I am procrastinating. I have to write this review of this academic article. And it is boring and stupid and about ska. So, I don't want to write it. But I am listening to No Doubt now (third wave ska and what not). And that makes me mad because of my loss of CDs. :( So what happened is as follows: I never really had a permanent home. My parents got divorced when I was 7. So I guess I had one before that. So, the judge gave them joint custody. This was like as joint as it could get, as in my dad had us Thursday, Friday and every other weekend, my mom had us Mon-Wed and every other weekend. That was the school year. During the summer, it was split right down the middle half and half. Though my dad claimed he was supposed to have us every weekend to make up for the discrepancy during the school year. . . But he didn't start claiming this until, I dunno, I was ten or twelve or something. . . So, I don't know if that's true or not, but regardless we didn't follow it. So my point is this. My dad moved like every other year. When he finally moved into a house he supposedly liked we had to rent another house for like ever anyway as he and one of my crazy ex-stepmoms put a million dollars into remodeling the other house. So anyway, I NEVER knew where my stuff was growing up. This was, to say the least, obnoxious. It is also the reason I never want to leave the East Village despite the expense and the whole gentrification thing that has been going on since the 1980s of which I am clearly a part. 'Cause here is where I finally felt I had a permanent home, ya know? To have only ONE home and live in it all the time and to have kitties and a boyfriend you get to see EVERYDAY and then to work in the same neighborhood and to like to go to the park to look at the puppies and wish you could have a dog as well as two cats. . . well, that is what having an actual home feels like. So, back to the CDs. I took all my favorite CDs to college with me my first year, right? And so what happened was I lived in school housing. This small apartment right on Union Square with 8 of us inside it. RIDICULOUS. Probably, you will hear more about the ridiculousness someday. The kitchen was like 10 square feet the four bedrooms were the size of walk in closets literally. . . SO, it sucked. So I also had to move out right away in May. And I stored some stuff with Tabby (where I live now! It was stupid cause I moved the stuff out of this apartment in September and right back in in January!) OK, so, some stuff I stored with Claudette. . . who I then stopped talking to. . . I hope she is enjoying my green blanket, green lamp with flowered lampshade, laundry basket etc. So the rest of my stuff I managed to lug back to Ohio in two overweight suitcases. Well, there were my CDs. And I had them at my dad's house (the one that had been redone.) And I meant to load them all onto my computer, but didn't get around to it. So, I left them there when I went back to New York because I was trying to bring back every single book I owned, and so there wasn't room for music. (Isn't that depressing, to choose between music and literature!?) OK, so I didn't go back to Ohio until 2 years later. That was this past summer for Cristina's wedding. The summer before, I was supposed to go for a weekend, but my plane got all delayed and then cancelled and Tabby's dad had to get me from the airport at like 3 a.m. OK. So, that one year later I didn't have a chance to get those CDs. By the time I got back to Ohio again, my dad had divorced crazy stepmom #2 and that stupidly expensive house was on the market. While, crazy ex-stepmom had changed the locks on the house, so I couldn't get the CDs. So, that same weekend my dad called and asked if I needed anything from the house because he would be there the next weekend. I told him I needed my CDs. But he never called me and never mentioned them again, so I think it is safe to say he either forgot or they were already gone. Well, I get sad quite often that music collection has vanished. But I still have Tragic Kingdom because Christin rebought it or something and I put it on my computer one time in Arizona. But where is the rest of No Doubt, Outkast, Jewel, TFK, Nickel Creek, etc? (Yes, I have elcectic taste.) I am sad.
