Hello from VEGANGELICA
 

Hello, All! This is Erica, a songwriter and novice singer, guitarist, and currently also percussionist, who is making vegan vegetarian music under the name of Vegangelica. I finally looked past the “Artists’ Corner” and saw there was an Introductions section and so am finally posting information about myself here.

I joined the forum for two main reasons:
(1) To share my song lyrics and find out how other vegetarians as well as non-vegetarians perceive them, as well as listen to any changes they recommend.
(2) Although I’ve played classical violin for 32 years, I am new at the electric guitar (6 months) and at drums (1 month), and so have had some technical issues with recording that I hoped to get answered.

I’ve discovered by reading the posts that there are a lot of funny and helpful people on the forum who offer constructive criticism, suggestions, and support for other musicians/songwriters, whatever their skill level, which is wonderful. -- Erica

welcome, what music do you like?

my musical tastes
 

Hi, Antonio! Thank you for asking. Since I grew up in the 70s - 80s I find I gravitate toward groups from that time...though I hear some songs on the radio in the last several years that I love (I just can't remember their names!). In general I like alternative rock music the best, but my tastes are fairly broad. Here's a list of a few groups and particular songs I like:

Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus")
Vivaldi (violin concertos)
Seitz (violin concertos)
MGMT ("Indie Rokkers," "Time to Pretend"--I like it that they say they just play what they like, regardless what others feel)
Bread ("If" and "Diary"--very sweet; always make me sad)
Sweet ("Love is like Oxygen"--the first rock song I remember stirring me)
A. Corelli (Sonata for Violin "La Folia"--great repetition of theme with variation)
Naked Eyes ("There's always something there to reimind me")
The Recanteurs ("Steady as she goes"--very easy guitar part; fun to play; I like the intensity of it)

How about yourself, Antonio?
--Erica

Tony's lovely guitar music
 

Hi again, Antonio...I just visited your youtube site and read that you like a wide range of music, from rock to metal to jazz and beyond. Your guitar playing is lovely...very light and quick and playful (from the two pieces I've listened to, so far)! Then I visited The Success Story band's myspace page. Your group's two uploaded songs both sound very upbeat with a good driving pulse. They sound to me like an infectious smile, if you know what I mean :-) --Erica

well i've got too many artists that i like to name, so i'll post my Last FM page:

www.last.fm/user/kweejibo

i usually go for rock, metal,and alternative, but i'm always looking to expand my tastes


EDIT:oh and thanks for listening, those two newer songs are more newer things that i'm working on, but i'm not so sure if you can get the gist of what i do from just those. idk, i try to do different things with music i guess

Welcome! Another Erica, I see. I didn't know Veridical Fiction was a band. I thought it was just the name of an MB scumbag. :P

Biology
 

Thank you, 333, for the welcome.
Do I understand correctly that you are a biologist? I think I recall reading this in the thread of another new member. I ask because...amazing coincidence...*I* am a biologist!

Say...who is the other Erica to whom you refer?

wat?

So I take it then that there is not much meat to your music then ;)

Welcome anyhow.

Every time you sing a song about how precious a cow's life is I'm going to eat a hamburger.

Edit: Jesus Christ, get out of my state please.

You should add an L to the end of your bands name.

It makes it flow of the tongue better.

Or at least it does when I don't have nice juicy steak stuffed in my mouth anyway.

*Wipes BBQ sauce from mouth*

yo

Welcome to MusicBanter, Erica!

I think I'm the only one here except you with a degree in biology (not 100% sure though) and I'm currently working on a master thesis on wind dispersal of terrestrial invertebrates like mites and springtails on Svalbard (norwegian high arctic). What is it you do? :)

edit :

By the way, people are gonna ask you about this for forever, so I might as well be the first to do so here :D Why did you become a vegan?

VEGANGELICA: the full story, unabridged
 

Hello people,

Thank you for all your unique and interesting ways of welcoming me. I’ll respond to your recent comments in the order in which they were made.

