Reading the Exxon thread that Denny posted made me re-read an e-mail that Saul Williams sent out a few days ago. He spoke about various things, but mentioned his vegan diet, and then got into this interesting piece of information: <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Some might argue that artists are a race or species apart from the common person. Yet we all identify with the teachings of Gandhi, the genius of Einstein, the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, Rembrandt and the talent and compassion of living artists like Alice Walker, Will Smith, The Mars Volta, Dead Prez, Prince and countless others. Some of us choose to emulate their styles, their fashion, their career choices, but why not their diets? If our brightest most celebrated stars all have this one thing in common why are we so slow in connecting the dots for ourselves? Perhaps the biggest issue at hand is not what our cars run on, but essentially what do we run on? The fact is that factory farms are the number one users of crude oil, not cars. That's basically what it takes to kill approximately one million chickens per hour (just in the US). More than half of our water supply goes to feed animals being fattened for slaughter. The methane gases that contribute to global warming are produced majorly by cow farts in factory farms, not to mention the amount of fossil fuels needed to create just one pound of beef. Yep. You doing the math? Basically if we shifted our compassion towards animals, the domino effect would heal the planet. We'd no longer be cutting down rain forests to create more space for cows to graze, we'd stop depleting the ocean of the necessary (keyword: necessary) food chains that our eco system depends on, diseases including many cancers, heart disease, obesity, and others which find their root in the food/toxins we ingest would slowly disappear as would our taste for violence. Which brings me to the other book I read this summer that inspired me to reevaluate every aspect of what I've been taught through the news and media, especially concerning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That book is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.</div> And, as comedian Eddie Izzard said when I saw him in NYC: "If the human race remained vegetarians since the beginning of time, would we be violent? You can't be violent emulating pulling plants from a ground, can you? "
I've written this before. There's two schools of thought on Man. Izzard presents one view. My view is that Man invented the first tool so he could hit someone else over the head with it and take from him whatever he wanted. Face it, Man is an animal, and a predator at that. Always has been, always will be. It's in our collective DNA
sad, but true. We can never rid ourselves of it fully, and at this point in the history of man, it is too late to even lessen our predator-type aspects of us over the next few generations (collectively)
