Food ethics

Lisa's wonderful post on sport hunting, and the dialogue in the comments has really had me thinking. It doesn't help that I recently read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. (I highly recommend the book to any nonfiction reader, any foodie, any gardener or any environmentalist. Everyone in Kingsolver's immediate family contributed in some way to the book, and as a family tale, it's interesting in that aspect as well.)

What are my food ethics? One of the oldest cliches that I can think of is "You are what you eat." Follow the implications of my food choices, and what does that really mean. Every woman who's ever put dinner on the table for more than herself knows that food choices can be complicated, but it also speaks reams about how we are as citizens and stewards of the world.

There is more than one ignored elephant in every dining room, but the biggest issue of all is that for anything to become food for our bodies, it has to die. Vegetarians, that applies to your food too. That bowl of rice is no longer absorbing sunlight and water in a field or paddy. That organic tomato isn't sucking down nutrients while someone carefully picks aphids of its vine. When I told this to my vegetarian daughter, she said, "...but plants don't have feelings." My response was that we really don't know now, do we. It's still a life, and it's still ended. I know that argument slides way out onto the ridiculous fringe. I'm not going to worry about cutting short the cozily nestled underground life of my carrots and not allowing them to fulfill their true carrothood.

Here is where the other elephants start trumpeting though. I will be concerned about the chemicals they've absorbed meant to kill weeds and insects, the genetic alterations used to make them more marketable, not necessarily more nutritious or tasteful, the fairness of the treatment the labor involved received, the cleanliness of the plant used to process them, and how much energy was consumed to get those carrots from the field to my home. I'll wonder about how the companies stand on Fair Trade. All that happens before I dig the glasses out of my purse to read the label and see just how many preservatives, and how much high fructose corn syrup and sodium have been added to the can in my hand. That's a whole lot of concern over a can of sliced carrots, and it all has to happen in the rush hour between leaving work and someone asks, "What's for dinner?"

It's even harder for carnivores. We ignore our big dead elephant in the room even harder, carefully and literally washing the blood from our hands. This is our choice. I love meat and won't give it up as a part of my diet. I once had the opportunity to professionally visit a meat processing plant. I was given an extremely limited tour of the facility, and it wasn't one of the nightmares described in Fast Food Nation, another gripping read about the food industry (that is definitely not for the weak stomached). I know there was a lot that I didn't see, and quite frankly, I saw enough to be grateful that I didn't see more. I do know that I want the meat I consume to have died a humane death. I want it to have lived as an animal should, not in a contained environment that does not allow for movement, fed an unnatural diet (cows are not cannibals and other than the occasional bug or worm, aren't even carnivores), and essentially trapped in its own excrement. The deer killed on some hunter's fun, mindless weekend excursion led a better life than that poor trapped cow.

After reading Kingsolver's book, I did ask the butchers at three of the grocery stores I use what they could tell me about the meat. At one, it just came from the warehouse. The butcher was essentially a very polite and wanting to be helpful stock person, not a true butcher. He didn't know if any of the meat was free range or not. It just came in on the truck. At the next, the answer was basically, our company does its best to purchase from the safest and cleanest suppliers. They couldn't tell me if the hamburger originated in a feedlot cage or every body's mental image of a farm. It was only at the truly local store that the butcher who cut his own chops and steaks and made his own sausage could tell me the source of most of the meat he sold. Some of it was truly locally raised by people he knew. Some came from CAFO (contained area feeding operations) meat suppliers. It was only by consuming on the most local level that I even had the choice to try to eat with respect for my ethics and principles. It's also important to note that organic or free range meat is also more expensive. For some people, a cruelty free meal isn't a realistic financial option.

I've made conscious choices to shop my ethics on other things. It's not easy. I quit a gym I really liked because their corporate parent is heavily committed to funding anti-choice groups. I look for union labels in clothing, but almost everything I see comes from a country where sweat shop labor is the norm. I refuse to use a certain delivery pizza chain. I do feel guilty every time I walk into Wal-Mart. Some people say I'm oversensitive. I think I'm just trying to be responsible and make my dollars count. If everyone refused to eat CAFO raised meat, it would fade from the marketplace.

Sometimes I just want to eat without thinking about it. I don't want to always take the time to express my gratitude, figure out how many miles were driven to get the hot dog and bun together and determine how deep my carbon footstep is for each meal. I just want to eat. I'm getting to the point where I just can't ignore the elephants anymore.

Monday Morning Musings

I was puttering about the Internet looking at this and at that. I finally came up with this:

"America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there."

Laurence J. Peter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_J._Peter

BLESS YOU

This is an adaptation of a Celtic prayer that I found in the book KNITTING INTO THE MYSTERY.

