Why I Support the HSUS Strategy Regarding Michael Vick 

My mother eats meat and I love my mom, therefore, I will not be protesting Michael Vick or the Philadelphia Eagles. Let me explain...

In January, I will be celebrating my 10 year anniversary as a proud vegan. For an entire decade I have abstained from animal products to the best of my ability. Becoming vegan was easily one of the best choices that I have ever made. However, once upon a time, I enjoyed the taste of animal flesh and wore my leather jacket with confidence.

What Michael Vick did was disgusting. I was thrilled when he was given a prison sentence, though I admit I wish it would have been more. I find dog fighting reprehensible. I think it is vulgar and that the people doing it should be ashamed of themselves and made to face consequences for their violent actions.

That being said, a pig is actually a smarter animal than a dog and has the intelligence level of a three year old child. Pigs die en masse every single day. They don't die peacefully in their sleep. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the majority of pigs meet a far worse fate than any of those dogs that Vick brutally killed. Actually, so do cows and chickens. Then they end up on your plate and you eat them. You know that hamburger came from the death of a cow, yet you sit down to your meal and bite right in exclaiming how good and juicy it is. A lot of times, you do it right in front of us vegans thinking you're being funny. You're not though. You're being rude and kind of gross.

A lot of people are offended by the thought of other cultures eating dogs and cats just like some cultures hold cows sacred and are offended by people eating them. Let's be real. Life is life. Dogs, cats, cows, chickens, fish, wolves, baby seals, turkeys, horses, etc are all capable of feeling pain. A dog's pain is no less than a pig’s. They all suffer and every single one of us (even the vegans) contributes to that in some way or another.

Every time you go to the store and buy products ranging from laundry detergents to cosmetics, you are making a choice either to support animal cruelty or to boycott it. How many of you check the bottle to see if it is a vegan product? Do you check to see if it was tested on animals? Look, I understand that Tide gets your clothes cleaner than Method and you paid good money for those materials and you want to look good. But please realize that you don't need to buy that product, you want to. It is a choice that you make with your consumer spending. You support the cruelty it inflicts upon animals because of convenience. Ouch. For those of you who aren't aware of it, a great deal of animal testing is done on dogs, cats and cute little bunny rabbits. They are burned, blinded, electrocuted and whatever else you can think of. Most of the time, they receive no pain killers and suffer excruciating pain. A lot of these animals were once pets. In fact, laboratories usually prefer past pets as they are easier to handle and don't fight the torture as hard. Again, many of these animals endure things even worse than what Michael Vick did and you fund it. Watch the Joaquin Phoenix narrated / Persia White produced documentary Earthlings for a better understanding.

My mother eats meat and buys products tested on animals and although I would prefer that she stop, I don't hate her for it or want to see her punished. Once upon a time, I ate and shopped the same way and I've forgiven myself. Even though it gets under my skin more than I can even put to words when animal rescue groups hold meetings at steakhouses or raise funds with meat-filled barbecues, I still respect the people and admire the great effort they put into saving dogs and cats regardless of what I see as hypocrisy. Really, I am perhaps the biggest hypocrite of all. I pride myself on my cruelty-free lifestyle and have happy, healthy dogs who are mostly vegan. Yet I also rescue cats and they are not vegan. My cats are actually quite carnivorous. Every day, I choose the life of cats over the lives of the animals who undoubtedly suffered terrors to make their cat food. Now before any body tells me that it's right because that is their natural diet, let me bring something up. I have never once seen a group of domestic cats take down a herd of cattle, nor have I ever been to the ocean and seen cats going off on a fishing expedition to catch themselves some tuna for dinner. I don't see cans of insects, rodents and songbirds for sale at the grocery store, So no, it is not their natural diet. They need a nutrient called taurine, but the taurine used in commercial cat foods is usually a synthetic (read Obligate Carnivore by Jed Gillen for more on this). So yes, I am a huge hypocrite. I don't feed them that because they have to have it. I do it because it is convenient and costs less and because when a cat in need is presented to me, I choose to follow my heart and help it. I choose the death of those other animals when I choose to feed them to cats. I support animal suffering every time that I feed them. Should I be banished from society and forbidden to work in the public eye because of it? I hope not.