DAC, you said “wat?” when learning about a vegan vegetarian band. At the bottom of this post, in answer to Toretorden’s questions, I describe what it means (to me) to make vegan vegetarian music. If you’d like to learn more, please scroll down (and down and down and down).

JACKHAMMER, thanks for the welcome. You are correct--there isn’t much meat to my music. It’s more like boiled kale...kind of tough, makes you chew a long time, and tastes rather bitter, but (I feel) is actually very healthful when digested!

THE UNFAN, you wrote: “Every time you sing a song about how precious a cow’s life is I’m going to eat a hamburger. Edit: Jesus Christ, get out of my state please.”

Ahhh...this was an interesting comment. As an atheist, I am flattered that you have apparently mistaken me for Jesus Christ, since many people think he was quite admirable...someone who cared for the meek, the children, the women, and all those given little social regard back when he apparently lived.

I am rather taken aback that I will from now on have so much power over what you put in your mouth. That is a great honor. It is a little unsettling, though, to know that I could make someone’s stomach explode! :yikes:

Of course, in reality if you want to eat a hamburger, it is your choice to do so or not. It is still legal to eat hamburgers...at least for *NOW*, that is...bwaa haa haaa, BWAA HAA HAAA, BWAA HAA HAAAAA!!!! (Evil vegan laughter). Seriously, though, I am curious, Unfan...if my singing about the preciousness of a cow’s life causes you to eat a hamburger, then when I sing about the slaughter and eating of dogs in China, or primates and other “bush meat” in Africa, or human children in North Korea during the 2002 famine, will you also be searching for these foods to consume in retribution? And if not, what are your reasons?

Your comments are a common negative response one hears when some people are confronted with veganism...that is, by someone who is pointing out that people have the choice not to eat animal products, and there are many good reasons to make this choice. I understand that no one wants to be told what to do/eat. I agree it is unpalatable to be deprived of autonomy. If that is the case for you, Unfan, then I should think whatever anger you have toward veganism should be magnified at least 50-fold and directed at all the people who, I assume, gave you no choice at all about becoming a meat-eater. If you are like the typical omnivore, then family members and schools probably gave you meat without any option. Similarly, the animal industry has been telling you repeatedly to eat meat, dairy, and eggs.

If you feel your freedom of choice is being attacked when people simply sing about the positive reasons for eating plant-based diets, and the negatives of eating animal-based diets, then why are you not angry at all the people who have forced meat and a meat-eating culture on you since you were a baby? And, are you really from Iowa? Do you know other MB Iowans?

URBAN HATEMONGER...I agree with you that “vegangelical” does flow better than “vegangelica." Vegangelical is a recent (pejorative) term for a vegan who is trying to inform people about reasons for choosing a plant-based diet (among other lifestyle choices)...which is the motivation for my songs, so in that regard it would make sense to name our band “vegangelical.”

However, we picked “vegangelica” because...
(1) Angelica is a genus of fragrant herbs with edible roots often considered a protector of children and women, and is within the carrot family...carrots, of course, being the universal symbol of vegetarianism;
(2) Angelica is also a sweet dessert wine made from grapes, the universal symbol of earth’s fecundity and bounty.

POBODYS NERFECT (clever name!), BBQ sauce, which you are wiping from your mouth, is actually usually derived from inorganic compounds and plants (herbs, etc), and is...VEGAN! I know, I know...shocking. Maybe you are a closet vegan if you are enjoying BBQ sauce. It’s okay...you can confess it to me. I’ll understand.

Last, but not least, TORETORDEN: thanks for your welcome and your questions! I looked up mites and springtails in the tundra and was surprised to learn that mites are one of the most common invertebrates there. Plus, they are a wonderful example of natural selection with their ability to synthesize glycerol as a natural antifreeze to survive -40 C temperatures! What amazing and tough little animals you are studying up there in Norway. I remember sitting on some rocks in windswept, grassy areas somewhere in Norway and observing lemmings when I was 18. I didn’t realize it was probably crawling with mites.