Well, I don't have any kitty pictures right now because I have to load them from the camera onto the computer. And I didn't yet. Just deal with it. I'll add two sets to the next post to make up for it. (THE NEXT POST WILL PROBABLY BE ABOUT GALACTICA)
You're only sixteen
Try to cross the line
But your little wings are intertwined no whoa no
Yeah you're only sixteen
And you're such a tease
And there's nothing you do
That can really please no whoa no
love, Calla and her kitties
Showing posts with label father. Show all posts
Showing posts with label father. Show all posts
Friday, February 6, 2009
Monday, November 24, 2008
Post no. 8
I read an encouraging fact yesterday: Veal consumption per person in the U.S. has declined by over 2/3rds since 1986. The public is generally at least marginally informed about the inhumane practices of the veal industry. The average omnivorous human feels more concerned about the ill-fate of veal calves than about the plight of other farm animals simply because enthusiastic campaigns have been waged against the practice of removing day old calves from their protective mothers, putting the social beings in solitary boxes (with chains around their necks) which are too small to allow the poor creatures to sit, lie down, turn around, or even scratch themselves, then feeding the animals a formula which causes them to become boarder-line anemic, and slaughtering the miserable creatures twenty weeks into their brief lives of agonizing pain and social isolation. Most people know about this practice, and it is understandable why they would despise it. I am not surprised by the public's general reaction to eat less veal.
However, it can be argued that breeding sows and egg-laying chickens suffer a far worse fate than that of the veal-calf, if for no other reason than that they are required to live a similar lifestyle much longer.
Shall we start with sows? Sows (female pigs) are required to spend much of their lives in gestation cages. These are cages so small that the pigs, much like the veal calves, cannot turn around, sit down, or move their bodies. Their cages are so small that these poor animals' teats often hang into the cage adjacent to their own. Here, the pigs are artificially inseminated over and over again. They are essentially baby-machines. The only time they are able to stand and move is when they are nursing their young. They are moved to equally uncomfortable cages, in which there are slots in the metal floor for waste to fall through. There is so little room and the floor is so awkward, that the sows often mistakenly crush their young. Also, the piglets can fall through the cracks in the cages if they are below average size and have been known to clog local sewage pipes. How disturbing is that? (To you, maybe not so much. Maybe you are the type who drowns an unwanted litter of kittens. But to me, a drowning piglet is a depressing thought.)
As if this space confinement and constant state of pregnancy and birth were not enough to wear out a pig, pigs are also social animals. Additionally, pigs are some of the smartest farm animals. They are intelligent enough to play and understand basic video games like pong. This unfulfilled desire to socialize coupled with the incessant boredom such intelligent animals endure while lying on their side staring into the abyss all day causes many of these poor creatures great psychological trauma. (Again, maybe you do not believe that animals cannot experience psychological trauma, but I, for one, do not believe human beings are the only sentient creatures.)
Shall we move onto the chickens? Chickens are put in what are known as battery cages. The chickens are so tightly packed into these cages, that common farming practice requires chicks to have their beaks and claws clipped (without anaesthesia) soon after birth. This is done so hastily that many chicks beaks are cut so short they have trouble eating. :( Of course, this only applies to the female chicks. Male chicks are dumped into fertilizer mixture (ALIVE) and chopped into pieces or buried alive. . . Depending on the process of fertilization. (Perhaps they are the lucky ones who don't suffer for years.)
ANYway, back to the female chickens, or hens I guess I should say. When the chicks are all grown up into hens they are shoved into these horrendous cages. So, these cages are twenty inches wide and there are 6-8 birds in each. (You do the math, they can't MOVE just like the sows and veal calves.) The cages are made of wire to make egg collection easier, obviously this is a strain on the hens' feet, often leading to broken bones. Often the hens are so crowded that heads and wings can get caught in the wire cages, leading to further injury. Possibly worst of all is that, with so many birds per cage, some of them can't reach the food or water. In the least sanitary of these egg-producing factories, (what we commonly refer to as 'farms,' but I believe the word has become a misnomer) chickens live with dead birds in their cages and can become covered in their own, and others' feces.
When these hens productivity rate drops, they are shocked into producing one more round of eggs. How, you ask? Starvation.
