marksism

I don’t typically enjoy blogging about things like that, but I am asked frequently why I am a vegetarian, and I wouldn’t mind being able to give out a URL. So, I have several reasons, and you’ll have to forgive my occasionally referring to other sources. As an academic, it is my habit to try to cite what I claim. I will also admit that I go a lot further than some in my beliefs.

For example, I occasionally wonder if animals weren’t put on Earth with us as a test, to see how we would treat them, to see if we would kill them because we could. Humans aren’t like other animals, right? We have the ability to formulate complex moral arguments, and often deem it inappropriate in other contexts to give into our basest instincts, right?

1.  An (ideal) vegetarian diet is healthier. This is, at this point, indisputable, backed up by numerous scientific studies. This doesn’t mean that all vegetarian diets are healthier than all diets that include meat. To be healthier, the vegetarian diet must include fresh fruit and veggies and not be mostly foods like refined carbs and processed vegetarian frozen meals. I myself don’t eat enough fresh produce, so I cannot currently feign some sort of dietary superiority. I highly recommend for -any- diet, veg or otherwise, the book: Eat to Live. I am only halfway through it and it’s already changed the way I think about nutrition. (Also visit the author’s website.) The bottom line- a healthy vegetarian diet is superior to a healthy diet that also includes meat.

2. The ethical argument- purely subjective, but for me it’s important. I like the term used in yoga- ahisma (non-harming). I try to do as little harm as possible to people, the earth, and to animals (and often fail). Animals feel pain. They suffer. I couldn’t handle an animal being killed in my presence, so it seems highly disingenuous to have someone else do it for me, and to try not to think about it while I eat. It genuinely upsets me to think about animals being slaughtered, and I realize that this is not the case for many people and therefore not a compelling aspect of the argument to them. I look at meat, I see death. I despise attempts by people to trivialize the intelligence and feelings of animals.

Incidentally, the argument that plants have been shown to feel pain HAS been made to me, but we all have to draw our own lines where we’re comfortable, and I draw mine at lifeforms that I know to be sentient (demonstrably, perceptibly so.)

3. Part of ahisma is the eco-argument (i.e. trying not to harm the earth) - vegetarian diets are simply better for the earth. We devote a lot of resources to producing feed for livestock. Livestock produce methane and toxic farm run-off. The land we devote to raising meat-animals and their food could be more renewably devoted to growing crops. Meat-heavy diets are simply resource intensive. (Some great info, regardless of what you think of PETA, on http://www.goveg.com/theissues.asp ).

4. The meat industry in this country- as much as people fall back on the idea that eating meat is natural for humans, the majority of the meat eaten by Americans comes from farms that use highly unnatural processes to change the shape, size, and fertility of their livestock. And they are not killed in kind ways, as swiftly and as painlessly as possible. Most live miserable, pain-filled lives filled with massive amounts of human tinkering. And regulation of products that claim to be “free range” or “cage free” is still not great. It’s important even for vegetarians to take an interest in improving the oversight of these standards. They aren’t the solution that works for me personally, but it’s at least a productive step within our meat-obsessed culture.

5. I don’t like meat. I haven’t since I was little. Ask my mom. I never understood the appeal, beyond that of heavily processed chicken products. And I can get the equivalent of those in veg. form. Fake meat doesn’t bother me as much, because I find the texture more palatable, but I’d still rather eat tofu and tempeh. Most Americans simply don’t know how to cook or eat without meat and don’t get how tasty vegetarian food can be. Believe me, I find a bowl of plain steamed vegetables as bland as the next person, and I am still learning how to make a decent salad.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but this’ll get me started. I’ll also add that I don’t get the “we were meant to eat meat, it’s the natural way of things” argument. Since when do we defer to the “natural order of things”? We live highly, highly engineered, artificial lives. Vaccinations aren’t natural, central air isn’t natural, wheelchairs aren’t natural (okay… before I get too hyperbolic, this argument just seems like such bunk to me….)

Filed under:
food by lisbet

Okay, I have a bit of a shy favor to ask. Years ago at this point, gosh…. 6 years ago… I wrote 2 children’s stories. I just found them again while sorting through the files on my computer. I’d love anyone with picture-book aged children to test the stories out on, to see what works, what doesn’t, what bores the kids, etc. These are just Word text files, so there’s nothing visual there to help make them fun, for now.