May the blessing of light be on you,
light without and light within
and light inside the darkness within.

May the blessed sunlight shine upon
you and warm your heart 'til it glows,
like a great peat fire, so that strangers may come
and warm themselves;
and that friends may come.

And may the light shine out of the eyes of you,
like a candle set in the windows of a house,
bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you--
The soft, sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit
so that the seedlings of light
in you shadow may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.


And may the blessing of the great rains be on you,
that they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool, and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing for the earth be on you--the great round earth
who carries all; the great round earth
whose suffering has already become radiant.

May you ever have a kindly greeting for people
you pass as you are going along the roads.
And now may the Lord bless you,
and bless you kindly, your kin and all creatures.

There wasn't much to take pictures of in the yard this weekend. It's the putting to sleep time of the year. About all that's blooming is the heather and while it's pretty, it doesn't show up very well. There was a bright crescent moon in the sky Saturday morning as I brought in the papers. So bright against the dark sky. Almost no stars and the sky just beginning to show that almost white blue of early dawn.

On The "Sport" of Hunting

This morning, I left for work just after dawn. I poked my head out my front door, and was greeted by the staccato pop! pop! pop! of shotgun fire from across the channel: Sportsmen taking potshots into the great flocks of game birds wintering in the wetlands on and surrounding Sauvie Island. That sound never fails to grip my heart and squeeze.

I hate guns.

My dad owned a pair of pistols and a rifle. They weren’t loaded, they weren’t kept at the ready in case some hoodlum broke into the house in the middle of the night intent on murdering us in our beds. In fact, the pistols were locked up in a metal strongbox.

Dad was brought up with guns; he grew up in a small town in Oregon where guns and hunting were part of the culture. He spoke proudly of earning enough money on his paper route to buy his first rifle when he was twelve years old. He treasured his guns as a connection to his roots, a memento of a time and place far away and fondly remembered.

But he respected their potential to create mayhem in the wrong hands…knew they really had no place in the sleepy, mid-century exurbs of Chicago. Dad’s guns lived in the back corner of my parents’ bedroom closet. We girls were sternly threatened never, ever to touch, look at, or interact with those guns in any way. Ever. So sternly that I don’t remember even being tempted to burrow into their hiding place to look at them. So began my hate affair with guns.

I’m no longer that frightened little girl, totally cowed by the demonic presence hiding in the dark reaches of her parents’ closet. But even in adulthood I have not acquired any love for or acceptance of the role of firearms in 21st century society. “Guns don’t kill. People kill.” Small comfort, really, when you think about it.

Today, with the sound of shotgun fire echoing in my ears, I wondered about mankind’s fascination with guns. And with killing.

Killing the animals over which, the Bible says, we were given dominion. And killing each other. For the hell of it.

What is wrong with us? Why must we kill? Why are we the only species on earth that has constructed such an elaborate ritual around the senseless killing of other animals? We call it “hunting.” We do it for sport. Not because we need the food. Not because these animals are capable of, or interested in, killing us if we don’t kill them. They don’t come looking for us. We take it to them.

We kill because we can. Because we want to. Because it gives us some kind of perverted feeling of power.

How sick is that?

Fall is my favorite time of year to walk on the dike. I go to see those stunningly huge flocks of birds flying in shifting waves across the marshes to the island. I go to hear their chaotic barking and honking. That sound always stirs up something wild and restless in me.

And when I think of some idiot dressed in camo with his designer dog at his heel, pointing a blunderbuss into those great wild flocks and blowing the life out of bird after bird for sport…for the fun of it…

I wonder where to hand in my resignation from this race that is truly beyond hope.

Friday Photo(s)

Gone south for the winter I suspect.

The cool nights and warm days have had a lovely effect on the hydrangea.

A pleasant surprise while out walking the other day.

Are We There Yet???

This afternoon, I was sitting in front of my manicurist, in the salon across the street from the café. She was tending two of my acrylic nails that had begun to lift off (could this have something to do with the fact that I cannot keep my hands out of water for more than five minutes on any given day?)

A commercial came on the radio that started out, “Are you beginning to tire of all the political messages…?”

Manicurist and I looked each other in the eye and declared at the same time, “Hell yes!”

I’m done. I’ve had it. I don’t want to hear any more about how much the RNC has spent on Sarah Palin’s clothes, or about the Obama-bashing robo-calls targeting voters in key states, or about how John McCain is making a last-ditch effort to save his campaign by finally coming out strongly against the Bush Administration.

I don’t want to hear about Congressional Republicans trying to pin our current economic mess on Barack Obama (WTF!!??!?!?). Or about how McCain is planning to concentrate all of his advertising money into Florida, Ohio and other “purple” states possessing large numbers of electoral votes, in an effort to carry the election even in the (likely) event that he does not win the popular vote.

