I know and respect plenty of vegetarians, so I’m really not trying to poke them with a sharp stick here. People are vegetarians for different reasons such as health concerns or animal rights. I agree that there should be guidelines for raising and processing livestock.
The Bible notes that animals are one of God’s special creations, even though they aren’t made in his image as humans are. William Wilberforce, famous for his role in ending the African slave trade, also founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Technically speaking, I’m a vegetarian. Even though I eat plenty of meat, I bought some Bovine-Offset Credits from Al Gore. I’m proud to be living a cattle-neutral lifestyle.
Having said all that, I thought that this article called Eroding The Meatless Moral High Ground made some interesting points.
According to researcher Steven Davis, a professor of animal science at Oregon State University: “Vegan diets are not bloodless diets. Millions of animals die every year to provide products used in vegan diets.” Clearing fields for growing produce displaces entire eco-systems, and agriculture machines like the combine harvester shreds millions of rabbits, mice, pheasants, snakes, birds, and moles annually.
While we’re on the topic . . . I mentioned this in a previous post but thought it was worth repeating for the benefit of any new readers: Weber Grills had a fabulous commercial written up in Forbes magazine years ago. Ironically, they took it off the air because PETA-types complained. I’m not sure why they cared what the animal rights activists thought, as those folks aren’t exactly your target market for barbecue grills (Does C. Montgomery Burns seek advice from the Amish on how to run his nuclear power plant?).
The commercial had several serene scenes of sheep, pigs and cows with a peaceful voice-over noting pleasant things about each animal. The last scene just showed a Weber grill. The tag-line? Farm animals: Let’s eat ‘em!
Filed under: Miscellaneous
I am a farmer, I don’t currently raise any livestock. My youngest son is interested in the cattle business and is feeding some steers.
I am sure there are some exceptions, but I don’t think farm animal abuse is very common. For one thing it does not make sense economically.
I know several things that PETA complains bitterly about were developed by duplicating conditions animals made for themselves when they had the opportunity.
You should think about commercializing those Bovine-Offset credits. It sounds like a real money-maker to me.
Don’t waste any of your advertising budget on me though, I am a long time supporter of People Eating Tasty Animals.
Bovine-Offset Credit – I love it!
My father-in-law ran about 50 head of cattle for about 20 years. I’m sure we didn’t use up all our credits during the time he was farming. Do the credits have an expiration date? Any idea how many I would use in a given year?
I may be in the market for some more credits if you know where I can pick them up cheaply. Otherwise, I’ll just give in and be carniverous.
As a liberal I have to eat lots and lots of lettuce, but it’s pretty good if you put meat and cheese and eggs in with it.
I don’t think PETA knows WHAT they want…but don’t be too hard on them Psychotic Eco Terrorists need to have a social life too…and if they get lonely, they can’t have pets so I guess they have to hang out with each other. Too bad they don’t like people very much. So sad.
Al Gore probably didn’t need those off-set cards…he’s been a hunter since he was a child.
Me too. I prefer knowing that the animals I eat were killed humanely. Plus, venison is delicious and healthier than fatty beef.
Interesting fact: Did you know that Michael Moore is a gun owner, a lifetime member of the NRA, and has won marksmanship awards?
Are those bovine offset credits expensive? We might need to get some
Glad to see someone bringing up the point that vegan diets are not bloodless. I’ve thought of that so many times when I was younger working in the farm fields.
I wish you could find a clip of that Weber grill commercial — it sounds hilarious.
Randy, I hereby grant you a lifetime supply of Bovine-Offset Credits (BOCs). Dig in!
Teresa – thanks for the Moore factoids – he never ceases to amaze me!
Neil,
No problem. I’m not exactly a fan, but I was pretty surprised to hear “Bowling for Columbine” referred to as an “anti-gun screed”. I don’t think the people even watched it, just assumed liberal=anti gun.