Michael Vick served time for his crimes. I do think he deserved it as there are differences between what he did and what average people do. I personally would have liked the system to have been harder on him. I think it sent a strong message that those actions are not to be tolerated in today's society. However, now that he is out, I think we need to calm our emotions about it (I have a pit mix that was formerly used for fighting and I can tell you, my emotions run high) and really see the truth of things. We live in a world of cruelty, but we also live in a world capable of change. If Michael Vick can help to achieve that change, then I welcome him. I look back on my life and wonder how I could have ever possibly enjoyed eating something like chicken, where I would bite through veins and chew on flesh. I think about helping to skin deer and cleaning hair from the bloody meat or looking at the lifeless head of this once beautiful creature with it's tongue now hanging out and I am deeply hurt that I took part. I am ashamed. Humans do not need meat. We do not need leather. We do not need Tide. We need compassion and if I can forgive myself and love my mother and kiss my omnivore significant other, then I can certainly allow this flawed celebrity one more chance to right his wrongs. I can give him the opportunity to wake up and work towards ending the fighting.

Michael Vick is the perfect person to speak up and say "Stop" to a generation of fans who have dog fighters among them. I'm a short blonde chick with big boobs who was born and raised in Southern California and likes to ride a bicycle while listening to 80s rock. I don't really think that someone like me saying dog fighting is wrong will be taken the same as someone like Michael Vick saying it. Kids look up to him. They respect him. He has the ability to make a difference that someone like me does not have the reach to make. Think of the successful programs led by former gang members where they encourage kids to stay off the streets. This is kind of like that.

I welcome Michael Vick's success in the NFL. I wish him happiness and prosperity. The more successful he becomes, the more influence he can have in his work with the Humane Society of the United States. He can reach a larger audience and cause a greater impact. He can go from being a foul excuse for a human being into being a strong advocate for ending the violence, ending the cruelty and showing that regardless of the past, a person can turn things around and become a better person. He can do some good in the world. I would rather see him help end dog fighting than not see him at all.

I don’t support Michael Vick because I approve of what he did. I support him because I detest it.

Once upon a time, many years ago, in a world filled with shades of gray, there was a lost boy and a lost girl who somehow managed to find each other. They became lovers, but this is not a love story.

Shy and yet sure of each other, they surrendered their virginity for the closeness they felt in each other's hold. She had never kissed lips before his had touched hers and he had never experienced the fire that burned inside of his chest before she put it there.

Yet the feel of flesh alone was not enough for them. They yearned to be ever closer, bound to each other in deeper ways. The girl found herself with a craving that the boy was very willing to satisfy. Blood was shared on their thirsty tongues as they each tasted the flavor of the others life. They breathed in each other's breath and swore promises of love. Love.

They found themselves smiling, happy. They were enjoying life and eager to wake in the mornings. Every new day was another day that they could be together. Until the night that the girl was led away in handcuffs for something that she did not do and their lives were forced to change course.

She was held for no more than four days and released on Christmas to live in a place that felt more like a prison than a home.  She was told that she would soon be sent to live out of state and there was nothing that she could do about it. She was only a couple of months into fourteen years and yet the girl was ready to die, but the boy was not ready to let her.

They stole what time together they could. She didn't have to tell him of her plan to kill herself because he knew. He knew and he had found a way around it, a way to escape the pain and be together, so that maybe they could smile again.

They sat high on a rocky crevice with their legs dangling over the edge, tide pools below them, the ocean making mild waves out in front of them. That was when he told her of the plan and that was when she accepted it. He saved her life that day and she began to feel hope again. His eyes were hope for her.

Yes, she would follow him. She would follow him anywhere.    

Time went by and they prepared for their journey, confiding the truth in only a few and telling premeditated lies to the rest. They were broken up. He was moving with his family and she was running away to Los Angeles before the summer could take her to that place where she refused to go. These were the lies that they told.

