a family of "macho" men. But just as important is the idea of this compassionate shark who endures ridicule and ostracism to free worms, rescue fish, and aid the escape of a bunch of shrimp, because one is raising his orphaned nephew and needs to live to support his family.

The movie shows vegetarian shark as an effeminate and sentimental character, going with that old media favorite of vegetarianism being feminine and thus naturally inferior to the masculinity of killing animals. But the shark is a sympathetic character all the same.

Madagascar:
A lion, hippo, giraffe and zebra get stranded in The Wild. The lion doesn't know that steaks are made of animals, since he was raised in a zoo. As the days pass, the lion gets hungry and goes "crazy" and tries to eat his best friend, the zebra. He quarantines himself away, trying to keep himself from killing his friend. In the end, he ends up living on sushi. So again - animals are friends. Don't eat your friends. (Of course, we explained to the kids that lions must eat meat, so he can't just be an herbivore like his friends)

Finding Nemo:
The sharks have this AA group to get them to not eat fish. They hold up their fins and recite, "fish are friends, not food." The humor of course is that sharks must eat fish, and one goes nuts when he gets a whiff of fish blood. But as always, there's this sympathy for the hunted fish - they're scared, they run, they escape, we cheer.


Babe:
The cat tells Babe, "You see, animals that don't seem to have a purpose, really do have a purpose. The boss has to eat." And thus, Babe learns about The Way Things Are.

Kids feel happy when Babe becomes a sheep pig and is saved from being made into dinner. Just like Wilbur in Charlotte's Web, he accomplishes this by moving from "pig" role to "pet" role. He is spared because he is not like other pigs. This part sort of reinforces the idea that normal pigs are ok to kill because they're not "special."

At Christmas, the duck makes a terrible connection. "Christmas? Christmas means dinner. Dinner means death. Death means carnage. Christmas means carnage!" Sadly his duck friend Roseanna was killed for Christmas dinner. The part where the humans carve up Roseanna makes them look very creepy indeed.

The puppies tell Babe that pigs can't go in the house, not live ones anyway. And the mother dog assures them that people eating dogs is "ridiculous." But at this point in the movie, some people might ask themselves why.

When I first saw this movie, I liked the cute pig, but easily compartmentalized the idea of cute pig versus my bacon. Different things. I think most adults do this automatically, after years of practice. Kids don't have the practice, until we make them spend years deadening themselves to their own compassion for other creatures.

It's kind of a weird experiment we're doing on our kids. At least for me. I watch them respond to these ideas with confusion (why does the farmer want to eat the nice pig?), excitement (Nemo's daddy is getting away from the shark!) and horror (little foxes, run away from the hunter! run away from there!). I know "normal" kids respond the same way, but what happens when the adults don't tell them that it's ok to eat the pigs or shoot the foxes? What if we tell them not to hurt them even if they're not "special" or cute?

* * * * *

Even though some of these movies have the idea of the "special" animal being spared because he can move into the "pet" role in people's lives, these stories can also serve as a bridge between loving pets and loving "food" animals. If one animal is special or unique, maybe others are too, if only we look at them with different eyes.

I think the movies about a "special" animal can be read two ways: You can see it as justification to continue harming animals because the ones you hurt aren't special like the ones shown in these sentimental children's movies or books. Or you can make the connection between one special animal and many special animals.

It's interesting how adults almost always fall into the first category, but children fall into the second. And yet, adult filmmakers make these movies and adults take their children. It's as if there's something there in the adults, some desire to reconnect to the simple love they once had for all creatures. Maybe those adults know, deep down inside, that they still have the little seed in them, and hope to see it blossom in their children?


Now I'm going to quote a part from the absolutely brilliant theme song, from the Vegan Freak podcast which I am sadly very behind on listening to. Go, listen to the song and sing along. Go, listen to the podcast too, since it's always great. Also, visit the Vegan Freak Forums. And buy books.

When we were kids
the bugs and the birds fascinated us
They were just like us
Then we were taught to slam the door
It's not cool to feel too much
But some of us break free
According to you I'm a vegan freak
If that's what you think, I'm a vegan freak
That's your opinion I'm a vegan freak
Happy as Larry I'm a vegan freak.

Product Review: Earth Shoes

Earth Shoes Sandals

I have the shoe pictured above (2 of them!), and I've worn them almost every day for 10 months. They are the best shoes ever. I thought I loved my Birkenstocks, but they just don't compare.

These shoes are nice enough for work, but feel like weekend shoes. My spine is a wee bit curved, and if I wear anything with a heel, even a thick chunky heel, my back tells me about it. Back problems run in my family, so I figured I'd take care of my back, and it would take care of me.

Earth shoes has this "negative heel technology" thing. It means the heel is slightly lower than the toe. Sounds weird, and it took about 15 minutes for the shoe to feel normal, but oooooh, it is heaven on your body. Without even thinking about it, your body just aligns correctly. Your center of gravity shifts, your shoulders go back a little and you stand up straighter. Your grandmother would be proud of the posture these shoes give you.

They're expensive. $89 for the pair I have. But I have learned a few things in my time on earth. Scrimp on other things, but bras and shoes should be comfortable. Get poor quality ones, and you'll suffer. I'll spare you my bra suffering stories. For now...

Anyhow, if you're looking for great walking shoes that are cute, check out the vegan sections of the Earth Shoes website.

Oh, and I put them in the washing machine on "ultra gentle" with a teeny bit of detergent, and they come out squeaky clean. (I do not promise all of their shoes will be ok with this treatment)

My only complaints are these - other Earth shoes are leather, so it's not an all-vegan company. And the shoes sometimes make a farty kind of noise when I walk. This is awesome in a quiet office environment. They probably think I eat too many beans. I think shoes that don't have the faux leather sole will not ake this sound.

Gay marriage means more crime

This is the craziest thing I've read all week. The claim is that gay marriage will lead to more crime.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

It goes like this:

Prison populations have exploded in the last 30 years due to "the lack of moral training during the morally formative years."

The breakdown of marriage is why these younger inmates did not get the moral training they needed.

Same sex marriage increases the "gap" between marriage and parenthood. In the past, the two were inseparable. Now, you can have kids without marriage and marriage without kids. (And to think, you don't get stoned for it or anything. What is the world coming to?)

Gay marriage cannot produce biological children, so it increases this "gap" between parenthood and marriage.

In Norway, legalizing same sex marriage correllated with higher out of wedlock birth rates. (And births of babies named Gunther increased too. Correllation does not equal causation.)

And I'm just going to quote a piece, because, honestly, I can't top this:

Ironically, once gays have the right to marry, few take advantage of it. Evidently, they want the right to marry only because they do not want heterosexuals to have something they can’t have. And they are willing to destroy the institution for everybody else.

The result is going to be more broken families—and more crime.

Yes, the gay people want to ruin marriage for everyone else because they're a bunch of spoilsports. And I had no idea they were responsible for the increase in crime created by the offspring of heterosexuals.

Sigh. This is just sad. I think I need to go look at the pretty sand art video again to feel that all is right with the world again.

Sand Art

My dad sent me the coolest video. It's moving sand art.

The website is sandfantasy.com.

I'd recommend "Just Imagine" to start with. The woman who does this is incredible.