Archive for February, 2010

Racist Community Bans Unwelcome Minorities

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Oh, wait, they’re Indians Native Americans First Peoples? Oh, that’s OK then.

Remember, folks, racism is wrong, except when it isn’t. Reading this article, it’s hard not to think of the spittle-flying rants one encounters on far-right sites and in the “Talkback” sections of, well, just about everywhere. Fear of “assimilation”? A desire to “protect” one’s “culture”?  Yup. Pretty much indistinguishable from the arguments of any other breed of racist.

“Culture” is not genetic — believing that it is is one of the chief idiocies of racism. Nor should culture be “preserved” via force of law. Whether it’s the French trying to keep their language pure, or nations mandating a certain percentage of “natively produced” programs by shown on TV (even if no one watches them), or Mohawks or Klansmen trying to kick out people they don’t like, there’s no such thing as a right to a culture, a heritage, or a tradition — remembering that a “right” is “That which you are morally entitled to use lethal force to protect.” If your culture is being destroyed because another culture serves people’s needs better, then let that culture die.

Hah! Bite Me, Vegans!

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Oh, sure, it’s just one study, and, yeah, if you have a tenth of a brain, it’s obvious that comparing the most processed types of plant food to meat isn’t really a decent comparison — it’s a poor study and easily rebuked by even the dimmest sprout-munching hippie. But I don’t care, I’m enjoying my moment of schadenfreude.

But, here’s the thing. People, at least sane, normal, people, don’t want to just eat lettuce they grow in their backyard. We are omnivores by evolution, and that means we want, and crave, meat! Even if for ethical or health reasons (correctly or incorrectly), we choose to let our forebrain overrule that primal desire to sink our teeth into a haunch of something that used to be running around, we will crave something close — fake meat, in other words, or highly processed vegetable matter. So as a matter of practicality, a major shift by the population to a vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian, diet can only occur if the craving for flesh can be sated by fake flesh — and that imposes environmental costs, as does everything.

(I actually like tofu, which is my deep and secret shame.)