The morning that she left, she knew that she was not coming back and yet she did not hesitate. She was determined to survive. She was determined to live with love and he was determined to have her. Her feet carried her away from the past while her heart pulled her into her future - a future where his arms awaited her and she would never feel unwanted again.

But things were not as they seemed. Out of his fear of losing her, he chose to betray her. He led her into a situation that he omitted very necessary truths about. He led her in thinking that no matter what happened, he could protect her. But his dishonesty hung there between them, the realization of it never spoken but acknowledged all the same. The girl was resilient and though stung, she loved the boy no less. Her love could never be questioned, only her trust.

Then the day came when he had to go away. She felt a strange pang in her heart when he boarded the bus, a pang that warned her that he would not be back as soon as they planned. He left her among predators. Fortunately the girl was strong and knew how to handle beasts, how to keep them tame enough to get through the wait. She knew how to block them from feasting on her mind, though the attempts were often made.

The girl knew how to survive, and so she did.

The months passed. Holidays came. Holidays went. She had been told that he had sold her out. She had been shuffled to new places for safety. The girl could not be found, not even by the authorities who were searching for her. She saw them, but they did not see her. The only one who could get to the girl was the boy. He could solve the puzzle and even though she was told that he had turned on her, forgotten her, moved on from her, she knew that he would come. Not one day went by that she didn't believe that his heart was still true and that he would come. She was called foolish, but she held her belief. She knew that no matter her name, no matter her location, her hair color or length, he would come and he would love her every bit as much as when they had first found each other amidst shades of gray.

Finally one day, after many months, nearly a year, he did. He came just as she always knew he would and the sight of him, his beautiful tortured eyes, stopped the beating of her heart and stole her breath away. Then the boy and girl touched and her heart and breath began again and they smiled.

Still, he did not tell her all of the truths and slowly she came to understand that this boy who had returned to her was not the boy that had boarded that bus at all and she did not know how to reach him. She could not solve the puzzle to find him, though she tried.

Their risks led them away from the mountains where the girl had lived in hiding for two years. Eventually they ended up back in the same place where they had began and yet it was still an impostor who wore the boy's skin and the girl knew that she had lost her love after all.  

Though he could be gentle there was also a rage burning inside of him and the girl knew that it could not be contained forever. She would try soothing him, but eventually that fire would flicker and his grip would tighten. The girl came to feel as though she were making love to the boy's murderer.  This impostor was not trying to make her happy, he was only trying to make her his. He wanted to possess the girl, to claim her, but the girl could not be owned. She would be no man's possession.

She would at times push the boy. She would test his limits and when the fury would show itself, she would absorb the energy of it and she would stain her mind with the murderer's face, so that she would not forget. She would not let her love weaken her. If her love could not bring the boy back, then her strength would have to cast his impostor away. Then came the day when she realized that his light was gone for good.

The knife was a threat that she would not accept and she wrestled with him to take it away. She wrestled with him and then she held him. She looked into his eyes and the girl betrayed the boy. She lied to him to save herself. Once upon a time, he had saved her life and now she found herself fighting to survive this harsh new version of him. The girl betrayed the boy and her own heart. She buttered her words and then sent him away with false hope as his guide. The girl had already decided that her path must continue without him.   

Upon the discovery of her lies, he became more enraged than ever, but the girl had made sure that he was far away and could not reach her. She flooded her mind with the memories of the vicious imposter and blocked him from her sympathies, believing him a murderer of the person that she loved more than any other.

As he descended further into the darkness, she fought harder for the light.

She went on to marry the opposite of him and he fathered a child with someone that he did not love. The girl and the boy became woman and man in lives separate from each other and the girl made sure that she could not be found. Yet she could often feel him searching somewhere in the distance through the night, through shades of gray and black. She knew that some day he would find her, some day he would come for her again.

In the early years, there would be occasional communication. He would leave a phone number and she would block her identity and call to see what he wanted. She would be cold on the calls and keep her husband nearby. She would poke and prod and purposely anger the boy, now man. She would anger him to be reminded of the darkness he had become. Eventually the calls no longer came and she decided that she was glad for it.

The years passed, more than decade faded by.