I don’t want to hear about how our local kids are going to go to hell in a handbasket if I don’t vote myself a $400 per year property tax increase so the school district can level our existing school buildings and build new ones.

I just want to vote and get it over with.

So, on my day off (Sunday) I’m going to sit down with my ballot and my Voter’s Information Pamphlet and do the deed.

And try to stay away from the television, radio and all other forms of hyperbolic media for the 9 remaining days of the campaign.

I’ve been thinking about building that lead-lined bomb-shelter under the house to use for just such occasions…

SILK PURSE?

From Jim Morin courtesy of Go Comics.

I see on AOL news this morning that the Republican National Committee has reportedly spent over $150,000 dressing up Sarah Palin. Words ........ fail me. That is a lot of lipstick.

Oh, and the national hockey mom didn't spend any of the money at Wal Mart.

IT'S DONE

Well, the mail in ballot is filled out and ready to go to drop box. I've never done this before, voted the straight party line. Never thought I'd say that. Good luck to everyone. Vote, vote, vote; it guarantees your right to bitch or crow about the results. :-)

pushed over the edge...

Yesterday I did two things I've never done before. In the afternoon, I bit the bullet, dragged myself out of bed, went to our local library, and voted early. There was a good turnout. At 2:30 the line was long, over half an hour's wait. When I got to the booth, the voting was electronic, with nothing to show for it (no paper ballot), which didn't give me any warm fuzzy feeling about what I was doing and in fact made me a little nervous. I've watched that Homer Simpson video too many times to be happy about electronic voting.

Then last night, late, I made two political contributions online. I don't believe I've ever contributed to a political campaign before. I have no problem contributing to the arts, or to any number of good causes, e.g., Juvenile Diabetes, ALS, Susan G. Komen foundation, etc. But when it comes to politics, I’ve donated time but not cash, not even a dollar on my income tax return. I've never felt a reason to contribute financially, before now. And although I'm weary to the bone of this seemingly interminable campaign season, it was a politician who finally made me see the light, as we like to say in the south.

So who's responsible for my seeing that it makes sense, for me, to contribute some cold, hard earned cash to the cache, so to speak? The answer might surprise you. The person who prompted me to finally take action financially is Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachman. Yep, her comments to Chris Matthews on Hardball re anti-Americanism and how she would like to see the news media "do a penetrating expose and take a great look at the views of the people in congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" smacked so loudly of McCarythyism that it pushed me over the edge (you can watch the video here). And so although I've lived in Texas for 25 years, last night I found myself looking on the internet to see who is opposing Ms. Bachman in Minnesota for her congressional seat this year. The answer is Elwyn Tinklenberg, and having found that out, I made a donation to him and of course to Obama.

I wasn't alone in having this reaction to Bachman, btw. It turns out that her comments brought in $810,000 to Tinklenberg's campaign in less than 72 hours, in contrast to the year it had taken him to raise $1 million prior to that. And I smile to think, I doubt that was the reaction Michelle anticipated when she spoke to Chris Matthews. And if things don't turn out as I hope they do in November, and if the time comes when people start drawing up lists of who did what, who contributed to whom...well, I'd be proud to show up as having made those donations.

On Negative Ads and Campaign Spending

I have to comment on the flap about Barack Obama spending “unprecedented amounts of money on negative ads.”

Here is yet another example of the GOP spin machine’s masterful manipulation of the liberal media.

In fact, Obama and McCain are spending about the same amount of money on negative ads here in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Both campaigns spending about the same on negative ads

The difference is, this is nearly all that McCain has to spend; but just under half of Obama’s total spending. Barack Obama just has more money. Almost twice what the McCain campaign has managed to come up with.

The brutal fact is, Barack Obama has the money to spend because people have given it to him. And they have NOT given it to John McCain. Because they really, really, REALLY don’t want John McCain (and Sarah Palin) to win this election.

We all know, despite the recent death-defying antics of the Dow Jones, that America’s corporate giants still have more money than God. Why, then, has the GOP “trickle-down” mechanism suddenly inflicted drought upon the McCain campaign? Are those corporate winners so invested in the concept of NOT being perceived as backing a loser that their knee-jerk reaction has been to tighten the purse strings when McCain comes a-calling? Does that make any sense? It seems that a McCain administration would be ever so much more sympathetic to traditional GOP business interests than an Obama White House.

Why have all those rich guys decided NOT to throw money at the McCain campaign? Have they finally reasoned that they DO NOT have enough money to buy this election?

We can only hope.

ACORNS

The cartoons were downloaded from the Go Comics Website.

I wonder how much it’s going to cost the taxpayers to prove that some of ACORN’ problems with voter registration amounted to some dishonest employees and some very lax supervisors instead of deliberate fraud.

