Bugs Bunny?

Wikipedia Bugs

He was a cartoon character who showed up in 1940 and did lots of carrot eating. You can see the image I borrowed from wikipedia and read all about this zany and resilient fantasy bunny.

Heartland Rabbit Rescue now has their own resident Bugs Bunny. He came to us because of a reported allergy to rabbits. Someone had bought him at an auction but then couldn't keep him because of the allergy.

Heartland's Bugs isn't a cartoon character yet he brings as many smiles and laughs as the entertainer because of his exuberant personality and his physical antics.

Heartland Bugs

As you can see...he's a beauty on the outside and I can assure that his personality is just as excellent. He's a youngster and appears to be still growing. He's always interested in having his head caressed and comes as close to dancing when putting on a binky show as any bunny can. He's a happy fellow and it's almost impossible to be around him without having a smile appear or a laugh. Thanks Bugs, you remind us everyday that the joy of living belongs to every being.

He's a big practitioner of the bunny stare. I've noticed that some buns have magical eyes and will focus  on the face of a human that they're interested in having them do something for them and they will send out some sort of bunny rays toward you until they get what they want. Bugs possess this magic power fully and it's almost impossible to avoid or ignore him when he turns on his magic generator.

Bugs investigating.

 Recently we took some bunnies in for medical attention and while there the vet asked if we could make room for a bunny that had been dumped outside the clinic. Yep, humans dump bunnies (which is essentially a death sentence) all the time and these humans dumped a baby bunny right at the vets...after having approached the personnel there wanting to know if anyone took unwanted bunnies and having been given information about  and contact info for Heartland. Apparently that was too much trouble so...abandoned bunny.

BB the abandoned bunny.

Here she is, and while she (we think she) has colorings that aren't quite as pronounced as those of Bugs, they're similar enough that she may end up being named BB (Baby Bugs). We're guessing she's about 3 months old and is very friendly and tolerant of humans.

This month marks my 3rd full year of retirement from doing stuff full-time to get money. Since then I've spent several hours a day for 5 or 6 days a week out at the rescue. I've pretty much focused on bunny house cleaning (including potty boxes) and getting the bunny people outside so they can enjoy their planet and play or dig or nosh on tasty plants.

On a given day usually 10 to 15 potty boxes will get emptied, hosed out, splashed with white vinegar and then scrubbed out, rinsed, air dried and then refilled with hardwood pellets and returned to a cleaned bunny enclosure. That means, conservatively (10 boxes per day times 5 days a week times 50 weeks a year times 3 years) that some 7,500 potty box cleanings have been accomplished. If you up the number per day to 15 that would mean over 11 thousand potty box cleanings. I was sort of surprised when I first ran the numbers. It's sort of cool how much gets done when you just stick to it. Like Woody Allen said, 80% of life is just showing up...that goes for getting clean areas for bunnies too. And by the way, my efforts are as nothing when compared to Jeannie and Brad (the director of HRR and her husband)...they've been at the bunny caring stuff for over 15 years. I can't even wrap my mind around all that they've done for the lagomorphs...and donkeys and little horses and ducks and Tag (resident cat) and sometimes a stray dog.

If you possibly can, please look into volunteering at a local rescue and/or sanctuary or at least donating funds to them. The amount of care (and expense) involved in looking after the refugees from human indifference or harm is simply unbelievable. And, go vegan if you haven't already. I can assure you that the rewards for helping and for living vegan far outweigh any that are available from the consumer society that surrounds us. Plus...we owe it to our fellow Earthlings...especially Bugs. :-)

(P.S. I'm really not trying to toot my own horn about the potty box numbers so please understand that...I'm wanting to show how much can get done with a little time and persistence and also to highlight the staggering amount of effort and attention and care that are involved in helping out the refugees we've created by our massive failures at being the "superior" species. Sometimes we end up doing things that are much more important and meaningful after we retire from active full-time "workforce" participation than we ever could imagine. Thanks.:-) )

All our fellow Earthlings...

are Trayvon Martin. It's only been a few days since the ending of the trial of the slayer of the adolescent human named Trayvon Martin and the reactions are still unfolding. For those of you unfamiliar with the incident, a man armed with a gun killed an unarmed adolescent. The man said he had a good reason to and initially that was going to be the end of the incident. Eventually the killer was arrested and tried and found not guilty of murder. Because apparently the jury agreed he had enough reason to justify murder.

This case has outraged and upset many many humans. Justifiably so to my mind, but then again I don't hold with killing or violence, period. And...I'm outraged and upset anytime I think about humans behaving violently toward other beings whether human or not. There may be some extreme cases...really extreme where some kind of serious and understandable case can be made for killing...but those are few and far between.

The furor over this instance of evidently gratuitous harm offers the opportunity to remind us that in fact every Earthling on this planet who doesn't belong to the human species is Trayvon Martin in the sense that they are at risk of (and billions are actually killed) being killed every day by any human animal they encounter for no reason except the human wanted to kill them.

Another part of the furor has to do with the victim looking different than his killer (the killer was white, the victim was not). It is quite likely that difference contributed to the motivations and behaviors of the killer. Killings often occur because someone looks and acts and sounds different...that's the way encounters often are for those beings who don't belong to the human species. And many of us, justifiably so, get really upset when it happens among human beings. Those to whom this happens who don't happen to be human animals are worthy of upset and anger too. As long as we engage in the ranking of the significance of a life because of appearance, of race, of gender, of ability, of species....such horrors (mistakes?) will continue to occur. Racism, sexism, speciesism...all are equally wrong and despicable. Period.

