What if....?

A Myth is as Good as a Mile

To say that I own a lot of books is like saying there’s a lot of sand in the Sahara.

Most of my furniture is books. The good furniture, anyway.

On my shelves reside old friends: Captain Blood, Scaramouche, Ivanhoe, Crazy Horse – books I first read as a child. Other, for me, keystone works such as The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Eric Fromm), Without Conscience (Robert Hare) and Lame Deer: A Seeker of Visions (Doug Boyd).

Every once in a long,while, I come across a book that I find so compelling that I all but literally can’t put it down, and afterward feel a moral imperative to share it with others.

The Vegetarian Myth, by Lierre Keith, is such a book.

For anyone interested in social justice, the environment or their own health, Ms. Keith’s book is a must-read. As a one-time vegetarian, myself, I found her reflections particularly poignant.

This is an informationally dense book, extensively referenced, and the case against vegetarianism that Ms. Keith presents is as rational and logical a presentation as you will find on any subject. Not only does she refute the false moral, political and nutritional premises that are the well-meaning foundation of vegetarianism, but she does so with tremendous compassion. She understands tem from her own experience, from her own heart.

She also connects some very disturbing dots. Why, for example, are the same handful of corporations who are the biggest war profiteers, also the corporations profiteering from manipulation of your food supply?

But more, Ms. Keith’s voice is both unique and eloquent. Her gallows-humor asides are filled with heart-rending irony. And she pulls no punches just to be “polite.” She is honest and direct, saying what she means and meaning just what she says – something as rare as hens teeth.

If you eat, or love anyone who eats, or if you live on this earth or love anyone who does, you owe it to yourself to read The Vegetarian Myth.

sj

For More:

http://lierrekeith.com

The "Good Guys" Don't Torture Anyone

Not anyone.
And they don't kidnap people, "detain" them indefinitely without charges or trial.
And they don't.....
The list is too long.
No point anymore in pretending that we're the "good guys."

sj

Read it and Weep --- or Fight.

10 Reasons the US is No Longer the Land of the Free

by

Jonathan Turley

Published on Saturday, January 14, 2012 by the Washington Post

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/14-6

Welcome to "Homeland" USA

The first time I heard Dubya use the term "homeland," a I got queasy feeling in my stomach.
I grew up calling it "national security."
That's fair: The United States is Americans' nation.
But it's not Americans' "homeland."
Americans don't have a "homeland."
That is, they have many different "homelands," not one common one.

So this change from "nation" to "homeland" just made my skin crawl with a foreboding deja vu.
It was such a "nazi" figure of speech.
And the Bush family is not without connections to the nazis.

And now there's Obama.

I didn't even think it was possible for someone to be worse than Bush.
But Obama has proved me wrong.
He has taken Bush's fledgling fascist policies and enhanced them to truly Hitlerian proportions.
And I am not engaging in hyperbole.

Consider:

1. The President alone now decides whether you will be imprisoned, tortured or killed.

2. You have no right of habeus corpus. In fact, you have no rights at all.
You will not be arraigned before a judge, you will not have access to a lawyer, you will not have a speedy trial by a jury of your peers. You will simply disappear.

3. The President alone decides when, where and how to use the military. He claims the authority to attack anyone, anywhere, for any reason -- "pre-emptively."

4. The military and the police are completely indistinguishable. "Homeland" Security & the CIA -- the new Gestapo -- coordinate nationwide "policing" efforts against dissidents. Law enforcement officers will be above the law, respond to the slightest infraction with lethal force and will do so with complete impunity.

5. You must now allow yourself to be searched on demand by any "law enforcement officer" of any kind, on demand. You can't get on a plane, and soon, not a train or a bus -- without submitting to a search. Your phone and email conversations will be monitored. Everything you buy, or read will be recorded. Everyplace you go will be under surveillance. You have no right to privacy.

That's not "the land of the free."
That's Nazi Germany.


sj

Beauty is in the software of the beholder....

I once blind-dated a Playboy Bunny.
Turned out she had the IQ of an actual bunny.

In my experience, "beautiful" women (and men) quite often seem to believe that their physical appearance entitles them to things they haven't earned and don't deserve -- things that less "beautiful" people have to work like hell for.
Being "cute" is their great contribution to humanity.

As you may surmise, that leaves me cold, to say the least.

The things I find "attractive" generally can't be seen on the outside.
Strength -- physical and moral.
Intelligence.
Integrity.
Those are things I find really "sexy."

But, hey, that's just me.


sj

Point of No Return