You asked about my biology work. I’m a research associate at a university where I study the genetics of maize cultivars that have amino acid ratios similar to those of cow’s milk. These maize cultivars are grown in some developing countries to help combat world hunger, because in many parts of the world people rely on maize as their main protein source. Plant-based diets with few animal products in them are very efficient, maximizing the number of people who can be fed off a given area of arable land, and minimizing freshwater consumption. We are trying to learn more about these cultivars so that it is easier for people to breed them to suit their local climate needs.

Toretorden, you asked why I became vegan. Thank you for asking. In order to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, I first want to clarify what being vegan means to me. As a vegan I try to reduce the suffering of sentient beings and also help them live their lives with autonomy as long as their lives can naturally extend. I nourish myself with plants and synthetic vitamin B-12, and use products made from plants rather than animals.

I also try to treat human beings (who are animals, after all!) with kindness and respect. For example, I support genital integrity for children, which means that I oppose non-therapeutic genital cutting (i.e. circumcision) of all children, both boys and girls, so that they can grow up to make their own choices about their most private of body parts. I support equality for people regardless of ethnicity, gender, gender identity or lack thereof, and sexual preference.

All of these causes, which are described in my song lyrics, are part of veganism as I view it. Being vegan is simply trying to treat others kindly. I believe everyone, when singing/making music, has some message or emotion s/he wishes to convey, and usually some reason for wishing to share it through music, one of the oldest forms of emotional communication. In my case, the motivation and the content of the songs is based on veganism. Living in Iowa, the home of animal agriculture, I always have a lot of inspiration for writing songs.

Toretorden, you asked me why I become vegan. The answer: I realized that other animals have feelings and lives that are important to them, and so I did not want to be responsible for ending their one chance to live. Because I enjoy living so much, I do not want to deprive another sentient being of this joy.

If you think about how you may have felt about some animal (such as a dog or cat) whom you cared about and wished well for, for her own sake...and then broaden the sphere of compassion to more and more species, this is the process I think many people go through as they choose to become vegan.

My first vegan leanings began when I was 5 years old. Some French relatives took me to a aquaculture fishery and told me to scoop up a fish using a basket. I thought we were getting a pet and so, looking into the murky, fish-filled water of the artificial pond, I naively scooped up a fish and took the fish to a woman employee. The woman grabbed the fish and, to my horror, took out a hammer and WHAM WHAM WHAM bashed its head in. I was appalled that she had killed this poor fish, who had done her no harm and was no threat to her.

That night I told my relatives I did not want to eat the fish for dinner. They told me I either had to eat the fish or have no dinner. I chose to have no dinner.

I never lost that basic, intuitive feeling I had at age 5 that it is unkind to kill someone who has feelings. I became ovo-lactovegetarian when I was 18, and vegan at 28. Before I became vegan I remember thinking vegans were far-out and extreme. Then I realized that a 25-year supply of vitamin B-12 costs only 4 dollars. Rather than support the killing of hundreds and hundreds of animals to get vitamin B-12, I could simply eat synthetic vitamin B-12. Ironically, pig producers actually feed synthetic vitamin B-12 to pigs...whom people then claim you need to eat to get vitamin B-12!!

Now that I’ve been vegan for 12 years, the fact that I once felt vegans were extreme always makes me smile. I would say that the lengths to which the animal industry goes to raise, slaughter, chill, package, and ship animal products...and try to convince consumers that they need them...is much more extreme than buying a $4 bottle of synthetic vitamin B-12.

–Erica

Hehe, I'll admit I think vegans are quite extreme myself. I can understand it's a moral point of view where you think it's immoral to end lives of other creatures. I don't agree with you though, like I don't think it's immoral for a lion to kill an antilope, I don't think it's immoral for me to go out and fish or catch crabs to eat, a couple of things I like to do in summer on occasion. Not living off animals seems a little unnatural considering how important it's been for our own evolution. I understand that now we don't have to so it's a kind of luxury, but I still think animals killing animals is perfectly natural.

