Why Do We Find It So Hard To Be Excellent To One Another?

[poliphilo]

Another reason not to be cheerful- some person or persons unknown (look how restrained I'm being) bashed in the passenger window of the car and rifled through the contents. 

It had to be kids, or very low-level drunks or druggies, because the really valuable stuff- the tax disc, the disabled parking permit- was left behind. They took a small amount of money and a cheap mobile phone. What really hurts is the bill for repairs.

I'm always amazed by how much debris a broken window generates. You'd think  you'd be able to reconstruct  two, three, four windows out of  all the chunky grit I swept up.

It's a bad, bad, bad, bad world. 

Which brings us to factory farming. I'm not particularly sentimental about animals, but when the lid gets lifted on the food industry the things that are revealed ain't pretty. The big Bernard Matthews factory where they had the outbreak of bird flu is situated way out in the middle of nowhere- as well it might be. OK, turkeys are stupid, great , animated feather dusters, but to keep them like this- by the million in artificially illuminated sheds can't be right, can it? I don't know if it's cruel, exactly, but it certainly shows no respect. Living things shouldn't be reduced to this. 

Which is why I don't eat meat. Yes I know the workers who pick my veggies are exploited too, but one has to take a stand somewhere.

Comments

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the obscene way that Agri-business has degraded and debased our food, but I can't give up meat. I do however work very closely with our local Organic Farmers Union (Saare Mahe) as their lamb and chickens are raised humanely and the vegetables are grown without pesticides.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've discovered, since becoming a veggie, that I really don't care for meat at all.

I'm much happier eating baked potatoes and humus and vegetable curry.

But I don't see any moral problem with eating meat (it's what the human animal is designed for) provided the relations between animal and farmer/hunter are non-abusive.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Someday when you're looking for a new idea for vacations bring your family to Estonia - to Saaremaa, I wont try to persuade you to eat meat, but I will try to show you a place where people live with rspect for the land the creatures they share it with.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. :)

Over here we're beginning to re-learn that kind farming ethic. I guess you Estonians never forgot it.