Vegetarians Unite…or Not

Disclaimer:  I am not a vegetarian.  I’m not even close.  But I have been making a special effort for the last couple of years not to eat chicken.  I haven’t been successful, but I can at least say that I’ve dropped my chicken consumption by about 80%.  I would LIKE to be a vegetarian, but I have the same problem with it that I have with quitting smoking:  No discipline.  Oh yeah, there’s that addiction thing, too. 

If you don’t believe me, try giving up chicken.  If you pay attention, a huge majority of fast-food places serve chicken exclusively.  “Hamburger” fast-food places always serve chicken too.  Check out the freezer section for ready-made dinners–mostly chicken.  Higher-end restaurants always have chicken as an option.  Those in between (see:Applebee’s) feature wings and “boneless” wings.  Ditto even pizza places.  You can’t escape chicken, and it’s been touted as a healthy alternative to red meat, which in our world primarily means beef. 

It would be good to start giving up meat by giving up baby animals like lamb and veal and piglets, followed by giving up adult animals that are kept in atrocious conditions.  Which pretty much includes all adult animals grown for food unless they’re raised on small farms. 

So when I decided to focus on reducing meat intake, I decided to focus on chickens, and my reason was that chickens are more abused than any other food animal.  That isn’t necessarily true.   The giant pens that hold beef cattle can be seen from space.  But I think it’s something about chickens.  They’re birds, and I have a soft spot in my heart for birds.  Baby chicks.  Is there anything cuter?  And hens are good mothers.  They coo at their chicks and herd them around to protect them from danger.  And maybe my choice is influenced by my knowlege of a chicken house in Mississippi during my young college days, where the farmer went bankrupt and thousands of chickens suffocated in their quarters because they turned off his electricity.

Today’s New York Times Magazine has an article about Wayne Pacelle, President of the Humane Society of the United States.  He’s a Vegan.  If I’m ever successful at not eating chickens, and then proceeding to other animals, I’ll never be a Vegan.  Vegans hold that even eating the products of animals is exploitation of them.  So…no eggs.  No milk.  No cheese.  No honey.  What?  The exploitation of bees?  Like bees haven’t been making honey since they evolved from, oh, pterodactyls?  I can’t get my brain to reject the idea of “mining” animals for their products.  Nor do I think it’s bad to eat them once their mining days are over. 

But Pacelle is a smart guy.  He has turned the Humane Society into an organization which calls for the humane treatment of food animals in addition to companion animals.  After all, one culture’s pet is another’s food source.  I think Pacelle is the kind of person who will transform our view of how we treat animals.  For the full article, along with a great picture of Pacelle surrounded by chickens, go here: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26animal-t.html?ei=5070

Men Seldom Make Passes…

…at Girls Who Wear Glasses.  This little poem by Dorothy Parker said everything there is to know about why I hated wearing glasses as a young woman.  Often I just went without them.  I found that I had the ability to sort of squinch the muscles in my eyes to see normally, although after a day of that I’d have to hide in the privacy of my own home and gratefully put the glasses back on.  (I will say this for Sarah Palin:  she’s made wearing glasses cool again.)

Before that, I hated wearing glasses as a child (and I’d been wearing them since age two) because of the taunting.  “Four-eyes” was the popular chant, but in all fairness, that applied to both girls and boys with glasses. 

I so longed to wear contact lenses, but I was totally put off by the concept of poking a piece of glass in my eye, and I’d heard horror stories of what damage they could do.  And then came the miracle of soft contact lenses.  Although it took some practice, I wasn’t so put off by putting something in my eye that reminded me of a tiny piece of Saran Wrap. 

I’ve now been wearing contacts for about 30 years, and in that time I’ve seen so many improvements.  It’s quite amazing.  Lenses you can wear overnight.  Lenses you can dispose of, instead of having to laboriously clean them.  Lenses which can correct all sorts of vision problems, rather than the simplest ones. 

