My plan if I'm ever turned into a vampire:
I'd go to my Priest (Don't worry he's an open minded Episcopal, he won't stake me or anything nuts.) and work out a deal, as long as I finance the project, he will consecrate wine for me daily. Then I seriously just live off of Christ's blood alone. But don't worry, it's consensual. Jesus told us to drink his blood and we'd live forever. It would be LITERALLY true for me. haha So creepy. Now I kinda hope I get turned into a vampire...

Calla's Seventy-Seventh Post Update

Here is a good news update: I found this:

greenvegetarian.com

It is a restaurant in Tempe that supposedly Gene Baur is speaking at on Thanksgiving. (Though I've heard nothing else about it) It is vegan. It is happiness, I'm sure. I am going. Here is the menu.

Seitan Turkey Breast with Vegan Giblet Gravy
Sun Dried Cranberry and Toasted Walnut Stuffing
Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Corn with Smoked Paprika
Brown "Butter" Asparagus and Brussels Sprout
The Picnic Salad
Cranberry Sauce
Assorted Artisan Breads

Desserts:
Pecan and Pumpkin Pie with Soy Whip Topping
Winter Berry and Oat Granola Cobbler

yummy and not mean!!!

Calla's Seventy-Seventh Post

What is one to do with a $481.00 non-refundable ticket that one doesn't wish to use? I suppose it could be transferred to another time and place, costing $180.00 in the process. I could take a $301.00 trip on the $481.00 ticket and it could all be fine and dandy.

And I would consider it too if it weren't for Callista. I don't want to miss her.

There is a logic somewhere in this madness; and I'm the one who has it, despite accusations that I am unreasonable and wrong.

And it may be unreasonable from one perspective. We are all, after all, subject to our positionality. And if it is unreasonable, that does not make it wrong. You can continue to 'reasonably' destroy the planet while I remain stubbornly unreasonable until I contribute to a definitive difference in the world around me. Those who aspire only to what is reasonable seldom enact positive social change.

Gandhi was unreasonable.

I am sick of being held hostage by the dominant social norm. Hegemony, I will not be your submissive.

Though I will be labeled "selfish," "bitchy," "childish," "immature," and I'm sure the list goes on, how am I more of these than those on the other side? I am not. I appear so because the common discourse is not on my side.

Baltimore public schools: Meatless Mondays. Lou Dobbs says it’s a political storm in the making. Glenn Beck says its indoctrination. Why are the "Got Milk?" posters decorating our school cafeterias not accused of the same?

Oh right, dominant social discourses . . . Meat is not murder. Milk is not theft. And these products will not cause diabetes, cancer, obesity, high blood pressure, colon problems, global warming, water shortages, world hunger, deforestation, pollution, community destruction, avian flu, swine flue, mad cow disease, E. Coli, workers' rights violations, exploitation, or death. (by the way: they already do.)

I do not want to fly across the country. Sitting on a plane for over 5 hours is not a pleasant experience. I do not want to be called "psycho" or "a brat." (I will be.) I do not want to spend my days off of work and school away from my home and my things and my cats. I do not want to have a screaming and crying match with the people I love. (I will.) I do not want this headache, these stomach cramps, these shaky hands or nervous thoughts that have been following me since Sunday night. I do not want to fly across the country.

And if I don't? Others will have leverage to refuse to do the same come January. And if I do and we resort to fighting? I will be the one at fault by hegemony's law.

Some background information: Thanksgiving is on my birthday. I prefer not to be around symbols of the fallen world on any given day. But I assumed birthdays had leveraging power. (BTW, I was wrong. People are more sentimental about Thanksgiving than Birthdays. You may need that information in the future.) I asked if we could not have a turkey, but could have other items made with animal products. This was shot down. I asked if we could have a turkey and no other items contributing to the problems outlined in a ramble above. This was also shot down, despite my offer to do the cooking. Some people were worried some other people wouldn't come unless they could indulge all their destructive sentiments. And if I am threatening not to come, that is crazy. That is unreasonable. That is unfair.

And that is your background information. This is the last time I will be using my Birthday to ask for a gift.

