Re: Book Summary: Anger - Wisdom for Cooling the Flames


"Mayura" <grfarm@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4417c2e9_1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"George Cherry" wrote
<dkotschess@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

CONSUMING ANGER:

Here Thich speaks of eating organically grown and free-range food. He
speaks of eating "happy chickens" as opposed to those who lived in
suffering. He also speaks of eating mindfully and chewing food
thoroughly. Organic food tends to be more
expensive, but by chewing thoroughly we eat less.

Oh, yes, yes. We have found "Certified Humane Raised & Handled"
dairy and eggs. I know I'll probably be flamed for this. But the
bird flu and mad cow disease is due to the horrible conditions
in which these suffering creatures are raised.

Dear George<<...but be kind and try to satisfy their expectations>> Cherry
;) I don't know enough about the bird flu but you're probably partly right
on that. In the case of mad cow disease, as far as I know, which isn't far
at all, provisionally, the cause seems to have been the recycling back
into
cattle protein-rich 'meat and bone meal' from cattle and other
domesticated
herbivores. Cattle positively relished eating the cattle food it was
compounded into as they did with fish meal. It's such a 'laborious'
process
for 'nature' to produce proteins that we don't like to waste spare ones,
which I think is how the 'prions' came to recirculate. The 'cannibalism'
thing is a difficult one because if you go down to the level of atoms,
we're
all cannibals all of the time, then up to simple molecules, simple organic
molecules, simple proteins, complex proteins ...>... bleeding chunks of
Aunt
Daisy etc. At which point does it become 'cannibalism'?

I don't keep to my own 'rules' (although I've slowly been moving this way
when I remind myself) but I have this oversimplified four-box theory as
follows. Vegans neither kill nor use animals. Vegetarians use animals
(e.g.
milk products, eggs, honey etc.) but won't kill them (theoretically).
Normal
people use and kill animals. 'Anti-vegetarians' kill animals but won't use
them. From what I have observed in Britain, to me, generally, killed
animals
as a whole (beef cattle, sheep, pigs, wild game, wild fish etc.) look as
if
they're having a much better life than 'used' animals as a whole e.g.
dairy
cattle and laying hens.

To me, eggs are for foetuses, milk for babies and meat for adults...

Here's my take on what's "natural" for humankind to eat.
I'm talking here about our GENOME, which was formed
a long time before domesticated animals, agriculture,
and supermarkets. My ancient, ancient ancestors (whose
genome was very, very similar to mine) were hunter-
gatherers who successfully gathered a greater deal more
than they successfully hunted. It's really hard to down
an ungulate with a stick or a rock, especially when the
deer or antelope can run 3-4 times faster than you. So
these Paleolithic guys and gals ate lots of stuff that they
could pull out of the ground or off trees or pick off bushes.
I channel a Paleolithic guy named Geeorgius who assures
me he ate mostly veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds. The
most sophisticated food preparation thing he did was
soak grains overnight in water in a hollow gourd so that
he could chew and digest them. He got to eat meat about
once or twice a year when he got really lucky throwing
a rock at a rabbit or chasing a coyote away from an antelope
it downed. I have science to back me up. The only essential
vitamin or mineral found only in meat (not in plant foods)
is vitamin B-12. The human body can store B-12 for
many years. So if you eat meat about once every year,
you're all set with respect to what you need from meat.
As for milk, I agree that it's unnatural for human adults
to drink it. However, my ancestors did gather eggs.
BTW, there's plenty of protein in nuts, seeds, legumes,
and grains. So, I'm a "near vegan", which accords well
with my desire not to cause any more suffering than
really necessary.

I have to run now. I return to this later today.

George

(QED -
Vegetarians are retarded... ;) ... without relentless selective breeding
(probably forever) dairy cow yields would revert to maybe 4000 litres per
year or somesuch as against more like double that. It takes an immense
physical toll on the animals to produce that amount of milk for a long
period so their lives tend to be quite foreshortened. The calves generally
have to be weaned unnaturally early onto something else so that we can
theive what they would have had. Each cow has to produce at least a calf
per
year, 50% of which will be bull calves needing killing for meat at some
point (and the best breeds for milk are generally the worst for meat and
vice versa) as the cows themselves will be at some point.

Because of seasonal fluctuations, the milk supply is never quite right for
the demand, so consequently, the amount of surplus is never quite right
for
all of the ancilliary industries (cheese, butter, yoghurt, cream etc.).
And
because all this is tied to the beef industry as well e.g. as a source of
rearing calves and as a competing source of meat from 'barren' cows, the
knock-on effects of any fluctuations go boinging around the whole system.
A
lot of farmers joke about going round to vegetarian's houses and leaving
their fair share of what their eating preferences entail e.g. dead dairy
cows, dead bull calves, dead battery chickens, dead male chicks and so
forth.

Our beef cattle could probably be sold as 'organic' if we wanted to pay
the
$1300ish a year accreditation fee to join the Soil Association or somesuch
accrediting body. We haven't been using inorganic fertilizers or sprays
for
years or doing much else that goes against their perverse ideology-driven
mores. Likewise, our eggs could probably be sold as 'free range' because
the
few hens are in transportable wood and chicken-wire structures moved on
around the garden each day. I think battery hens generally have a horrible
life but I'm not convinced that ours have one that's that much better,
especially in the winter. I think hens originally came from the jungles of
India, and how many Indian junglists volunteer to from there come and
stand
outside in the mud all day with no shoes through a British winter? I
submit,
it's not 'normal'.

For years now, my relentless dot-joinery has been telling me to link this
use vs. kill thing with (as the most feared thing) death vs. torture and
physicalism vs. supernaturalism (respectively). To me, they so often seem
'all of a piece'. I know it's a common accusation from
non-supernaturalists
that supernaturalists only concoct their fanciful beliefs to compensate
for
their real fear of death, rather than being 'realistic'. I agree with
this.
Except maybe in the cases of Jesus, Socrates, Al Quaeda (sp?), the
Assassins, those of the Kamikaze who weren't 'bounced', Martin Luther
King,
Gandhi, the people of Masada, the White Tigers etc. etc. I.e. the kind of
people we know about. OK... I think I've got it... It still applies... but
only to everyone we know nothing about ;) In the cases we know something
about (e.g. Al Quaeda, a question about whose psychology you alluded to
elsewhere) it would just be 'projection' of the non-supernaturalist's
fears
of their own death, which is what would make them more averse to killing
animals than using them and more averse to the killing of people than the
torture of them. "Discuss" ;)

Jonathan ('Warrior of Perky' and Incomparable Grand Master of
Handbagsatdawndo)












.