I no longer care so much about the aesthetics of the whole thing, I now hate glasses because I can’t stand to have them on my face.  I don’t like the way they feel. You constantly have to adjust the damn things.  I tolerate sunglasses as a necessity, but you don’t have to wear them all the time.  I don’t like waking up and pawing through the stuff on the bedside table to find them.  I like waking up wearing contact lenses that you can sleep in, which allow you to see normally the minute your eyes pop open. 

But last week, I ran into an unexpected problem…this is the primary cause of my Week From Hell.  It’s been a year and a half or so since I had an eye exam, and so for several months now I’ve been wearing my glasses since I ran out of contacts.  My optometrist’s office, to their credit, is religious about you having an annual exam before renewing your prescription for either glasses or contacts.  So I dashed in on Tuesday morning for the exam, expecting to walk out as usual with one complimentary pair of contact lenses while I waited for the six-month supply to arrive.  But during the exam, no matter what they did, they could not get my right eye to correct.  Taking another look, the optometrist said, Aha!  No wonder!  The problem is, you have a pool of blood on the retina in your right eye, near the macula.  I felt like I had been thrown into a telephone pole.  Instant panic. 

I’m bleeding in the eye?  Macula?  I didn’t know what that was but somewhere in the recesses of my brain I dredged up the term “macular degeneration” which I thought means inevitable blindness.  (In some cases, it does.)  So the exam came to a halt, and I was referred to an opthamologist, whom I saw the next day.  For three hours.  Sometimes it helps a lot when you’re faced with unexpected medical emergencies to focus on how cool the technology is.  And the tests they did and the equipment they used were indeed fascinating.  I was mostly amazed by the cameras which take pictures of the retina, all the way through the eye. 

So next Wednesday, they are going to inject a drug into my eyeball to try to stop the bleeding.  I’m not too scared, because I don’t think it will hurt.  You don’t have any feeling on the inside of your eyeball, and they will deaden the cornea before sticking the needle in.  Nevertheless, there is a huge Ick Factor here, wouldn’t you agree?  However, I’ve learned that the unendurable is in fact endurable when the alternative of doing nothing leads to sure and certain disaster. 

Another of the fascinating issues is that there are two drugs they can use, one of which is not approved for use in the eye.  The other drug is, but it’s ten times more expensive.  I had another jolting experience as a result of this…I had a heart to heart talk with my insurance company about whether they would pay for this treatment.  The answer was yes, they would pay for either one, even the one that is “off-label”, whatever the doctor decided, and they offered to voluntarily call the doctor and say so.  What?  Insurance companies normally top my personal list of the Axis of Evil, and here they are saying yes without saying no first?  Actually offering to help ease the way?  Hmmm.  It appears I’ll have to revise my list.

After the Election, Let’s Kill Off Some Words

There are are whole words, phrases, and expressions from the presidential campaign that I’d like to drop into a hole so deep they can never climb out again.  Alternatively, we could all gather at the river and throw these offensive things into the mainstream, where presumably the swift current will carry them far, far away.

This of course brings me to my first candidate for death:  Mainstream Media.  Since when did “mainstream” become a four-letter word, like “liberal”?  And what is the opposite of Mainstream Media?  Fringe Media?  Quiet Backwater Pool Media?

Next up:  Reaching Across the Aisle.  God, I am so sick of hearing who does, who doesn’t, to whom, how many times, and over what.  Apparently you get extra credit for reaching across the aisle to Ted Kennedy.  I guess that takes really long arms.  You know how sometimes you’re at the drive-through window at the fast-food place and you realize you couldn’t be any further from the window?  So there you are, stretching your arm out the window of the car until your shoulder threatens to dislocate, and the employee at the window is doing the same thing, until the very tippy-tips of your fingers manage to touch the bag of food.  That’s the picture I get in my head when I think of members of Congress “reaching across the aisle”.  Except I picture them heading for the hand sanitizer immediately afterwards. 