Oh, these offsets got Jon and me thinking… I wonder if my Dad could pay off his farm with bovine offsets. Chicken is, after all, the most efficient meat to produce. We could allay all sorts of guilt. I am going to sell exercise offsets, for people who want an extra piece of cake. Perhaps Don Imus could have purchased some bigotry offsets, maybe Rev Jackson should look into some, too… The possibilities are endless!!
I love the Simpsons where Lisa decides to go vegetarian, and they show the meat propaganda film in her class. “I was a grade-A moron for ever questioning eating meat.”
Kelly – ha! Just don’t tell my kids about this process. There is no telling what they would come up with.
Chance – yeah, I love that episode! (OK, I love most of the them, but that is a top-25 all time episode). It had a good Troy McClure video in it.
The other day I made rib-eye stakes for the family. My 14-year-old had a couple of his friends over, and suddenly, six pounts of meat just disappeared.
Grilled rib-eye stakes, a quart and a half of washed and cored strawberries, four peeled oranges, a pound of asperagus and two heads of Romain lettuce…GONE.
Unbelieveable.
I was looking forward to left-overs. Thank goodness for CostCo.
Teresa, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you are talking about boys. My girls eat like birds, except when their ballet friends come over after 3 hrs. of dancing and they scarf down lots of food.
My cousin has a policy when her brothers-in-law come for dinner– she only cooks what she can afford for them to eat that night. Once, she cooked a turkey with the intention of having lots of leftovers– after those boys were finished, she could only use the carcass for stock.
Neil,
My 14-year old is 5′ 11.75″. He is growing our of his size 14 shoes.
My 9-year old is 5′ 4.5″, with men’s size 8 shoes.
And yep, they are both boys. My husband is 6′5″…so they’ve got a lot of growing to do.
Three hours of dance. I did that for three years as a kid. Ballet, Tap and Jazz. My mom put me in to teach me grace and poise. snicker. I danced like a lumberjack.
Martial arts and running are the things for me.
Top Sirloin!
Note to self: Teresa knows martial arts (!)
2nd degree black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu
3rd degree brown belt in Shurin Ryu Karate
Studied breifly (no ranks earned): Shuri-te Karate, Shotokan Karate, Iado and Akido.
But you don’t need to remember any of that…remember, I’m a pacificst. so unless you plan to try to attack me or someone else in a situation where I am in a position to prevent it…you have nothing to worry about.
I teach martial arts and personal safety to kids with mental, physical, emotional or learning disabilities.
“Vegan diets are not bloodless diets. Millions of animals die every year to provide products used in vegan diets.” Clearing fields for growing produce displaces entire eco-systems, and agriculture machines like the combine harvester shreds millions of rabbits, mice, pheasants, snakes, birds, and moles annually.
HUGE eye-roll here. This is about as close to a lie as you can get. It takes 16 pounds of produce to create one pound of meat. So if you get your calories from produce directly, you’re reducing the need to clear fields, displace ecosystems, etc – by a factor of sixteen.
No, it’s not perfect, but it’s an order of magnitude better than eating meat. PETA aside, the myth of the self-righteous vegetarian is just that: a myth made up by people who fear moral judgments. (Kinda like those who think that the pro-abstinence crowd is a bunch of better-than-thou people.)
Rant over. I like to say that I’m pro-choice on the subject of eating meat.
Is the hurray-for-giant-food-corporations crowd over at the Center for Consumer Freedom really citing Steve Davis’s proposal?
Davis published his results in a respectable journal. He was also refuted in that same respectable journal: “Least Harm: A Defense of Vegetarianism from Steven Davis’s Omnivorous Proposal,” in Volume 16, Number 5 / September, 2003 of _Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics_.
Davis miscalculated.
But it’s no surprise that the Center for Consumer Freedom noticed the original article but failed for three-and-a-half years to notice the refutation. They are paid publicity hacks, with no interest in science or evidence if it doesn’t line the pockets of their corporate sponsors.
