why go veggie?, dos.

vegetariantimes.com has a wonderful and compelling list that responds to the question, 'why go veg?' all good reasons; you should read the full list. but here are my main motivations:

• You’ll help reduce famine. About 70 percent of all grain produced in the United States is fed to animals raised for slaughter. The 7 billion livestock animals in the United States consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the American population. “If all the grain currently fed to livestock were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” says David Pimentel, professor of ecology at Cornell University. If the grain were exported, it would boost the US trade balance by $80 billion a year.

• You’ll save money. Meat accounts for 10 percent of Americans’ food spending. Eating vegetables, grains and fruits in place of the 200 pounds of beef, chicken and fish each nonvegetarian eats annually would cut individual food bills by an average of $4,000 a year.

• You’ll help reduce pollution. Some people become vegetarians after realizing the devastation that the meat industry is having on the environment. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), chemical and animal waste runoff from factory farms is responsible for more than 173,000 miles of polluted rivers and streams. Runoff from farmlands is one of the greatest threats to water quality today. Agricultural activities that cause pollution include confined animal facilities, plowing, pesticide spraying, irrigation, fertilizing and harvesting.

really it's about solidarity. and it's about not contributing to these systems. one happy veg at a time. : )

why go veggie?

Taken from Eating for Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh
"Mindful eating can help maintain compassion within our heart..."

"...UNESCO tells us that every day, forty thousand children in the world die because of a lack of nutrition, of food. Every day, forty thousand children. And the amount of grain that we grow in the West is mostly used to feed our cattle. Eighty percent of the corn grown in this country is to feed the cattle to make meat. Ninety-five percent of the oats produced in this country is not for us to eat, but for the animals raised for food. According to this recent report that we received of all the agricultural land in the US, eighty-seven percent is used to raise animals for food. That is forty-five percent of the total land mass in the US.

More than half of all the water consumed in the US whole purpose is to raise animals for food. It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4000 gallons of water per day.

Raising animals for food causes more water pollution than any other industry in the US because animals raised for food produce one hundred thirty times the excrement of the entire human population. It means 87,000 pounds per second. Much of the waste from factory farms and slaughter houses flows into streams and rivers, contaminating water sources.

Each vegetarian can save one acre of trees per year. More than 260 million acres of US forests have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals raised for meat. And another acre of trees disappears every eight seconds. The tropical rain forests are also being destroyed to create grazing land for cattle.

In the US, animals raised for food are fed more than eighty percent of the corn we grow and more than ninety-five percent of the oats. We are eating our country, we are eating our earth..."

...while many go hungry.

mutter-vater, vater-mutter

i know, they're the cutest ever.
and lookin' so good after half a century! work.it.'rents.
[downtown l.a. -- november '08]

Sunday Magazine

Motherlode: Changing the Language of Fatherhood

By By Lisa Belkin

Published: June 13, 2009

In a guest blog, Paul Hankes Drielsma writes about words -- the ones we need to stop using, and the ones we need to use more.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
i just read a good, thought-provoking blog (found on the nytimes home page, linked in the title above) about fatherhood and motherhood. and the language we use when referring to each role. it's written by a dad who really is embodying an equal share in parenting but also admitting the obstacles he's up against when it comes to the way our culture views dads. this is actually feminism here. it absolutely is. because to seek equality between the sexes, marriage and parenting must be examined; they're both essential to the human condition. for true partnership to exist, there must be a sharing of responsibility and care. this dad gets it. he says he's not trying to play the 'woe is me' card, and i'll admit some of his concerns do borderline 'woe is me', but he's got a point. a good point. language absolutely shapes us. in every way.

my dad stayed home (while my mom worked full-time) with me during some of my most formative years. the same with my sister. it was kinda' just normal to us. and believe me, as i've gotten older, i've realized what a gift that was/is. my parents made a partnership in marriage just seem like the way marriage worked. there were times where they even shared a job; one taught classes in the morning while the other taught classes in the afternoon, and then they stayed home with their daughters during their off hours each day. they shared. truly shared responsibility and care.

but, one thing our family still had to learn was the way in which we referred to my dad's years of being the full-time, at-home parent. we called him 'mr. mom.' (he called himself this too) when telling a story from those years. and there 's the best of intentions in that terminology, but i think i see now (thanks to a conversation last year with melissa burt-gracik) that such a title belittles my dad's service to his family. such a title makes being a 'mother' the normative experience as a parent. that's exactly what this blog is talking about. why is mothering viewed as parenting while fathering is, at best, viewed as babysitting? such good questions to examine.

my dad is mr. dad. and as a stay-at-home dad, he did everything a stay-at-home mom typically does, but he did it as him. as a father. so as my parents celebrate 29 years of marraige today (congrats mutti und vati!), i must thank them both for the true mutuality, shared responsibility, and real partnership they've shown to me and my sister through the years.

one week from today, much of the western world will celebrate 'father's day', and that's great, but let's be mindful about how we speak about fathers and their roles in families (of course, same goes for mothers). may we not trap our sons and our daughters into set ideas of what a dad does as being so different from what a mom does. let's exemplify in our relationships and in our language that moms and dads are both parents... with both playing an equal and active role in their child's life.

thanks 'rents; you're the best. i'm celebrating with you both today even though there's an ocean and some land between us. i sure do appreciate you. the you that is you both: together. for life. all my love.

deine,
tochter nummer eins

you've got to be kidding me.

My dear friend and brotha-from-anotha-motha', whom I affectionately refer to as Hencky-Pencky, has a current facebook status that reads, "Andrew Henck: apparently is the newest heretic in town."

and then he has this link in his status:

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/index.php?p=1438&more=1&c=1

oh.my.word.

Who runs this blog? I'm stunned and amazed. Who seriously spends their time and energy with this? Everything they bemoan has largely informed who I am... all of the authors and the practices -- especially brother Roger and Taize. whew. big frustrated sigh. Why do we so quickly point fingers within the Body of Christ and make accusations and live in fear when perfect love drives out and has already driven out fear...?

This article just makes me sad. They're missing the point of all of these authors and the friends mentioned in it who have been shaped by these authors.

...love.

And so too I'm challenged to love even (and especially) those I disagree with here... but I gotta' say I'm still frustrated about it.... I mean come on.