My last post was about a mother opossum who was killed by a hit and run driver who drove on and left her body and her living children lying in the street. That's the world our fellow Earthlings live in if they happen to encounter a human. Their life may be taken by accident, carelessness or intent and there are no sanctions or rules against it (mostly) and that's "just the way it is".  There is no justice for them beyond what might be dealt out by their friends or their family or their companions. And that rarely happens.

If you aren't a human, when you encounter a human you enter a "free-fire zone". Death, injury or imprisonment can occur at any time and there is little or no appeal, no justice, no fairness, no retribution, no nothing.

Do we want human to human interaction to be that way? Take away all the societal constraints and rules and prohibitions and let it be anything goes that you can get away with? No punishments, no consequences, no restraints. What would human society be like? I don't really want to find out but It would be like it is for all non-human animals. An almost unimaginable nightmare.

One of the things that is an ongoing and evolving process for me post-vegan is that I look at many news events from the perspective of living vegan...of minimizing my harm to all Earthlings that are sentient.

Mr. Martin, unless he was vegan, was responsible for the deaths of many Earthlings. His killer was already a killer, unless he was vegan, he already had a history of harming others.  That doesn't excuse what happened, but it does make it look rather different to me than if I didn't "think" vegan.

A life is a life and that life belongs to the being living it...and no one else has any business unnecessarily interfering with or harming or ending the life of another. Period. What happened to Mr. Martin happens all the time...to those that are not members of our species. They are at risk of unprovoked and random violence and death. And the violence inflicted on them by human animals is a tragedy and a horror, just like what was done to Mr. Martin.

We must get off this treadmill of death and destruction. Go vegan. Behave toward others like you want to be treated...give others the same consideration and respect and freedom you want for yourself...even if they don't look, or sound, or act like you. Living vegan reduces the pain in the world, reduces the harm and increases the joy...why would you not live this way?

Headline you won't see...

Mother of nine killed in hit and run crime.

Norman, Oklahoma. Sometime in the late evening or early morning hours of Thursday night or Friday morning (7/11-12/2013) a mother of nine children was hit and killed by a driver on a residential street who then left the scene. Two children were also killed and their bodies, along with the mothers and the remaining seven children lay in the street for several hours. It is presumed a number of motorists passed during that time but no one reported the crime nor did anyone stop to attempt to render assistance. The living children clung to their mothers cooling and stiffening body until about 7:30 on Friday morning when a motorist finally stopped to check on the condition of the mother. The living children were discovered at that time and the deceased mother and the children were then transported to a facility for medical treatment. The seven survivors were reported to be in fair condition when the treatment center was contacted the next day.

The mother and children happened to be opossums therefore their lives are considered to be without value by the dominant human culture. A dead body in the road is ignored or avoided if that body doesn't conform to artificially created human standards. Hitting one with a car isn't a crime, leaving the scene of injuring or killing an opossum with a car isn't a crime, even when children were with her and they are left alive and clinging to her mangled body.

I think we are all lessened by these kinds of travesties, we are related to all Earthlings, those are our relatives lying there in the road.  We are all children of the Earth, don't we care about our siblings?

I found her and the babies just a few blocks from my house when I was on my way out to Heartland Rabbit Rescue. I took them to Wildcare and they seem to be as well as could be expected now....about 24 hours after I took them out there. It was a horrible start to a day that really didn't get much better after that. A fairly serious rabbit fight at the south warren left one bunny bleeding from the mouth and then later news that a long time resident of Heartland had cancer spreading through her eye and jaw and that the most merciful thing was to not bring her out of the anesthesia from an exploratory surgery. Lots of death and pain. Friday the 12th should have been Friday the 13th.

I felt and feel so horrid for the babies, I couldn't help but imagining their terror and their hours of horror and fear. And that we humans, for the most part, treat it as nothing. No headlines, no news story, no note, no tears...no nothing. It left me bleak and dark and despairing and sad...just sad.

I plan to follow the babies and to donate to Wildcare to help them with the cost of their care. If a safe place isn't available for their release, I will find one. I feel responsible for them, I think we are all responsible for all the little ones...especially those who become orphans because of our malice or lack of caring. Aren't we all in this together? Aren't we all related? Shouldn't we look out for the innocent and the helpless ones? Isn't that the best way to live, to be? So many don't seem to think so. So many seem to think I'm weird or "strange". I truly don't get it. I just don't.

I firmly believe what I did was the absolute minimum anyone can do and continue to live with any genuine and valid sense of connection with life on this planet. Doing the minimum doesn't deserve thanks. it just should be what we do. Please live vegan, that's part of the minimum of living as if you're connected. Volunteer and support with donations your local rescue and sanctuary organizations. We have so much to make up for in terms of how much pain and loss and death we've inflicted (and continue to inflict) on our fellow Earthlings. We all owe these victims more than we can repay and our repairing or mitigating what we've done and do to them is partly the path to our redeeming ourselves from the horror we've created and the monsters we've made of ourselves. Help them in order to help yourself.

There are none so blind as...

those that will not see.

By the way, that none so blind phrase is not biblical, as so many believe.

