To everything there is a season, and this is my season of rut. Or rather, being in a rut

My usual routine is to get up in the morning, make a cup of green tea with a squirt of lemon, and read my emails and blogs to which I subscribe. I’ve recently joined several Yahoo mail groups, and I find myself spending far too much time on email. I love the many things I’m learning, but I am being pulled in too many directions and not getting anything purposeful accomplished.

Sometimes I want to write something here. But the last time I had substantive content was several weeks ago. So there’s this pressure to produce something BIG, and since I’m in a rut, nothing BIG is being produced. And so I don’t post, even though I have something I’d like to write about. I suppose I’m going to have to get over that.

Update on Diet

I’ve continued with a relatively low-carb diet high in meat and fat with the occasional fruit and vegetable. I’ve cheated a lot since November when I intended to give up sugar. I still indulge, but nowhere near as often. I’ve had three Starbucks mochas since then, and have eaten even more portions of ice cream. But most days I have very little sugar, and it’s in fruit if I have it.

For a time I was eating two pomegranates every night after dinner, and now I’m completely finished with pomegranate season. I had my last one last night.

Since November I’ve lost ten pounds. Almost enough to get into the smaller pants that have been waiting for me for over a year. Almost. I’ve dropped two sizes since moving here, and in a few weeks I’ll probably drop another.

But with the weight loss has come a realization of the damage I did to my skin from such high sugar consumption and years of stress. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get a handle on stress. It’ll wreck your body like nothing else.

I went out to dinner with a few friends over the weekend and ate some wheat bread. The next few days brought back and rib pain, a reminder that wheat just doesn’t work for me anymore.

My body is becoming more sensitive to food with quicker responses following violations. Sometimes I’ll eat something and my heart will start beating really hard and fast. Coffee causes an almost immediate heat and flushing to my face.

Most aches and pains I’ve had over the years are gone, but now for some reason my left shoulder is hurting. I’ve read that some people are sensitive to arachidonic acid, an amino acid found mostly in red meat (but also produced by the body), and the reaction is usually inflammation. I’m hoping that is not the case, considering my stockpile of meat. But I’ve got to get the bottom of this shoulder thing. Maybe it’s from lying on my left side watching TV. I used to lie on my right side, and that’s when my right hip started hurting.

As for memory, I’m not as prone to asking myself, “Why am I here?” in the sense of standing with my head in the fridge and wondering what I wanted. I don’t forget as often why I went to a particular room. And if I do forget, I remember quicker.

My body is also warmer than last year. The heater is set at a slightly lower temperature and my hands are usually warm, which is significant improvement. However, my feet are usually always cold.

I haven’t exercised in years, and I’m now realizing how weak I’ve become. Any sort of exertion and my heart begins pounding like mad. It’s kind of scary. Is something wrong with my heart or am I just out of shape? I’ve started exercising with a kettle bell. A little at a time.

I’m also easily out of breath. I have really done some damage to my body, and it will take time to heal it all. The best step I took was giving up gluten grains. Once my gut is healed from the damage inflicted by inflammatory responses to gluten, it’ll begin absorbing nutrients better and keeping out foreign proteins.

I always wondered why I lost the outer half of my eyebrows. Turns out that’s a sign of low thyroid. I quit using iodized table salt in preference to sea salt. Then I found out that sea salt has no iodine in it. The thyroid needs iodine, and mine wasn’t getting any. Couple that with a few years of emotional stress and voila! Low thyroid. This is simplistic, I realize, but a good starting point. I’m supplementing with iodine, and my eyebrows are slowing growing back.

My eyesight hasn’t improved at all but seems to be getting worse.

Benefits of a Sugar-free Diet

The greatest benefit to going off sugar is the lack of swings in hunger and appetite. When I used to eat predominantly plants, I would obsess about food and eat quite a bit at each sitting. I would eat often. Consuming mostly meat and fat is very satiating and my appetite is much more controllable. I can often go from dinner to dinner without any discomfort.