PS: If you want, Neil, you can have my share of meat… no need to further enrich Al Gore.
(Must say, I LOVE that line of yours!)
Hi Bridget – thanks for the meat rations, the compliment and for the clarifications above. I was hoping you would weigh in with a balanced perspective.
“I’m not sure why they cared what the animal rights activists thought, as those folks aren’t exactly your target market for barbecue grills”
Are you kidding? Grilling asparagus, grilling brussel sprouts, grilling cauliflower, mmmm, my mouth waters at the possibilities.
Thanks, Neil.
Glad to know that my vegetarianism doesn’t disqualify me from being rational. 
FWIW, I really despite PETA and their crowd. I mean, this is the group who thinks that if you don’t like abortion, don’t have one: why not apply the same to meat? If the meat industry is so horrible, there’s no need to resort to violence: the truth will win out.
I’m a free-market vegetarian: if I stop eating meat (and I did before organic meat became common), then the agricultural industry will start to change. Small businesses that make veggie food and organic products will benefit. Free market, small business – yeah, I’m a Republican.
I’m sure that what I said is covered in more detail in the article cited by R. Bass.
Chance: Hey, I own a Foreman that has never seen a single shred of meat but has made some pretty tasty grilled eggplant (to be used either in a from-scratch pasta sauce or between buffalo mozzarella and basil). :p
“I teach martial arts and personal safety to kids with mental, physical, emotional or learning disabilities.”
That sounds very, very cool. I imagine that it does amazing things for the kids.
Bridget, good points about PETA. I think that is one thing most of the regular readers here have in common – a frustration that we are often defined by some extreme folks who really don’t share our views.
Neil,
It does amazing things for me to work with them. Those kids are tremendous.
I wrote about one of them here:
http://www.anomalousdata.com/PermaLink,guid,77bf4b3d-4348-451f-bf35-d48f5d0d507b.aspx
Thank you, Neil.
I do agree that a lot of us are defined by the extremists who not only do not share our views, but take our (rational, thoughtful, sane) views and hijack them for their own ends.
Hitler claimed to be a vegetarian. He did it so that he could align himself with Ghandi and make his cause seem more noble. He hardly defines all vegetarians, pacifists, Germans, or men.
Theobromphile
It may take 16 lbs of produce to produce a lb. of meat, but not many people feed produce to animals.
In fact, when I fed cattle and what my son is doing now, involves feeding forage and corn screenings that are not useable for human consumption.
I do approve of your free market vegetarian idea. My cattle do not get anti-biotics (unless they are sick) or growth hormones. They are not certified organic though, I like to think of it as common sense feeding.
Sunday School Teacher,
Agreed, cattle do not eat red peppers and roasted eggplant. However, the issue was clearing ground for growing vegetarian food. It doesn’t matter WHAT is grown: the issue is that, whether you’re eating meat or vegetables, some ground is cleared for that use. If you eat meat, a lot more ground has to be cleared to grow crops to give to the cattle that are consumed. So it’s silly to argue that veganism or vegetarianism is hypocritical or “not bloodless.”
I do approve of your free market vegetarian idea. My cattle do not get anti-biotics (unless they are sick) or growth hormones. They are not certified organic though, I like to think of it as common sense feeding.
Probably tasty cattle, too.
Neil,
I am amazed by the millions of spins that your posts can take. Sometimes I don’t know exactly where you stand when you reply to individuals but, that’s my perception.
I am not completely orthodox in what people expect, usually because I can speak against the grain(no pun). I do so in a realistic manner and try to point folks beyond their own noses; there is no single way to tell folks to look up, down, left or right. I know my s**t stinks and have no grandiose thoughts.
Anyway, it is fun to read and I am glad there are some folks out there that have some sense. Hey, I am reading their mind dumps, right?
m
Something that nagged at me about the land for feed argument is the fact that millions of buffalo(bison) used to roam the plains region of North American.
When you stop to think that this staggering number of animals never had hormones or other performance drugs administered it is food for thought. They also ate pretty well.