So yes, looking for volunteers here to “test” one or both on their kid(s).

And hey, if you know a children’s book publisher or agent… I suppose it never hurts to ask!

Filed under:
projects by lisbet

Okay, so Texas is flat. And it’s in the South for peet’s sake, but I’m excited about moving there. It’s not just the change of scenery - moving from Rhode Island, to Illinois, to Texas will be three very different experiences. (And I love travel and living in different parts of the country.) It’s that… I am being fairly consistently pleasantly surprised by the city.

I get one response from almost everyone I know when I mention moving to Texas- sympathy, as though I’m going to agree with them that it sucks and I’m being dragged down to the evil red south kicking and screaming. People tell me I’ll never be able to eat out (I’m a vegetarian). They tell me I’ll be fed up with the people there quickly, and that Houston is hideous. And they ask sympathetically how long I’ll have to stay.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was making jokes about Texas not a week before deciding to move there. I had an hour stopover in the Dallas airport, and during the week prior to that trip I got in several jokes about counting cowboy hats and dodging oil tycoons. And I did see cowboy hats, much to my delight (8, I counted). Before that, my sense of TX came from King of the Hill, and a business trip my husband had taken a couple of years ago which was mostly filled with giant servings of meat and industrial wasteland scenery.

When we went to visit, to house shop we were both a bit surprised at the urban sprawl and the, well, industrial wastelandness of a lot of it, but the thing about Houston is that it’s HUGE. It’s the size of my former home state, Rhode Island. And that vastness means a lot of variety. To my surprise, we lunched at an adorable restaurant with a Lord of the Rings theme one day (The Hobbit Cafe), and a bakery/cafe the next- both of which served me the most tasty vegan sandwiches I’ve had in a long time. The avocados were amazing! (One day we also had a brunch of tater tots and bubble tea, which is fully odd, but the tater tots were the best we’ve ever had! Weird, right?’) Our dinners were Mexican both nights because, c’mon, it’s Texas, and on the first night after I ordered a vegetarian enchilada dish the server asked me if I’d like the beans that came with it to be vegetarian as well.

Everything hippie I search on in Houston is there- several Kundalini yoga studios (there’s only one in Chicago). Hippie furniture shops. A few Whole Foods’ (WF actually was born in TX). Independent coffee and tea shops, Ayurvedic medicine centers. A holistic vet. Dog parks galore with separate areas for small dogs like ours. Dog groomers who use only healthy products, green home construction and supply companies, etc. It’s all there because… Houston is enormous. It’s also a city, and filled with tatooted, pierced, green haired people like any other city.

The downside of its size is that it’s a driving city, but I’ll be un-eco friendly for a moment and say that I actually like driving when traffic isn’t bad. I like the control over when I leave and how directly I go from point x to point y. Don’t get me wrong, I will miss a comprehensive public transit system, but I’ll adapt. Providence was the same way, although obviously there’s a vast difference in distance.

So yeah, northern friends. I am not moving to an oil field or a cattle ranch. Having my decision come down to California, Texas, or Minnesota at the last minute felt odd- and I liked the Twin Cities but wasn’t looking forward to the cold. Houston will be absurdly hot in the summer, but I will be traveling a bit during the summers and when I’m not, I’ll keep my eye on the pleasant majority of the year. After Chicago, it’ll be an enormous weather relief.

Filed under:
Houston, travel by lisbet

Back from Minneapolis (but not St. Paul- we never made it over there). I present to you some low quality iPhone photos (my digital camera finally gave out and we cannot afford a new camera just yet. I crave an SLR of some sort with a macro lense).

Our hotel room - one curved wall of windows and a really comfy king sized bed. We enjoyed it!

This was our view. This photo doesn’t really do it justice. We both stared out the window a lot.

We had a bunch of time to kill, so we went to the Mall of America (it was relatively near the airport). There was an amusement part inside, and an aquarium. Most of the stores were relatively typical. I was surprised that it didn’t feel big enough to be one of the largest in North America.

We go to Rock Bottom in Chicago constantly, as it’s next door to J’s brother’s apartment building. They have awesome beer. There’s a location in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, surprisingly enough.