I’ve also noted that my moods are much more even. Less up and down. It takes more to irritate me. In fact, I’m usually in a very good mood despite being unemployed and in a rut.

Some Simple Things I Learned Last Year

I learned why some cutting boards have a shallow moat around the edge. I learned that the first time I put a roast on a board to rest and the juices dribbled onto the floor for the cats. I also learned why meat must rest: to allow the juices, which have been migrating toward the outside of the meat, to settle back into the meat.

I learned how to cut up and consume a pomegranate with the least mess and most gratifying oral pleasure. I’m not only anal but oral. Maybe from being bottle fed.

I learned how to deglaze a pan.

I learned how to make stew and chicken broth and brined beef tongue.

I learned how to skin, disembowel, and cut up a rabbit.

I learned what chateau briand is. It’s the big, thick part of a beef tenderloin.

I learned that saturated fat is good, vegetable oils are bad, cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease, and sugar spikes insulin which causes fat deposition.

I learned how to play Texas Holdem.

The Social Scene

Oddly enough, I have developed quite a social life since moving to Erie, and I met most of the people I’ve befriended at Starbucks, a mere five blocks from my home. As is usual, most of my friends are men. I have one female friend and several male friends. But no romantic interests.

My friend Neal introduced me to Texas Holdem. A few taverns host the games. You pay $2 for a drink (water for me) and you can play a tournament. Several tables play at a time, and as players lose their chips, they leave the table. The player with a short stack of chips at a table with many players gets moved to a table with fewer players. Eventually you end up with one table. The winner gets $40 and second place gets $20.

The last time I played about 40 people showed up. I made it to the final table. This is my third time at a particular tavern where I survived until the final table. I lost my chips at third, sixth, and seventh places. Not bad for a beginner. It’s a lot of fun but completely nonproductive, which means it fits in well with my season of rut.

It’s an interesting crowd. Lots of smoking, cussing, fondling and slamming of chips, and the occasional emotional outburst when someone loses or wins. Most players are men. Many nights I have to shove something in my ears because it’s so loud.

My Furry Family

My life is enriched by the relationship I have with my cats. They are annoying and messy. But just engaging a cat for a few minutes makes me smile and fills my body with love.

Pinegar has taken (the late) George’s place at night. He usually starts off at the foot of the bed, but by morning he’s curled up in my arms under the covers. Some time during the night Lyla sneaks under the covers too. She likes to crawl down deep.

Every night Lyla and Pinegar sleep with me, and sometimes I let Arthur and Puddy in as well. But around three in the morning I’m awakened by Puddy mounting and biting someone in the neck. Then he gets kicked out.

Chester Longtail Wobblehouse will visit in the wee hours and scratch the bottom edge of the door. I don’t let her in until morning, and she heads straight for the bed. She’ll scratch the sheets until I lift up the comforter. Then she slides in, I slide in, and we have our little love session. This is the ONLY time she is affectionate with me. The rest of the time she runs away from me. Little freak.

Toby is sick again. She was sick several months ago. Didn’t eat much, vomited, urinated a lot and drank a lot of water. She’s been drinking more water than usual since then. The other day I fed her her normal ration, and because she was still hungry I let her have a bunch more food. Her belly filled up like a ball, and I heard the splat of her vomit in the early morning.

The next day she was hunkered over a box of books I was going to sell on Amazon. I took her off and made a mental note to cover the box because I thought she might throw up in it. I forgot to cover the box. She threw up in it, all over a $130 book and some other expensive books. Intuition worked for me but I didn’t follow up and paid the price.

So What To Do About the Rut?

What’s odd is I hear people say how bored they are. I remember the days when I used to be bored. But these days I’m never bored. I’m happy reading all day just about, and a few days a week going to Starbucks to talk with friends. The occasional poker game. I’m watching Stargate SG-1 again, which was a great show. And I have a ton of books to read.

