From: ac@apmaths.uwo.ca (alka chandna)
Subject: Re: Celebrating National Meatout Day
Organization: Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 01:46:51 GMT

In article <1992Apr05.193919.23942@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca> kmcvay@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay) writes:

>I have no problem
>with letting folks eat whatever they wish to eat, as long as they stop
>pontificating about it.

well, how very liberatarian of you (letting us eat whatever we wish to 
eat).  speaking of pontificating, who's doing that?  it seems to me that 
more than anything else, you're dodging the issue.  i've said that i'm aware 
of the issues that *you've* raised, and that i'm trying to live my life in a 
manner that reflects that awareness.  you on the other hand refuse to even 
consider the questions that are implicitly (and earlier on, explicitly) 
being posed:  what gives you the right to eat meat (i'm not saying that you 
don't have that right -- i want you to think over the question and come up 
with reasons why you think you have the right).  the next question would 
be, "if you can live without meat, why not give it a try?"  again, try to 
answer this question honestly (and i'm sure you'll be characteristically 
brutal about this) without bringing in side issues.


>London, wherever.... it seems pretty clear to me that the megopolis
>which extends from Marin County to Monterey in California is a damned
>sight more destructive to the environment than the Canadian cattle
>country. I _remember_ what the Santa Clara Valley looked like in 1945,
>1955, 1965, etc. and it sure as hell beat the god-awful disaster it
>has become in environmental terms.

has anyone ever told you that you should never judge a book by its cover?  
the environmental havoc wreaked by the meat industry can't be gauged by 
judging the picturesque-ness of the Canadian prairies.  what you might want 
to do, though, is look into figures like the topsoil loss occurring right 
now, and if you care to depress yourself a little further, consider what 
that means in terms of desertification.  if you don't understand the 
connection between topsoil loss and the meat industry, ask the USDA; they'll 
tell you that the meat industry is the prime culprit in the loss of 
topsoil.  more statistics on resource depletion can be obtained from like 
sources.  you'll find quite a few summarized in John Robbins' Diet for a New 
America (with references from the USDA et al) & Jeremy Rifkins' Beyond 
Beef.  when i say along with Robbins and Rifkin that meat consumption is 
killing the environment, i don't mean that it's responsible for some kind of 
eyesore polluted area:  i mean that it's tearing the planet apart by its 
ecological seams.


ac>>Rifkin's book, "Beyond Beef".  I'm saddened by your apologies at feeling 
no
ac >>guilt over your animal-flesh diet.  I'm not posting these messages to 
be a 

>Why does it sadden you? I'm a realist, and a preditor. I neither care
>nor don't care - I simply eat. My basset hound is the same way - he
>eats what he finds in front of him, and isn't remotely concerned about
>whether it is the front lawn or ground up chicken parts. He's a
>preditor too, although I concede that basset's are a LONG ways removed
>from their wolven cousens :-)

try taking reading comprehension 101.  i'm not saddened that you don't feel 
guilt.  if you read the rest of the comment (see below for continuation), 
and opened your mind a little to try and listen, rather than simply trying 
to reject, you would realize that i'm apologizing to *you* for making you 
feel that you should apologize to me for not feeling guilty about eating 
meat.  holy kamoley!
incidentally, your misspelling of "predator" is really irking me; first i 
thought it was a typo, but you seem to be making consistent typos.  also, 
as a left-brained mathematician, i'm still quite peeved by the insistence 
of certain people to insert an apostrophe in the word "its" when it is used 
as a possessive ("the dog wagged its tail").  you've done something 
similar with "bassets".  finally, the word cousins is spelled in the way 
that i've typed it.
 

>I would hope that
>I have at least given you an understanding of how I would react to it
>- Lesson #1 in Life, from my 50+ vantage point: Life's a bitch, then
>you die. Things get hurt along the way. Babies starve every day,
>cattle are butchered, and people butcher each other with happy aplomb.
>That's the way it is.

Nice. Very nice.  Try this on for size:  from my 29- (a couple of months) 
vantage point, here's what i think.  i don't exist; i live a life.  my life *
is* a bitch, because when i see suffering, it pains me enough that i decide 
that i must do something about it.  so before *i* die, you can bet your 50+ 
years that i'm going to make my life worth something to someone else besides 
myself.  i'm lucky:  i have an education, i was raised in a first world 
nation, i have a career, i'm independent.  since *i* don't view babies, 
cattle and people as "things", it troubles me that all of these creatures "
get hurt along the way", and so when i can, i don't resign myself to 
thinking "that's the way it is".  i have enough faith and confidence in 
myself and others that something can be done about it.  
  


>You watch such a film and say "Zounds! The horror of it all!"


no, i watch such a film and say, "What is my responsibility in this?"
then i act on my conclusion.

>I watch such a film and say "That's life."

pleasant dreams.

>Fairy tales entertained me when I was young, but they don't anymore.
>If you want me to watch your movie without taking you to task after
>it's over, leave the oozing Holier Than Thou morality play at home
>where it belongs. 

you haven't even watched the film, so how do you know that you'll want 
to take me to task ... fairly close minded approach, don't you think?


>Then we can watch the 6 O'Clock News together, and compare it with
>your dying chicken.

if i promise to leave my alleged "holier than thou morality play" at home, 
will you promise to leave to your patronizing bullshit there too?

-- alka
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