My Meatless Month

Those who have been visiting the Omphaloskeptic since its earliest days will know that I love food.  This includes meat of all descriptions. You’ll also know that, for some time, I’ve harboured some concerns about how the meat I consume is produced and what its environmental and social impacts are. I’ve held forth on each of these subjects at some length in earlier posts (see here, here and here).  As of this morning it has now been one full calendar month since I’ve eaten any meat.

I’ve never been enamoured with the concept of New Year’s resolutions; it’s always seemed to me that if you want to make some sort of change you should simply do it rather than waiting for a specific date.  Obviously this can be hard if that major change desired necessitates major surgery; such procedures are usually best booked in advance.  However, as 2010 began to draw to a close I recognised that, yet again, I had let a significant amount of time pass without making any real effort to cut down on my, by western standards, already minimal meat consumption.  Thinking about this I realised that I was simply too lazy to make any real effort, to see how long I could go without eating meat.  That’s when I decided, come 1 January 2011 I would see how long I could go without eating meat.

I didn’t mention this decision to anyone until dinner on New Years Eve a meal that consisted of smoked salmon and cheese fondue.  I’m not sure why, maybe I thought I’d change my mind, but I am happy to report that this first month has passed relatively hassle free.  There have been a few days where I’ve been obsessed by thoughts of a nice juicy steak or some  pepperoni pizza.  One Sunday, returning home from a 30 mile cycle ride in near freezing conditions, I was almost knocked out of the saddle by the wave of joy and hunger that hit me when I caught the smell of bacon frying at a roadside cafe but I kept going.  For the most part though dropping meat from my diet entirely hasn’t been a terribly difficult experiment to maintain.

I’m still eating fish and plenty of other meatless proteins.  Perhaps this is why I can’t say that I feel any different, better or worse, than when I was still a practising carnivore.  At the same time I’m not willing or ready to say I’ll never consume animal flesh again.  There are, to my mind, a lot of good reasons to give up meat, or at least eat as little as possible or necessary.  As far as I can tell it’s a responsible and simple thing to do in terms of protecting the environment and trying make a small effort to make sure that there is as much food available to as many people as possible.

At the same time I know that, in the past, I have tried and failed to become a complete vegetarian.  After each of those two failures I returned to my carnivorous habits with a vengeance as if I was trying to make up for lost time.  So for now, and because I’m eating fish, I’m not going to call myself a vegetarian.  I am going to see if I can’t make it through another month – rather convenient that February happens to be the shortest of them all – and if I do another after that.  However if, at some point in the coming year I break down and have that steak or that pepperoni pizza I’m hoping and planning that that decision will be a temporary blip and that I’ll return to my pesky ways at the next meal.

Better Than I Could Say It

I had a long list of ideas on this subject, but I think this comic by Jen Sorensen makes the important point(s) more eloquently and in a more measured tone than I can at present.  It’s worth a read here.

Some Things Matter

I urge any and all of my UK-based readers to seriously consider the comments made here

 

US(A) Versus Them: What ‘Those’ Leaks Might Really Say About America

It was Saturday morning when I turned my bleary eyes on The Guardian’s analysis of the latest batch of documents seeping into public view on Wikileaks and first became aware of what seem to have been termed either the ‘Iraq War Diaries’ or ‘Iraq War Logs.’  Since then I’ve had a variety of intense emotional responses to what has emerged most strongly characterised by a mixture of rage and despair.  I’ve also been saddened to discover that not one single bit of me was even remotely surprised  at what has been revealed.  As a student of the American Dream I consider myself  an idealistic American, if an atypical one.   As a result, my unshocked response indicates that my idealism has been undermined by a creeping and cynical realism to a much greater degree than I realised.  Ideals are good things to have, but they work best when you see some hope of connecting them with reality.  Situations like Iraq make that connection elusive at best.