I’m in a rut. I’m unproductive. There’s a temptation to DO SOMETHING. But sometimes it’s best to just relax and see where it takes me. The trees have all dropped their leaves and they too are in a rut. But they don’t fight it. They just wait until spring when they can begin their new growth.

To everything there is a season. And seasons of rest are followed by great growth.

I am pissed off! I applied for heating assistance (LIHEAP) through Erie’s Department of Public Welfare (DPW). I was asked to submit paperwork explaining how I’ve been paying my expenses this year since I’m not employed. Makes sense.

So I wrote that I had unemployment for a short while, had a job for an even shorter while, and I submitted documentation. I’ve also been selling my DVDs and books. I didn’t want to sell my Star Trek Next Generation, West Wing or Deep Space Nine series. Buffy went, as did Superman, Lost and the Complete X-Files. I didn’t want to sell my DVDs, especially not at a significant loss. But I needed money to pay my utilities and eat.

Deep Space Nine sold the same day I was fretting about how I would pay my $240 fuel bill last spring. My heating costs around $1,450 per year. This doesn’t include electricity, which is an additional $50 per month. I haven’t bought any clothes other than the boots and coat I bought when I first got here a year ago. I helped a vendor at a craft faire sell clothing for a day, and he gave me a couple dresses and blouses.

I’ve made about $200 to $300 a month selling books from my private library. But the zippers in my jacket weren’t getting fixed nor were my shoes being repaired. I have to pay the IRS every month for back payroll taxes and I have to feed my cats. And my friend loans me his car a few days a week, so I need gas money. I can’t afford my own car.

I borrowed money from a friend to buy freezers for meat, and I borrowed money from my parents to buy the meat to put in the freezers and pay my back rent. I also asked for a business loan from them. It was extremely difficult asking them since I hadn’t even told them where I moved.

So I bought a laptop, a couple Flip video cameras, cheap lighting equipment, tripods and editing software so I can do videos. I registered a Website and paid for a year of Web hosting. I’m getting ready to pay $200 for transcription software. I’m hoping I can get work doing transcription for Website owners.

And I bought half a cow and a pig so my food supply was assured for the next year. When you’re broke and a health nut, food takes precedence over every other concern, and having a well-stocked freezer reduces stress considerably.

No, I’m not going to eat crappy, sick, tortured chickens for $1.89 a pound. Nor do I want to eat grain-, candy-, and chicken-crap-fed, antibiotic-injected cows standing in their own manure for months. How do I eat healthy meat on a food stamp budget?

THERE’S NO WORK HERE. Erie county unemployment for September is 9.2%. There are few jobs, especially for pushing-50 women whose only skill is typing. And I can’t get a full-time typing job because I damaged my fingers in 1993 and have had tendonitis since. I have to pace myself when typing.

You know what they pay office help here? $7.50 to $8 an hour. I’m not ruining my hands for that. Then there’s the issue of clothing and transportation. My only hope is another entrepreneurial endeavor.

So why am I so pissed this morning? The intake worker wants a letter from my parents explaining how much money they loaned me and what it’s for. I’m not about to ask them to write a letter to the Erie DPW explaining how I am spending the money they loaned me. They want supporting documentation for my measly “income” selling off my books and DVDs.

Since when is a loan or selling one’s personal possessions considered income??? I asked Ms. Desanto, “So if I sell my futon and my bed and my dresser and everything I own to sleep, eat and heat, this is considered income?” The answer was yes. “Since when is money I have to pay back considered income?” She informed me that all money coming in is income.

So if my parents loaned me, say, $6,000 in October, I would not qualify for LIHEAP because I’m ROLLING IN CASH! Never mind that it’s almost all gone and what’s left has to last me until I figure out how to make money with a new business.

The banking industry got $23+ TRILLION dollars to help them with their little financial crisis–a crisis they created–paid for by our taxes.