The phrase seemed the best way to describe this writing from a book I've been reading. The book is titled: "The Healing Wound" by Gitta Sereny and it is a series of articles and essays she's written over the years. She writes:

For me, being with this man showed me as no other could have done the very essence of the process of corruption. It was an experience I might not have given myself had I know what it would do to me......I think my reason for doing the things I do, is and always has been quite simply - or perhaps not so simply - a need, a drive to know. The price one pays (and selfishly, expects the people one loves to pay) for giving in to this inner need, in shock, in tension and in a  particular kind of fatigue, can be high.

Perhaps something that happened when I was about half-way through the conversations with Stangl, can illustrate these tensions. It happened on an evening after I had stayed late talking to the prison director and the Dusseldorf station platform was virtually empty as I waited for my train. I heard the sound of crying - of many children crying, it seemed to me - for a long time before a freight train, slowing down during its passage through the station, went past us, And as it rolled through - the cries by now, I thought, desperate - I saw parts of pale small faces pressing against the narrow openings of each car. I'm not given to fainting, but I blacked out. The railway worked who helped mu up told me the freight trained carried cattle. It was calves, calves crying just like children. I can still hear them now, as I write.

The Healing Wound, Gitta Sereny. Essay titled "Colloquy With A Conscience" p 92-93.

She is writing about interviewing Franz Stangl who was the commandant of the Sobibor extermination camp during the holocaust. She wrote a book about him based on her interviews.

I reference blindness because she apparently was afflicted with it in depth and profundity...at least I presume she was. Nowhere could I find any mention that she was vegan or went vegan or supported veganism after her experience on the train platform. She certainly did not mention such in the essay and that would have been the logical place for it. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think so.

She writes about her need to know...yet she is unable to see what is right in front of her...that our behavior toward our fellow animals is that which we condemn as horrible and monstrous and "corrupt".

And the calves weren't crying "just like children", calves are children.

For those who are vegan...thank you. Going vegan is required for those seeing clearly. Not being vegan means blindly (or maybe not so blindly) supporting and participating in the horrid, the monstrous and the corrupt...so stop...please.

Past, Present and Future.

Every year here in Norman they put on something called the "89er parade". This occurs in April and is ostensibly a celebration of the beginning of the town...or something.  Actually it celebrates another instance of taking land (by force or threat of force) away from Native Americans. So we here in Norman annually celebrate a theft but we don't call it that nor do we characterize it that way. Instead of stealing land we call it "settling"...and those who stole the land we call "pioneers" or "settlers"...and they are looked upon with admiration instead of contempt. This admiration is not shared by all...some Native American organizations protest these events.

I've attended and participated in some of these protests because I think it's disgusting and shameful to lie about what happened the way we do...and because if we weren't lying but were telling the truth then the celebration would be about thieving and the benefits of thieving and that is no occasion or event to "celebrate". It should be a time of remembrance of the victims and shame for the behavior and education about how to make sure something like that never happens again. But it isn't.

How we conceive the past colors how we see the present which in turn forms our view of the future. Inaccuracies proliferate. One of the most poignant things that happens when protesting one of these 89er "celebrations" is the shocked look you can sometimes see on the faces of the children that are brought to these events. They've never heard of the theft, they've never been told that the land that was "settled" actually was land that was occupied by or belonged to others and that it was taken from them. They are innocents who believe the distortions they are given by their parents and families and schools and society.

When we are presented with lies and distortions as if they were "true" we are rarely ever also presented with tools and methods and ways to discern truth from falsehood. This equipping for twisted comprehension begins early and persists throughout our lives. And we all end up the worst for it. The less powerful are victimized by the more powerful and the victimizations are then celebrated as triumphs...by parades and festivals and on and on and the victims are invisibled away...unseen, unheard and unconsidered. And we end up treating a delusion as if it were reality.

In a snazzy little book titled "Two Cheers For Anarchism", James C. Scott argues that power makes us unable to hear the powerless. As we garner power...we become tone deaf...unable to hear the sounds or cries of our victims. They become essentially invisible and unheard to us. His book is about human interactions but it is easily extended to all life, to the planet herself. No one knows this better than our victims, our fellow Earthlings...this includes many indigenous humans of our planet.

We paint our victims out of our picture of the world, we silence their voices or cries with our deafness. And we destroy them, because we have power and we can.

Has their been a grouping of humans as a people, as a tribe, as a state, as a nation that hasn't victimized the less powerful? Ever? Is harming those with less power one of our defining group characteristics? We must get off of this treadmill of terror and exploitation and death that we are on.

And we really need to quit lying to ourselves,

In Scott's little book he references statues in Germany that honor the "Unknown Deserter"...dedicated to honoring "...a man who refused to kill his fellow men." Hooray for those humans...of any nation. Now we need statues for the "Unknown Vegan". Honoring those women and men "who refuse to harm their sister and brother Earthlings". And we need this to become the norm...instead of what exists now. You too can be a deserter from the war of humans on all Earthlings...go vegan. If you've already deserted...thank you...you definitely deserve a statue dedicated to you.



 

Who would have thought...

that horses like to play ghost.

See the lumps and bumps?

If we go to the other side we'll see who's lurking there.