However, I do get a lot of the other arguments, particularly the one that you can feed so much more people with plants than you can with animals. I applaud the work you do, something like that has the potential to help a lot of people :) I'm also against needless animal cruelty which you have a lot of in the meat industry. I do try to be an aware consumer in regards to where my meat comes from.

I'm fortunate to live in Norway. Here, there's a lot of land which is not suitable for agriculture, but which is suitable for keeping animals like cattle or sheep. Also, a pig has many more rights than I do and I think standards for many animals are relatively high here. All grazers get a lot of time out by law and once I even visited this very cool cow barn where the cows milked themselves :D They were lying on mattresses, could get free scrubs from these rotating brushes, could go out if they wanted and whenever the udders started aching, they could walk into this milking machine that attached automatically. Surprisingly, they claimed the production was higher than in a "normal" barn too.

There's very few vegetarians here as a result, I think, but I do know quite a few from Svalbard where there are a lot of international students. I think it's often an interesting discussion and some of the people up there who are vegetarians in their home country home would even eat meat that had been hunted up there on the basis that hunted animals have lived a natural life up until the moment where they were shot.

Anyways, these days it's just a matter of time (okay, maybe quite a bit of time) before advances in stem cell technology makes it so we can start growing steaks out of petri dishes. I guess that should help with some of the moral concerns!

edit :

Ohh and about the mites, they are sturdy little fellas, that's true. Some of the springtails also have very interesting cold/drought adaptations .. Onychiurus arcticus has a water permeable cuticula and when it gets cold and ice starts forming, water leaves it's body to join the surrounding ice particles. This dries the animals out, making the concentrations of solubles like salts, sugars and so on higher and higher the colder it gets. The result is the animal shrivels up and can survive extremely low temperatures in this dehydrated state for years.

http://www.iconocast.com/News08_File...p_image001.jpg

So yeah, there are many tough little creatures up there .. :D

Ethics Discussion! Yeay!
 

Hi, Toretorden,

That is a mitey nice picture of a plump and a shriveled, solute-concentrated springtail! (I know they aren't mites, but I thought I'd try to throw in the "mitey" pun anyway).

Thanks for sharing what the situation is like for livestock animals in Norway and also discussing where our views coincide and where they do not. I enjoy civil discussions about contentious topics like religion, vegetarianism, ethics, politics, etc., so thank you for engaging in one with me! I see that we are similar in that we think about this issue of how people choose to treat animals.

I think you are very right that Europe is much more concerned with the ethical treatment of non-human animals than in the U.S. Europe's animal welfare laws are much more progressive. I am glad for that, and for the care given to cattle and pigs in Norway.

The question I then would ask, though, is this: when one acknowledges that these animals have feelings including pleasure (enjoying mattresses, scrubbing, etc.), what makes it ethical or not ethical to end their pleasure (through slaughter)? There is no right or wrong answer, just different answers, as with any ethics question.

Tore, I agree with you completely that animals killing animals is natural, and so humans killing animals is natural. I also agree with you that humankind has evolved with the capacity to kill and eat other animals.

However, I see several difficulties with basing what we feel is ethical behavior on what occurs in nature:

(1) Many natural behaviors are ones that most people would not feel are ethical (would not want people to emulate).

If we are to look to nature as a guide for what we feel is ethical behavior, and therefore conclude that it is ethical for humans to kill other animals, then shouldn't we also be emulating the male lion's actions when he takes over a pride after killing or driving off the previous lead male? The new male lion typically kills and eats the children of the predecessor, and then impregnates all the females. If we aren't going to emulate the lion in its child-killing behavior, then why should we emulate it in its antelope-killing behavior?

This is an example of why people may not want to use nature as a guide for what they wish to consider as ethical, unless we wish to condone and support murder, infanticide, rape, male domination over female, etc. etc.

(2) Humans generally develop a greater capacity for complex moral reasoning than other animals, as best we can tell, and so it is fair to hold humans to a different standard.

