So I'm Thinking Of Going Vegan

happy (b)earth day

earth hour

One hour. One measly little hour. This one hour translates to 1/24th of your day, 1/168th of your week, and 1/8760th of your year (if my calculations are correct, snort). Earth Hour will be celebrated from 8:30 to 9:30pm on Saturday, March 31, 2012. Please take this time to show a little love for this lovely planet we're allowed to live on, the ultimate mother of us all, in a way. Think about how we treat our hostess, all her other guests, and give thought as to whether our manners could improve. ;)

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. --WILLIAM JAMES

springing into action

Well, not quite. After having found my groove again (snort, thanks veganelder), I ended up working full-time for a spell (debating whether I should fight the flu shot requirement or not) and didn't have the energy to blog, or do anything particularly useful for other animals. But today is the first day of Spring, yay, so I hope to be back in action soon. In the meantime, here are some other dates to keep in mind this week: 

March 20: Meatout

March 22: World Water Day 

March 23: One Life -- although not a vegan documentary, I'm always hopeful that films of the Planet Earth genre will at least inspire more respect for other species

March 19-25: Canada Water Week -- discover your water footprint!

==============================

Also, for any Canadian reader interested in working with an animal sanctuary, there's an Executive Director position available with the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada main farm in Puslinch, Ontario. I would encourage you to apply! :)

why Mad Men gives me hope

For those of you not familiar with this excellent show, Mad Men is a drama set in the advertising world of the 1960s. Smart, stylish, wonderfully acted, and with a pace that tends to emphasize character over action, this series is notable for capturing the sexism, racism and homophobia of that era. Also striking are the commonplace behaviours that can come across as shocking to today's viewers. Seeing a pregnant woman smoke and drink is jarring to say the least. In fact, the copious amounts of smoking and drinking by almost all characters both at home and in the workplace is a reminder of how much things have changed. 

But my favourite example so far of change in public attitude is through an episode where the main characters go on a lovely picnic in a pristine park, and upon leaving shake out their blanket and leave the garbage behind on the grass. I cannot tell you how jaw dropping this incident was, but the huge number of comments this little snippet in the episode garnered all across the Internet tells me that a lot of people were aghast. And that shows how much attitudes can change over a relatively short period of time. Public littering, while still done, is not considered proper behaviour anymore, and that value, even if it doesn't always translate into behaviour, has been pretty much ingrained into our consciousness by now. 

So I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Mad Men demonstrates that collectively we have changed in how we view and treat each other. Yes, sexism, racism, homophobia and environmental abuse are still problems, but at least they're recognized as being problems, and I'm confident that one day future generations will be just as appalled at how badly we used to treat animals as well.

earth days (Patrick McDonnell - Mutts comic strip)

we are all one

October 15th was Blog Action Day, with the topic being Climate Change. Obviously, I missed it, but that doesn't have to stop me from talking about it now, snort. I have to admit (being a previously proud misanthropist) that in the past I didn't care too much about climate change. As far as I was concerned, global warming was something humans helped to create, and therefore they deserved whatever consequences were coming. I felt bad for other species and for the planet itself, but people were simply gonna get what they had coming! But then I became vegan, and one unfortunate aspect of veganism is having to extend compassion to ALL living creatures including humans who behave badly, so now I'm forced to feel bad for human animals as well. ;)

I'm getting a bit better at it, and would like to share a video sent by a friend that does a good job of explaining why we're all in this together, and why we have to start caring now. Enjoy!

earth day

Happy Earth Day! Did you see the cool new badge? Click on it and find out how you too can contribute to one million acts of green.

My local grocery store finally got in the act today and from now on will charge five cents for every plastic bag given out. A good idea for those who don't already use their own cloth bags and maybe it will inspire less use of plastic overall. A ban on certain pesticide products is in effect here in Ontario as of today as well, and that's another step forward. Hey, have you heard about the new Disney film called earth? I really want to go see it, but I don't think it's showing at a theatre I can get to. Pity.

So I decided to post this entry on each of my blogs, as it's relevant to all three. Being environmentally friendly can be cost effective in many ways; not only can it help your wallet in the short run, in the end, the less damage we do to this planet the less we'll have to spend to clean and fix it up. Making sure our habitat becomes safer is good for all the species our earth has to support, and veganism's emphasis on compassion for all ties in neatly with environmental concern. Again, Happy Earth Day however you decide to celebrate, and think green all the way!