Mini-rant... Taxes, because for real, No man is and island...

I am so sick of people, particularly American people, complaining about taxes... yes, that general pissy-ness has made it on to my radar, even here on the other side of the world. This quote pretty much sums up for me why people, even even corporations (whether they are people or not), need to shut up and pay their dues...

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." — Elizabeth Warren at Political Animal - ‘The underlying social contract’

So... Meat...

I have been thinking a lot about meat lately. Partly because of my recent attempt at fitness, but also because I just finished reading The Butcher and the Vegetarian by Tara Austen Weaver. She very brilliantly grapples with the problems inherent in eating meat - health, economics, environmental, ethical. I have been reading her blog, Tea & Cookies for years, it was one of the first food blogs I stumbled upon, and honestly one of the few I where still read every post. So I knew going into the book that I would probably love whatever she wrote. And I did. And like many of her blog posts, it made me think. It made me consider my own food choices, especially my meat choices. Which I guess makes sense as it is a book about meat choices.

I am not going to give a synopsis of the book - it is wonderful, and everyone should read it and love it as much as I did. I am fully aware that tastes vary, but really - love it! But what I want to talk about here is the reflections on my own meat consumption that reading this lovely book has brought on.

I need to eat less meat... This particular reflection was one that was brought on not just by the book, but also by my recent attention to calorie consumption. I know that I eat more than the recommended amount - even the excessive, big-business influenced USDA recommendation. Not everyday, sure, but enough that it is a problem if being more fit is a goal I am working towards. But it's hard, because I like meat - bacon is tasty, turkey makes great sandwiches, and lamb vindaloo may be one of my favorite foods ever.

I need to only eat meat that I know where and how it was raised. The animals that is providing my food should only have one bad day, the day they die. Factory farms, feedlots, CAFOs - these are not humane - for the animals or for the humans who share the world with them. They are not sustainable - animal issues aside, and there are many, they consume unsustainable amounts of fossil fuels, water, and grain. Resources that would be better utilized elsewhere. And they produce more unregulated and untreated waste than entire cities. Entire cities. It is mind-bogglingly disgusting. Really, go read about it and you will have a much harder time with your Sunday bacon from the supermarket.

Eating meat I know was raised ethically and sustainably means eating meat from locally raised animals. This might seem like I will be paying more for less, but really I am paying more for more. One of the benefits of eating local, sustainable meat is the meat itself. I will be getting what I pay for. It is healthier - less bad fat, no harmful hormones or antibiotics, higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids. And it tastes better. Even if it is just the taste of satisfaction in knowing that I am not contributing to the problem.

This also means that when I eat out I am pretty much a vegetarian from now on. Except for seafood. Thanks to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, sustainable seafood is easy to keep track of through their Seafood Watch program. The expense is a problem with meat. But cheap meat really isn't. The cost to the environment, to the animals, and to my conscience is far greater than the cost of my grocery bill.

Now you might ask, why not just give up meat altogether if this is how you feel? I thought about that. One of the reasons is I like it. Maybe that is a selfish reason, and if there was not a sustainable, ethical option available, the selfishness of that reason might not be enough prevent me from giving up the pleasure of eating meat. But it is available, so that is not a dilemma I face. I would like to think that I would make a choice for the greater good if it were the case. The second reason is that I believe in a society that is based on enterprise to the extent that ours is, the best way to vote is with your wallet. And my vote would have to be for sustainable agriculture. Not buying any meat is voting against factory farms and giant agribusiness, it's true, but it is not voting for sustainable agriculture. I feel like this choice is saying I am willing to pay for a better way of doing things, not just I am not willing to pay for your way of doing things.

Here are some websites if you are interested in making a similar choice - or just being more aware about where your food comes from...

http://www.certifiedhumane.org/
http://www.eatwild.com/index.html
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

Alignment crisis...

I know I have been remiss in my blog updates this spring... or lack thereof. I have been existing in a weird space of cognative dissonance where I am trying to make various interests and requirements match up in my head... I think that I am starting to get to a head-space that allows me to articulate these various struggles and elements - if not one that has aligned them...