So, basically, these 2 situations are just as awful as the veal industry, and I believe if we could just get the word out, egg consumption and pork consumption would also drop by 2/3rds per person within the next 20 years. (Of course, with a growing population this doesn't mean a 2/3rds reduction in the amount of hopeless, helpless, agonizing, SENTIENT beings.) There are already replacements for eggs in baked goods. (Ener-G egg replacer is a good brand, and entirely vegan, and in my experience, perfectly usable in all baking procedures.) And, like U.S. Americans have learned to live without the taste of veal, they would learn to live without the taste of eggs. People just are not that cruel when it comes down to it. They are just ignorant of our current food production methods.
Don't start thinking that just because these three practices are highlighted in this post, the rest of industry factory farming is a walk in the park for animals. It's not. And I'm sure I'll go into details on some later post. However, as made evident by California's passage of proposition 2, I believe these are the practices most likely to be flat-out rejected by all humans with any measure of compassion. They are the most deplorable of all normal 'farming' practices.
Some people, of course, will never get this far. There are those that believe God made us so far above other animals that these other beings can have no feelings, emotional or physical. (Somehow, central nervous systems and brains were reserved for humans?) Today, when I was relaying a story to my father about a cow escaping line for slaughter by bravely jumping a fence and running for her dear life, my father replied coldly with, "Do you really think they're processing like that?" And my response, as an owner of two intelligent cats and an observer of their natures which appear common to all mammals I have ever encountered, was "YES! I DO!"
Tell me, do animals, mammals or otherwise, have way of communicating with their own kind? Tell me, do they have calls that mean 'danger,' calls that mean 'I want to mate,' calls that mean 'I found food?' Tell me, do they have instincts that say run when they hear the call for danger? Do they have internal desires to produce when they hear the call for mating? do they have knowledge that to eat is necessary for survival when they hear the call for food? (The answer, of course, if you believe anything science or observation has to say, is yes.) In 2006, there were studies done which suggest that bottle-nosed dolphins call each other by name–– different whistles for different individuals. (Yes, animals are individuals the last time I checked.)
So, tell me this, when a cow is being led to slaughter by a person (whom s/he have learned to fear through his/her years on the factory farm–– S/he has learned to associate people with pain or at least discomfort.), when in this line to death s/he hears the cries of other cows in pain (as it has been well documented that not all cows are unconscious when slaughtered, despite laws requiring otherwise–– the assembly line of animals moves too quickly for workers to keep up.), does my father honestly believe that the mix of fear (person) and pain (as represented by the other cows), would not cause a cow to instinctually escape? Of course, as most cows are out of shape due to the unnatural diets and living restrictions to which they have been subject throughout life, they are unable to jump fences and outrun factory workers. The instinct to escape pain may not be "processing" in the same way a human subject to genocide or way would process their desire to escape pain. . . But at the end of the line, yes, neither human beings and other animals want to be injured. And when they process they are about to be injured, and have the means to prevent it, either will do so. So yes, the cow processed. The cow understood that something bad awaited and ran. . . that is called processing.
GEESH, some people and their superiority complexes.
So, I suppose I should get into safety issues and workers rights, but truly I am burnt out from this long rant. However, I feel guilty be allowing you to remain ignorant. Tomorrow I will by flying to Arizona. Over the course of the plane ride, I will certainly have more than enough time to write about it.
Below are some pictures of some of animal sanctuary's, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting abandoned farm animals and changing legislation regarding industry factory farms, adopted barnyard friends. I love them all though I have never met them. My heart just automatically goes out to those beings, great or small, who have spent much of their life suffering.
Oh, I thought of another disturbing fact just to put the icing on the cake about the disgusting nature of so-called "farming" practices. Did you know that both bulls and male turkeys are MANUALLY masturbated? Yep, something that would be considered bestiality, and thus ILLEGAL, outside the world of the factory farm is a legal and everyday practice of these horrendous places.