Sure there were a lot of them but, have you ever seen a Yellowstone buffalo? These are supposedly descendants of what was left after the mindless US government (oxymoron?) sponsored19th century buffalo massacres. Those animals are HUGE! A thought I had while there was.. “Where does a 1/2 ton buffalo walk?”
“Anywhere it wants”.
A mini-van is the same size and when I saw the comparison I give it to the buffalo. They walk through campgrounds and if you ever get to meet one face to face you almost salute.
So, if these animals ran wild for countless years and never needed intervention from humans for health, what gives? Buffalo meat is super low in fat content – close to deer – and will live on land that need not be farmed to feed it. That is a win-win situation if some ranchers would cut their “MINE, MINE, MINE!” fences to open up the plains.
That is another peeve of mine – the fencing of the plains. It is not as if it is a sub-development backyard where one keeps dogs and kids; these guys are tight over grazing territory of plots of land cattle may never venture to. 100 miles from the main highway ion a plot where mice, snakes, ants and other critters are the only moving beings there are barbed wire boundary fences. Supposedly to keep the neighbor’s herd out.
There is grazing land for a source of meat healthier than our present day medically enhanced corn fed cattle.
I think far too simple, no?
Hi Michael – thanks for the insights. This was one of those less serious posts, but I was still interested in comments on either side of the article’s points.
michael hill,
Careful, you are venturing dangerously close to putting the health and well-being of the whole society and environment above the personal property rights of the land-owners.
If Ann Coulter hears about this you will be in trouble.
Seriously, you would think it would be in the best interests of the land-owners to form an association or compact for grazing land.
Are you a rancher or involved in the industry some way so that you could propose a solution people would accept? If there is a better way to use the land that would be better for everyone, you would think people could see their own self-interest in it.
Teresa,
Though I have strong roots in Texas and have owned property there I have no way other than hopeful wishing that all of the property owners out in the plains could see this very simple fact as we do.
The buffalo thought is something I still can’t get over. That was a major supply of food for any; Indians or Europeans. Why eradicate it?
I have been to Maine several times and once took a mailboat to one of the outlying islands where the lobster fisherman belonged to co-ops that share everything from bait to income.
That was interesting to watch as I spent a day at their docks. They would have sold me lobster for very little after they became accustomed to me. I declined as I was on bicycle and waiting for another boat to come my way in a few hours.
michaelhill,
I studied this in college for my thesis. The stated purpose of the policy (and I can find you the exact quote if you would like…I would just have to dig out my thesis) is to reduce the native Americans to a small and dependant population so that, if they could not be eradicated, they could be controlled and kept in one place.
The economic independence of many of the Indian nations was tied to the buffalo, as was their migratory habit.
Also germane to this venue was the political desire to unravel their whole society, eliminate their language and religion, and convert them to Christianity. One fundamental step was to eliminate the primary food source that caused them to move around so they would stay in one place and be reliant on the federal government. Then, they would sit still and listen to the missionaries and the school teachers.
Teresa,
I laffed out loud reading your reply as it is demonstrative of the entire US federal government policy since the civil war.
I am quite aware of the subject manner of which your wrote your thesis; I was taken by it when I lived in Texas as the public schools there taught Texas history as well as US. Not so here in MD.
I chose to further my own eduction independently and the results pain me worse than that of the slavery in this nation that was in the midst of abolition while the American Indians were basically facing genocide.
The indigent tribes were not giving up their lives to the settlers that were moving west and in many cases wiped out entire companies of wagon trains. I see no fault on their behalf as we, as Americans, act the same no matter where we go. I refer to it as one aspect of ugly Americanism.
This, your last paragraph, is eternal American doctrine, no?
“Also germane to this venue was the political desire to unravel their whole society, eliminate their language and religion, and convert them to Christianity. One fundamental step was to eliminate the primary food source that caused them to move around so they would stay in one place and be reliant on the federal government. Then, they would sit still and listen to the missionaries and the school teachers.”