Alongside, and not entirely separate from, my emotional reaction to the ‘War Diaries’ I’ve also spent a great deal of time thinking about what these revelations mean.  Will they, can they actually change anything?  Do they bring the public any closer to understanding the truth of what has gone on and continues to go in Iraq?  Have we, the public, become so accustomed to this kind of revelation that, despite the scale of the current one, we won’t really do much more than shrug our shoulders and carry on being good little capitalistic producers and consumers?  I’ve come up with varied and often contradictory answers to these and a host of other questions I’ve felt compelled to pose to myself.  I’ve also spent a great deal of time reading the responses of others.  Obviously there’s a flood of information, analysis and opinion on the subject coursing through the media right now.  Rather than try to point visitors to the Omphaloskeptic in too many directions I’ll offer two suggestions.  The first is a general one: spend just as much time considering the views and analysis of those whose thinking differs from your own as you do looking at pieces sympathetic to your own viewpoint.  The good reasons for doing so should be obvious, but on such an explosive and emotive issue a reminder can’t be a bad thing.  The second is more specific: I’d recommend having a look at Sir Menzies Campbell’s opinion piece from the Independent on Sunday.  It’s implications extend beyond its immediate concern with the UK’s position.

As for my own opinions and conclusions I could easily produce a ranting, wounded screed of tens of thousands of words that would be just one more shrill voice in a very large chorus of the aggrieved.  Instead I’d like to offer one observation that I think is both very significant and extremely chilling.

Once again American authorities, military and civil, have reacted to the leaking of information by declaring that it will put the lives of American personnel at risk, and that those who make it public will bear the responsibility for American deaths.  I’m not so convinced of the truth of that argument, but I am disturbed by an assumption that underlies it.  What this reasoning implies is that it is simply better to allow Iraqi civilians to continue to be tortured by other Iraqis, to be killed unlawfully than to put a stop to the situation and punish the guilty.  Why?  Because the American lives that might be ruined or lost are more important that the Iraqi lives we know will be blighted and destroyed.  This is to say nothing of fact of the original decisions taken to ignore Iraqi-on-Iraqi torture, the numbers of civilian dead and worse.

I don’t accept that American lives are worth more than Iraqi ones, British more than German, Finnish less than Zimbabwean.  My belief that all human lives are special and have a right to respect and protection stems not from religious faith but directly from a set of ideals I thought absorbed because I was born an American.  Increasingly, however, it seems I may have come to hold such a view despite being born an American.  These latest, leaked war logs certainly indicate an official view that privileges lives made in the USA over those produced elsewhere.

It’s also a very dangerous message to send to disaffected Iraqis and others with grievances leading them toward anti-Americanism because it can only confirm suspicions of the American sense of superiority, entitlement and outright violent selfishness that have, rightly or wrongly, come to be associated with American policies and ideals.

When Pets Take After Their Owners, or The Continuing Saga of Nick and Dave

Recently I’ve been having trouble telling Messrs Clegg and Cameron apart.  This doesn’t occur when I can see them speaking, but when I hear them on the radio I often don’t know which of the two coalition formers is gracing the airwaves with his voice until I’m told.  Mild confusion of this sort doesn’t really pose a problem for me as I take everything either of these two opportunists say with a very large grain of salt and a healthy sprinkling of cynicism.  It does surprise me.

Not that long ago there’s no way I would have mistaken the Lib Dem for the Conservative.  Yes, to my ear they’ve always had very similar voices but the content of their remarks and something about their syntax and diction set them apart from one another.  This was true even in the immediate aftermath of the unholy union whose issue is known as The Coalition Government. These days the distinction isn’t so clear and just this afternoon I tuned my radio into the middle of an interview that, until the interviewer thanked Mr Clegg at the end, left me nonplussed as to which man was speaking.

Obviously, as the twin heads of  a coalition government the two men are going to say some similar things, but I’m wondering if the actual structure of their spoken language, their syntax and diction, is starting to converge.  If I had more time, and greater expertise in such things, I could knock out a quick textual analysis comparing their comments for over the past 8 or 9 months that would either confirm or refute my suspicions.  But I’m not going to do that as I have better things to write and think about; after all, what does it really matter if two men in the same coalition are starting to structure their language in increasingly similar ways?