 

 It's the mighty Midnight, Heartland's resident pony. He decided hanging out under this cotton blanket was an enjoyable thing to do. One day he was under there and Molly and Judy (the Heartland guard donkeys) were walking by and he stuck his head out and spooked them badly...they took off running. It's fairly certain he was smiling.

The chain link enclosure was set out in the field to provide some cover/protection for a little cotten-tail mom who decided to have her babies right there, the cover was for protection from the sun, Midnight decided to use it for other purposes.

When he saw me, he had to come out to see what I was doing.

Heartland is also now the residence of a gang of ducks who were saved from a bad situation by the mighty Jeannie, the director of the bunny rescue.

They're pretty large now but came to us as babies. Queenie is short for drama queen, she has a quack that can be heard several miles away and is prone to go into a dither just for fun. Donnie is of the same "breed" as Queenie but is much mellower. Bubbles is a female mallard and a little nervous. Arnold, the wonderful Arnold is of the pekin tribe and is a real treat to behold. He is stately and dignified and seriously smart.

Shamefully, one day while I was hosing down the bedding I decided to give Arnold a spray...he was peacefully paddling in the little water container they have outside and he jumped out and ran to the end of their enclosure. He then turned and looked me right in the face and proceeded to tell me off. I was very contrite and apologized and also a little spooked. There was absolutely no doubt he knew what had happened and who had done it. I learned my lesson, no more teasing of Arnold.

It is a real joy to get to know these duck people. They are interesting and really attractive. Brad (president of Heartland) is building them their very own area and once they are settled in there they'll have their own little duck village. The bunnies were rather alarmed when they first heard/saw the ducks but now they are accustomed to the new folks. Midnight was/is fascinated by them and often hangs out around them when they are outside.

The destruction of our planet and the destruction of our fellow beings by humans is depressing beyond belief. Opt out of being a destroyer and go vegan...please. And...when you're feeling down about all the horror...go visit your local rescue/sanctuary and hang out with those who have been saved. I promise you that you will get a real lift...especially if you manage to become friends with someone new.

Opal died...

and she got less from the world than she deserved. She was a sweet and charming bunny who was beautiful and excellent. She lived at Heartland because they cared about her when no one else did. She deserved so much more than the world gave her and I was lucky to have gotten to know her.

Opal...RIP May 15, 2013

 Make no mistake...she was loved and she will be missed. Fiercely.

Maybe the hardest part of doing rescue is when the loved ones go away and you can't help but think how much more they deserved than we humans allowed them to have. She couldn't live free because we humans made it such that she couldn't have survived...we made her dependent on us and then almost all turned away from her and denied our responsibility. She had a spirit and a heart big enough to fill anyone up...and none wanted her except Heartland.

And she was one of the lucky ones. What I like best about Heartland is that all the  bunnies are cared for, they are all loved, they are all special. And they are all, always and forever, at home there.

I don't like this year 2013. I don't like it at all. Recently way too many have gone away. Zoe, Bella, Pippin, Poe, Ariel, Kiera, Benson and on and on. It hurts...it hurts a lot. Their lives are short, their needs are small and they quickly fill up your heart and then leave you devastated when they die. The work isn't the hardest part...it's the having to say goodbye to so many so often. Goodbye Opal.

Do your part to not do harm...go vegan. Do your part to give a home to those who need it...support your local rescue and/or sanctuary.

  

Earth Day 2013

One of the nice things about being vegan is knowing that you are doing more than most people do (those who aren't vegan) to minimize damage to our beautiful home.

In addition to minimizing harm to our fellow Earthlings, living vegan minimizes harm to mother Earth...and to ourselves. A triple whammy! Seriously...one of the most useful things someone can do to reduce their damage to the earth is to go vegan.

So...if you're living vegan...thank you. If you aren't and you really want to help the Earth...then get going.

 

Take the pledge, go vegan and be a real contributor to protecting the Earth because she is our home...and she is most excellently beautiful!

Atonement...

and forgiveness and redemption and such like. The first and last words seem to be very similar in meaning...making up for a bad behavior but forgiveness seems to be sort of the opposite. In other words if you are forgiven you are redeemed and there is no more push or ooch toward reparations or putting right the results of a wrong.

Thoughts about this sort of stuff persist with me, if we become vegan and are living in ways that don't do nearly as much harm to other Earthlings (as we used to do)...are we then forgiven for all the harm we've previously done? Or does our previous harm ask for us to not only refrain from current or future acts of damage but also for some repairing or making up for what we did. Maybe even some repairing or making up for what others do.

I wrote a little bit about this in a previous post. One of the folks that commented (Patty) was kind enough to point out that this repairing notion is expressed by Jewish culture as Tikkun Olam: "...means "repairing the world" (or "healing the world") which suggests humanity's shared responsibility to heal, repair and transform the world."

I can't return to life those beings I caused to die. None of us can (at least I haven't run across anyone like that). So I'm already in a position of having caused irreversible harm. Some doings can't be undone. I can not do them anymore...but I can't make it be as if it never happened. I owe. I owe those I've harmed and I can't really repay them...they are gone. They lived, they suffered and they died because of me and my actions and my ways of living.

Bea wrote about an instance of this sort of thing recently. It was a courageous post and it resonated strongly with me in several ways, partially because I've spent so much time around a number of Heartland Rabbit Rescue residents in the last few years so writings about bunny fur people always piques my interest. And partially because I don't know if I am brave enough to look too hard or too specifically at all the instances in my life where I hurt others because of my own foolishness or ignorance or callousness. I'm not certain I could bear doing that.

