9 posts from May 2008

I was mad at Oprah today. Usually I watch the first fifteen minutes or so of her show immediately after I get home from school, specifically while eating some sort of fattening snack. It's good background noise: drama layered on top of fluffy subjects fit for the average consumer. Today, however, she had a show on puppy mills. You know, where those cute little puppies you see at the big-box pet store were first brutally abused and confined to cages so small they couldn't stand up straight? Anyway, yeah, it was disgusting and inhumane and made me want to cry.. but that's not the reason why I couldn't watch it. What about the other animals in the world? The animals we see as "farm animals", the animals the average American doesn't think are "cute", the animals that don't end up at a pet store and to a home in the end but rather are killed brutally instead?

I did a quick Google search about Oprah's involvement with the rights of other animals and I end with the result: more fluff. She did a show in 1996 about Mad Cow Disease which criticized factory farms in their practice of using dead cattle meat in food for the live cows. There was also an article (by PETA on their website, which makes me distrust its credibility) about her being a vegan for two weeks for some reason or another. Why not forever? Why not criticize other practices of factory farms that include keeping cows in compacted feedlots, practically on top of each other to save space, where the air is a delightful blend of bacteria and particulate matter? Or, you know, the fact that the average beef slaughterhouse kills 250 cows per hour to feed our disgusting obsession with red meat? I'm not even talking about the other kinds of animals that are no less important than cattle.

Why are we so selective in our choice of what animals we should be outraged by the inhumane deaths of? Puppies and cows and chickens and pigs and fish are all killed to serve our selfish want for more, more, more at cheaper, cheaper, cheaper prices. By the way, I just want to say that I've never seen any vegetables more expensive than meat, when compared at the same quality level.

You know, I guess I could be a hypocrite. I don't obsessively check ingredient lists for any trace of dairy product, and I do eat foods with eggs and cheese in them. I'm not hoping for an immediate, radical, upheaval and outlawing all meat consumption, but what about conscious consumption? Why not care about where the food came from that we're putting in our bodies? Why not think why not have control?

But I guess the wants of our flesh are too important that they trump our brain. Chicken nuggets are delicious.

Show us the loveliest flower in your garden.
Submitted by Allio's blog.

wallflowers

Siddarth and I presented our project on globalization today. He made a Powerpoint last night, spur of the moment, so I basically just stood there and talked statistics for five seconds. We should get a good grade on it, though. It's really nice not having that hanging over my head anymore.

Yesterday I went to Dr. Morgan at Piedmont Psychiatric Associates. She diagnosed me as having unipolar depression with melancholic features and gave me Wellbutrin XL. I talked to my dad about it and he says it's up to me whether I want to get therapy or not; I'm on the fence. I've had therapists in the past and they were fun.. I like talking about myself and having people listen. However, it seems like a waste of time unless they're going to do something about some behavioral problems I have. I'll probably try it out for a while, I mean, it'll be summer. Something to do would be nice. I'm really skeptical about the efficacy of this medication, though. I've tried others before with really no improvement. I got into the state of mind that these depressive episodes were caused by people and things rather than some chemical imbalance. While it's nice to think that some miracle drug can fix it, it really seems too ingrained... or maybe that's me being a pessimist.

It seems like forever since I've posted. This past weekend seemed like an eternity but ephemeral all the same. Ephemeral? I'm starting to sound like Zooey Deschanel. Speaking of her, I really want to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie The Happening. But that doesn't come out until June 13th so we're going to see The Strangers this weekend instead. The latter is your basic, run-of-the-mill horror movie but with Joanna Newsom's music. Did I mention we're going on Sunday? And that I'll have nothing to do all weekend so my extroverted persona is probably going to go into hibernation? Yeah.

I also made cookies.
And if Chuck would come see me ever during the week I would make fudge brownies. But I guess not.

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives

is.

I'll probably be spending the rest of my day playing Dino Run, instead of researching the impact meat intake has on the environment and trying to memorize Middle English for Mrs. Carpenter. Why couldn't she have given us this assignment when the rest of her classes were learning it, too, so I could feel some sort of accomplishment instead of this dull sense of dread. Megan gave me her phonetic-spelling write up of all lines and it makes it seem less intimidating, but I still don't know how to pronounce some of it. I'm probably getting way too far ahead of myself because this is the second day that we've been trying to learn it and who can memorize something in two days? She hasn't even told us how to say half of it.

What am I even talking about? I had a good time last night with Jimmy and Aaron and Billy and Chuck. We're going to have more good times this weekend, I hope, and I'm really excited about getting dressed up for dinner on Saturday but it seems so far away. At least it's not Monday. But then again it could be Friday. I've been messing with photos on Flickr a lot today, too, outside of my dino running. I want to download the (pirated) version of Photoshop for OS X but I feel slightly guilty editing my photos. I mean, I want them to be honest and tell the whole story. I could easily manipulate them to force them to say exactly what I want them to say, but some of the beauty is in the personal interpretation. That sounds silly, doesn't it? A picture shows what is in a picture and that's what it is, right? Just looking through my photo library (there are seriously tons of things saved on my hard drive) I can remember what a specific photograph said to me at a certain point, but now it means something different. When I randomly explore things on Flickr, I see things from someone else's point of view.. but through my lens. But will editing a picture change that? No. It's still art, open to interpretation and criticism from others. What I'm saying is, personally, my integrity feels slightly challenged if I edit something a present it as the truth. It's different if it's going to be something I offer as fiction, or.. well, it's hard to get into words. Kinda like Addie Bundren, speaking from her coffin and saying words aren't enough. Someone needs to come up with a mental thought-transducer or something.. but that would be scary.

Flat Stanley

snuggletime 3

I stayed at Kearstin's house last night, and I think I'm going to stay here for the rest of the weekend. She's been doing my laundry, making my bed, and bought me like $50 worth of food. Believe me, I've been eating it. It's really nice to be actually "living" with someone: I mean, she's not here with me right now, but I'm a lot less alone than I would be at my house.

I've also been relatively sick. I woke up yesterday morning with a sore throat, and I just figured Pepper had slept with me so I took some allergy medication. It didn't help, so I was really miserable by the end of the day. I got a delicious bubblegum flavored shaved ice and Kearstin had some of this stuff laying around from when she was sick. I guess it's just liquid tylenol and decongestant but it works really well. I'm sleeping in her little half-siblings' room, because they don't stay here anymore and they have a really cute bunk bed. In order to conquer my fear of the bottom bunk, I'm sleeping down there.. you know, in case I have a roommate next year who is completely insistent that they get the top bunk. I also really like being enclosed when I sleep (against a wall, stuff like that) so it's really snuggly.

Anyway, Kearstin is going over to her mom's house to babysit her niece this afternoon, and I think Chuck and I are going to hang out and eat more food. It feels so surreal being finished with my last AP exams ever, but it's totally fine with me. Compared to the Government and Politics exams, having the single English Lit exam was really nice, and the essays were like key lime pie. That would make the GoPo exams unappetizing, vanilla ice cream? They were fine going down, but left a bad taste in my mouth and a queasy stomach.

Why are we here?

If you haven't noticed, I really like the Flickr/Vox integration. It's super!