We are attempting to unravel the whole of society in Iraq and Afghanistan at present.
Concerning black slaves in the past – We succeeded in our attempt to “eliminate their language and religion, and convert them to Christianity.” We almost got them to “be reliant on the federal government” and we have those that complain about welfare now.
No one points it out in newspapers or news programs but, the largest welfare states that this country supports are on foreign soil. There, too, we have sent missionaries to “eliminate their language and religion, and convert them to Christianity”. Though it may not have US government printed on it, the funds come from somewhere.
The real irony? Now that we are a nation that actually needs those buffalo as a safe food source we can only look back roughly 130 years and kick ourselves.
It was and will continue to be the folly of man to doom ourselves. We covet, steal, kill and slander just as the bible says not to.
Michael Hill,
Why or why didn’t I know you fifteen years ago? You could have written my thesis for me.
Teresa,
First explain “Why or why didn’t I know you fifteen years ago?” Were the first two words a typo or… was the “r” in “or” a typo and your intent poetic rather than prose? In that manner it would have been “Why oh why didn’t I know you fifteen years ago?
LOL!
The scary thing about most of my conclusions is I do it without trying to over analyze anything. I learned to THINK at an early age.
People forget to use the gray matter behind their eyes and rely on what “THEY” say; you must hear that as often as I.
I look at the facts of what happened or is happening and apply simple logic. The truth is naked.
I look at the contents of the bible in the same manner. One of my questions people can’t answer – “Can you imagine what state mankind would be in if Jesus had never been born?” Our whole of modern existence is tempered by Christianity. The Torah wasn’t enough; God knew mankind needed something very tangible to carry us through for another couple thousand years and He did so quite effectively. I point to psalm 150 for my favorite of the old testament.
BTW – 11 years ago I had surgery that laid me up for 6 weeks. My girlfriend was working full time as well as trying to carry a full load at college. She would come over and see me on my sofa watching television and one day decided that since I blew through all of my college writing classes I could write her English 101 papers, much in the tone you used. *DEJA*VU*
I was initially opposed to it and I explained to her that her professor would know very well she did not write them if he took the time to talk to her. (My professors had conferences with me because I just wrote and didn’t follow their protocol of outlines and whatnot. As one said…”WHY NOT?!!”)
Since I was laid up and I knew she had other classes that were tough I relented and “cheated” for her. I made her sit with me for a while and take note of what I was doing and she strongly objected to my writing. All she had was the standard definitive, descriptive, research and so on and each was a professor preselected topic. I had fun as I could make up whatever I wanted and get rather outrageous at times. I hoped her prof didn’t pull her to one side and ask because I could, and still can, spin a yarn that would have to be explained. I do it for my nephew and fixate him. He tries to keep up but since he is 11 it gets juvenile and the topic erodes.
Her objections were that I was too outrageous. I invented corporations that manufactured and sold sunglasses with crazy designer names – after she read them she would split her side laughing and was happy.
Oh…WE aced the class.
Michael hill,
You are correct, it was “why oh why?”
And of course it was a poetic suggestion that you could have written my thesis. I found it too rewarding digging into the topic to give it over to someone else. I also “aced” the class!
I am not so much one of those who expects the people of the past to have known about how their actions would affect the future. I assume that they were doing the best they could in the world they had. Some people believed they were “helping” indian kids by taking them from their families and forceing them to learn a new language and new religion and trying to wipe out their culture.
Judging the past by our own standards seems foolish, because we would not be where we are if we did not have a past to build on. Expecting our ancestors to measure up to us is silly.
Still, I find it remarkable when people expect other groups to “get over” stuff like attempted genocied and generations of slavery. That takes generations, and some will “get over it” more quickly than others.
My great grandmother died when I was 15. Seh was ove 100 years old. She was born in the late 1800’s. She personally knew people who had been slaves, people who had woned slaves, and people who had fought to free the slaves.