Filed under:
travel by lisbet

I wrote a post painstakingly on my iPhone yesterday, from the bus, but couldn’t figure out how to post it to the blog. When I came home and checked on the product page’s website I noticed there was a software update. After running it, I can no longer open the app on my iPhone without it crashing. So much for that entry (until a patch comes out).

In other news, I had some leftover henna, so even though I applied it on Friday there’s no harm in applying it today too. Henna is lovely that way

I am drinking Tea Gschwendner’s Pink Grapefruit green tea, which will be amazing iced but is shockingly good warm (I typically am not keen on the taste of grapefruit, but this flavor is crisp and only slightly tart. I am also typically disappointed in flavored teas, but like this one.)

Ok, I need to do a lot of grading.

Filed under:
misc by lisbet

Just back from Japanese class, but I’m not feeling very well today so most of what we learned went in one ear, out the other as I sat, chugging water.

I have been reflecting on how much I sabatoge myself. I suppose we’re all our own worst enemies to some extent, but one aspect of my personality causes me more grief than anything else- my competitive/ jealous side. It’s hard to not stimulate that aspect of my personality while in academia, and certainly being competitive has its upsides too. But things that make me happy when I am isolated suddenly seem insufficient when I am able to compare them to what others have.

My kryptonite has been graduate school admissions. I seem to be terrible at putting together representitive applications for myself. I do well when I am able to make a personal connection with someone, but terrible when I must be represented on paper. Hopefully with proper mentorship in the future I can address this problem. More important though, is to address my tendency to feel jealous of other people. I don’t know how to do this.

As a total aside, I bought some of the LUSH henna and am going to try to dye my hair with henna again. As it turns out, even the Aveda hair dye contains some really awful “10 out of 10 on the dangerous chart” ingredients. I’m not a big fan of companies that tout their safety and natural ingredients whose stuff is still … full of crap. So, henna it is. I do have a lot of grey and I think covering it would do a bit to raise my low spirits.

It does occur to me that blogging this way means no safety of the LJ “locked posts” feature, but I intend to stick to fairly innocuous topics anyway.

Am going to Minnesota next week and am excited about getting to stay in a hotel with my beloved husband.

Ok, off to go buy an onion on my way home- a caramelized onion and black olive pizza is in the cards.

Filed under:
ramblings by lisbet

When I was a kid, I used to have these moments where I’d stop and think to myself “Right now, I am blissfully happy.” They were moments when all was right with the world, when I felt nothing but pure happiness. Sometimes now I am still struck by these moments, but it doesn’t happen often when one is waiting for graduate school admission results. Instead I have these moments where I forget, and moments where the weight settles back on my shoulders.

I have three outstanding options. One is a school I am accepted into, the others I just don’t know about yet. I’ve dismissed the waitlisted option. Sorry, TX school. You lost part of my application and turned me off from your department. The fact that I felt only annoyance when I read the email asking me where my statement of purpose was, after you’d told me in January that my application was complete, that told me I shouldn’t attend your school.

Lately, I’ve been loving watching movies, and DVD compilations of the TV series “Scrubs“. We watched Grizzly Man earlier today and saw a man romanticize his relationship with the bears who later ate him. I kind of wished they’d had footage of him getting eaten because I wanted to see what a person being eaten by a bear really looked like. I say that now, but I’d probably freak out if they’d shown it.

So, our realtor in Minneapolis, who knows we won’t be moving there if either of my two outstanding offers pan out, just sent 31 houses in our price range for us to browse online. We can buy enormous houses for what we pay in rent in Chicago. It’s a bit shocking. Some of them were like…4 bedroom, 4 bath, finished basement barns! I don’t want that. More house means more stuff needed to fill it. I’ll reserve judgment until I’m standing in a space, but our current apartment is only 600 square feet (and too small for us, I’ll concede, by a lot).

Looking at houses is so odd. As a newbie to the idea of home ownership it’s a bit thrilling. My own yard? Sure! I’d like to roll around in my own grass like a happy pig rutting in a pigpen, or my dog London rolling in his dog bed.

Anyway, this is my first non- LJ blog entry, but I’ve been keeping a blog since 1999. I just needed a fresh start.

Filed under:
academia, ramblings by lisbet