4 days, and no meat or animal products

Published on December 29, 2011 in Vegan. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I think this is a record for me. I haven’t had any meat, dairy, or eggs since Christmas day. I felt like crap the first couple of days, but now I feel great. The hunger and crankiness has all but dissipated, and I have a lot of energy. I’ve even dropped over five pounds since Christmas. I really hope I’m able to sustain this

I think what pushed me over the vegan edge was watching the documentary, Earthlings. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever watched. The level of cruelty that we inflict on the other species of this planet is unimaginable. It’s bad enough that we kill and eat other animals (when there’s not really a nutritional need to), but we force them to live in Hell every second of their short lives. Watch it if you can, it is graphic.

Being a Vegan Superhero, and my Youtube Channel

Published on December 20, 2011 in A Day in the Life, Vegan, What I'm Reading and Youtube. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Today marks another day of mixed success on my journey to become a Vegan Superhero. I started out the day ok. I made myself a smoothie consisting of spinach, bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. It actually tasted pretty good. Anyway, things were going well until lunch time. For some unholy reason, everybody at work decided to bring in candy and other junk food to celebrate Christmas. Of course I could have just said, “Bah, humbug!” and ate my organic, plant-based lunch, but I didn’t. I was weak, and partook of their accursed food. Man, and I was doing so good too.

I’m still reading ‘The China Study.’ It’s an amazing book that’s loaded with information. I’m pretty much sold on the vegan way of eating. I just hope I can make the change. I grew up on Happy Meals, so if I can do it – anyone can.

Nothing else eventful is really happening right now. Still trying to find time to make some videos for my Youtube channel. I’ll probably be getting back into that after Christmas. I’ve been thinking about changing the direction of my channel to make it more about humanist values, health, tolerance, and less about me whining about Christianity. I watched some of my old videos, and I felt like slapping myself. It seems like all I ever did was bitch about religion. I’m surprised I have any subscribers at all. Things need to change there, and they will

 

The Cove, a dolphin’s Hell

Published on December 16, 2011 in Rants and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I’ve always loved dolphins. I’ve never had the opportunity to see one up close, but I’ve always had a desire to travel wherever they are, just to be near them, and maybe interact with them. They are a remarkable species; incredibly intelligent, gentle, and full of life. They are like living art as they glide through the water, traveling upwards of a hundred miles a day. Research has shown that these magnificent creatures may be just as intelligent, perhaps even more so than our selves. They use a sophisticated language that we are only now just  beginning to understand and appreciate. They live in complex social communities. They love their children just as we love ours. And they are often as curious of us as we are of them. Human history is filled with accounts of dolphins rescuing people at sea, and even placing themselves in harm’s way to protect us from predators. Indeed, they are one of the few species on planet earth that we could form a wonderful, equal, and meaningful relationship with.

Tonight Denice and I watch the documentary, The Cove. My stomach is still turning from watching the horrific violence that is done every year to the dolphins in Taiji, Japan. They are herded from their home in the ocean into a tiny cove, where they are brutally slaughtered by the thousands. They are butchered live common livestock. In once scene a baby dolphin desperately tries to fling itself onto the rocks, to escape the fishermen’s spears. This is so wrong! These creature should not be treated like this. I’m sorry, but dolphins are beautiful creatures, and they don’t deserve this. The future will judge this generation for allowing such barbarism to go on.

The few “lucky” dolphins that are chosen to escape the bloodbath are the ones that are sold into virtual slavery. They are the ones that are forced to perform for us at Sea World, or places where people go to ‘swim with the dolphins.’ I had no idea this is how these dolphins were obtained. Denice and I had ‘swimming with the dolphins’ on our unwritten bucket lists, but after watching this I WILL NEVER TAKE PART in this sick industry. If I ever get to see a dolphin or be close to one it will be on their turf, where we are both free, or not at all!

The China Study

Published on December 15, 2011 in Science, Vegan and What I'm Reading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I just started reading Dr. T. Collin Campbell’s book, ‘The China Study.’ The book is based on a twenty year scientific study of the nutritional habits and health consequences of 6,500 people in mainland China and Taiwan. I’m already loving this book because it’s full of real science, and as we all know… science cuts through the bullshit.

In related news, Denice and I have started juicing again. We’re doing one green juice in the mornings, but I hope to jack that up to doing juice for breakfast and lunch. Of course, the goal of all this is to obtain immortality, which will afford us the time to leverage our knowledge and experience to… take over the world. ((EVIL LAUGHTER)).  Bow before us, you flesh-eating swine!

Seriously, we are attempting some pretty radical changes, and only time will tell if it will all work the way we think it will. Stay tuned.

