but i can't... what i can do is share the wit and wisdom of marla from
vegan feminist agitator as she articulates what many vegans think and feel with her sixth annual disgruntled vegan alphabet...
A is for Another flaky “former vegan” celebrity just went on a talk show and
is now on the paleo bandwagon so could we please stop already with the
celebrity worship? Pretty please? It never ends well.
B is for “But
what about the Inuit? But what about the Native Americans? But
what about the lions? But what about the microscopic insects you kill?
But what
about soy? But what about eating humane meat? But I’m part Italian. But
eating
meat is how I honor my ancestors. But I was raised eating meat. But I
give a
blessing. But I give thanks. But my guru said it was okay. But I need
the
protein. But I am allergic to soy, wheat, all grains, all fruits and all
vegetables except for celery. But I need the iron. But I just eat a
little meat. But I don’t eat red
meat. But I only support the best farms. But…”
C is for Cough in front of the wrong person and it is incontrovertible proof
that I have a vegan-induced nutritional deficiency.
D is for Delusion, because apparently there is a just and compassionate way
to needlessly slaughter other sensitive beings as long as you have an unlimited
supply of it.
E is for the Eerie silence that happens whenever I get stopped by a Greenpeace
canvasser or the Sierra Club calls and I ask them about their organization’s public
position on eating animals.
F is for For once, could I either opt out of the Secret Santa exchange at
work or get someone who doesn’t give me a basket of alpaca milk soaps from her
brother-in-law’s farm?
G is for Gotcha moments, and, no, you didn’t “get me” with your inquiry about
what my shoes or coat are made of but try again, sport, because this endless
game of pin-the-tail-on-the-hypocrite never gets old or predictable.
H is for Har-har-har, writing People Eating Tasty Animals in the middle of a
debate never fails to make an original and devastating counter-argument. Touché! How could
anyone ever recover from such a salient point?
I is for Ick, no, I really don’t miss eating corpses. Do I look like
Hannibal Lecter or something? Fava beans and a nice chianti, though, those would
be fine.
J is for that Junk science video you posted about
“plants feeling pain.” If this is more persuasive to you than, I don’t know,
the lack of a central nervous system and an evolutionary incentive for pain reception
and you ignore the fact that far more
plants are consumed when eating a diet that includes animals, I am going to have
to question if you are really sincere about your convictions.
K is for karma because sometimes that is all we can hope for in life and we
have all heard about her general disposition.
L is for Logical Fallacies because whether were are talking about a strawman
argument (“Vegans hate people and only care about animals!”), the slippery
slope argument (“If we stop eating animals, they will take over the world!”)
the tu quoque approach (“How can you talk about animal suffering when you are
stepping on bugs, hmm?”) and an anecdote (“My cousin was vegan for two weeks
and she almost died from a protein deficiency!”), these are all examples of the
logical fallacies people who want to continue eating animals will wrap
themselves in like a warm blanket. A blanket with a bunch of holes in it nonetheless.
M is for the Massive meltdown that happens when a vegan asks her affluent grass-fed,
organic paleo cousin how many worlds we’d need in order to sustain the world’s
population with his way of eating.
N is for the Namaste-spouting New Agers who try to
justify eating animals and are so self-involved as to claim that “judgments”
are worse than unnecessary violence and destroying the planet. Altogether now: om…
O is for Okay, do you honestly believe that vegans are pushing their views
on you? Have you looked at the world through the lens of someone who doesn’t
think that animals are “food” lately? Have you tried to look at the world
through the lens of a being who is born and raised solely for the purpose of
being eaten lately?
P is for Paranoia, as in, “I said soy milk, right? Because if my coffee has
cow’s milk in it I will be really upset and disgusted. Okay, wait, I see you’ve
charged me extra because apparently destroying our planet is not enough for animal
product consumers, now they should be able to get what they want without any
penalties at all and when is a vegan
coffee shop finally going to open around here??? So, anyway, how do I know the
barista didn’t make a mistake?”
Q is for having exceeded my annual
Quota of weird looks and passive-aggressive
remarks about my meatless roast at my family’s Thanksgiving dinner within
five minutes of being there. Because
family…
R is for Really, I don’t want to hear about how much you love animals but
vegans “just take it too far” because, you know, this is kind of idiotic if you
think about it without your ego getting in the way.
S is for being Self-righteous because it’s better than being self-wrongteous.
T is for Turducken because what kind of twisted, Caligula-minded sadist invented
this grotesquery?
U is for the Universal sign of warm weather, which means that when I can finally open my windows for a few
months, the smell of charred, tortured flesh filling the air greets me. Yay.
V is for getting Verklempt at the Vicarious thrill we enjoy when one of our protégés goes off and
becomes an awesome little vegan agitator in his or her own right. Fly, little
bird. Fly! Oh, wait. This was supposed to be complaining. Okay, V is for Vasectomy because, please, 98% of humanity, let’s look into it. Snip,
snip, done.
W is for Wings as in do you know that people actually sit around and eat a
bird’s severed limbs and then dump the bones in a bowl and, um, tofu is gross? Oooookay, then.
X is for the Xenophobes who think that Asian cultures
that eat dogs are barbaric while they themselves eat dead chickens and cows. Um,
what???
Y is for the boiled Yellow squash plate vegans are served at our cousin’s wedding that no amount of salt, pepper, denial or wishful
thinking will be able to remedy. This is why an emergency nutrition bar should always be in the glove compartment.
Z is for the Zany situations that turn your life into
a tragicomedy that will make for an excellent screenplay for a film that
roughly two percent of the population might be willing to see one day."
i've got nothing to add... marla has said it all...(but you can read her previous alphabets -
sixth annual airing of grievances (each word is a link to one of her earlier alphabets)...
That is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI realised today as we helped Mon how much I actually miss blogging. I don't know what happened. But I'm keen to restart. I still love reading yours, so I'll look more often. Lil'
ReplyDeletelife happens lily!!! time, energy and 'oomph' get sapped... i constantly think about blogging, and think, and think - so much to blog about - which road to take... we both need to get back into it...
ReplyDelete