$23,000,000,000,000

But I can’t get a lousy $300 to help keep me warm this winter. LIHEAP is a Federal program paid for by the taxes I paid the past 35 years of employment and business ownership.

I could go out and get a shitty job at McDonalds making $7.50 an hour. That would earn me about $1,200 a month. The income cap on a one-person household is $16,245, so I would still qualify for LIHEAP with a full-time job!

Or I could throw everything I have into a new business where I might have a chance to earn a living down the road and save for retirement doing something more constructive than serving tortured meat and HFCS to sick people until I die of boredom and disgust.

Hmmm, that’s a hard one.

I was on a discussion board where the question “Is Health Care a Right?” was asked, and someone responded with

Is it a “Right” for our children to have a K/12 education??

Is it a “Right” for the fireman to come when your house is burning down??

Is is a “Right” to have police protection??

Well, I felt a rant coming on, so I thought I’d share it with you. Now, I haven’t been following the news or Obama’s plan or anything. Why bother? I know it will ultimately provide yet more taxation and funnel this money to pharmaceutical companies and corporate interests. That is the function of entrenched government paid for by those interests.

The entire medical model is so deeply flawed and corrupt that nothing can fix it. It must be thrown out and rebuilt, and that’s never going to happen. So you have to take charge of your own health and disconnect from this flawed system.

K/12 education is not a right but a requirement by law. The responsibility for educating our children has been taken away from the parents and given to the state. Breaking free of this system requires a lot of work to comply with the state’s requirements. Most parents, I believe, are just too harried to homeschool their children. A stay-at-home mom can’t be taxed, so women were encouraged to join the workforce.

Corporations ensure children are indoctrinated into our system of compliance, conformity and consumerism. It is no education if at the end you do not know how to balance a checkbook, start a business, negotiate a deal, plant and harvest a food item, or know what constitutes food or how helpful a fever is. If you want a good education, you have to pay for it out of your own pocket.

Otherwise, your taxes pay to create nonthinking drones for the system, hopped up on food additives and high-fructose corn syrup, their cognitive development damaged by excessive media multitasking.

People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found. –Science Daily

Most children will go on to work for someone else, filling their employers’ pockets while they go into debt buying fancy toys to distract them from their emptiness because the song that sings inside them is silenced. Would-be artists settle.

Firemen only protect houses that are accessible and clear of fire debris. They will let houses burn that do not meet minimum requirements. Homeowners are responsible for caring for their property to ensure minimal risk of fire and making sure it is accessible to fire trucks. You don’t care for the property, you lose the home.

Police protect those who obey the laws. Again, there is an agreement that you abide by laws in exchange for their protection paid for by your tax dollars. If you flaunt the law, if you break it and are caught, you are fined or jailed. This money helps pay for the protection of those who obey the laws.

Same should hold true for people’s bodies. People abuse their bodies with poor diet, lack of exercise and sunshine, and too much stress, among other things. They buy cheap food and expensive TVs. They can spend hours in front of the TV but can’t be bothered to read a book on nutrition. Any little discomfort and they run for a drug to suppress it. They consistently work against the body and then expect doctors to fix them all up when the body finally breaks down.

Supersizeme © photo courtesy of Xhanatos

I pay a premium for meat direct from the farmer, but my taxes pay for the grain subsidies so others can eat their cheap meat from the grocery store. I buy organic produce when I can, but my taxes are given as incentives to farmers to grow conventional grain crops that I don’t even eat.

I educate myself on health matters and make changes to address cause instead of merely suppressing symptoms, but my taxes go into a system of Medicare that I don’t use and hope to never use. (I don’t mind helping others; I just don’t want to be taxed into poverty.)

I could go to the VA hospital for statins to lower my cholesterol, but I don’t believe the cholesterol theory of heart disease and choose to purchase my own supplements and eat healthy food to care for my heart. And I try to find and express the song inside me.

I am being taxed to death for services I don’t use and then paying a premium for items I do use.