No texting while driving laws are a joke

Published on December 13, 2011 in In the News, Rants and Technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Texting while driving… yes, it’s a problem. It’s something I have done, and I’d be willing to bet that you’ve probably done. We know it’s dangerous, but we do it anyway. This is one of the big weaknesses of mankind. We tend to overestimate our abilities, and sometimes with lethal consequences. Of course, instead of admitting our weaknesses and making common sense accommodations for them, we pretend we don’t have them, and then enact laws to punish ourselves for doing things that we really can’t help.

Our cellphone technology is at a place where they could easily be reprogrammed to simply not work, or at least not text when they are traveling faster than a certain speed. The GPS technology that can allow a phone or other mobile device to know exactly how fast it is moving is already there. All it would take is a download of a modified firmware, and wallah… your phone won’t send or received texts while you are driving. If you want to use it, then you will have to pull over. Or, even better, cars could be engineered to drive themselves, then you could talk or text all you wanted. If you take the human being out of the equation, then you take human error out of the equation.

People are going to keep texting while drive regardless of how many laws are passed against the practice. Laws get broken. This problem could be completely eliminated overnight with the intelligent application of existing technology. But, I know you’re probably thing, “That sound Orwellian. What about freedom!” Ah, freedom… I love it. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but like all good things it has a dark side. If freedom is absolute, then your neighbor has the freedom to not properly maintain his vehicle. One day he’s out driving his beater and the brakes fail. Guess what… his freedom to not maintain his shit mean you die. Does that sound like freedom? It sounds like stupidity to me. Let’s face it, there are some things that we suck at, and following vital safety practices is one of them. If we engineer our machines so that it is impossible to abuse them and endanger ourselves, then things will be better, not worse.

Ideally, I would love to live in a world where personal vehicle travel would be greatly reduced. Having machines cart us around everywhere is not healthy. It’s one of the big reasons why so many people are out of shape and unhealthy. You have two legs, use them every once in a while. Trust me, you’ll feel better.

 

 

Being Invisible

Published on December 11, 2011 in A Day in the Life and Religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Today at church we had a visit from one of the bishops of the A.M.E. Zion Church. He was your usual bishopy type guy, distinguished and well spoken. I had the idea (which I thought better of) to stand in front of him and say, “Mr. Bishop, I know your weakness. As long as I don’t get at a forty-five degree angle from you, you can’t attack me!” After listening to the guy, I’m sorry I didn’t do it. I think he would have probably gotten it, and thought it was funny.

The sermon he was preaching was, believe it or not, based on the classic novel by H.G. Wells, ‘The Invisible Man.’ I was actually not even paying attention to what he was saying until he mentioned Wells, who is one of my favorite authors. He was using Griffin, the invisible man from Well’s novel as a parallel to Joseph, from the Bible. In the New Testament, Joseph was the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. He is only mentioned a handful of times in the gospels, and because of this the Bishop likened him to an invisible man of sorts, who played a big roll, but was not really in the spotlight. It made sense I guess, but it did get a little awkward when he started talking about how the “black man” has been made invisible in “white society.” (Oh, for those of you who don’t know, Denice and I go to a self-proclaimed “black church.”) There were a few pale-skinned people besides us visiting that day, and I wondered if they felt uncomfortable during this part of the sermon. If they did, they didn’t show it.

I don’t consider myself a “white man.” I don’t claim membership in any race. In fact, I reject the whole concept of  ’race.’ As long as we divide ourselves by something as frivolous as the amount of pigment in our epidermis, we will never be one people. And as long as we hold onto our individual cultures, we will always be a slave to the limitations and prejudices that come along with them. At some point we are going to have to stop being black people, white people, yellow people, and red people; and just start being… people.

In H.G. Wells novel, Griffin’s invisibility slowly caused him to lose his humanity. I don’t mean to get all Avatarish on you, but to all my darker skinned brothers and sisters at church… I see you. You are not invisible anymore, at least not to me.

 

He’s Rick Perry, what exactly were you expecting?

Published on December 9, 2011 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve been watching the backlash on Twitter from Gov. Rick Perry’s latest gay bashing political ad, ‘Strong.’ I only read a few hundred comments, but out of that I didn’t see a single positive one. the comments that I thought were really amusing were the ones that say something like, “Gov. Perry, I’m very disappointed in you. You are running for president, so you really need to get your act together.”

My friends, he’s a politician. What did you expect? He’s playing the numbers, and trying to gain support from his Evangelical Christian base. He will say anything to move himself closer to the end of getting elected. Most politicians are sociopaths. To expect them to be honest and moral is like expecting a gangbanger to start helping old ladies across the street.

Oh, and I just noticed that his ad now has nearly a half-million dislikes to just a few thousand likes on Youtube. I think that’s some kind of record.

