In Grand Central other day – walking by - stopped at – a table – which had.. a TV on it.. – and some literature.. On the TV.. were two pigs, hanging upside down, wriggling.. a guy – executed a few cuts – blood, spurting out, down, to puddles below.. – and so it dawned, that this was an 'anti-violence to animals' type table.. – looking closer.. it was a vegetarian/vegan type table.. – with two Earthy, organic, Upstate-looking guys – handing pamphlets.. – a guy next to me stood, holding the hand of his lil' daughter, who gazed at the shrieking upside down oinkers on the screen.. – then the tape went into chickens – how they're all cooped up in cages atop each other and fattened up and all that – "KFC" popped to mind.. then my eyes honed in on the pictures they had spread about – on the floor and table. – a number of 8x11 pics of body builders – flexing shining bulging biceps and triceps – like Mr. America types – grimace-smiling, veins popping out fierce..
And I was like (realizing they were expressing the point that these were vegetarians) "wow – thought you had to eat all kinds of protein – really beef up on red meat to get guns like that" – "popular misconception" he said – "you can get plenty of protein in other ways other than animal protein." - "really, wow.. yeah, these pictures speak volumes..." – then – continuing on in the kind of zone I was in before spotting the table, I bumbled off.. and.. that was that..
From New Yorker Mag:
"When the sixteen-year-old Ben Franklin converted to vegetarianism, he seemed to have been struck both by its health benefits and by moral sensitivity to animal suffering. But Franklin soon fell off the wagon. On his first sea voyage from Boston, his ship was becalmed off Block Island:
Our People set about catching Cod, & haul'd up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution for not eating animal Food; and on this Occasion, I consider'd . . . the taking every Fish as a kind of unprovok'd Murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter. All this seem'd very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, & when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelled admirably well. I balanc'd some time between Principle & Inclination; till I recollected, that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs; Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you. So I din'd upon Cod very heartily and continu'd to eat with other People, returning only now & then occasionally to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do."
And I was like (realizing they were expressing the point that these were vegetarians) "wow – thought you had to eat all kinds of protein – really beef up on red meat to get guns like that" – "popular misconception" he said – "you can get plenty of protein in other ways other than animal protein." - "really, wow.. yeah, these pictures speak volumes..." – then – continuing on in the kind of zone I was in before spotting the table, I bumbled off.. and.. that was that..
From New Yorker Mag:
"When the sixteen-year-old Ben Franklin converted to vegetarianism, he seemed to have been struck both by its health benefits and by moral sensitivity to animal suffering. But Franklin soon fell off the wagon. On his first sea voyage from Boston, his ship was becalmed off Block Island:
Our People set about catching Cod, & haul'd up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution for not eating animal Food; and on this Occasion, I consider'd . . . the taking every Fish as a kind of unprovok'd Murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter. All this seem'd very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, & when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelled admirably well. I balanc'd some time between Principle & Inclination; till I recollected, that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs; Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you. So I din'd upon Cod very heartily and continu'd to eat with other People, returning only now & then occasionally to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do."
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