I'm still wallowing around with all this, so I don't really have any hard and fast place to stand or to be about it. I just feel that it is not enough for me live as vegan as I can. I have much to atone for, I even feel an obligation to atone for those who aren't vegan and who continue to harm. Which contributes to my low-level (usually) feeling of dismay when faced with a participant in the ongoing "breaking of the world" harmer....a non-vegan. And I don't mean that in any meddling or interfering way...I just wish others would quit hurting the Earthlings that aren't human. (Of course I don't want them to harm humans either...but that's a very different thing to me than the other....it's sort of like the difference between punching yourself in the nose versus punching somebody else in the nose).

I wish they would stop because hurting or harming others sucks and I wish they would stop because that's just that much more repairing that needs to be done.

There's another component to this that remains fuzzy and unclear to me and that is the damage we do to ourselves when we harm others. How much repairing does that call for? What kind of harm do we do to ourselves? I've been re-reading Black Like Me and some other works by John Howard Griffin recently and one of the things he struggled with was what we were doing to ourselves when we participated in and supported racism and the oppressions associated with it. What are we doing to ourselves when we support speciesism and the oppressions and harms associated with that?

I have lots more questions than I do answers, lots more un-understandings than I do understandings. That's obvious. I've found it useful to read Mr. Griffin's work and to read Ms. Hobson's works but so much more remains to comprehend and to ponder.

In the meantime...volunteering at Heartland, living vegan, helping out at Hands Helping Paws, sometime helping at Wildcare,  placing Vegan Outreach pamphlets at the library, donating money to different groups...these are some of my tiny efforts at repair. There's so much to try to make up for...so much. But...lots and lots of humans are trying to do some repairing and that's worth a smile and some good feelings.

Some posts elsewhere...

I try to stay up with writings from other folks, mostly those who are ethical vegan in outlook. This recent Easter period resulted in a couple of very powerful pieces that I thought I might steer you to in case you hadn't discovered them for yourself.

The first is from "Once upon a Vegan" and, for me, is one of the sadder writings that I've ever read....it's also courageous and evocative.

The second is from "So I'm Thinking of Going Vegan" and here the author is dealing with anger...and doing so very eloquently.

Lots of other great writing and stimulating goes on all the time with other blogs but you already know that. These two posts, however, really stuck with me and I wanted to share.

If you want to share, then do so by living vegan, if you don't already. If you do....then thank you from all Earthlings...if you don't...well...it's never too late to start.

VEGetariAN

I recently was talking with a woman who was telling me what a great person her daughter was because she just "loved animals". The daughter had recently rescued a cat who had then given birth to four babies and the woman was really impressed that her daughter was taking care of all of them. That is commendable and I'm glad for the cat and her babies. The woman gave several of the examples of her daughter "loving animals" and I couldn't resist asking if the daughter was vegan.

The blank look on her face and the extended silence finally clued me in to realizing that she had never heard the word before.

I would bet that she isn't that great of an exception...maybe she's even in the majority. Maybe one of the easier bits of consciousness raising any of us could do is to, inoffensively and unobtrusively, find out if folks we meet and/or know are aware of the word VEGAN and what it means...and once we discover ignorance then we can do some information sharing.

The title of this post presents a visual of the origin of the word. Some British vegetarians, way back in 1944, founded The Vegan Society and coined the word VEGetariAN by taking the first 3 letters and the last 2 letters from the term vegetarian. Donald Watson is the name most often associated with this founding and he is a fine human for all vegans to reference as our founder but do remember he didn't do it alone. Their first newsletter indicated there were at least 25 members who shared his concern about the exploitation of animals and who wanted to avoid any and all foods or 'products' or behaviors that contributed to this exploitation. Here's an excerpt from that initial newsletter:

Having followed a diet free from all animal food for periods varying from a few weeks in some cases, to many years in others, we believe our ideas and experiences are sufficiently mature to be recorded. The unquestionable cruelty associated with the production of dairy produce has made it clear that lacto-vegetarianism is but a half-way house between flesh-eating and a truly humane, civilised diet, and we think, therefore, that during our life on earth we should try to evolve sufficiently to make the 'full journey'.

We can see quite plainly that our present civilisation is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves, and we believe the spiritual destiny of man is such that in time he will view with abhorrence the idea that men once fed on the products of animals' bodies. Even though the scientific evidence may be lacking, we shrewdly suspect that the great impediment to man's moral development may be that he is a parasite of lower forms of animal life.

If you aren't familiar with these founders and what their original goals were, I urge you to read about them...and...if you are like me...read about them more than once. I find I discover something new or realize some facet that I previously missed each time I return to their writings. Here's a link to an interview with Mr. Watson that was conducted when he was 92 years old. He was a very admirable being and that's a heartening thing. More good information can be found in the Wikipedia article on Veganism.

Sometimes I forget that one of the goals of veganism, aside from the profoundly important one of reducing and/or eliminating the unnecessary suffering and death inflicted on living beings by us human animals is to elevate the consciousness and "moral development" of all. It really is quite a step, if you think about it, to move to a position of respecting all living beings and of opting out of the stance of "owner" or "master" of other living beings.