The whole system is corrupt and designed to benefit the banking industry and corporate interests. Corporations control the government and enact laws to their benefit.

The dietary advice given by those we trust is deeply flawed. Nay, it is deadly and designed to produce customers for the medical and pharmaceutical industries. And most people are just too tired and confused to give a shit.

The low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet that’s been pushed on us since the 1980s isn’t working! Avoiding the sun is folly. Spending half an hour on a treadmill is deadly to the psyche. How boring can enjoying the body be? We’re fatter than ever. Half of us are depressed and on pharmaceuticals.

But we don’t have to be. You have power to change your health and your life and live the dream you desire. It just takes a bit of common sense. You don’t need to read scientific studies to understand the simplicity involved. My next post will discuss some of the things you can do to improve your health.

Additional reading:

The War on Terror Is a Fraud
Shopping Local Farms for Pasture-raised Lamb, Pork, Beef, Poultry and Eggs
Symptom Suppression Does Not Equal Healing or Cure

A little over 200 years ago this nation was fighting for its independence from an oppressive government. The preamble to our Declaration of Indepence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Whenever Any Form of Government Becomes Destructive

This past week I wrote a couple posts about the federal goverment’s intention to increase control over our food supply, dictating what we can and cannot eat by controlling the distribution and sale of food.

Have a seat, kids

Which led me to the story of a police raid to a raw milk co-op where the owner was so overwhelmed that he had to be treated for post tramautic stress disorder, at great financial cost.

As it stands now, in Ohio, I cannot even serve a glass of my milk to a neighbor having dinner with us. Nor give them a bite of my cheese or pass him my butter. All jail-able offenses in my state. –Cow owner on Keeping a Family Cow

While it is illegal in some states to sell raw milk, it is not illegal to consume the raw milk from your own animals. Thus the co-op was born. Each member owns a share of the animals in a co-op, so they are legally entitled to consume the animals or their milk. The government has no jurisdiction in this case, but that’s certainly not stopping them from gestapo actions against the co-ops, especially when milk crosses state lines.

Careful! That stuff is responsible for killing millions of calves

A large co-op in California became the focus of the Health Department because of raw goat milk. They were told they needed to buy over $50,000 worth of equipment and a dairy permit to comply with state laws regarding the production of raw milk–from three goats!!! This was not a commercial endeavor. These are privately owned goats. And it was all started by one asshole with a grudge.

“They’re treating raw milk like heroin or crack,” says David Cox, a Columbus lawyer with the firm Lane, Alton & Horst who specializes in cases involving agriculture regulations. He now has six Ohio cases at various stages, and one common element in all, he says, is a sense of “vindictiveness” by the state’s Agriculture Dept. (ODA). “I think there’s competition among the directors of agriculture to see who can put raw milk out of business.” –Businessweek, Nov 2006

Our Health Department is also concerning itself with a private raw juice co-op. How about the health-conscious people arrested for narcotics when they brought their raw chocolate from Canada into New York and it tested falsely as hash?

If the NAIS and HR 2749 pass, these will give our federal government the legal right to storm private homes (now they just do it illegally), confiscate records and livestock, and arrest without warrant or cause (an action, if I’m not mistaken, that the Patriot Act condones).

If you care about your health, then you should care about the food you eat. Please sign the petition against HR 2749 or pretty soon they’ll be coming after you for giving your neighbor some radishes you grew in your backyard.

SWAT team poised to arrest illegal radish grower

I paid a visit to the Erie Veterans Hospital yesterday because I’ve been getting dizzy. I’ve been getting dizzy since 1991 or so, but it usually occurred only three or four times a year. A couple days ago I got dizzy four times in 24 hours. Cause for alarm.

The type of dizziness I get can happen any time, and nothing in particular seems to provoke it. Sometimes I hear a little pop, then my head tingles, and the room starts spinning. If I’m standing up, I sometimes start falling over. If I keep my head stationary, it’s not too bad, but if I move my head everything gets whacky.