I will also be a brat when I refuse their birthday cake or gifts that someone may have bothered to get me. (I will accept something from Callista. Something from Chris. Everyone else needs to stop kidding themselves . . . If they ever were.)

If this wretched holiday of gluttony and greed had not fallen on the marginally less wretched (though much more vain) holiday of my birth, I never would have thought to ask for such an apparently unreasonable gift.

I think my family is harder than most. I say this not only because I've had my fair share of stepmoms, so the rules are always changing, but also because I know other people's families. I know a couple that is getting married this weekend, and they are cooking an all vegan Thanksgiving for their families on Thanksgiving. (This is something I didn't even consider asking. I know people hold deadly sentiment too dear.) I know people who have gotten family members to go completely vegan for a week or a month in honor of birthdays. My husband's extended family has gone to vegetarian restaurants to celebrate birthdays that weren't even ours just to be respectful. People have suggested I offer to cook the meal if I want it to be vegan, as if this would solve the problem . . . Because to reasonable people, it would. To a normal family, having all the sides vegan would not be a big deal . . . especially if Thanksgiving fell on a vegan's birthday and that vegan offered to do all the cooking.

(This is what is unreasonable: I wanted to spend the day doing something I don't enjoy and have that be my sole birthday present.)

Gluttony, gluttony--the deadly sin that kills (see rambling list above if you would like to know how.)

I hate this situation. I don't want to even fly across the country. This would not make things better. People would still say, "Where's Calla?" and the response would still be, said in a snarky tone, "Oh, she refused to come because we didn't make the side dishes vegan." (For the record, I didn't ask you to make the side dishes vegan. I asked you to let ME make the side dishes vegan.) So, this would not make things better in terms of call and response . . . but at least I wouldn't have to see these people. No one would come by my sister's house before or after the meal, see me there, and lecture me about how stubborn and bitchy I am.

I am stubborn. I am not bitchy. I am quite the opposite of bitchy. I care too damn much. I care about animals, and people, and the environment, and this makes me unable to take part in the dominant social discourse. I won't sit down at your selfish table of gluttonous lies. "

"Thanksgiving." Can you imagine giving thanks for global warming? For an unsustainable use of land and water? For cancer? For diabetes? For theft? I can't. And I won't. And I won't be a part of this dinner. And I will bear the brunt of, "Stop acting crazy and just COME" because I have a $481.00 ticket and a 5 year old to visit.

These nerves and shakes and pains are making it hard to get through the days. And I don't want them anymore. And I don't want to fly across the country and watch others soak up sentiment.



Too upset to find a picture.

Calla's Seventy-Sixth Post

LOOK AT THIS LAMBY DANCE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9__jckosjZw

This lovely little lamby friend was born on a truck bound for a slaughterhouse. Yes, you read that correctly. His mommy gave birth to him only to be torn away and lead to her death. He musta sensed something horrible coming cause he got out of her womb in the nick of time!! Anyway, he was just left to die on the truck. Luckily some lady found him and he ended up at Farm Sanctuary we're he'll never know the torture his mommy knew, thank the Lord! His name is Angelo, and oh I love him. He does a lamby dance cause no one eats him and no one abuses him. How dare you all take that joy away from so many other lambys! WATCH THE VIDEO. IT'S SO SO SO SO CUTE.

Love,
Calla and the kitties and the lambies.

Calla's Seventy-Fifth Post

It is hard for me to fathom the way some people exist. I cannot put myself in others' shoes. Perhaps this is a bad quality. On the other hand, why would I want to exist in the limiting minds that abound so plentifully?

So, there is this man. And he is a man with whom I have never gotten along. But, I could never quite put my finger on WHY. Something was always a little off about him. He always seems to be trying just a little too hard to be fulfilled. Ya know the type of guy who still travels to India during summers even though he's well beyond the age of "finding himself." (Not that I buy into that notion to begin with.) That's the type he is. And it always irks me the wrong way. I thought it was just that we have such different values, and even the values we share we've arrived at from opposing sides. BUT I FIGURED IT OUT PRECISELY TODAY.