Finally (and understand this is not an all-inclusive list), Red State/Blue State.  I don’t know who started with those colors, but I want to blame Tom Brokaw.  It’s time for some new colors, already.  My personal favorite would be Purple and Yellow, but both those words have two syllables, which may unduly handicap members of the Backwater Pool Media.  So maybe, Pink and Green. 

Today’s New York Times has a thoroughly irreverent look at the electoral map as it stands today.  It’s all in black, white, and gray.  I wish they had asked me first.  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/25/opinion/20081025_opart.html

Jeff the Mechanic

My personal answer to Joe the Plumber. 

I have had the week from hell, so this morning when the 13-year old car began overheating on the way back from a work-related errand it was the last straw.  I was ready to pull over, jump out of the car, and run down the street screaming gibberish.  Except it was pouring down rain. 

So instead I limped to a destination which shall remain nameless, where Jeff the Mechanic plies his trade. 

He and I have met a couple of times before under similar emergency circumstances.  Today was a repeat of one of those previous occasions:  another freeze plug had rusted out.  My brother-in-law previously informed me that officially these things are called “core plugs”.  Whatever.  Here in 13-year-old car world, we call stuff whatever our mechanic calls them.  We don’t have the luxury of being elitists. 

So while we were waiting for the parts store to deliver the correctly sized plug thingie, Jeff struck up a conversation, which began with:

“Your car is a disaster waiting to happen.” (I kind of already figured that out, Jeff, based on the first time I was here and you kicked my ass for neglecting the cooling system, and the 90,000 miles it has on it.)

We talked about replacing the engine.  New or rebuilt?  Take mine out and rebuild it?  New car?  What kind?  I told him I was holding out for the GM Volt…the electric car that goes 40 miles before it ever uses gasoline.  He said it will be $50,000.  I was like, never mind.  I said, OK, maybe a Prius.  He said, the best hybrid is the Camry…but it’s $40,000.  Never mind again, I said.  He said, you’re going to have to do something in between, but as long as you’re holding out, hold out for a hydrogen car. 

He then launched into a description of hydrogen cars, how they work, why we don’t have them in the U.S., what it will take to get them, using ocean waves to generate power (which he had just watched a one-hour special about on TV), the evils of pollution, and so on.  And suddenly he said, “Have you voted?”

I said, “Yes, yesterday.”

He said, “Well I hope it was for Barack Obama!” 

Jeff is white and 50-ish more or less, and male and “blue-collar” but he’s a professional and he’s a thinker, and in spite of the continuing incessant rain, I felt like the sun had just come out.  Eat dirt, Joe Plumber.

Pink Stuff, Part 2

There is an excellent article today on msnbc.com entitled “The Politics Behind the Pink Ribbon”, and subtitled, “Breast cancer hogs the spotlight and money, critics charge”. 

Here is a sobering quote from the article: 

“Breast cancer organizations have another advantage: many breast cancer patients live to become an army of walking, letter-writing, TV-appearing advocates. Nearly 90 percent of women with breast cancer survive the disease at least five years.

On the other hand, “pancreatic cancer patients are dead,” points out Barron Lerner, professor of medicine and public health at Columbia University, author of a book called “The Breast Cancer Wars.”"

Here is the full article:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27283197

Still…I’ve been wearing my pink ribbon pin every day that I think of it this month (which is mostly every day). 

Weekend Wrapup

Alas, another weekend comes to a close.  I have a job, which seriously interferes with blogging, but pays better. 

This weekend my thoughts were about racism. the Bailout with a capital “B”, and my lost dog Hansel.  But life as I know it went on, and the Girl Kitty was busy.  First she caught a baby toad on Friday evening.  Then she completely contaminated her water bowl by Fishing For Cat Food.  This game consists of her picking out a morsel of cat food from her food bowl with her paw, then dropping it into the water bowl, watching it swirl around for a second or two, then cleverly capturing it with the same paw she dropped it in with. 