In discussing this with a friend, he told me of an uncle who had the same thing, and his symptoms were diagnosed as ministrokes. Oh great. Now I’m imagining blood clots stopping the flow of blood in my brain capillaries, the capillaries breaking and my brain dissolving. There goes my intellect, my greatest endowment. How do I care for myself if I can’t work?

If I go to the hospital and I am having ministrokes or transient ischemic attacks, will they hospitalize me against my will? Who will feed my cats? Will they force drugs into me? Should I take the drugs or take my chances and continue with my new diet? I’m thoroughly bummed at this time, and I notice every little ache, pain or tingle.

But wait. Maybe it’s really a brain tumor. Maybe I’m dying. I envision finding homes for my cats, selling all my stuff, hopping in a car and going on a roadtrip to experience the United States as I’ve always wanted to. One last adventure. Then finding a place to blow my brains out before I lose dominion over my own body, both physically and legally.

And knowing the power of the mind, I’m well aware of the potential damage of these imaginative scenarios. You can make yourself really sick by just thinking you’re sick. So I go to the hospital.

The nurse takes my vitals, asks me if I know where I am, what my birthdate is, what the day and year are. I stick out my tongue, smile, perform physical feats on demand. My blood pressure is higher than normal at 147/90 but not alarming to the nurse. I’m put in a cold room to wait for a doctor.

A doctor comes in, listens to my symptoms, and schedules a CAT scan. The scanner is just down the hall so I’m taken there, lie down, and get an average of 1.5 mSv of radiation (Hiroshima was 40 mSv). The doctor never explains the risks of the CAT scan, doesn’t discuss it with me at all. Just takes charge of my body. I suppose he wants to make sure he doesn’t overlook anything. Do I have a choice?

I later learn that an MRI is much less damaging and is the preferred way to view brain tissue. But it’s more expensive. Maybe they don’t have an MRI machine at the VA. I’m relieved to report that my brain is normal. That nagging fear that I might have a tumor has been completely dispelled, so on the whole, I consider it a win trading negative psychic energy for a dose of radiation. Too bad I couldn’t get a tan at the same time.

The new shift brings a new doctor. Okay, so I’m diagnosed with vertigo. It could be a dislodged calcification? which is normally reabsorbed within five days. That can’t be it. Bacterial infection? The doctor wants to give me antibiotics. But I’m not suffering any other symptom of bacterial infection. After further discussion the antibiotic suggestion dies its welcome death.

Now the doctor wants to give me a particular antihistamine that calms the symptoms like dramamine calms motion sickness on airplanes or boats. I’d rather put up with dizziness than take a drug, and now that I know it won’t kill me, I can ride it out without fear. I have removed grains, legumes and dairy from my (paleolithic) diet. I’ve long suspected food allergies, so we’ll see if my new diet has any affect.

I keep redirecting him to cause, and he keeps steering me back to drugs. “Are you sure you don’t want it? Just in case? It’s just an antihistamine like Dramamine.” I reply, “But it’s not a cure. I have to keep taking it. It doesn’t address the cause. Now again, is the problem an inflammatory issue in the inner ear?” I’m looking for the physiological mechanism, and he’s explaining the symptoms. I want to say, “Yo, dude, I already know what the symptoms are. Enough with the drugs!” He talks too fast. I think he’s gone over his allotted ten minutes with me, and he moves on to the next patient.

A nurse takes my blood and I get an ECG. The bloodwork comes back positive, and my heart is fine. Breathe a big sigh of relief. I’m not dying. Why do we humans imagine the worst? Our imagination is a gift, and we abuse it in this fashion. Why not imagine the best and help your immune system along with happy thoughts?

I tried 80/10/10 and realize this diet will just not work for me. A mainstay of the diet is bananas–as much as 10 to 12 at a meal–in order to get enough calories for the day. I’m just not a fan of bananas. The most I could eat was five.