P.P.S. In case you clicked on the 'prayer' tag and are wondering why that links you to this page, it is because I have been praying for the lives of these animals since I was four years old, when I gave up devouring their flesh. The information on this page represents one of the many cries of my heart, and often times the most dominant cry. I am not ashamed of this, though many would accuse me of being too concerned about animals when there are people suffering. Reducing the number of factory farms does help people, I promise to explain in detail one of these days. Besides, helping people and praying for animals are by NO MEANS mutually exclusive activities. We should all do more of both.
However, it can be argued that breeding sows and egg-laying chickens suffer a far worse fate than that of the veal-calf, if for no other reason than that they are required to live a similar lifestyle much longer.
Shall we start with sows? Sows (female pigs) are required to spend much of their lives in gestation cages. These are cages so small that the pigs, much like the veal calves, cannot turn around, sit down, or move their bodies. Their cages are so small that these poor animals' teats often hang into the cage adjacent to their own. Here, the pigs are artificially inseminated over and over again. They are essentially baby-machines. The only time they are able to stand and move is when they are nursing their young. They are moved to equally uncomfortable cages, in which there are slots in the metal floor for waste to fall through. There is so little room and the floor is so awkward, that the sows often mistakenly crush their young. Also, the piglets can fall through the cracks in the cages if they are below average size and have been known to clog local sewage pipes. How disturbing is that? (To you, maybe not so much. Maybe you are the type who drowns an unwanted litter of kittens. But to me, a drowning piglet is a depressing thought.)
As if this space confinement and constant state of pregnancy and birth were not enough to wear out a pig, pigs are also social animals. Additionally, pigs are some of the smartest farm animals. They are intelligent enough to play and understand basic video games like pong. This unfulfilled desire to socialize coupled with the incessant boredom such intelligent animals endure while lying on their side staring into the abyss all day causes many of these poor creatures great psychological trauma. (Again, maybe you do not believe that animals cannot experience psychological trauma, but I, for one, do not believe human beings are the only sentient creatures.)
Shall we move onto the chickens? Chickens are put in what are known as battery cages. The chickens are so tightly packed into these cages, that common farming practice requires chicks to have their beaks and claws clipped (without anaesthesia) soon after birth. This is done so hastily that many chicks beaks are cut so short they have trouble eating. :( Of course, this only applies to the female chicks. Male chicks are dumped into fertilizer mixture (ALIVE) and chopped into pieces or buried alive. . . Depending on the process of fertilization. (Perhaps they are the lucky ones who don't suffer for years.)
ANYway, back to the female chickens, or hens I guess I should say. When the chicks are all grown up into hens they are shoved into these horrendous cages. So, these cages are twenty inches wide and there are 6-8 birds in each. (You do the math, they can't MOVE just like the sows and veal calves.) The cages are made of wire to make egg collection easier, obviously this is a strain on the hens' feet, often leading to broken bones. Often the hens are so crowded that heads and wings can get caught in the wire cages, leading to further injury. Possibly worst of all is that, with so many birds per cage, some of them can't reach the food or water. In the least sanitary of these egg-producing factories, (what we commonly refer to as 'farms,' but I believe the word has become a misnomer) chickens live with dead birds in their cages and can become covered in their own, and others' feces.
When these hens productivity rate drops, they are shocked into producing one more round of eggs. How, you ask? Starvation.
So, basically, these 2 situations are just as awful as the veal industry, and I believe if we could just get the word out, egg consumption and pork consumption would also drop by 2/3rds per person within the next 20 years. (Of course, with a growing population this doesn't mean a 2/3rds reduction in the amount of hopeless, helpless, agonizing, SENTIENT beings.) There are already replacements for eggs in baked goods. (Ener-G egg replacer is a good brand, and entirely vegan, and in my experience, perfectly usable in all baking procedures.) And, like U.S. Americans have learned to live without the taste of veal, they would learn to live without the taste of eggs. People just are not that cruel when it comes down to it. They are just ignorant of our current food production methods.