Then one day, the girl, now woman and no longer wife, received a message from the man. It was directly to her and she realized that she had been found. All the terror in the world seemed to seize her at that moment. She wanted to run, to leave as fast as she could, but she knew that she could not. The woman had given her life to others. She had sought solace in a cause and would hold true to her commitment, no matter the price.

The man sent her many messages and at first she replied to none. She watched him through his words. She observed and contemplated and worried. His obsessing seemed to confirm for her that he was indeed still mad and that helped her to not reach back for him. It helped her to not allow thoughts of the boy to override the memories of the impostor.


Then he shared a journal entry and her terror was replaced by terrible heartache.  He told her the things that she had needed to know all of those years ago. He answered the questions that she had always needed to ask. He explained his descent into the dark. As she read his words, her world began to spin and her hard-earned defenses began to weaken.

Once upon a time, she knew that the only one who could find her was the boy, but what she did not know, was the level of Hell and abuse that he would have to endure to get to her. The woman felt sick at this new discovery. The boy that she had loved so dearly had willingly sacrificed himself to the impostor in order to save the girl yet again. A great guilt came to crush the woman at that moment and she came to question every decision that she had made since she had chosen to betray him.

Still she could not risk letting him inside of her heart. The woman convinced herself that what he felt was not love, but an obsession. She finally made a reply to him and made him swear that he would not come for her and then she watched his words again without giving him response. She received many more messages without encouragement and watched for the flicker of rage and accusation.

There were things that she read that she was uncomfortable with. She thought the man was much too repetitive in his claims of conquering his demons. She thought it seemed more like he was trying to convince himself of the story that he was trying to sell her. Like if he swore it enough, it would suddenly be true. Yet she could not wash the words from his journal away and her mind constantly returned to it.

One night after he had not contacted her for 24 hours, she decided it might be safe to block her number and call him. It was awkward at first and she had her walls firmly in place. She told him that it was likely the last time he would ever hear from her and so he should just say whatever he needed to say. The man spilled his heart out to her and she fought the urge to repay him in kind. He didn't sound so much crazy as he did broken.

Time passed and the woman began to realize that she could not keep to her resolution to not call him again. Little by little her defenses began to chip away. Crumble, crumble, fall – the walls came down and she was on the phone with him again. The more he spoke, the more she hungered to listen. She sat entranced as he would recount his memories of her and as he did so, the woman began to remember as well. She began to remember herself through his voice. She had been thinking that she might find the boy through these calls, but instead she was also learning what it felt like to once again find herself.

Her tears would fall in silence as she felt the ice melt away from her fiercely guarded heart. When he would say that he had to go, she would find herself not wanting him to and she would ask him to stay and remember more for her. She would close her eyes and go back to that time when a boy and a girl would smile together and she would feel wanted.

The man told her that he had never stopped loving her and that in the few relationships he had been in since, it was always her face that he was searching for. He told her about how he had to reach rock bottom so that he could learn to pull himself back up and be a stronger person. He told her about dreams and feelings he had about her through the years and she realized that she had been having the same ones about him. That they had always danced this pattern and all the years meant nothing because they could still feel each other's presence every bit as strongly. More than a decade later she still craved the copper taste of his blood on her tongue and the feel of his arms around her. He had found her again, just as she always knew that he would.

The man was always so sure that they would be together again, but the woman could not understand how he could be so certain that the years would return them to each other. She did not hold the same belief that love could conquer all or that they really could go home again. Yet she had to know and so she asked him to come in late October. She asked him to stay in a hotel and please not try to kill her. Though it all made her wonder if perhaps she was now the impostor, the one who had buried the girl that the boy had loved so dearly. The woman asked herself if she would have the courage to dig her back up and face the past that she had spent so long forsaking.  She did not have the answer.

The woman told the man that the trip did not mean that they were back together, only that she was willing to see him again even if all they were to ever have would exist only in the few days of his visit. The woman no longer believed in the false fairy tale of forever. She just knew that she had to see him one more time to find out.

And now the countdown begins. The man and the woman speak regularly as they await late October. They speak and they find themselves smiling again. The man feels hope and the woman finds herself allowing him in against her better judgment.