Not only do the other animals benefit from veganism...we human animals do too by not falling into the power-trip trap of thinking we are better than other beings. We can recognize the inherent repulsiveness and destructiveness of the superior/inferior or the "better than" position when we encounter it being played out human to human...that destructiveness also applies when we apply it across species too. That sort of interaction damages and diminishes and victimizes all who are involved in it, not just the identified victim (although they suffer the most).

So...maybe you don't need booklets and gory pictures and signs and such to do some consciousness raising...maybe all you need to do is to increase someone's vocabulary...and, of course, to live as a good member of the community of living beings...by being vegan.

All the important things about living a life are simple.

That thought occurred to me the other day and as I turned it over in my mind I couldn't find any exceptions to it. Not that there aren't things that are complicated but as far as I can see they don't have anything to do with living life.

Having shelter and being protected from weather, having food, being safe, having those we care about near us, playing, enjoying the Earth, exploring....just living.

I was thinking this stuff while taking care of the bunnies out at Heartland Rabbit Rescue. The rabbits know what's important...they focus on those things.

I poked around on the internet to see who else had realized this...it is virtually impossible to think of something that someone else hasn't already thought and I ran across this quote:

 Life is not complex.  We are complex.  Life is simple,
and the simple thing is the right thing.
- Oscar Wilde

I checked a bit further and couldn't find anyplace else that had this quote so I'm not quite certain that it is accurately attributed to Mr. Wilde. Be that as it may...it's a good quote.

It sort of negates one of the things about ourselves (we human animals) we tend to tout often...how "intelligent" we are. Intelligence is actually sort of irrelevant unless it assists in making the living of life better...unless it assists in the simple things. Hmmm... 

Being vegan, not harming others...that's a fairly simple thing, isn't it?

It hasn't been said well enough...

I recently re-watched a 1947 movie that is one of my favorites. It's called Gentleman's Agreement with Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire. I like to see it again every year or so because I notice and learn something new or different each time. This time was no exception. The dialogue in the movie is, on occasion, profound. For example:

Professor Fred Lieberman: Millions of people nowadays are religious only in the vaguest sense. I've often wondered why the Jews among them still go on calling themselves Jews. Do you know, Mr. Green?
Phil Green: No, but I'd like to.
Professor Fred Lieberman: Because the world still makes it an advantage not to be one. Thus it becomes a matter of pride to go on calling ourselves Jews.

When I heard this exchange this time it struck me how identical this is to the premise that human beings are not animal beings and that it is a definite advantage to not be considered an animal...therefore...to me at least...it is a matter of, not pride, but acknowledgement of injustice (and accuracy) to consider myself an animal.

This time the exchange that struck me most powerfully was:

Kathy Lacey: You think I'm an anti-Semite.
Phil Green: No, I don't. But I've come to see lots of nice people who hate it and deplore it and protest their own innocence, then help it along and wonder why it grows. People who would never beat up a Jew. People who think anti-Semitism is far away in some dark place with low-class morons. That's the biggest discovery I've made. The good people. The nice people.

It is staggering how well this exchange epitomizes much of what drives the ongoing destruction of our fellow Earthlings. It is the "good people", the "nice people" who do not see themselves as agents of cruelty, of oppression, of murderousness who support and perpetuate the enslavement and the imprisonment and the death and suffering of billions of Earthlings.

It is truly all the same....speciesism, racism, anti-semitism, sexism, and on and on. The prejudice, the oppression, the ugliness of superiority/inferiority, the murder of billions because they are "different". The viewpoint that drives each of these despicable behaviors and mindsets is the same and what allows this to flourish is, in the end, the "good people"....the "nice people".

The movie is based on a novel by Laura Z. Hobson. When I read more about her, I realized that I wished I had had a chance to sit down and have a long long conversation with her. She was apparently a remarkable human. "Through her novels, she popularized issues of
anti-Semitism, unwed motherhood and gay rights. She succeeded as a
single mother and as a professional."  I wonder whether she would have been able to see through the cultural veils and understand the justice and necessity of ethical veganism. I bet she would have in time.

Now, not long before I re-watched Gentleman's Agreement, I had re-watched Schindler's List. That's another movie that I re-see because it helps ground me. Then, this morning I went to Bea Elliot's excellent blog Once Upon A Vegan and found a post delineating the activity of a fellow named Nicholas Winton who helped save over 600 Jewish children from the Nazi holocaust by arranging transport to England for them. Bea was making the point that living as an ethical vegan is equivalent to being a conscientious objector to cruelty. Exactly so.

She was writing about someone who not only lived as a conscientious objector to the war and to violence but who also went further and in addition to opting out of participation but also helped save hundreds of victims of human driven oppression and suffering and death. The same is true of Oscar Schindler...he did not participate in the violence and he also saved many human victims.

The struggle against speciesism is the same as the struggle against racism,  is the same as the struggle against anti-semitism, is the same as the struggle against sexism...and against each and every stance that renders one side "superior" and the other side "inferior". Against each stance that condones oppression and enslavement and violence against those adjudged to be "inferior". It is exactly the same struggle...only the characters involved may change from place to place and time to time. The victims and oppressors may change identities but the "dance" remains the same. And this struggle has plagued our species (and as a result we plague ourselves and all the other species) apparently forever. 

We seem to be so prone to fall into this horrid trap of oppressor/victim. It seems to be sadly seductive to us...since we do it again and again.

