herbiberous gets preachy

Earthlings

Okay, so you're probably thinking, what is 'Earthlings' doing on slinginlingo? You're saying, 'Man, I come here for the Megan Fox topless picture (99 per cent of you) or the rants about trivial things (the rest of you lot) and I don't want to do any serious thinking or meditating on my lifestyle here.' And if you're really upset about this, you'll probably say something like Herbiberous, don't preach to me about the treatment of animals when I saw you eating a hamburger yesterday and swallowing it down with a glass of chocolate milk.

I admit, I did have a hamburger yesterday and you know what, I'll probably have one again sometime in the near future. But it will be a somber hamburger, now that I know exactly what I'm supporting and where the strip of beef has come from.

For the record, I have not turned into an animal activist or a bleeding heart or an animal myself. I haven't had the ghost of hamburger past, present and future visit me during the night or anything, but this shit is pretty staggering and after watching this video I felt I should at least embed it on the site on the chance that someone stumbling across it would be interested in watching it and learn about how brutally animals are treated in slaughterhouses, fur farms, laboratories and in countless other areas. I'm not forcing anyone to watch it, but it definitely aroused a lot of emotion in me and has made me at least reassess what I eat and why I eat it.

Now I know some of you are probably shocked right now, with that preceding statement that comes from a guy who routinely makes fun of vegans. But I completely understand now why they would make the decision to keep animals and animal products out of their diets.

Speaking for myself, I cannot be entirely sure how this will affect me going forward. I watched Super Size Me and strayed from McDonalds for nearly a year, before finally capitulating and downing a Big Mac while I was hungover. I now eat McDonalds far less, but I haven't been completely assuaged from ordering up some McFood. I've read Fast Food Nation and was disgusted by the treatment of cows and chickens and by the rampant diseases embedded in fast food and I have to admit that I've visited these "restaurants" far less frequently.

This film takes the next step. You can read all you want about slaughterhouses, but until you see a cow's jugular slashed as it writhes, dangling in the air from a hook on one of its legs, as its life sprays out of it, the brutality doesn't really hit home.

I think if we eat this food, we should at least see how it gets to us, because these days we are so detached from the actual process of killing animals for sustenance.

Again, I'm probably not going to become a vegetarian or anything, but at least I'm no longer ignorant and I know where my food comes from. The next time I eat meat, I will have to soberly acknowledge that I am complicit in the kinds of things depicted in this film and I will have to accept that.

I do know that I will no longer eat veal or foie de gras, which I just recently tried for the first time and found delicious.

The pictures in this film are intended to offend you, but I do believe that we should all see this so we are aware of just exactly what we are doing and we should not choose to remain ignorant just because we don't want to be offended.

However, if you don't want to watch it, just skip ahead.

There's a lot of wrong in this world and I don't know where to start, but at least being informed about what going on is a step.

THAT IS THE END OF MY PREACHINESS!!!

Note:

Just a few things here in response to the film:

-I thought it was kind of goofy at first, but I think I'm completely onside with my bud the Dog Whisperer, who only eats meat if it's from an animal he has had a hand in hunting (wow, now that's alliteration, folks!).

-I do support the trapping of wild animals for subsistence purposes. The trappers in Canada's North should not be lumped into the same category as those who operate fur farms. The trappers North of 60 are feeding their families through traditional means, in areas of the country where there are literally no jobs.

-Also, I wonder why there is such a vitriolic and venomous attack against seal hunters in Northern Canada while there is so much atrocious and mechanized murder in slaughterhouses. I mean, the segment on the Kosher slaughter in particular made me want to vomit. I think priorities need adjusting, PETA people.

-I remember when the circus came to Yellowknife when I was a kid, my mom bought me a ride on the elephant and I was ecstatic (and nervous as hell). I rode it around the Yellowknife Community Arena parking lot. After watching this film, I feel so conned. Another reason to hate carnies.

-A couple years ago, I fulfilled a childhood dream and made a trip to Egypt to view the pyramids and Sphinx and temples which had awed me since I was old enough to read. On the fateful day, I haggled with a tour guide and found myself on a camel, wandering through the desert, toward the three gigantic Giza Pyramids. It was happening. It was surreal. I should have been shitting myself with delight. Instead, though, I could not get over how sick and sad looking the camel I was riding was. It farted and my guide whipped it. It teetered like it was going to fall over any time we went up an incline or down a little hill. It actually fell forward once and I thought I was going to be paralyzed. It kept stopping and then farting. And my guide gave me a stick and told me to hit it. I looked at it and I swear, it turned its head back to look at me and a tear rolled from its eye. I couldn't hit it. I just couldn't do it. So my guide gave me his horse and he took over the camel and beat the thing. And there were the pyramids. And the Sphinx. But my attention had been diverted to the camel who was wincing and farting and teetering and dying in front of me. It fucking bummed me out.

-I worked with a guy at Con one summer who had previously worked at a chicken slaughterhouse in Manitoba that supplied chickens for KFC. He bragged about the amount of chickens' throats he slit an hour -- I wish I could remember the figure. The guy, it should come as no surprise, was a complete asshole.