For example, when a lion kills an antelope, I agree with you that the lion is not acting immorally because as far as I know the lion is not capable of thinking about its food, which it must eat to survive, in ethical terms. This is not to say lions don't feel affection, love, devotion, kindness, etc. (for other lions, for example), but they probably do not have these feelings for their prey. Humans, meanwhile, naturally can have feelings for other animals, and have the capacity to care about them, and so if a human were to go out and kill an antelope I would not judge that using the same ethical ruler I use when observing the lion's behavior.

Similarly, with human children, we do not expect them to have learned or developed the moral capacities of older adults. This is reflected in the legal repercussions that result when children vs. adults break a law: the punishment is usually lighter for a child. It is not as unethical when a child hits me on the leg as it is when a full adult, whom we expect to have developed the ability for speech and self-control, punches me. So, if a dog goes out and kills a cat, I will be less upset with the dog than if a teenage son goes out and kills a cat, because the latter behavior suggests a scary lack of compassion for another being...(unless the animal is a pig..then most people condone it...but why the difference?). I will feel equally sad for the cat, in both scenarios.

(3) A third problem I see with using nature as a guide for ethics: When something occurs in nature (such as predation), this does not mean it is "good" or "bad"...it could be both.

For example, whenever my child and I watch a nature show and we see a lion killing an antelope, I explain the situation (the lion needs to eat other animals in order to survive), and I say, "When the lion kills the antelope, this is good for the lion and bad for the antelope." Whether something is ethical usually depends on whose viewpoint one is taking :-).

Tore, I feel you make the very valid point...which is one of the strongest arguments in support of people eating animals products...that for many people in the world where the land is not suitable for agriculture, given that people live there, then their only current option may be to eat animal products they get from grazing animals.

Like you note, though, in Norway presumably much food can be imported (vegetables, fruits), and so one *could* import more beans/grains if people wished to be vegan. I am thinking more of the developing countries where due to poverty people can afford to buy very little and may depend on cattle for their survival. That situation is much more similar to the lion and the antelope.

It is true that I would feel more likely to drink a domesticated cow's milk or eat eggs if I were assured the animals were happy, able to express their natural desires, form family and friendships, etc....plus be allowed to live out their lives in full. I was an ovo-lacto vegetarian for such a long time because I didn't realize that people kill all male chicks of egg-laying breeds, or kill the male calves of dairy cows, etc.

I've enjoyed discussing with you the age-old topic of humanity's relationship with, and responsiblity for, other animals!

--Erica

Hehe, I love serious and civil discussion too and it's some of what I like to do the most here :) It's appearant you've obviously thought about this a lot because there's validity to every point. I still see some points where I disagree a little, so :

Of course I never meant that we should emulate lions, only that from some point and up until recently in the course of our evolutionary history, we relied on animals for food - just like lions or wolves. It was a comparison.

I think a lot of our morals come from our own biology as social animals. Humans have great care for eachother, especially those they consider part of "us" and not "them". We've evolved for living in groups who cooperated and made it together, no doubt with a lot of family relations. If you could look at very primitive societies and their culture, I don't think child killing, murder and rape would be as dominant and accepted as you insinuate and it's our own primitive behaviour, not that of the lion, that we would "emulate" through hunting.

Though you could for good reason say it's not really "emulation" because we haven't changed that much biologically since then. I know it's a popular myth that humans are an awful, hateful species but I don't agree. I think it's up to the "us" (meaning people whom your fitness is partially dependent on - or that you treat as such) and "them" (the people you are in a competition for resources against, such as those from another tribe or social group). I think generally, most treat those they consider "us" very well.

Of course, there are exploitation strategies in nature (rape, vampire bats only taking and not sharing blood, sneaky f*cker fish that infiltrate dominant males harems and look like females), but no animals except the exploiters benefit from those and counter-strategies usually evolve, so I think those are besides the point. A population that only had exploiters would do much worse and might die out completely and generally, they do better the less exploitation there is. That's also a "moral" lesson one could learn from nature. :)


I agree that we have more capacity for moralistic concern, at least intellectually, than other animals. And also your points about children!