It’s not as if I have any real faith in the messages being spread by the lap dog or his master.

Just a Thought

As I wait and watch for new developments surrounding the general election and the hung parliament one thought in particular keeps reoccurring to me.  It isn’t the case that I want to live in a place or be part of a community where there are no conservatives but instead that I want to make my home some place where I am a conservative challenged by views even further left than my own.

Friday Haiku: Allegory

Cold breeze cuts weak sun.

A reptile on my path.

Are lizards rising?

The idea for this Friday’s haiku came to me when I was out walking the dogs this morning.  Despite the sun, the wind put the temperature on the cold side of chilly where it has remained all day.  Despite this I was surprised to encounter the little dude above wandering across the pavement.

Friday Haiku: The Final Debate

The debates are done.

Brown, Clegg, Cameron said stuff.

What did it all mean?

Maybe it’s some form of a cop-out, but for the second consecutive Friday I’ve found myself compelled to compose and post a truly terrible piece of ersatz Haiku.  This may become a regular Friday feature here at the Omphaloskeptic.  I figure I might as well share the pain.

Gordon and the Bigot

Ever since the story of Gordon Brown calling a pensioner he had been speaking with a bigot broke yesterday it has dominated the media here in the UK.  This being the case it’s a good thing I’m actually interested in the story otherwise my blood pressure and levels of rage would be even higher than usual.  Turning off the news is simply not an option.  At some level I almost feel sorry for the PM; this kind of gaffe this close to the general election is likely to do irreparable damage to Labour’s share of the vote and, whether or not you agree with what Gordon got caught saying, the responsibility for that must weigh pretty heavily on his shoulders. I was planning on writing an extended post on why I think the scorn being heaped on Brown for his descrpition of Gillian Duffy is at least slightly misplaced but then I read this commentary by Ian Dunt.

I’ve read the full transcripts of the conversation that took place before ‘the comment.’  I’ve also listened to, read and watched video of Gordon’s gaffe and  as  a result I think Dunt’s piece makes some important points as wells as straying onto some shaky ground.  Obviously as an immigrant to the UK myself I have a certain bias when it comes to this issue even if I didn’t arrive as part of a flock, but ever since I started digging deeper into the circumstances of this story part of me has repeatedly wondered if Brown was really so dreadfully out of line to, in what he thought was a private moment, call this woman bigoted.  I’ve been having trouble articulating my reasons for thinking this, otherwise I would have posted earlier.  Much to my relief, Dunt’s commentary hits the nail on the head when he writes:

This is what Duffy said about immigration: “All these eastern Europeans that are coming in – where are they flocking from?” Beyond the fact that she has answered her own question, this statement is profoundly problematic. This sort of talk about immigrants has become more and more acceptable, but we would do well to remind ourselves that it is not acceptable to use animal or geographic metaphors about immigrants. Talk of ‘flocks’ and ‘swamps’ serve to cement a sense of immigrants being ‘the other’. They are not so different to us. They marry us, drink beer with us, work with us and live side by side with us.

The commentary then goes on to speak of how we all have a public and a private face and that Brown is being pilloried for revealing that, like the rest of us, he is human, a line of reasoning I have trouble accepting.  This was a carefully stage-managed event and, while I accept that the PM must have a human side, it does seem to me that he’s in a job that demands he must have a constant awareness of when it’s safe to make an unguarded comment and when it isn’t.  It’s simply part of the job he has and wants to keep.  Imagine the repercussions if, to create a scenario, on an official visit to France Brown was telling  some underling that no short man could ever satisfy a woman such as Carla Bruni without realising that a certain Mr Sarkozy had entered the room and was standing behind him.  It’s a stupid and unlikely scenario I know, but the dynamic at work is what’s important.  As a statesmen of such visibility Brown, or any other PM, has to be very aware and very careful of the words that leave his lips.