Don't start thinking that just because these three practices are highlighted in this post, the rest of industry factory farming is a walk in the park for animals. It's not. And I'm sure I'll go into details on some later post. However, as made evident by California's passage of proposition 2, I believe these are the practices most likely to be flat-out rejected by all humans with any measure of compassion. They are the most deplorable of all normal 'farming' practices.
Some people, of course, will never get this far. There are those that believe God made us so far above other animals that these other beings can have no feelings, emotional or physical. (Somehow, central nervous systems and brains were reserved for humans?) Today, when I was relaying a story to my father about a cow escaping line for slaughter by bravely jumping a fence and running for her dear life, my father replied coldly with, "Do you really think they're processing like that?" And my response, as an owner of two intelligent cats and an observer of their natures which appear common to all mammals I have ever encountered, was "YES! I DO!"
Tell me, do animals, mammals or otherwise, have way of communicating with their own kind? Tell me, do they have calls that mean 'danger,' calls that mean 'I want to mate,' calls that mean 'I found food?' Tell me, do they have instincts that say run when they hear the call for danger? Do they have internal desires to produce when they hear the call for mating? do they have knowledge that to eat is necessary for survival when they hear the call for food? (The answer, of course, if you believe anything science or observation has to say, is yes.) In 2006, there were studies done which suggest that bottle-nosed dolphins call each other by name–– different whistles for different individuals. (Yes, animals are individuals the last time I checked.)
So, tell me this, when a cow is being led to slaughter by a person (whom s/he have learned to fear through his/her years on the factory farm–– S/he has learned to associate people with pain or at least discomfort.), when in this line to death s/he hears the cries of other cows in pain (as it has been well documented that not all cows are unconscious when slaughtered, despite laws requiring otherwise–– the assembly line of animals moves too quickly for workers to keep up.), does my father honestly believe that the mix of fear (person) and pain (as represented by the other cows), would not cause a cow to instinctually escape? Of course, as most cows are out of shape due to the unnatural diets and living restrictions to which they have been subject throughout life, they are unable to jump fences and outrun factory workers. The instinct to escape pain may not be "processing" in the same way a human subject to genocide or way would process their desire to escape pain. . . But at the end of the line, yes, neither human beings and other animals want to be injured. And when they process they are about to be injured, and have the means to prevent it, either will do so. So yes, the cow processed. The cow understood that something bad awaited and ran. . . that is called processing.
GEESH, some people and their superiority complexes.
So, I suppose I should get into safety issues and workers rights, but truly I am burnt out from this long rant. However, I feel guilty be allowing you to remain ignorant. Tomorrow I will by flying to Arizona. Over the course of the plane ride, I will certainly have more than enough time to write about it.
Below are some pictures of some of animal sanctuary's, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting abandoned farm animals and changing legislation regarding industry factory farms, adopted barnyard friends. I love them all though I have never met them. My heart just automatically goes out to those beings, great or small, who have spent much of their life suffering.
Oh, I thought of another disturbing fact just to put the icing on the cake about the disgusting nature of so-called "farming" practices. Did you know that both bulls and male turkeys are MANUALLY masturbated? Yep, something that would be considered bestiality, and thus ILLEGAL, outside the world of the factory farm is a legal and everyday practice of these horrendous places.