I agree that good or bad is entirely relative .. Unless you were out in nature and starving and could catch and eat a salmon. Then catching and killing the salmon would be a good thing, at least most people should agree :D

However, of course I do know that most of us are not out there starving in nature.

I don't think it would be good for Norway to stop animal farming because then those farmers would go out of business or do something else, Norway would lose some of it's autonomy and there's a lot of culture tied up in animal farming. Norway is not part of the EU and a big part of that is because we want to protect our agriculture from the outside markets from which they can't compete with. We all agree to pay a little more for our typical farm products so that it's possible to make a living being a farmer. It may sound ironic, but hundreds and hundreds of years of animal farming also has created some of our rarest habitats (particularly sheep grazed mountaineous areas and islands in the west) and these are in danger of getting lost to reforestation and other successive events taking place when you remove grazers, so you could say from a point of view, there's even an ecological concern.

There are of course a lot of factors playing in how we view things. I'm guessing that for you, being a vegan is a very emotional choice - examplified by the story about when you were 5. When I was a kid, my father taught me how to fish and gut fish, how to fish crabs and so on so all this is, for me, entirely natural. However, I'm not entirely sure what else it means to be a vegan. For example, vegans are against milk - but as you know, breeding has turned cows into animals that produce a lot of milk and if you don't milk them, they are not happy (which is why the automated barn works, the animals choose to get milked). You then have to admit that you using milk doesn't have to go hand in hand with animal suffering, there are exceptions. As long as there are cows, there's milk so we won't get rid of it until there are no more cows and if we do get rid of it, that would have a massive impact on culture such as cooking or even religion.

Now I'm extrapolating to the point where it's ridiculous of course :laughing: but I guess what I'm wondering is are you against milk when you think it causes suffering or are you always against it? If you had one industry which caused suffering to cows and one that had happy cows, could you as a vegan support the good one?

I've enjoyed your discussion very much, Toretorden and Vegangelica. It has enlightened me to a more personal aspect of the Vegan lifestyle and biology as well.

To answer your question, Erica, I am still a student. I'm currently in the process of transferring from one college to another. I am in my second year at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC. My next stop is Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. My initial goals involved Anatomic Pathology because of a long-time fascination I've had with diseases, the human body and death; however, after two years of education in a mediocre school that hasn't provided me with enough challenges, I had more spare time than ever. I used this time to do a little introspective searching and found a new passion for plants. I consider myself fairly new to all this, so bear with me now. I, then, began looking into Phytopathology, which I feel I still know nothing about. I'm 21 years old, and feel that I've a good amount of time to decide and the best thing to do is place myself in an appropriate environment to pursue my goals.

That said, Tore, I believe you are the only one on MB that holds a degree in biology, aside from Erica now. I did not know this, and am beginning to realize why I was so intimidated and put-off by you. A new respect has begun as I read about your research work and I send my apologies for any negative energy I've sent your way. Mostly, I'm thrilled to have met two very knowledgeable biologists who share a passion for music that I can look up to.

wow you 2 could write a freaking novel

CHAPTER 5: Ethics
 

As the novel continues...

Hi, 333! I'm glad you've enjoyed the discussion and hope you have a good journey to Washington as you shift your educational interests. There are a lot of nasty ways plants die due to disease and infestation...so phytopathology is an area that will always be of major interest in biology and industry...especially if the impacts of climate change on diseases (of humans and plants) are as predicted. I'm glad you are able to have the freedom to figure out just where your interests are. I did my masters on soybeans' hypersensitive response, in which leaves undergo localized death around the site of infection to try to prevent the spread of bacteria (an interesting example of cells "sacrificing themselves" for the sake of the whole organism).

TORETORDEN...
Thanks again for the thoughtful reply. I've been visiting with my Norwegian and Swedish-American inlaws and, now that I have returned, can put more time into answering your questions and replying to your post.