One night, she let her guard down completely and asked him to do her a favor. She asked that he hold her in his dreams, so that when she eventually slept, she would know that his arms were around her and she was no longer alone. He told her that he was always holding onto her, that he had never let go.

Then one day the man asked the woman for a favor as well.  He asked her to write something. She asked what sort of something and he told her anything, so long as it was meant for him. And so the woman sat at her computer, stared at the screen for a moment, and then began to type up a story about a boy and a girl who became lovers, but it was not a love story.

It was a story about age and survival, a story about deep sadness and longing, lies and truths. It was a story about forgiveness, a story about forgiving others and desperately trying to find a way to forgive oneself. It was not a story meant to have a happy ending because there are some things which never end.

October seems forever away.

Craig Ferguson makes some great points and does so with a Scottish accent.

"We have two patriotic candidates, right? They both love this country, they have different ideas about what to do with it. Learn about them, read about them, question them, listen to them. Then, on election day, exercise your sacred right as an American, and listen to yourself."



I completely agree that YOU SHOULD VOTE.

This isn't a time to be indifferent. This is a time to do something.

If you haven't registered yet, you can do so by visiting declareyourself.com.

I usually take a book to read during my lunch hour, but one day last week, I forgot to grab one as I left. I did, however, have a notebook in my purse, so I decided to jot down my thoughts. The following was what resulted.

Okay. Where do I want to sit? Ooh, that table looks good. It's a little more central than I usually go for. Better people watching without being obvious that I am people watching. No that's a four person table. I should stick with my usual one to two-seater against the wall over there. Screw that. There's hardly anyone in this place today. There is nothing wrong with me taking that table and I really want to just go ahead and put this tray down before I spill my drink in a clumsy moment.

Crap. What if it starts to get busy? Then I'll look like a total asshole and some group of four will glare at me. But really, even when it does get really busy, I don't think that I have ever seen all of the tables taken. Well of course nobody is going to take all of the tables. They would need a really big truck and even bigger balls to do that, especially with all these people still sitting at them. Okay, that was stupid Erin. Stop nitpicking words. I have never seen people sitting at every one of these tables.  That's it damn it! I'm sitting!

Oh God. Which direction should I face?

Okay, so I am sitting facing Taco Johns, but now my back is to the entrance. Ugh. I have to stop getting so paranoid when my back is to things. I can see everyone in the lines this way. If there is a hot guy, I can totally look at him without it being obvious. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not really going to look up to scope this place for man meat. I will sit here eating my french fries and keeping my head down in whatever else I'm doing. Today it's writing this. Well hey, maybe a hot guy will see me. Yeah! I am so glad that I so selfishly took – oops, sat – at this table. Now if a hot guy sees me, it will be so much easier for him to approach. WTF? Why am I even thinking like that? There are no hot guys here and even if there were, they wouldn't walk up to me at my friggin' four-seat table in this lousy food court.

I bet all of the hot guys go somewhere better for lunch. Maybe I should go somewhere else tomorrow. Oh forget it. I'm not going to find anyone anywhere else either. Even if they did speak to me, I am sure that I would just shoot them down like the asshole that I am before I even realized that I was doing it.

Besides, my shirt kind of stinks. I really need to get the dryer fixed. All of my clothes have been smelling like burnt hair or something lately. Definitely not attractive. I should have put on some of my nice smelling lotion. No, nevermind. That would be too much like that dead fish and flowers commercial. Ugh! I am such a stinky loser! I should just eat my french fries and get on with the day.

These fries are pretty good and I did do a pretty good mustard to ketchup ratio for dipping today. Some malt vinegar would have been nice. Yum. I wish I were eating french fries naked. Yeah. Naked with Cillian Murphy. Not in the food court though. Maybe at his place. Wait, he's married. Damn it. His wife would be pissed. Okay, with James McAvoy then. No, he's married too. Okay, definitely Gerard Butler. He's single and almost as pervy as me. Yeah, eating french fries naked with Gerard Butler would be way better than going back to work.