 

I’m sorry, but your Vote really doesn’t count

Published on December 8, 2011 in Rants and Youtube. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I’m on vacation today, so I actually had time to put together a little Youtube video. It’s about politics, or the ineptness of the political system rather. The problems of our society are technical, not political, and they will only be solved once we liberate ourselves from the obsolete and primitive system that we call politics. We don’t lead leaders, we don’t need alphas… we need to grow up, and take control of our destiny. Hope you like it!

 

Your Xmas presents are going to end up in a landfill

Published on December 5, 2011 in Rants. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I am trying really hard to word this post so that I don’t sound like Ebenezer Scrooge. I like getting gifts, and I enjoy giving them even more. In fact, I believe in sharing and giving as a way of life. So don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. The good will and giving spirit of humanity is one of our best traits, but the corporations and marketing industry have perverted this wholesome attribute. Let me explain.

Today at work we had our yearly Angel Tree event. The Angel Tree is a Christmas tree that has a lot of cards attached to it with the names and wishes of local underprivileged children. People take a card, and buy whatever the child wants for Christmas. Seems good enough. However, as I stood there and marveled at the mountains of Walmart bags, it suddenly dawned on me… most of this stuff (if not all of it) was made in China by people who work at near slave labor wages. Hell, a lot of these little plastic trinkets were probably manufactured by children working in sweatshops. We purchase this stuff with little thought of where it comes from, and certainly no thought of where it will ultimately end up. Not only are these “toys” the fruits of suffering on the other side of the planet, but they are also going to be completely wasted in the end, and be added to the unfathomable hoards of trash in a landfill somewhere. No one recycles this shit… no one.

When I was a kid, I begged my parents for whatever useless piece of shit that the marketing industry was pushing at the time. GI Joes, Tonka Trucks, and Transformers were all the rage when I was growing up. I begged and pleaded, and I even wrote letters to the fat man at the North Pole. In the end, I usually got what I wanted, but did I every really want it? Looking back on this time in my life I can honestly say that I don’t think the desire to have this junk every really originated with me. I was programmed. I was a little purchasing machine… a tool that could easily be programmed to drive my parents crazy until they gave in and got me what I was crying for, but I never really ‘wanted’ the stuff. I played with the toys for a short season, grew tired of them, and now they are sitting in a landfill somewhere – poisoning the earth.

We are all trapped in this twisted game of cyclical consumption. We work and slave to buy things that we don’t need and don’t even really want. We only want the stuff because the marketing industry tells us that we have to have it. So, we but it, but it doesn’t last. Nothing can actually ‘last’ in this system. If it lasts, then we won’t need to buy the next useless piece of junk that is pumped out by the Chinese junk machine. No, it must fall apart (usually by design) or be made obsolete. It has to be this way because if it isn’t then the whole system would collapse. We have made our dwelling on top of a house of cards that is trembling beneath us.

I’m not saying don’t celebrate Christmas. Do what you want to do. I just want you to be aware of the true cost of all this mindless consumerism. I want you to know that while you are trampling over people to get your copy of Call of Duty 3 at Walmart… about a billion of your fellow human beings are on the brink of starvation, and are going to go to bed tonight without the basic necessities of life. If you want to get the Christmas spirit and really get into the giving moode… then we have some real work that needs to be done.

Bah Humbug! (Just kidding)

 

Striking the Root

Published on December 3, 2011 in In the News, Philosophy and Youtube. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I just got through watching this ten minute video of Peter Joseph being interviewed on Russia Today about the current social and economic problems that we are all facing. As always, Peter cuts straight through to the root of the problem – the inherent flaws in our social and economic systems. As I always say, when the rules of the game are screwed up, no one wins.

Peter Joseph is the creator of the Zeitgeist film series and the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement. The goal of the Zeitgeist Movement is to bring awareness to the fundamental flaws in our thinking that have brought us to the bleak place that we now find ourselves in. Most people just live in the paradigm that we are in and seldom think about the possibility of a better way. Like in the movie The Matrix: we get up, go to work, pay our taxes, buy lots of junk, and repeat the process tomorrow. The only problem is that this system has brought us to the point that we are about to run out of ‘tomorrows.’ The economic paradigm of infinite growth is on a collision course with reality and the very finite natural resources that make our existence possible.

Another interesting thing in the video is when Peter talks about the “1 percenters,” you know… those we call wealth – the ones who push the buttons. Peter says that it is a mistake to demonize them. They are basically just the best players in a twisted game that was already here. Everyone knows you don’t hate the player… you hate the game. I think that is important to understand. It doesn’t really matter how the game got here, it simply needs to be fixed. People can get along, and work together to solve our common problems. We must. Like it or not, we are at a crossroads. Change is coming regardless. We will evolve our culture or we will suffer the consequences.