ON THE ETHICS OF USING DOMESTICATED ANIMALS:
You asked: "Now I'm extrapolating to the point where it's ridiculous of course but I guess what I'm wondering is are you against milk when you think it causes suffering or are you always against it? If you had one industry which caused suffering to cows and one that had happy cows, could you as a vegan support the good one?"

When I was ovo-lacto vegetarian for 10 years, I made peace with drinking milk and eggs because I assumed cows and chickens weren't killed and were treated well, both of which I learned were incorrect for parts of their, or their children's, lifespans. Unfortunately, both the dairy and egg industry currently are based on harming animals...and I'll explain the reasons in a moment.

If cows didn't suffer in any way, then, yes, I'd be less against people using them...except there would still be the issue of their loss of autonomy, their inability (due to humans) to form their own family and friendship relationships as they wish. For example, does Norway actually let cow mothers and children live together? Here in the U.S. dairy farmers take *all* of the mother's milk, not allowing her to nurse her calf for the full year or so calves normally want to suckle.

You wrote: "You then have to admit that you using milk doesn't have to go hand in hand with animal suffering. As long as there are cows, there's milk."

The reality is that cows do not give milk continually, Tore, unless two things happen:

(1) The cows are impregnated (in U.S. dairies, people generally do this artificially, collecting sperm from prime animals and impregnating females). If a cow has given birth, then within a year her milk supply starts to fall, and so people must impregnate her again if they want more milk from her. Cows are impregnated once per year to ensure they produce "enough" milk for human desires.

(2) After the calf is born, the calf is taken away so that people can take the milk. Female calves are taken away after several days and raised to be dairy cows. Male calves, alas, since they won't ever make milk, and weren't bred to put on weight efficiently = cheaply (like "beef" animals), are a "byproduct" of the dairy industry. The veal industry arose to create some "use" for male dairy calves. People kill male dairy calves when they are just 7 or so weeks old. In the U.S., they can still be housed separately (no physical contact at ALL with other animals). The EU requires group housing of "veal" calves, if I recall correctly.

So, wherever you have dairy cows, you will have a veal industry. I checked: Norway has veal industry.

(3) As you noted, domesticated cows produce a lot of milk. This shows the wonderful genetic variability that people have exploited, *not with the best interests of the cows in mind,* by selecting generation after generation of cows to suit human needs. Because domesticated dairy cows give so much milk, their other body systems generally suffer. By age 6 or 7, their milk production begins to drop. The dairy cows are no longer "worth their inputs," and so people show their thanks to the cows by killing them, although a cow could naturally live 15 - 20 years. All that is in a glass of milk.

So "as long as there are cows, there is milk" is a simplification, and one I didn't know about until I was 27 after years as an ovo-lacto vegetarian who hadn't done a lot of research...and perhaps didn't want to, because I liked yogurt and cheese. In fact, if people simply stopped their human-cow sexual relationship (a strange form of bestiality, I'd say, in which people milk the sperm from cattle, and impregnate females...which is typical for domesticated animals here in the U.S.), within several years the domestic cow population would plummet.

The story for eggs is similar. In an eggshell: people impregnate chickens; the chickens lay massive numbers of eggs; they are incubated in machines; the eggs hatch; half of them are male and are not useful for raising for meat (too expensive due to low feed-meat conversion efficiency), and of course these male chicks will *never* lay eggs. They are considered useless and so are crushed to death. In the U.S. this is what people do to approximately 8 million baby male chicks within days of their hatching, per year...something I can't help but notice the "Incredible Edible Egg" industry doesn't advertise to the public.

Meanwhile, the female egg-laying chickens, producing far too many eggs for their health, are "spent" after just a year (egg-production drops so it isn't worth feeding them), and people, again, showing their infinite mercy and sense of justice...kill them. Iowa is a lead egg-producing state in the U.S.

