An Immense World covers human beings, spiders, octopi, ants, snakes--just about all life you can imagine, but I'm not sure that it covers the sentient beings in factory farms.  Today I plan to go to West Portal and find the print book.  I've been reading with my ears.  

If he doesn't consider factory farmed animals, is that because we've normalized thinking of them only as meat, eggs, and dairy?  Does he not want to study caged animals because he's interested in what's natural and knows that caged animals and animals otherwise used as food can't follow their instincts?

Tonight I was listening to the chapter on pain.  It appears that regardless of how animals behave or react, there will always be people who say they can't feel pain--not the way that we human beings do.  I'm afraid there are still people who think that some human beings don't feel pain the way we do, that they don't value life, their lives don't mean as much as ours do.

 We had a mostly-vegan luncheon at the China North Dumpling Restaurant on Noriega yesterday, but I'm using that only to have an illustration.  

I finally responded to a very nice person who I thought believed in vegan causes but may not wish to "push" the cause in any way.

I have a lot of respect and affection for you.  I also really want to support the vegan cause both for animal welfare and for the environment.  I'm aware that a lot of people, while aware of some animal abuse in the production of meat, are not aware of what goes on with dairy and poultry, so it was my hope that I could simply provide an alternative to the products with eggs and milk. Before I became a vegan, I had no idea that cakes and cookies could be made without the eggs and milk I usually used.   But when I brought home-baked cookies, you opened the ones that Lisa had brought, and I'm sure they were delicious but not what I hoped people would be trying.  You also announced that Lisa would be providing cookies and coffee/tea for the next gathering in person, so I decided you preferred to go back to the milk and egg products, and that disappoints me, but I'm not angry with you.  You do a wonderful job keeping the Sunset Book Group going while also being very active in a lot of other activities.

I'll be in flight on October 9th, so I won't be able to attend our next discussion, but I'll write something about my reading of Women Talking so you can count me in!

Thanks again for all you do even if it isn't always supportive of the vegan cause!

 I loved and will always love Kevin Fisher-Paulson, even though his "Be kind" supplication to us didn't include be kind to factory-farmed animals.  There was a lovely reception after the service for him at The Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church at 100 Diamond yesterday.  There was nothing vegan.

I know he had at least one vegan friend.  Did that friend die?  He once said that he'd be at the home of a vegan on Thanksgiving Day, so he would probably be pushing tofu around his plate--an unfortunate stereotype of vegans.  Here's the passage:  I'm writing a separate tribute to Kevin Fisher-Paulson, but here I'll just say that "courage to change" can apply to diet,and saying that Mr. Sasb has turned vegan "as part of his midlife crisis" does not show how enlightened Kevin Fisher-Paulson was in most ways.

November 21, 2017

I want to be grateful for tradition, but what I really should be grateful for is the courage to change. We’ve transplanted Thanksgiving this year. Since 2001, we’ve hosted an orphan holiday in the blue bungalow, but for the first time ever, our boys are spending the fourth Thursday in November at the Sasbs, who have seen each and every one of our mood swings, and yet still invited us to break bread. As part of his midlife crisis, Mr. Sasb has turned vegan, and despite all my assurances that the turkey himself was a strict vegetarian, so certainly the meat would be vegan, it is likely that I will be pushing a hunk of tofu around my plate tomorrow.

It's surprising that the best-stated reason for choosing vegan comes from a cookie company!  I'm disappointed that these cookies are no longer sold at the Opera Plaza Cinema and that the Embarcadero Cinema, where they were sold, closed down.  I remember how surprised I was years ago when I asked, "Do you have any vegan cookies?" and the person behind the concession stand said, "All of our cookies are vegan."  Brave new world!

But at least there's a place in SF where I can get them--George's Zoo, 2650 Sloat Blvd!

 

 

Regarding Aviva Bechky's article "Sonoma loves its farms. Activists call them factories. Could a ballot measure upend this county?"

I don't blame Mike Weber for doing what we've normalized--treating farm animals as a commodity--and he at least gives some of his chickens some chance to follow their instincts.  That may be true of his dairy cows too.  I doubt that Proposition J will pass in Sonoma because animal-eaters choose to ignore how sentient beings suffer if the sentient beings aren't human or the animals they've chosen as pets. I believe that someday we'll look back in horror at factory farms, but that probably won't come about because of concern for animals.  It will probably be for environmental reasons.  Instead of the government's subsidizing the products from factory farms, they'll start educating people on the atrocities involved and the environmental damage done.  

Even people who consider themselves progressive are resistant to change when it comes to their eating habits.  But paying taxes in the US, we're funding animal agriculture.  For every $100 we pay in taxes, about 50 cents goes directly to funding factory farming,  a cruel, unhealthy practice.  

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/sonoma-farms-measure-j-19607917.php

In an effort to share vegan bliss, I made three batches of cookies to take to the Sunset Book group.  Our leader Janet Tom may no longer be a vegan because she opened the other boxes that weren't vegan, and they were from Andronico's instead of from my oven!  Heavy competition and not free of eggs and dairy.

People thanked me but no one said they were good!  Of course, they didn't like the book either.  (Ari Shapiro's Best Strangers in the World.

 

Thanks to Carol Fregly, kindred vegan, I found out about this game.  Even though the mailing was $19, I got two of them!

 https://plantbasednews.org/culture/media/vegan-gaming-company-card-game/