On Saturday I did the NY Times crossword puzzle with Fakesister as usual (always a high point of my week!), and also, Yard Guy came over to mow the mowable part of my yard (the front), and fight his way through the the rest, armed only with a chainsaw, a machete, a flashlight, a weedeater, a silver bullet, and a necklace made of garlic. 

On Friday afternoon I did an unofficial survey of my neighborhood for campaign signs.  Results:  Obama 5, McCain 4.  And one Yes to Amendment 2 (the Marriage Amendment…One Man, One Woman).

Thirty minutes ago, my local neighborhood Obama volunteer showed up at my door with a new Obama sign for me.  My old one was an old sign which just said Obama ‘08, my new one says Obama-Biden ‘08.  I was thrilled!  And then she said, do you notice that your other sign is missing?  I was like, WTF?  She said, I’m not here to do an upgrade, lol.  Sometime after my survey, every Obama sign in the neighborhood disappeared itself, while the McCain signs are still in place.  She suggested I bring my Obama-Biden sign in at night.  What!!!???

So is this what we are down to?  Sign-stealing?

I guess now that I’ll have to add another item to my pre-sleep countdown list.  Dogs inside?  Check.  Dogs fed?  Check.  Cat inside? Check.  Cat fed?  Check.  Coffee pot ready?  Check.  Obama-Biden sign inside?  At least I don’t have to feed it.

Bailout Rage

Maybe you think the government bailout is a bad idea, or maybe you think it’s a necessary evil.  I lean toward the “necessary evil” opinion, but it sort of reminds me of trying to rescue a puppy from the jaws of an alligator.  To save the puppy, you have to save the alligator too. 

But if you’re in the mood to get really mad today, or if you’re suffering from low blood pressure and need to have it raised, read Maureen Dowd’s opinion piece in today’s New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/opinion/19dowd.html?ref=opinion

AFTER the bailout of A.I.G, some of their executives went on a “lavish” trip to Britain for a partridge-hunting party costing around $86,000.  I’m sure the poor babies were really stressed out and needed a break from the rigors of stealing our money. 

Meanwhile, on a personal note, I have an adjustable rate mortgage, which resets–or doesn’t–every March.  This year it reset so that my monthly payment is $80 less per month than it was last year.  So I’m in the awkward postion of hoping the economy stays bad and that the Fed continues to cut interest rates, so that I can save more money next year.  How crazy is that?

Ode to Hansel the Rottweiler

I miss him when I think of him, but my brain keeps busy trying not to think of him.  And it does a very good job. 

So Thursday afternoon, as I sat at the picnic table, Fakedog the Doberman dredged up a long lost ball of Hansel’s and brought it to me hopefully, as if I might throw it for him.  I burst into tears.  Poor Fakedog.  Little did he know that with that ball, he dredged up memories as well. 

That ball, wherever it’s been lodged, has been missing for at least three years.  Hansel has been dead for two and a half years, but for at least six months before that, we had to quit playing ball. 

Hansel was good at ball playing.  I would get these very hard rubber balls, which bounced really high, and he would leap into the air to catch them and it was just magnificent to watch him leap into the air and catch the ball in his mouth before it hit the ground the second time. 

Of course, sometimes he would miss.  In which case, one of the other dogs would get the ball.  If they didn’t get the ball, they would lose interest, and Hansel would keep looking for it but would never be able to find it.  He had to have the worst sense of smell of any dog on the planet.  That’s why I had to keep buying more balls, and why you can find balls three years later. 

We had to quit playing ball because Hansel developed some major arthritis issues.  He could still do the leaping part, it was the crashing to earth part that was going to hurt him.  He would have done it anyway, I think. but it was up to me to make him give it up. 

What a dog he was! To his right in the picture that follows, you can see the Beast, who would never dare to try to take away the ball! 

Hansel with one of his balls

Racism Part 2

My last post about racism in Florida inspired two comments which seemed to be trying to tell me that black people can be racists too.  No way!  You gotta be kidding me!  Gosh, thank God I have people looking out for me, otherwise my intellect would go the way of the Dodo bird. 

