A Strange And Unexpected Occurrence!

   A week ago, I stopped eating meat! Part of me wants to say I became a vegetarian but that would feel like somehow or other I'd changed and I don't really feel like I have changed, fundamentally.
   Why did I do this, you ask? 
   Well, I'd been thinking about doing it for a long time. It really seemed as though every time I looked down at a steak or a burger or a chicken thigh or a pork chop all I could see in my mind's eye was the animal which had to be killed so that I could enjoy the act of eating it. 
   The use of the word "enjoy" is significant.
   I wasn't eating meat because it was necessary, I was eating it because I enjoyed the taste in my mouth. I was eating it because I actually enjoyed the process of cooking it and I was eating it because, as much as anything else, it was part of the cultural norm I was raised with.

Bean sprouts on egg salad on a slice of multi-grain gluten-free
bread, with a tomato slice and half an apple. My first
"vegetarian" lunch.

   In a world where the cultural norms seem to be changing on an almost weekly basis, however, I felt less and less bound by that reason for eating meat. A little research will show you a variety of ways of keeping an appropriate amount of protein in your life and, at the same time, appeal to your taste buds so the "enjoy" part of the equation had been handled. And, finally, there's a fair amount of self-satisfaction in the cooking of veggies and meat replacements, so that area is covered as well.
   In the end, what happens is that I no longer wrestle with the souls of dead animals as I eat. How long I might remain this non meat-eater is hard to say. I'm hoping it's not just a temporary fad kind of thing, I would like to think of it as a permanent lifestyle tweak, more than anything. We'll see, I guess!
    So how did the week go?
   Well, I became acquainted with tofu, for one thing. And bean sprouts. And bok choy. Just a few things I was aware existed but had never really sampled, apart from little bits of each which might have been sneaked into my Chinese food.
   Bean sprouts were easy, you just pile them on or throw them in the frying pan.
   Tofu not quite so easy. It comes in a brick which outwardly looks like cheese and is usually encased in water. It's quite tasteless which means you need to add taste to it in the prep or cooking process. 
   

Lettuce, bok choy, marinated tofu and pickled green beans. And if I
remember correctly, I think I sprinkled some hemp hearts on top.

So I had tofu plain, I had tofu dipped in batter, I had tofu marinated in sauce and I had tofu cooked like french toast. I also had tofu in the form of veggie burgers. And that was just in the first week!
   Part of the problem, though, is that I am the only one in the family currently not eating meat. This, of course, means that every meal now needs to be two meals. When you throw in the fact that Doralyn is gluten-free, then it gets real crazy. When you look at it, though, a balanced meal should already have vegetables in it, in which case all I need to do is maybe add a little protein. Not hard! I will let you know how next week goes!

So what's it like, suicide bomber?

   I find myself wondering quite often what it's like to wake up on the morning of the day which has been chosen for you to end your life, along with the lives of as many other people as you possibly can.
   Believing that heaven awaits you at the end of this task, I wonder if the air you breathe has already begun to smell a little sweeter and the food you taste just that much more delectable as you begin what you know are the final steps to this glorious outcome. I wonder if excitement broils in you.
   If there was a time when you doubted you could perform this task, how long ago was that and who or what intervened in such a way that you had now become fully resolute in your lives-ending mission?
   Does it feel as though you've become something more than a man? Do your insides pulse with what you can only imagine to be the sown seeds of divinity? 
   What is your ability to actually fail at your task? What if it just doesn't feel like a good day to die, or maybe even the right day? Are there do-overs, do you get to go back to your friends or associates and say something like sorry, guys, just having kind of an off day here but I'm gonna give her another go tomorrow? Or could it be that they will kill you, regardless, so why not aim for that heaven thing while you're at it?
   Are you allowed to say goodbye to anyone, apart from the group who has helped you along this path?
   What if you are in the exact spot you're meant to be in order to set the bomb off and all of the sudden your sister appears beside you? Or your uncle? Or an old school chum and what kind of small talk do you engage in with that old school chum anyway? Would there be any attempt to ward off these people, should they appear?
   The more I consider suicide bombers, the more questions I have.
   Occasionally you hear about the target being missed, the bomb seems to detonate accidentally and the only person who dies is the bomber himself. You almost want to cheer when this happens, one of those in your face, sucker kinds of moments. Is it possible, though, that some of these failed attempts might only be the end result of last-second changes of heart? Could it be that reason took over? Or maybe even a little bit of humanity? And, if so, how awful to know you simply cannot return where you came from without detonating a bomb, even if you are the only one who will die from it.
   Whatever the motivation, whatever the reasoning behind it all, there will continue to be instances of individuals insinuating themselves among crowds of people and letting death and destruction ensue. There will not be a plethora of pictures with this blog post. A quick search on the internet provided no suicide bomber pictures which were suitable to publish here---nothing but mayhem and body parts.
   Out of all of this, then, who ends up in heaven and who doesn't? My own personal belief is that anybody who dies ends up somewhere heaven-like. This would apply as much to the bomber as to the ones killed by him. Nobody knows, of course but what we do know is that there is this little bit of pointless hell left behind for the rest of us to deal with.
  