Incidentally if there is fraud involved it’s registration fraud, not voter fraud. Misdirection piled upon misdirection. Apparently there is very littile evidence of out and out attempts to vote illegally, but there's plenty of evidence of voter intimidation.

It doesn’t matter how many times you fill out a registration card, you still only get to vote once.

It doesn’t matter if someone filled out a card under the name Donald Duck, unless he/she presents some proof that they are Donald Duck they don’t get to vote.

In the meantime I haven’t seen any cartoons about police or sheriff’s cruisers parked near polling places in minority neighborhoods in Texas. I haven’t seen any cartoons and barely any news stories about the rumor mongering that claims that undercover cops with be at polling places on the lookout for voters with outstanding warrants or traffic tickets. And will arrest those voters on the spot. Where are the cartoons about the wholesale purges of eligible voters in states where people with felony records aren’t allowed to vote? Where are the cartoons skewering aggressive “poll watchers” who try to intimidate voters?

God/dess I love Oregon’s vote by mail. And official or not, there are estimates that as many as one fourth of the eligible voters will vote before Election Day. Gee I can’t imagine why they’d want to do that. ;-)

I see Blogger isn't always cooperative when it comes to paragraphs. :-P

The Insult of Sarah Palin

As I said in my previous post, I haven’t much bought into the hype of election 2008. At least, not to the extent that I had held my nose and cannon-balled into it during the 2004 presidential election. I just couldn’t attach all my hopes to a particular result, this time around, only to have those hopes dashed, and feel like the country was teetering on the edge of the abyss, come the morning after.

And, let’s face it, we are where we are as a nation (and it doesn’t look good) because we’ve had to slog through an additional four years of the hopeless Bush Administration. But whose fault is that, really? It is the Republicans’ for stealing another four years and taking full advantage of that opportunity to get us ever more deeply mired in their unbelievable quagmire of crap? Or is it the Democrats’, for not advancing a truly viable alternative four years ago?

But, coming as this election does at the close of one of the most conservative administrations this country has ever experienced—an administration during which the power of the lunatic religious fringe to change our focus and sway policy has grown exponentially—I have been convinced that we would be as likely to see a woman or a black man elected to the Presidency as we would be to see Pat Robertson appointed ambassador to Iran.

Then came the inexplicable, ice-water-in-the-face nod to Sarah Palin. I, and many other discouraged, jaded, perilously near-to-acquiescing members of the progressive electorate found ourselves spitting, mopping our faces and sputtering, “What…? Where…? Sarah Who…???” Once we were informed of exactly who this woman was and where she came from, we were speechless.

And furious.

To this day, I’m not sure if Palin’s nomination was a supremely stupid move from beginning to end, or a painstakingly conceived political gamble calculated to either make or break the McCain candidacy.

The line of thinking must have gone something like this: “Ooooooh… Women really wanted Hillary Clinton. But Hillary is history…so all we need is a woman and we can rake in all those feminist votes! But…hmmmm…those Christian right wingnuts are threatening to make a stink at the convention if we go with a centrist candidate... Wait…wait… that’s IT! Sarah Palin! She’s a woman. And she stands for all the counter-feminist, backwards, war-hawking, pregnant-seventeen-year-old-who wouldn’t-even-think-about-the-“a-word” causes. Those little ladies who were so attached to Hillary Clinton…they don’t worry their pretty heads about things like policy and experience and competence and women’s issues… They just want a woman! We can kill two birds with one stone!!!

Oh. My. God.

Are we not disgusted that one of our two major political parties was so capable of misreading our history and determination as women, and our mandate as a nation, that they would come up with such an incredibly naïve, simplistic and ultimately self-serving “solution” for everything that ails us?

Are we not incensed that the GOP was so dismissive of our intellect? Of our loyalties? Of our demands?

Are we not truly frightened that the party of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan has sunk so low that it would throw all sound judgment aside to manipulate a poor understanding of political strategy in a bid to retain what it believes is the position of ultimate power—the Leadership of the Free World?

McCain would be the oldest man elected to the presidency of this country. Did they give no thought to what might actually happen if he died in office?

President Sarah Palin?!??!!? What could they possibly have been thinking?

So, on the basis of the Sarah Palin disaster, and the recent roller-coaster of the Dow Jones, Barack Obama has crept far enough ahead in the polls to cause some pundits to declare him the ultimate victor. Now, they say, NOW he needs to try to cultivate a clear mandate.

All I can say is, if he hasn’t got that mandate by now, it’s unlikely he will. Purely…PURELY on the basis of the color of his skin, he will not be awarded the landslide a white male Democrat would now be anticipating.

And I shake my head and throw up my hands as I wonder why.