Well. I'll tell you what. Morally...if you admire folks like Mr. Winson and Mr. Schindler...you can behave just like they did. First, you opt out of the violence...the dance of death by living as an ethical vegan. That's the first step. Next...you support in each and every way you can...your local animal sanctuaries and rescues. That's exactly what they did...first they caused no harm...that's the conscientious objector, ethical vegan stance...second they facilitated the rescue of victims from harm...that's the supporting by volunteering and donating to your local animal sanctuaries and rescues.

Look around, investigate the places that save animals in your community. If they promote ethical veganism...great...if they don't...help them grow into such a stance while you assist them with their rescue activities. Otherwise they are just perpetuating the superior/inferior dance that creates the need for sanctuaries and rescue facilities. The very phenomenon that created the need for humans like Mr. Winton and Mr. Schindler.

Unless and until most of us are able to get through this struggle to see beyond superior/inferior then we'll just have to keep doing the same thing over and over and harming over and over and rescuing over and over. Spinning around and around in the same spot really is a poor way to try to get somewhere....unless you're just trying to get dizzy.

The main character in Gentleman's Agreement is a writer who is taking on an assignment to write about antisemitism and he really doesn't want to. He has this exchange with his mother:

Mrs. Green: You think there's enough anti-Semitism in life already without people reading about it?
Phil Green: No, but this story is doomed before I start. What can I say about anti-Semitism that hasn't been said before?
Mrs. Green: Maybe it hasn't been said well enough. If it had, you wouldn't have had to explain it to Tommy right now.

Maybe ethical veganism hasn't been said well enough. Maybe it will have to be said again and again until it is said well enough that no one has to explain it, that we all understand and live it.

I ran across this quote

and I was struck by how similar the sentiment being expressed by Dr. Sagan was to something that happened to me years ago while still in graduate school.

In my program each student selected one of the faculty members to be their major professor...this was the person who oversees their journey through academia that culminates with the granting of the Doctor of Philosophy degree. Everyone had their own theories about which professor to select and mine was that I wanted someone who seemed to combine academic prowess along with some...for want of a better word...wisdom. So I chose mine.

After awhile in any prolonged period of work and study in the department you get to know the professors fairly well. One of the drawbacks to becoming familiar with anyone or several anyones or even becoming knowledgeable about topics is that you begin to see the flaws or drawbacks in addition to the positives or the strengths.

I was as full of myself and as self-righteous as any semi-educated young male human and began to be put-off by my dawning awareness that some of the professors were not all graced with benign intent and dripping with accurate knowledge and scintillating insights and profound vision (such expectations coming from my own flawed notions).

I went to my major Professor with my distress and he heard me out and even agreed with some of my observations and grumpings. I said something goofy alluding to how disillusioned I was with academia in general and psychology in particular. That was when he evinced a bit of fire and let me know that while it was true that there are a number of goobers and flawed folks in the field...he assured me that on a statical basis I would be likely to encounter many more instances of serious ignorance and blindness, especially about what made humans tick, in any area outside of psychology.  He said if I really wanted to see profound examples of reasons for disillusion and dismay, I ought to go hang around, for instance, some business type folks.

He pointed out that science as a profession offered no guarantee that foolishness wouldn't exist and maybe even persist but no other organized human endeavor had a self-correcting mechanism built into it quite like the one in science...the notion that one should and must change their position and/or viewpoint when presented with arguments and facts that dictated doing so.

I was able to hear him, partially because I trusted him, and had lived long enough to suspicion that he was correct. And the years since have borne out his accuracy. I spent many years in the field of the "helping professions". I met many people, some wise and insightful, some not so much. But I would be willing to bet that if you threw together 100 human animals who were thoroughly trained in science and a scientific approach to the world and knowledge and matched them up with 100 from politics or business or religion (or many other approaches) you would come away probably wanting to hang out with more of the science folks than you would with the other folks. At least I probably would...especially if they weren't seriously ignorant about human emotions and psychology (which, by the way, is similar to the emotions and psychology of all animals). (my apologies to all the wise ones and the perceptive ones and the caring ones who can and do exist is other academic areas...I know you're there...and my apologies to all the wise one and caring ones and perceptive ones who don't have anything to do with any academic area...I know you are there too. I'm just writing about this one small thing right now and while it might sound like I'm ignoring and/or dismissing you...I'm really not.)

I was whisked back to graduate school when I saw that graphic showing the quote attributed to Carl Sagan and I was reminded of how grateful I was, and am, that I had the opportunity to hang around with and learn from that now long dead Professor. I miss him a lot.

What does this have to do with veganism? Well, it sort of looks like nothing at all...but actually I think it has quite a bit to do with it. "...scientists are human and change is sometimes painful." That is a truth. We human animals often have difficulty with change, not always, but often. For those of us not lucky enough to have grown up with an ethical vegan approach to the world around us...to get to that position we had to change. We had to change our viewpoint, we had to change our behavior...and that can be difficult and even painful. But...making a change when new information is encountered is exactly what a good scientist must do....even in the face of resistance from those around us...even in the face of resistance from the culture or from society.