Never mind that my post had to do with a white teacher saying in class that CHANGE stands for “Come Help A Nigger Get Elected”.

Let’s look at the definition of “racism”, shall we? 

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/racism

By this definition, black people in the U.S. only get to use the third meaning, not having been in a postion to legitimize those grandiose illusions of superiority.  I know all the arguments.  It wasn’t me who did it.  My family didn’t own slaves .  It was 150 years ago.  Get over yourselves already. 

Black people who are still mad are charged with an inability to get with the program; with unfairly targeting white people.  White people who have a whisper of a clue about what black people still have to endure are accused of suffering from “white guilt”.  Not me.  If my family had been any poorer, we would have been slaves ourselves.  Except we were white.  Somehow, the notion that you can believe in fairness and equality without tying it to your race has…gone the way of the Dodo bird. 

Let me recount a brief experience I had many years ago.  I went to Paris with a friend whose sister was attending the Sorbonne.  We stayed in the sister’s apartment along with her roommate.  One evening, the roommate came home trembling with fear.  She’d been returning home late, via the subway, and while standing on one of the moving sidewalks she found her way blocked at the end by a group of young male Algerians.  She started walking backwards.  Of course she couldn’t keep up and was inevitably heading into their hands.  They eventually laughed and dispersed.  When she got home she was still terrified, but was also wailing about how this could happen to her.  “I’m on their side!”, she said.  I said, unlike the way we like to look at it in the U.S., oppressed people don’t respond by saying “Thanks a lot for giving us more freedom”, now let us all sing Kumbayah.  Be wary, and take care of yourself. 

I understand her disappointment.  I’ve had some scary moments myself, though not since I left Memphis.  All races and religions have thugs.  That will not change me. 

But food for another post:  The worst thing that happened to black people in the U.S. is Affirmative Action.  It may also have been the best thing.  (“It was the worst of times, it was the best of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”)

Racism is dead in Florida…Oh, wait a second

Something about this presidential campaign has caused all those racists who went underground to claw themselves out of their graves and begin wandering the earth in hordes…oh wait, that’s Night of the Living Dead.  My point exactly.

For some time, it’s been very uncool to be openly racist.  In certain areas of life, it’s illegal, and in others, it’s hazardous to employment or both.  So the racists go into deep cover–well not so deep as they think.  My observation is that racists, while carefully watching what they do and say most of the time, will almost always let something “slip”.  This applies to sexists too, but we’ll save that topic for another day. 

I can recall when the Civil Rights Act took effect hearing people say, “You can’t legislate morality.”  That’s all too true, but who really gives a damn?  I don’t care how you feel “in your heart”.  I only care about your behavior.  This brings us to the occasion for this post.

Three weeks ago in Marianna, Florida (a small town to the west of Tallahassee) a middle-school social studies teacher wrote on a dry erase board that CHANGE (the Obama motto) stands for “Come Help A Nigger Get Elected”.  During class.  In front of his seventh-grade students.  No, I am not making this up. 

His punishment?  The school superintendent gave him a 10-day suspension without pay (value, about $2,500), a written reprimand, required him to write a letter of apology to students, forced him to give up his position as assistant football coach and to take sensitivity-diversity training.  The School Board upheld the superintendent’s decision.  I’m wondering what he would have had to do to get fired. 

Meanwhile, some parents and their attorney are appealing to Governor Charlie Crist to step in and remove this lowlife from a teaching position, and word is that the governor is “exploring his options”.  There is hope that Charlie will do the right thing, since as Attorney General–the position he held before becoming governor–he successfully prosecuted a hotel owner in a nearby but different town who refused to let black guests use the swimming pool, and a package-store/bar owner who refused to let black customers be seated in the same room as white customers.  In the same town, no less. 

So for everyone who thinks that racism is dead in Florida, or for that matter, in America, my advice is:  keep an eye on the cemetery.