He is so damn anthropocentric! Know WHY he needs to backpack across Europe at the age of 40 or whatever it is that he does? He feels he is in this position of privilege. (and as he is a white, human, male living in the U.S. I suppose it would be hard to argue otherwise.) As he is a human, he can think, feel, reason, emote, express himself, etc, etc, etc. These are his God-given rights. And they are given to mankind above all other animals. THAT IS THE WAY HE THINKS. He feels he is naturally privileged above everything else. He was just born that way. He was born better than tigers, great white sharks, the poor lovely white possums (first mammal extinct because of global warming ), the bees and butterflies, EVERYTHING. He is better than them all just because he has the ability to muse about what the word ethics means.

This is what led me to my discovery. (My discovery about THE REASON WHY I don't like him.) He had a blog post about ethics, and the way the word 'ethics' is being used to express things beyond human to human relationships. He was surprised by this. Surprised that people talk about "ethical" hunting (as if killing something out of greed could ever be ethical). He thought it was just crazy how the word ethical is passing species lines.

Excuse me. . . but, what? Ethics were ever bound by human relations? Since when? I don't know if it's true that ethics come from religion, but aren't there arguments about that? In which case, wouldn't that already be man to god(s) relationships? Aren't there traditions of, say, Kosher laws, which dictate only one ethical way to slaughter something? HOW ANTHROPOCENTRIC TO THINK HUMANS CAN ONLY BE ETHICAL WHEN ANOTHER HUMAN IS INVOLVED. What about the Christian doctrine of being good stewards of the earth? Why is this a new concept to him.

So, Tabby said that this strange man might know something about the etymology of the word ethics or what not. Maybe it did originate as meaning humans duties to other humans or something. But, that's beyond the point. To honestly believe that ethics have not always been extended across species is ignorant and self-assuring. Furthermore, to believe humans are the only ones who HAVE ethics is equally absurd. People asserting such rubbish are just looking for a way to legitimize their elevated social status above other species. Science is now showing that animals beyond humans have ethics.

Experiments on rats (I know, downright evil. Not genuinely ethical on the people's part.) show that rats won't take food if it causes another rat pain. That is not some survival of the fittest, Darwinism, evolution stuff. That is quite the opposite. That is a rat making an ethical decision to put another above him/her self, possibly leading to her/his own demise. Chimpanzees don't show aggression to disabled members of their societies. Once again, an ethical decision. Dolphins and Whales alike experience empathy for the same biological reason humans do. (Something about spindle cells. . . ?)

The point is this: Even IF ethics has some etymology restricting it to human-to-human relationships, and even IF non-human animals are not capable of the same intellectual reasoning as mankind, the fact of the matter remains: humans have always held ethics that transcended inter-personal relations and animals also have their own moral codes––without all the Kantian mumbo-jumbo behind them––that do not have to do with the survival of the fittest. Ergo, the concept of ethics (perhaps not the word) has never been restricted to a discussion of human interaction with other humans. And the fact that this one man would ever surmise as much made me realize why I do not like him. He is a bad person precisely because he places so much damn stock in being a person.

Don't get me wrong. Often I enjoy being a person. I tool feel privileged that I am at the top. I too enjoy the ability to use critical discernment. But I don't spend my life making sure I experience culture and the arts and grappling with impossible theoretical concepts just because I CAN and others can't. I spend my life trying to make a better place for all sentient beings with the understanding that God created us all. God created animals for his glory, and guess what else! He asked that we have just dominion over them. That means a responsibility to them to behave ethically where they are involved.

The End.

Love,
Calla and the Kitties.

Calla's Seventy-Forth Post

Now this is another important idea. It is about BDSM and animal welfare (and probably also animal rights since this is Calla typing.) Tabby made up the idea and I am not trying to take credit. This is just a post about it in case anyone wants to help because we don't really have the means to implement this, but you might no someone who does. Or maybe you work for PETA and want to add a campaign of this. Tabby says he doesn't want it to be a campaign and he wants it to be a whole nonprofit organization. But honestly, I have no desire to really start my own nonprofit, and I don't think Tabby will ever be motivated enough to try. SO, therefore, it follows, that if PETA wants to steal the idea only for a campaign, well, if that's the case, I say go for it. It is highly creative.

