Meat recall, a friendly vision

I don't know about you, but I couldn't watch that awful video of the recent animal slaughter and related meat recall. I can watch almost anything. I found this instead, a cartoon version. Pass it on to your friends, and especially mothers with young children. Kids should know the difference. http://www.sfgate.com/comics/fiore/

It's not easy bein' Green

Living in Philadelphia and trying to live environmentally is kind of an oxymoron. You've got people throwing trash on the street while a trash can lies at the end of every block, (trust me I've yelled at them), and you've got this huge Sunoco plant at the crux of South West Philadelphia. On a clear day, you can smell unpleasant wafts of sulfur blowing from the south, and if you've spent the weekend away and roll your window down once you're about to cross the Ben Franklin Bridge, well, the stench of the city just attacks you. No matter, I do what I can. Last night, before I went to sleep, I take a look out the window, down the sidewalk, at our trash lined up for pick up today. My bag of plastics for recycling seems to be missing! "How odd" I thought, and lay down to sleep. It was a windy night, and moments later I hear plastic bottles rattling through the streets. I look out the window once more and guiltily spy all my recycling blowing all through the streets of Philadelphia in a wild wind storm. I'll tell you, I was kind of upset about it, my city is so filthy as it is, and no wonder. Wouldn't you know, this morning as I was going to work and bringing back in my recycling bucket, there was, what looked like, a pile of piss welled up inside!? Oh Philly how I love thee. I only hope it was dog piss, but you never know, and that would be one tall dog to reach the top of that container. That is a new one. Who would do such a thing, really?

Diet restrictions lead to love

When I read this article, I thought about, with great disgust, all the meat-eaters I dated before I found my one true love, who also happened to be a vegan. Thank god! Food is for sharing. It makes life that much sweeter.
However, one of the women featured in the article is celiac, and by the end she's eating offal and foie gras. We all know how terrible foie gras is, but what is offal? Offal is the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. Awful is more like it. Read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/dining/13incompatible.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087&em&en=a41dd0de79221f23&ex=1203051600

I love this article double because it uses the word "vegangelical". I will be stealing that, though I have to add that this habit Americans have of running words together to create a new mega-word is becoming tiresome, and we have no one to blame for that but Rachel Ray.

The Demise of Pop Culture

OK, let's talk about the Grammy Awards. Last night I flipped through and ended up watching Fergie's performance with John Legend. How do these duets, these match-ups occur? Legend has talent, actually, but he was overshadowed by that drag queen Fergie and her horrible voice. Let's talk about Fergie. She started out, like Britney, on a dance show for kids, in Canada. Fergie quickly went from child star to meth addict. She was later picked up by the Black-Eyed Peas, who needed a girl to increase album sales, and was known for booty dancing and an occasional "hoot hoot" or back-up refrain. Suddenly, a la Gwen Stefani, Fergie also has a solo album that is aimed at 12 year old girls. Where did we make that jump, where in her career did Fergie think she was able to make a solo album with that croaking voice and her inane lyrics? What lemmings actually thought it was good? Good enough to merit a spot on the Grammy stage? That's the problem folks. Americans eat whatever is thrown at them, whether it tastes good or not. You get my point? Fergie should not have been on that stage last night, in a gown, trying to sing, and with John Legend no less. And to top it all off, she's not hot. She's just not.
In other embarassing Grammy news, Amy Winehouse won a bunch of awards. why? Dunno, couldn't tell you. She has the voice of a dying cow, her eyes were glazed over like a feelingless soul and her music, well...is it really music? My cat could have done a better job. There is nothing there, no talent, nothing new. No reason as to why she should have won awards. Who makes these decisions anyways.

Hip Hop died last night on that stage when Will I. Am came out wearing a Liberace suit and started singing Frank Sinatra. I could literally see Tupac, Biggie, Old Dirty Bastard and Eazy E rolling over in their graves, clutching their eyes and holding their ears.

What a grand ole disappointment, as usual.

London loves cats!

Demolition crews at the site of the 2012 Olympics in London have rescued over 160 feral cats from the site. They have placed them all in a shelter. Something nice in the news, for a change.
http://http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080208/od_nm/london_cats_dc_1

Censorship and the media

Those who followed my blog on Myspace are familiar with my fond alliance with the First Amendment. Also a librarian and voracious reader, I wonder what my life would be like if I where never to have been allowed to read Henry Miller or Catcher in the Rye. Censorship still goes on today and it is very real. Not too long ago, shock jocks Opie and Anthony were suspended off Free FM (what??) and Imus was temporarily fired for his "racial slur" over the summer. We are a hyper-senstive society ready to sue and attack at the slighest ruffling of feathers.

This week in censorship: David Shuster from MSNBC gets suspended after making a comment that the Clintons "pimped out" their daughter Chelsea to campaign for Hilary. Two little words...First of all, I believe he was well within his right to speak his opinion; the Clintons should have just acted duck-like and let that wash right off their backs. Second of all, the powers that be at MSNBC are spineless tools for suspending Shuster. I'm having a hard time accepting this. We live in a mediatocracy where real opinions and real events are shadowed by the FCC and whether we might hurt someone feelings. Come on. Get spines people, (er...clintons) and show we can rise above insults, not be hampered by them.
Insulted or not, the point is that we are a species of varied opinions. We are humans trying to fight against a uni-lateral society of one thought one idea one mind.

healthy eating and guilt on Top TV shows

Anthony Bourdain, who is famous for his self-professed dislike of vegetarians, had a moment last week on his trip to the Greek Islands. Having to take part in a sacrificial ceremony of the senseless slaughter of an adorable sheep for food even had Anthony wishing for a veggie burger. See, he had befriended the little lamb unbeknownst that it would soon be slaughtered. I had a hard time watching most of it, but he had an even more difficult time chewing, swallowing and digesting. I know I'm not alone in the theory, if you can't kill it you shouldn't be eating it. Anthony, maybe it's time to change your evil ways...

One of my new favorite shows, "Breaking Bad" on AMC, stars the father from Malcolm in the Middle, as a high-school chemistry teacher who discovers he has terminal lung cancer and as a source of a second income to save his family, unbeknownst to them, starts up a mobile Meth-lab in an RV with a former pupil and high-school drop-out. I know, what a premise! One of the first scenes, the family eats and has a discussion about vegetarian bacon for breakfast because it has no cholesteral. Of course it is met with the typical negative fanfare from the carnivoric cast, but hey, we are making waves with this whole vegetarian diet thing. One day at a time, but progress is progress.

Please Don't Eat Me

Yesterday I had a little extra time and a lot of imagination. Vegetables have feelings too.