All that being said I don’t think that his description of this woman was entirely unjustifiable.  Just because a large group of people share a common view on something like immigration doesn’t make that view correct nor does it absolve it of the charge of prejudice or bigotry.  Brown and other politicians are guilty of acquiescing to and then employing a vocabulary and rhetoric that not only emphasises but exaggerates the foreignness of immigrants to a degree that relegates them to second-class status and risks dehumanizing them in the minds of so-called ‘ordinary Britains.’

I’ll give Gillian Duffy the benefit of the doubt and assume that she doesn’t want any human being treated as inherently of less worth, of lower standing than his or her fellows; in fact I suspect that’s why she raised the issue of immigration with Brown in the first place.  The problem is the rhetoric of the debate – if you can call hysterical shrieking from all sides a debate – is pitched in a way that brooks no consideration, let alone critical examination of the assertion that British citizens are being treated as second-class citizens.  The fact that in doing so that rhetoric obscures a pronounced tendency to posit, define itself and discriminate against a dangerous tide of sub-civilised foreign others is insidious.  It turns otherwise perfectly reasonable people into bigots without their ever realising it.

It’s Debatable

Like many others here in the UK I spent 90 minutes with my eyes glued to my television screen last night.  As various media outlets had spent all day reminding us, 50 years after the first presidential debate was held in my native land,  the main contenders for the office of Prime Minister were going to have a debate of their own.  The results were, to me at least, absolutely riveting.  Frankly I thought Mr Clegg came out of this first of a series of debates on top but that’s just my opinion.  A quick stroll around the internet, especially the websites of various newspapers, has made it pretty obvious that just about every possible assesment of the debate has been made in-depth and at-length somewhere.  My political biases are probably fairly clear to anyone who visits this blog regularly and, with more debates scheduled, I don’t really want to perform any kind of real analysis of the comments and rebuttals that were made last night.  There were a few things that occurred to me at a more general level that I would like to mention, however.

First, and foremost was what I can only describe as a flaw in the structure of the debate itself.  The time limits for initial responses to questions were good.  The questions themselves were decent.  The rebuttal portion was unstructured and misguided.  There was too much seemingly (though I’m sure it wasn’t) arbitrary jumping from candidate to candidate for rebuttal, re-rebuttal and even re-re-rebuttal.  Additionally the time allowed was too short.  This meant curtailed, undeveloped responses and introduced a halting, jerky motion in the flow the debate that was detrimental.  At times the rebuttal portions resembled nothing so much as a rather animated panel discussion where for some mysterious reason the participants were all being forced to stand up.

Second, whether you think he has good ideas or not I think Mr Clegg’s performance should put the condescending attitude toward him and his party that prevails across the media, including the BBC, to rest.  Gordon Brown and David Cameron are both well-served by the myth that the Liberal Democrat leader and party don’t offer any real alternative and can’t actually be taken seriously.  It’s time to stop talking about what a favour being included in this debate has been for Nick Clegg and acting as if it’s an amazing opportunity that has inexplicably fallen into his lap.  Yes, it is a great opportunity for his party and this country to break the normal, dichotomous nature of the political dialogue.  Last night the man with the yellow tie made the most of that opportunity and for that alone he and his party deserve more than the patronising comments and indulgent smiles of other leaders and commentators alike.

Third, as I was watching the debate Gordon Brown kept bringing Richard Nixon to mind.  This bothered me and it took me a long time to figure out why I was linking the two.  It all boils down to the fact that like Nixon, Brown is a strange looking physical specimen at best and that his mannerisms of speech and movement exacerbate his alien qualities.  It’s almost as if the inner support structure of both men was twisted subtly yet unmistakeably.  Please pursue this image to extremes of metaphorical logic.

Fourth and finally, the three party leaders need some place else to keep their glasses of water.  A shelf at precisely crotch level is distracting and disturbing although potentially very convenient.