That’s only two degrees of Kevin Bacon away from slavery (and instiution designed to turn human beings into animals). And the attempt to kill off the Native American peoples, or render then completely unable to care for themselves.
Whatever conclusions or judgements we might want to pass on our predecessors, or justifications we might want to make for them, they had a plan, they took actions, and we are dealing with the results.
Another truth that the writer’s of the Bible observed, but it is a natural law, that actions have consequences.
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
–Exodus 34: 6,7
That’s not the usual purpose it is quoted for, but it works for this as well.
Sorry, another typo…my great gandmother died when I was 25
Hey Teresa,
No big deal. I was sharp to catch the first one because it seemed to have a flow to it that got snagged. Read and Write enough of it and like anything, you pick it up.
As far as grandparents – my mother’s father died before she was married. He was the first of his family to be born in this country after coming from Sweden.
My father’s parents divorced when he was very young. After he married my mother, they popped us out in proper catholic fashion and I only met his mother until I was a bit older. We met his dad, our grandfather, when we went to visit my father’s grandparents; two wee little people that came here from Ireland in the late 19th century. I am 2nd generation American on my mom’s side and 3rd on my dad’s. All of this happened in the mixing bowl of KC where I still have a lot of family. I saw my dad’s father but a handful of times so I never knew him at all. I don’t know if my dad did.
My mother’s mother was a rock for our family as we are military brats. We lived with her for months at a time and that is when we got to know my only cousins, my mother’s sister’s kids. You would never know, save by appearance, that we are cousins because we are very tight. One thing my family was always about was love and it was never spared.
My longtime girlfriend was thrown back when she first met my mother. She and my brother met us at the airport. I am the oldest of 5, actually “patriarch” now (that is scary), and she always threw her arms around her “baby’s” neck and gave me a kiss.
My girlfriend pulled me aside and said “she kissed you on the lips!!” To this I told her “she has since I was born and I can’t stop her now.”
Gee, the woman was my mother. My aunt, her sister, did the same to me when she saw me. It was all of the love that my girlfriend didn’t grow up with. My brother will bear hug me to this day and she gets freaked out by that. I had to explain what a proper hug should be – you are embracing another as a show of affection and that tactile moment is when two people, be it family or friend, form a bond. The guy down the street from me gives me a hug when we shake hands and that is cool with me. A hug should actually make you feel better, a form of communion in its truest sense.
If you are in a long embrace with a loved one or a true friend you are comfortable with that other should be taking your pains and problems from you and leave you refreshed. It is a natural and spiritual occurrence yet far too many people shy away from that.
I can’t imagine a hug from Jesus! He was free with His show of affection to all. Do you recall the woman that touched His cloak and He felt that? I would have grabbed with both hands with her faith! He healed her of any and all afflictions and that is but one of His signs of love for those that had faith.
I don’t know if you are married or what but the next time you hug someone hold on a little tighter and feel what I am rambling about. You may have to train someone else how to give a hug, a small sign of love.
Too many people are afraid too love. That is a scary word for most; even Christians. The message of the bible is to love each other. Communion is a word most often reserved for the catholic catechism as the act of the Eucharist. Gay used to mean happy and fun.
Communion is people coming closer to each other. Communicate, commune and how many other forms of the word prove this to be so?
Why do I go off on tangents? I am in practice for writing a book and one doesn’t merely proclaim “I am going to write a book” unless that person is in the practice of putting thought to paper or other medium. I started at the beginning of the year at the waste known as my space and found this site. I am a lot happier with Word press.
You are an unwilling subject of the act of me thinking through my hands.
I won’t even outline my book. My professor would scream even though he would publish some of my shorter writings to publications I didn’t know about. It was fun for him.
I was going to ask about your connection to American Indians. My girlfriend’s grandmother was full blackhaired Cherokee from Tennessee; she is naturally very, very blond.