I've admired a fellow named Ignaz Semmelweis for years and years, ever since I ran across information about him while I was in graduate school. Few people have ever heard of his name yet he should be very very well known. He was an obstetrician in Vienna in the mid 1800s and figured out that the reason the death rate during childbirth was so high was because the physicians weren't washing their hands before assisting in the labor process. He was ridiculed and ostracized by his colleagues. Here's a part of the wikipedia entry about him:

 Semmelweis was outraged by the indifference of the medical profession and began writing open and increasingly angry letters to prominent European obstetricians, at times denouncing them as irresponsible murderers. His contemporaries, including his wife, believed he was losing his mind, and in 1865 he was committed to an asylum. In an ironic twist of fate, he died there of septicaemia only 14 days later, possibly as the result of being severely beaten by guards. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease, offering a theoretical explanation for Semmelweis's findings. He is considered a pioneer of antiseptic procedures.

Many who have become enlightened enough and courageous enough to transition to ethical veganism can identify with Dr. Semmelweis. I can only thank you for your stance and remind you that you are saving lives and you are reducing suffering and that you are not alone and that we human animals have a long history of avoiding truths that are right in front of us.



 

We have issues...

By we I mean we human animals who live in the United States. Most of us are aware that on December 14th of 2012 a 20 year old white male named Adam Lanza entered an elementary school in Newtown Connecticut and murdered 20 children and 6 adults. We who live here in this country are sadly familiar with the news of a mass killing by, usually, a "deranged white guy" wielding a "semi-automatic firearm" of some sort or another. By the way, from the time of the Newton shooting up until yesterday (about a month and a half), we Americans have managed to kill another 1,619 of ourselves with guns (murder, suicide, accidental).

Like most other human animals who live in the U.S., I've been hearing about such instances of mass violence against groups of humans for years. According to this source there have been 62 such violent happenings since 1982...that's about one such killing spree every 6 months.

Consider this: Here's a table showing all American deaths in all the wars we've been involved in, including the first one noted....the Revolutionary war. (source)

Revolutionary War	4,435
War of 1812	2,260
Mexican War	13,283
Civil War (Union and Confederate, estimated)	525,000
Spanish-American War	2,446
World War I	116,516
World War II	405,399
Korean War	36,574
Vietnam War	58,220
Persian Gulf War	383
Afghanistan War	2,175
Iraq War	4,486
Total	1,171,177

Now one of the first things I noticed about this table was the absence of any reference at all to the number of "Americans" killed in what was actually our first "war"...the one where the arriving Europeans killed the people living here first...the Native Americans. This table implies there never was a war against Native Americans...or maybe it presents a greater truth...so few of the invading Europeans were killed that they weren't worth noting.

Context that number of dead in the preceding table...1,171,177 killed in all wars since about 1776, a span of approximately 236 years,  with the data in this figure which covers only 44 years.

 Total deaths caused by firearms in the United States (excluding war deaths, source):
 

1968 to 1980	377,000
1981 to 1998	620,525
1999 to 2010	364,483
2011	32,163
Total	1,384,171

Since 1968, since the year in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered with a gun (about 44 years ago), we "Americans" have managed to kill more of ourselves with guns than we have had killed in all the wars we've ever fought. When I stumbled across that information I was stunned. Just absolutely stunned. But the topper for me was the following graphic (source):

Like many, I've read about the belief by some that somehow civilians owning guns would keep the "government" from turning tyrannical and oppressing "the people". As the above figures show, for every firearm (handgun, rifle or shotgun) owned by the U.S. military or police, civilians own 79 firearms (handguns, rifles or shotguns). I'm sorry but that's simply sick. Those numbers don't reflect a concern with freedom or with rights...those numbers reflect a societal illness.

For a number of years I've been uneasy with anyone who seems to like guns. I grew up in rural Oklahoma, guns were all around and "normal". I spent some years in the military where I carried a gun every day I was on duty. Even there, even in the military, I was mildly uneasy around people carrying guns (including myself). I guess my take on guns and those who like guns is very well summarized by this graphic I saw on facebook.

Now I don't know the source of this assertion nor am I certain the issues involved are simply esteem issues. But I have absolutely no doubt that a significant number of the people in this country have issues...and guns aren't going to fix them, in fact, guns are going to make the consequences of those issues even worse than they are already.

I'm not unaware of the fact that some people do fear for their safety and it may be that their fears have some justification...If you're fearful...get a good taser or some other non-lethal device to protect yourself. You won't ever read about a "mass tasering" or a "mass pepper-spraying" where there were lots of dead. If you're determined to have a gun at least, at the very least, only have non-lethal ammunition in your gun and your home.

Bottom line, we've killed more of ourselves with guns in the last 44 years than have been killed in all the wars we've ever fought. Civilians own 80 guns for every 1 gun owned by the police or the government. Just how much more do we need to know to understand that we have serious problems with violence and with guns? We seem to be delusional and irrational about all of this...or at least many of us are. Why are we listening to people who are working out personal issues...especially when they seem to be working them out by acquiring devices designed to cause death? The whole thing is appalling and repulsive and alarming.

My posts are primarily directed toward our behavior toward our fellow animals, toward whom we are horribly violent and harmful. Well...we're also pretty violent toward ourselves, at least in this country and all of these things are connected. Certainly violence and killing is violence and killing...no matter who are the dead. The notion of thinking it is a good thing to have devices around that are designed to cause death is a notion that concerns me. Period.

Living as an ethical vegan means not harming other living beings. Wanting to have lots of devices designed to kill living beings...well...that seems to be the opposite of ethical veganism.