Oh God, I am sooo horny. I have seriously got to get laid one of these days. Eating french fries naked? Wtf? Way to go Erin! Lame.

Death is profoundly beautiful, yet terribly heartbreaking and humbling. Dead things fascinate me – not the tragedy of their death, but the complete state of vulnerability in which the bodies are left after the spirit leaves.

We spend our lives guarding these vehicles of flesh. We do everything we can to keep our bodies healthy and safe and yet no matter how much time and effort we pour in, they are always only temporary. It's a bit disconcerting to realize that one's own body was created to be disposable. At some point, we will all be released from ours. We will completely abandon the very things that once carried us.

A soul does not drip blood, but a body does. The limbs keep us mobile and yet also restrict us to place. A soul can soar and does not know bounds. While we sleep, we surrender to dreams and our consciousness has the opportunity to move beyond what our human minds insist is reality. Yet reality seems to be something specific to the physical realm. It has been created by confined minds. Without the body, completely free of physical restraints, does reality even exist? How do things exist without the definition of the labels which the human mind places upon them? Is such an existence completely beyond our psychological grasp? How do we exist once we've experienced the touch of illusory reality? Do we simply surpass the label of existence and become the quantum oneness of energy? Or again, is that completely subject to the socio psychological mind path? Is discovering the answer counterproductive to the question?

Once we recognize that our flesh is only temporary and our energy eternal, do we change the way we look at life around us? Do we suddenly look into the eyes of those in need instead of away? Do we begin to understand that their suffering is also our own? When we hear a foreign child cry out in a language different than our own, do we hear them with our hearts and not simply say it's a shame? When an animal is left chained and starving, do we look to the human hands responsible and wonder how one of our own could do something so cruel? Do we at that moment realize that we are as vulnerable as that creature and really not so different, that we are the same? Do we suddenly recognize the vast importance of habitats and how their physical wellbeing is not unlike our own body? Cared for, it will encourage the life within it to last and physical beauty to ensue, but abused, the bodies will die off too quickly and the beauty will diminish. Will we come to understand that each of us is like a pebble thrown into water, causing ripples to go out and affect all life around it? If we saw these things, felt them in everything, would we stop taking it all for granted? Could we change what we have already started?

I believe so.

Knowing that we are not our bodies, that our bodies exist only to serve us, allows a certain freedom that perhaps we did not see before. If you dream that you fly, can you honestly tell people in the waking world that you have flown? Most people would answer no, but think about it. We restrict what is and isn't true to what a temporary vessel does and does not do. Why is that? Why must we limit everything to the physical, when the immortality of our energy will go on even after our flesh has decomposed? Why are we not embracing the potential of that?

Dead things fascinate me because they force me to acknowledge the beauty, the possibility, the frailty, and ultimately, the briefness… of life.

I was watching a sample video of a long-legged slender brunette massage her huge silicon breasts while dancing around suggestively in Lucite stilettos and suddenly I thought about Mary-Kate and Ashley. You know, because that makes perfect sense.

Why do so many people want to see the Olsen Twins naked? They were some of the ugliest babies I have ever seen. Yes, some of their lines were cute but not enough to endear them to my heart. Besides, even if they had been cute kids, how gross is it that people now want to watch them perform oral and do incestuous lesbian scenes together?

Okay, I admit that I have made some inappropriate jokes about wishing that Jesse were my uncle, but he was there with that perfect hair of his and "Have mercy" line while I was enduring puberty. John Stamos was already of age and older and wise enough that he could teach me how to become a sexual being. The Olsen twins were introduced to most of us while they were still in diapers!

PETA has taken to calling them "The Trollsen Twins" due to their blatant wearing of fur. I do find that to be an extremely ugly fashion statement, but with so many pornstars posing on bear skin rugs, I guess it isn't enough to turn most men off. But is it really necessary to compare them to trolls because of it? I mean, it would be awesome if their hair went all kinds of cool colors and stood on end and they were for sale at every gas station for just a few bucks, but I think "trolls" was supposed to be offered as an insult. You'd think that an animal rights organization could show a little compassion. I mean, what did trolls ever do to them? Why they got to be hating on my troll homies like that?