I became best of friends with a guy who’s family is of one of the different tribes of Indians that were native to this part of MD. The entire east coast is littered with Indian tribal names and the names of some cities and town reflect it. I met a woman at a job I had who was very definitely plains Indian. I asked her and she was happy to talk about it and seemed shocked someone noticed. She was Navajo and looked it. She was always looking for Indian powwows and I told her to watch the newspaper as they are listed.
I gotta go…
MichaelHill,
I’ve read a few esperimental novels that attempted to break the confining mold of the novel. It isn’t a way for every writer to write, and it is not something that every reader can appreciate. It is difficult to do in a way that will end with the reader finishing the book.
The secret is to avoid wanking, contrivance, and self-amusement. Be honest, go with the flow, and don’t “try” to be anything.
The Illuminatus Trilogy was awesome this way…but it is probably not for your standard Christians and you didn’t hear about it from me.
My grandmother told me I had a Native American ancestor. Nobody else seems to know what she is talking about. But I grew up in Montana and Minnesota and I have known many people from many different Nations…both Native American and around the world.
I am interesting in American history, and in particular, the process by which so many different peoples come together to form a single culture, which changes with the times and grow stronger by changing.
Common wisdom seems to be that change brings about the death of a culture…but history shows that cultures that fail to adapt are the ones that wither.
My area of study was on how European, Native, and African cultures interacted to form American culture, literature, and landscape. People emphasize the European contributions, but there is great deal more going on there.
My thesis was centered on the Pine Ridge reservation, the “literature” (oral and written) surrounding the life of Crazy Horse, the history of the interactions of the Oglala and the “whites” and the changing context of the landscape.
My premise was that cultures can survive change by shifting emphasis to the traits of their culture that are key to their survival in the new circumstances, and abstracting the traits that are non-survival or anti-survival oriented. This preserves them and their importance as symbols of identity identity without making them stumbling blocks for survival.
Illuminates Trilogy – ewww!
I see what you mean to a point but I can be very contained. A I said, I am willing myself to express every thought I have to the keyboard. Mine is more conversational now, if you couldn’t pick that up, because that is what I feel this is. When I go “novel” I can tie chapters together as well as the ending.
I do write in the style of a observational/humorist and the entirety is going to revolve around my life and my own thoughts concerning life in general.
I will turn 50 this year, meaning i was born in 1957. Most birth records of this country I have ever read put that year as being one with the highest birth rates – 4,300,000. That puts me near the end of the baby boom generation. A lot has changed in this country over my lifetime and I was learned of as much of it as I could be. Assassinations, moonwalks, wars, Watergate and an endless list. The cool thing is I was old enough to be cognizant of most of it.
That is a lot of book material if one knows how to write it in a manner that will attract readers.
I have decided that if almost 4.5M babies were born the same year I was there will be a lot of 50 year old people next year and all of them have more or less seen what I have. If I pull out all of the stops and write in the same manner I can converse in, I should be able to come up with a piece of work that even I would buy and read.
“That 70’s Show” is typical HAHA! comedy for current television viewers. It has little fact to it other than the kids just hang out because there was no cable/satellite TV or computer and internet. “Happy Days” was not as 50s as “Leave it to Beaver”.
Thank God I was spared that. I learned how to be a social kid instead of a nut that cracks and ends up spraying lead around a room full of kids that would have been social if the two detractors I mentioned didn’t exist.
This paragraph…
“My area of study was on how European, Native, and African cultures interacted to form American culture, literature, and landscape. People emphasize the European contributions, but there is great deal more going on there.”
is more than what most people can fathom. I watched a National Geographic program last week that was an attempt to show how all peoples stem from Africa.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/photogalleries/journey_of_man/photo8.html
The host/trekker/author is Spencer Wells and presents a very good documentary based on DNA. He traced a tribe of Africans to a tribe of people in Russia that share The same DNA as the Navajos. Creationism is not specific on how the peoples of the earth scattered. They just left Babel and ended up where we are.