SOOOOO. Here is what it is called. It is called Consensual Cages. The concept is that only those who want to be in cages, such as submissives or masochists or what not, should be in them. We do not shove piggies, and chickies, and calve-ies in cages! So, the deal is as follows (there are two ideas to follow): The one is a basic outreach/activism/leafleting thingy. You gotta get a cage and put hot people in bondage in those cages. You do this in crowded public places to get people's attention. Then you just hand out lit explaining how evil factory farming is. It is really quite simple and straight forward. And it sounds like something PETA would do.

Oh and also, Lit. wouldn't be limited to farm animals. This is a good idea to promote adopting companion animals because kitties and puppies shouldn't live their lives in cages and also puppy mill mommies live their miserable little precious lives like dairy cow mommies. :( :( :( OH THE WORLD IS EVIL EVIL EEEEVIIIIL I SAY!

The other idea is for a black-tie and/or Gala event. It is like a regular fancy-shmancy party except you have all these submissives serving everyone all night. They have like trays strapped to their mouths and maybe on their backs and stuff. They have to crawl around on all fours all nights serving people. You can also have people serving as physical human coat racks for when people come in. So because of that, you might wanna maybe do it in winter or fall. You can also have people in cages as decorations. There could be other more sexual things too as long as you read the laws in whatever state you are in about sex and what not. Obviously there would be no physical sexual intercourse. However, there could conceivably be floggings if someone messes up a drink order or whatever. Use your imagination. This is a good idea. Tabby is smart.

Consensual Cages. You heard it here first and don't you forget it!

Love,
Calla and the Kitties (who are happy they do not live in cages!!)

Calla's Seventy-Third Post

This is the counterpart to It's So Cold.

It's hot!it's hot!it's hot!it's hot! OOHH, it's sweltering outside!

Sometimes you walk outside your door
and you're all the sudden thirsty.
Yes, you're all the sudden thirsty;
and you realize
it's hot!it's hot!it's hot!it's hot! OOHH, it's sweltering outside!

Sometimes you take a walk outside
and you get so very sweaty.
Yes, your clothes get wet and sticky;
and you realize
it's hot!it's hot!it's hot!it's hot! OOHH, it's sweltering outside!

Sometimes you walk around outside
and you wish you had a parasol,
and you wish that you were naked.
And you realize
it's hot!it's hot!it's hot!it's hot! OOHH, it's sweltering outside!

I sang that today because of the hot.

Love,
Calla and the kitties

Calla's Seventy-Second Post

I HAVE A REALLY GOOD IDEA. If you have the ability to implement it, by all means, please oh please oh please steal my really good idea. . .

So, it is about not eating meat. It is inspired by the fact that, on average, it takes 10 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of flesh for consumption. So, here is my idea. Someone needs to start a program where people can pledge to eat less meat. So it can either be like once a week, like someone not eating meat on Sundays, or it can be like around a holiday season, whatever. And then, in the place of that person not eating meat that day or days, hungry families in developing countries get fed.

I know it sounds a little nutty because the food that the person is giving up isn't actually connected to the food that will feed the people in Africa, or South America or whatever. But I know that at Yale they do this program where people can donate one of their swipes in the dining hall (if you are like me and didn't go to school on a college campus, you will have to use your reasoning to figure out what that sentence means.) to a food bank. So it's not like homeless people would come eat in the dining hall or anything, just that Yale would donate money to a food bank. I don't know why or how often Yale did this, but I know they did.

So, it is entirely plausible that a non-profit could start this. Or a non-profit could be started for this purpose. Really, we need to stop eating meat and start feeding starving people.

Also, if you have a dog, you can feed your dog vegetarian with no problems. They are not tricky the way carnivorous cats are because they omnivorous in nature like us people. I may have said that at some point in time on here, but I am saying it again so that you all know so that you can stop polluting the earth.

OK, that's all. thanks.

Bye.

Love,
Calla and the kitties.


hiding in the closet from the booming rain