The amount of fruit required to get 2000 calories is enormous. I was obsessing all day about eating. Because I had to eat anywhere from three to four times the volume I was used to. Sure I could get used to it, but I don’t want to get used to it. To me, it’s unreasonable to stuff so much food in my mouth.

After four days my gums were bleeding when I brushed my teeth. My gums hardly ever bleed. By day four urinating was painful. I gave up on the diet after five days.

I visited a forum of 80/10/10 fans and posted for a while. Seemed like a lot of good information was being shared. Then someone asked what people would do if they got cancer. I said I would eat a lot of greens, then fast until hunger, followed by greens and fruit and some wild game or grass-fed meat. Shame on me!

Someone asked me why meat. I replied: “Because a little bit won’t harm me and might actually provide additional nutritional elements. My species has been eating meat for millenia. And I don’t care to be a food fanatic or purist.”

I got thrashed by these wonderful, health-minded people. They just kinda ganged up on me. Serious meat phobia.

One woman objected to the implication that those who didn’t eat meat are fanatics. But that’s not what I said. I said that I didn’t want to be a fanatic. A fanatic is not someone who says, “I don’t eat meat.” That’s just a vegetarian or vegan. A fanatic is someone who says, “I don’t eat meat and neither should you. It’s wrong.” I guess according to that definition, most of the people on this forum are fanatics because they sure didn’t want me to choose my own diet. I was no longer welcome on their forum.

She also wrote “Joanne, just because people have been doing things for ‘millenia’ doesn’t make it right. They’ve been killing each other too.”

My comment was along biological lines. To this woman it was an ethical issue. Apples and oranges. My species has been consuming meat for millenia and is biologically adapted to it. It’s fine with me if you, for ethical reasons, choose not to eat meat. Why would I care? What does concern me is your belief that eating meat is unhealthy (a biological issue) because you find it morally objectionable (an ethical issue). But then again, I felt that way years ago when I was younger and full of self-righteous idealism. It felt good to have a moral platform. I had just come out of Christianity, so I still had the mindset that there’s only ONE way.

The final blow was by a young man who prides himself on his sportsmanship in bike riding. He wrote: “this site is for crew that dont buy or bite into animal torture. the notion that we must continue the bloodshed cos we have been doing so for so long is beyond comphrehension.”

Afternoon snack chomps down on Arthur's nose

Maybe beyond his comprehension. He should watch my cats with a rodent for a while to see how inhumane nature is. Is it bloodshed when my cats drag in a rabbit and tear it apart? Why is it the animal kingdom can all eat each other but I as a human can’t eat an animal? Again, apples and oranges.

I’ve come to a point in my life where I’ve seen my own fanaticism and extremism, and I’m just tired of it. I’m tired of it in myself and I especially don’t want to immerse myself in such a culture. The most irritating people I come across in the diet arena are vegans. Self-righteous, morally superior, egotistical, hostile, militant, and absolutely closed-minded. They insist that because veganism works for them that it works for all and is a moral imperative, which just isn’t the case. They just can’t seem to leave others be.

But, like Christians, it’s only the annoying ones you notice. It’s the ones who mind their own business and live according to their own conscience that you never know about, so a blanket judgment is out of order. But I haven’t met a vegan yet who wasn’t also a condescending jerk. They’re hard to love.

Let’s all let others live according to their own conscience. If someone wants to be vegan, good for them. If someone wants to eat meat, good for them too. Everyone is finding their own path.

Additional reading:
Thoughts on Raw Vegan, 80/10/10 and Paleolithic Diets

This post is in response to a question I received from Sarah in a comment. She asked:

I dont understand why you let yourself slide into this position. Why? bankruptcy.losing your house,credit,credibility,and business and reduced to the kindness of strangers and all that. kinda like all those harvard grads in the banking industry whom have just pushed the US into a depression. they have taxpayers to bail them out, but you don’t.