   
   

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle..."

   "The lion sleeps tonight".

   An American big game hunter goes to Africa and kills a famous lion. People find out about this and many end up wishing and calling for retribution on this big game hunter. 
   The retribution they demand is varied; some call for legal prosecution, some call for a brand of social shaming which will end his livelihood, some call for his torture and murder.
   In the midst of this, and a little bit after the initial revulsion has died down, some people begin to look at how the death of this lion fits into their view of the world around them.
   Most of us are aware, at least, that big game hunting goes on in many parts of the world, North America included. We may not be totally aware of the ins and outs of it---the regulations around it or the manner in which it is sometimes carried out. Lately, though, we have been getting a bit of an unsettling education.

A lion. Just not THE lion. Because it doesn't really matter.

   Our horror, in this case, revolves around what is perceived as the breaking of rules and the fact that this lion was only initially wounded and then suffered for almost two days before its demise. It was then beheaded and its carcass discarded. To top it all off, it was a famous and well-loved lion.
   What makes it seem even less savoury (if that is possible) is what I believe to be peoples' perception that this affair was perpetrated by a wealthy privileged white man in a third world country where he both felt impunity to its laws and total disregard for basic morality.
   The man and his family, of necessity, are now in hiding. After the details of this lion's death came out, an internet mob immediately formed and began directing its wrath at the man. Some of the ensuing invective was hard to read. In most cases, it was people simply venting their outrage. Given at least the vocal support of so many thousands of people, though, it is not hard to imagine a few among them who might feel vindicated by this support and then go about trying to seriously harm this man or his family. Hence their disappearance.
   In the last few days, there has been article after article and link after link regarding this lion's death. Some have been of the angry variety and others have taken a step back and attempted to look at the issue from different angles.
   One of these angles is that of conservation. It gets pointed out that big game hunting and the rules and regulations around it are there to promote the continued existence of big game. Were it not for hunting, the numbers of certain big game would exponentially explode, thereby destroying what is considered to be a fairly delicate balance in the ecosystem.
   Another angle I heard mentioned was that this episode seems to have stirred up much more anger here in North America than it did in Africa itself. Some African government officials, when contacted by the press for their reaction to the uproar around the death of this lion, were not even aware of it. In other places, it was pointed out that so many Africans are killed each year by wild animals such as lions, hippopotami, and crocodiles that the idea that one of them might have been killed by one of us was simply not that distressing.
   Other people pointed out that big game hunting helped the economy of wherever it took place. Hunting is obviously big business and brings in much needed money. It also was pointed out that the carcass and bones of the dead animal gets used by the local villagers as food and fertilizer.
   

If you really NEED to kill something,
why not do this instead?

The observation was also made that, given the advanced age of this particular lion, the natural death which awaited him was likely more horrific (to us) than the one he actually endured. As mature male lions weaken, the younger ones begin vying for the position of head of the herd. In the end, this involves continued physical attacks on the older lion which, eventually, kill it. Apparently, lions don't just trot off into the sunset at the end of their lives.
   Finally, it was noted in several places that we, as a nation of principally meat-eaters, were all too quick to condemn the death of one lion while at the same time enjoying the endless succession of steaks, burgers, and pork chops we fill ourselves with. At the same time we do this, we ignore the oft unspeakable things which happen to animals before they become our meals.
   Obviously there are many ways to look at the issue and many stands which can be taken.
   At the heart of it all, I wonder about the people who want to kill large animals.
   After all the reasoning and rationalizing are done, you are then left with someone who is more than willing to spend anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars so that they can bring down large and, essentially, defenseless animals. They do this in Africa, they do this out in the woods behind their own houses here in Canada and the States. They will use many of the above arguments in an attempt to rationalize hunting as a past-time but when it comes right down to it, they are people who like to kill animals and are willing to to sacrifice huge amounts of money and time so that they can kill animals.
   One of the observations I ran into the past week was rather poignant and telling. The point was made that when children, who are essentially immature, kill animals they are regarded as being potentially mentally disturbed. When adults, who are generally considered to be knowing and responsible, kill animals, however, they are considered skilled and daring! Why is this?
   At some point in our evolutionary history, it was necessary to hunt animals in order to survive. That some people still hunt, I imagine, is testament to the tiny parts of this instinct left over from those primitive days. It is no longer necessary to hunt for our meat, though, and it is unsettling that people still feel the need to kill. This may be the hypocritical me speaking, as I do enjoy meat as a food base. Long before a lion was killed in Africa, though, I was already having a difficult time coming to grips with what I was eating needing to be killed first. Is there a vegetarian me sometime in the future. Could be! If there is, I will often think of dead lions in Africa as I'm sitting down to every meal!