I have been struggling first with what I want to do, with my life - no small question, no easy answer. Tangled up in this question is how grad school/a PhD might help, or hinder, me in doing whatever it is I am not sure I want to do. And two military aphorisms keep running through my head: Plans rarely survive the first engagement with the enemy; and it is unwise to switch drivers mid-charge - and who knows why terms of battle are the key to these thoughts. I don't really have a martial personality. And what do they mean to my situation - should I not plan at all? Clearly, the question of changing course midstream is not as occluded - and really I don't want to change course. I want to continue in academia. I like literature. I like talking about literature. I like teaching literature. And I love my program. But I need a job - a now job, and an after graduation job. And I don't want a job that interfers with my studies now, but if I don't get a job I may not be able to continue with my studies...

My plans - or really more hopes, at this stage - for scholarship are also somewhat dissonant. I love the work I am doing in the Medieval and Early Modern, and I also love the work I am doing in Popular Romance Studies. These are rather disparate tracks. bringing them together has been, and continues to be, a struggle. Add in my passionate interest in food, and you have a whole other level of complication... for both of the other aspects. Food is a wonderful vehicle for analysis, but not necessarily a unifying factor - in fact it is frequently splintering. Can I use it to look at the same things in the two different Studies? Am I just going to have to live in this bi-polar professional space? On a practical level, how marketable is any of it?

I feel like I am being tugged in all these different directions. So, I guess if anyone out there has suggestions on what to do with all this noise I wold appreciate hearing them.

How do you construct your history?

Last night I want to see The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later. It was an experience that was both moving and surreal. I was not in Laramie when Matthew Shepard was killed. I was one of two students from Wyoming at a small, Catholic college in Ohio. I spent weeks saying that is not what we are like in Wyoming, not everyone hates and for sure, not everyone is murderous. It was a frustrating experience, because I knew that the small Ohio town I was in was not anymore “ok” with gay people than the state they were vilifying, the small Catholic college was not “ok” with gay people either.

When I moved to Laramie, long before I met, became friends with people who knew the man, the effects of the tragedy of Matthew Shepard’s death were apparent. Hate was not ok – in certain pockets of safe space - but it was not always silent, either. The “it’s time to move on” contingent was already making noises in 2001. It’s time to move on – without passing legislation that prevents hate crimes, without educating people about this type of violence, without facing the fact that prejudice lives among us – it’s time to move on. This voice was balanced, partially, by non-violence pledges and candlelight vigils, but even just a few years after, it was there.

Hearing that voice expanded and mainstreamed in editorials and interviews was one of the hardest things about watching last night’s performance. The frustration of so few quantifiable changes is hard to balance against the lives that were changed so drastically, and, even when it was for the better, out of such tragedy.

It was also extremely surreal to watch actors perform people I knew, whose voices I could hear in the words – but not in the sound of the speech. For me, this act of theatre gave these words even more power – both positive and negative – because it made them more universal. Yes, these were things that my friends had said, sometimes things I had heard them say in person, but they were also the voice of a movement towards justice and human rights. In the case of the more negative comments, they were also things I had heard people say, and in some ways that was even harder – because they are the blocks to progress and prevention, they are the reason that hate crimes have increased, not decreased, they are proof that it easier to ignore tragedy than to be transformed by it, and they break my heart.

Ultimately, I am very glad that I went to see this landmark production – a production that was performed simultaneously in over 100 theatres around the world. Here is a link to the “trailer” on YouTube for a peek at some of the interviews and here is information about the project itself. If you get the chance to see this play performed, go. And think about how you construct your history. Because this is a play about more than just Laramie, it is about all of us.

The Right to Read... Whatever I Want!

Today marks the beginning of Banned Books Week, "an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment."

I think that censorship is one of the most debilitating crimes against freedom in a modern society - and not just because I love to read. Reading and education fosters critical thinking and debate - both are key to intellectual (and spiritual) growth and fair governance. I know that just reading, without the thinking, doesn't always work this way - but I do think the more you read, the more you exercise your thinking muscles - whether you mean to or not. Reading broadens horizons, allows you to encounter new viewpoints, opens worlds of possibility. Reading is a human right - reading what I want to is a human right. No one should have the right to determine what is ok for me (or anyone else) to read. Banning books bans free thought.

So, celebrate your right to read what you want - go read a banned book this week. Here's a list of the 10 most challenged books in 2008*, in case you need a place to start:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
   Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
   Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence
3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
   Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence
5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
   Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, and violence
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group
7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
8. Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
   Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group
9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
    Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group

*from the Amarican Library Association (ala.org)