I’ve blogged a lot about how I got into my current financial situation. You can read about it if you click on the topic of Business and Finance > Finance. It was a combination of business mistakes I made and a failing economy. Books aren’t in high demand when people can’t afford fuel or food.

The economy has been tanking for over two years. Our government is bankrupt. Financial institutions are failing. People all over are losing their jobs and homes. But I didn’t lose my house. I gave it back to the bank. Just like I’m giving back my car. I’m giving it all back and starting over, which is my legal right.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it rains.—Robert Frost

Don’t think it was the Harvard grads that pushed us into a depression. They were just doing what they were taught to do and what people wanted them to do. Everything they did was perfectly legal. Just like my bankruptcy is legal.

Our problems started when we allowed fractional reserve banking and were compounded by the creation of the IRS and the Federal Reserve.

This cycle repeats. People get into debt, can’t pay it, and the banks take possession of houses and property, property on which they have often already received huge sums of money through finance charges. If they risk too much and lose, the government bails them out by printing money, and our currency is further devalued. Businesses are bought for a fraction of their value. Stocks are devalued and snatched up by the wealthy who sell them when they recover.

If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.—J. Paul Getty

It’s like this: I am a banker. I have the ability to create fake money but my customer base is tapped out. So I dream up a new scheme that allows a new customer base–poor people with no credit–to own homes. So I teach Harvard grads how they can get rich with this new system, and they go out and sell it to the public. I’m so very clever.

I know I can get the poor people to pay me 30% interest for a while before they default, if they default. But when they default, my government covers my loss. Meanwhile, I’ve pocketed the interest and lived high on the hog. I risked nothing.

You see, I paid to put the politicians in place who would establish laws that allowed me to get away with usury and that cover me in case of default. I own all the media, which is constantly drumming into your head that you need silly things that cost a lot of money. I own stock in all the major corporations that produce garbage for you to buy. And I own stock in the pharmaceutical companies that make the antidepressants and drugs that treat the diseases that your stress produces, stress further compounded by the nightly terror known as “TV news.” And when I really want to speed things up, I start a war, finance both sides and then buy up the countries when they are bankrupt.

The rich become richer and the poor become poorer.

Then the cycle turns and our economy booms, we all bet on a happy future by buying houses and cars and TVs and boats (all financed, of course), we’re happy for a season and it starts all over again.

OUR MONEY IS BEING HARVESTED.

And we’re offered a million entertainments, drugs, and pharmaceuticals to dumb us down and keep us from revolting. Well, I’m not on drugs, pharmaceuticals or benumbed by entertainments. On the contrary. This situation has compelled me to learn about how I got here, how the banking system works, how money was created. I have educated myself into clarity. And I’m checking out of the system.

I haven’t been reduced to the kindness of strangers (not sure where you got that from), nor have I lost credibility. I have lost my high credit score, which simply means that I will no longer be able to borrow imaginary money from banks (strangers) and pay exhorbitant finance charges that not long ago were illegal in this country.

I made a choice that was in my best interest. I decided I was not going to work for the banks for the next twenty years. I choose freedom.

If you really want to help the economy, get out of the credit game, no matter the cost. Pay off the debt or get out via bankruptcy. It’s only when we stop relying on the banks and begin working together as a community that we’ll be able to avoid the ups and downs manipulated by bankers.

The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight-of-hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in inequity and born in sin… But if you want to continue to be slaves of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers continue to create money and control credit. –Josiah Charles Stamp

I leave you with this humorous tale.

An American INVESTMENT BANKER was at the pier of a small coastal Greek village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna.

The American complimented the Greek on the quality of his fish and asked, “How long does it take to catch them?” The Greek replied: “Only a little while”.

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Greek said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Greek fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play cards with my friends, I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Athens, then London and eventually New York where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Greek fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “15-25 years.” “But what then?” The American laughed and said that’s the best part. “When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions … Then what?” The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play cards with your friends.”