P.P.S. In case you clicked on the 'prayer' tag and are wondering why that links you to this page, it is because I have been praying for the lives of these animals since I was four years old, when I gave up devouring their flesh. The information on this page represents one of the many cries of my heart, and often times the most dominant cry. I am not ashamed of this, though many would accuse me of being too concerned about animals when there are people suffering. Reducing the number of factory farms does help people, I promise to explain in detail one of these days. Besides, helping people and praying for animals are by NO MEANS mutually exclusive activities. We should all do more of both.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Calla's Twenty-Sixth Post
I am not so good at being so very social. This may come as a surprise as I do not shut up if I am ever around you. Also, I am fairly friendly and will talk to anyone about small-talk one on one. But, I am not so very good at going to large groups for socializing purposes. Even one-on-one lots of people make me uncomfortable for various reasons–– either they are stupid, or they think I am stupid, or they don't understand silliness, or they don't understand seriousness, or they don't like kitties, or they don't respect my opinions about social issues, or they choose not to understand my opinions about social issues (this is a big one. Lots of people do this), or they use the word "gay" as a synonym for stupid (or something equally offensive like that), or they think I'm amoral, or I think they're immoral, or they are just this specific personality type that I can't describe in so many words suffice to say they are not content with any aspect of life but not because they are aware of all of the injustice in the world or anything like that, but because they are searching for some abstract notion of fulfilment instead of just getting fulfilled. So, see, I am not so good at being very social. I am good at being social with Tabby, which is why I live with him and am in love with him and what not. I am good at being social with Audrey and Christina because I've known them sense I was a kid. I am good at being social with Leo because he is a weirdo like me. I am good at being social with Chelsea because she is also a weirdo. I am good at being social with my homeless friend who wears a blue sweatshirt because I only ever have to talk to him for five minutes at a time and he's not one of those annoying types mentioned above–– however, notice I am not good enough at being social to know his name. I am good at being social with almost anyone with whom I had to work because if you're with someone enough hours of the day then they just see how you are anyway so there's really no point in not being good at being social. I am good at being social with my sister and her children because I love them the bestest. I am not so good at being social with one of my brothers and I am just ok at being social with the other one (the one who made the FUNNY PICTURE!!!! when he was in eighth grade.) I am dreadfully awful at being social with my mother because the only interest we share is kitty-meow-faces. Other than that we have nothing in common. With my father I am ok at being social like how I am with my one brother. With Tabby's parents I am pretty ok at it as long as I am not in a bad mood, because if I am in a bad mood, Tabby's dad will make my mood worse. This was a list for your reading pleasure. Probably there are other people with whom I am good at being social, but for some reason they are NOT ON THE LIST!? SORRY FRIENDS. Mostly I am ok one-on-one.
(She is saying "hello, will you play with me?"
And he is saying "no because I am an old man
it is scary when you chase me!")
So, anyway the other day I had a dejá vu. (Is that how you spell it?) I get them sometimes a lot, but never write them down, so now I am going to start writing them down. This one is from the class Theory and Practice of Nonprofit Management. We were discussing in small groups some questionable marketing situations. My group was talking about when Mattel offered to make a girl scout barbie doll. (Which is oh so wrong, on oh so many levels. Probably I needn't list them.) So then this is how the dejá vu went: Someone in my group asked a question about merit badges in girl scouts and that is when the dejá vu started, and then the rest of us didn't know about the badges and then someone else asked if when a girl got a merit badge if she would get a badge for her Barbie doll too, like a little tiny badge, and no one knew the answer and then the prof. said to come back together and that is how it ended, the professor broke it up. Do you know I love run-on sentences sometimes? Maybe I already said that before.
BYE!!!
Love,
Calla and her kitties
(She is saying "hello, will you play with me?"
And he is saying "no because I am an old man
it is scary when you chase me!")
So, anyway the other day I had a dejá vu. (Is that how you spell it?) I get them sometimes a lot, but never write them down, so now I am going to start writing them down. This one is from the class Theory and Practice of Nonprofit Management. We were discussing in small groups some questionable marketing situations. My group was talking about when Mattel offered to make a girl scout barbie doll. (Which is oh so wrong, on oh so many levels. Probably I needn't list them.) So then this is how the dejá vu went: Someone in my group asked a question about merit badges in girl scouts and that is when the dejá vu started, and then the rest of us didn't know about the badges and then someone else asked if when a girl got a merit badge if she would get a badge for her Barbie doll too, like a little tiny badge, and no one knew the answer and then the prof. said to come back together and that is how it ended, the professor broke it up. Do you know I love run-on sentences sometimes? Maybe I already said that before.
BYE!!!
Love,
Calla and her kitties
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