Look, I like zombies as much as the next person. Shaun of the Dead was an excellent film and I heartily cheered for the living dead as they tore into that Harry Potter look-a-like as though he were an all you can eat spaghetti and innards buffet, but at no point have zombies ever turned me on. Well except for that one long-haired dead dude in The People Under the Stairs, but that doesn't count, it was the early '90s and my head was still messed up from all of the Aquanet my mother had sprayed into my bangs in the '80s. That shit was toxic.

Anyway, if you're into bad fashion sense and zombie girls who resemble something out of a Tim Burton poem (I EFFING love The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy!), then I guess your sick desire to do an Olsen Twin makes sense.

All that I am trying to say is that they were ugly babies and you're a pervert.

That's okay though. You're entitled to your freak flag.

Sicko.

[/joking]

Several months ago, I was drawn to an issue of The Ecologist after seeing some beautiful photographs within it's pages of honeybees. I couldn't believe just how gorgeous they were so close up. I had never seen them quite like that before. I hungrily read the accompanying article about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) among bees and the potential it has to destroy mankind.

It seems like quite a sensational claim until you read a bit more about it. Suddenly it makes total sense. It definitely had me looking at the insects crossing my path with a lot more respect.

I have long been one of those people that thinks twice before killing an insect. Yes, I treat my animals for parasites and yes, I swat at mosquitos attempting to get to my blood, but for the most part, I try to do no harm.

At work, I catch all of the creepy-crawlies as best I can and then release them outside. My co-workers now know to call me over instead of killing the things.

I am trying to educate myself more on the importance of insects and other creatures to the survival of our planet. I am trying to make more differentiation between what is natural death and what is death caused by the interference of man. The recent increase I have seen of dead butterflies has got me thinking on this again.

It is obvious that humankind is a self-destructive species. We kill ourselves through diet and through betrayal of the planet that houses us. It makes perfect sense that we could also be doing it through our complete disregard of insects.

Avoidance is not the answer.

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Here is a video of Bill Maher speaking on the bee crisis:



and here is an odd video that may appeal to some:



Finally, this is an excerpt from The Ecologist:
Bees' role in the natural order of our world is crucial and their importance as pollinators, both for agriculture and for wild plants, can¹t be underestimated. Nor can it simply be quantified in monetary terms. Bees are what is known as a keystone species, ensuring the continued reproduction and survival not only of plants but other organisms that depend on those plants for survival. Once a keystone species disappears, other species begin to disappear too - thus Albert Einstein's apocalyptic and, these days, oft-quoted view: 'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.'

It really bugs me when someone says "Oh that's right. You can't have that."

What? Yes I can. I can have whatever I want, but I choose not to. There is a big difference there. Veganism isn't about deprivation, it's about choice. Being able to make that choice is a liberating feeling.

Veganism may not be traditionally convenient, but when you think about it, clogged arteries, obesity, constipation, high cholesterol, and heart disease aren't very convenient either. Being vegan is probably actually saving me a lot of trouble. I can eat whatever I want and the fact of the matter is that I want to eat vegan foods.

It also really bothers me when someone says. "I don't know how you do it. I couldn't be vegan or even vegetarian. I need my cheeseburgers and steaks."
Really? You couldn't be? It would kill you? You would literally die? Wow. That's hardcore.

Maybe you should have a little more faith in yourself than that. You could be vegan, but you choose not to be. It isn't that you can't, it's that you won't.  
And that's perfectly alright, but please acknowledge that it is a choice.

I have been tempted to omit the use of "I can't" from my vocabulary. However, I am a victim of common speech and have found that the words work their way out of my mouth just as easily as "and", "the" and "I'd totally like to play with [insert sexy celebrity name here]'s penis".

Perhaps I will make more effort in being conscious of my speech because saying something can affect energy and I certainly don't want to put energy towards being incapable.

I am also not fond of people using the word "need" seriously when the word should be "want". Again, there is a difference. It's a really big one. Stop stressing over wants and neglecting needs. You'll probably feel pretty free if you do.

[/rant]