The reasons these animal exploitation schemes continue are, as in most human endeavors, given by two words: MONEY; TRADITION. And...people will do almost anything to satisfy their taste. Taste trumps all other concerns for most people.

ON HUMAN LOVE:
Yes, I agree with you completely that people are very compassionate toward those they consider to be "us." Human bands (existing long ago)...essentially an extended family...were very helpful and kind to those within their band. Apparently if a member of two bands met, they'd sit down and try to figure out if they had any relation in common. If they did, all was fine and they'd go on in peace. If they didn't, they'd try to kill each other.

The world of humanity currently suffers greatly from this us/them mentality (example: Israel/Palestine), and from people making choices that do not include equal voices for all members (again: Israel/Palestine situation...beginning back when certain countries created Israel).

And, unfortunately, people sometimes see "us" and "them" within the same family. Worldwide, women and children suffer the most from malnourishment because many males (and cultures...so women will do it, too) see women as being of less value, and so don't allow them or the kids to eat as much food, get educations, etc. Or we can look in history at, for example, Carthage. The god Baal (a human creation, I would say) demanded people sacrifice their firstborn babies...which they apparently did with gusto...and so now, around 20,000 pots containing newborn babies' charred remains are buried at Carthage, and appear to support historical records saying that people there practiced child sacrifice. (Sometimes families would take pity on their own children and so would buy slave children to sacrifice. Ugh).

All this points to the extreme flexibility of human behaviors. We are by nature capable of great compassion, I agree. And we are very social creatures, as demonstrated by the existence of MB, for example! To whom we direct that compassion is part of our culture, and as a vegan I support and argue for people broadening that circle of compassion to more and more sentient beings.

ON CULTURE/TRADITION:
You wrote, "There's a lot of culture tied up in animal farming." This is very true; however, I would argue that not all cultural traditions are necessarily ones that one should wish to continue based solely on the fact that they are traditions (which I know you are not doing...you pointed, out, for example, that the fairly short human history of animal domestication has led to altered, but unique, ecosystems, that have intrinsic value, as do domesticated animals themselves).

I would prefer to look at each tradition individually and critique it according to whether it is one I feel should be perpetuated or not. I will use an example that is very close to home for you in Norway. According to all I've read, Norway and Norwegians continue (in defiance of United Nations rules) to kill around 2,000 Minke whales per year (out of a Minke whale population of 107,000 individuals) for the sake of "tradition." Norwegians generally kill the Minke whales (says Wikipedia, at least) using "explosive penthrite grenade harpoons." So here's a question: is this good or is this bad behavior toward whales? Is this a tradition that would best die, or should be continued for the sake of a few whalers and some tasty whale meat dishes?

The killing of whales by Norway, Iceland, and Japan (the latter for "scientific reasons" that somehow appear to always result in the whales being eaten...how *convenient*) is not a huge economic industry. The countries' GNP would scarcely be affected if whaling were stopped...but people continue it...and from what I have read, Norwegians in general defend whaling staunchly...for the sake of tradition...much like many people in the U.S. West defend raising cattle there (despite gross environmental damage).

So, what do you feel about whaling? Is this, indeed, a hot topic in Norway?

Bye for now,
--Erica

CHAPTER 6: Animal Music
 

Hi, again, Toretorden (and others),

I've discovered MB has a 100,000 word limit for a post (I bet I'm the first to actually discover that! :)), and so the second part of my previous letter has had to become CHAPTER 6: ANIMAL MUSIC.

Speaking of whales, whose vocalizations (at least those of humpbacks) are often called "singing," the area of research into non-human animals' appreciation of music is one that is gaining momentum and interest.

Recently scientists studying animals who can "keep a beat" and seem to like to do so (similar to many people on MB) found that parrots and perhaps an elephant (based on videos) can do so, but cats and dogs and chimps cannot (but it is not known for other non-human apes). The researchers said that these animals who like to keep a beat and move to it "shared with people some ability to mimic sounds they hear," and "the brain circuitry for that ability lets people learn to talk, and evidently also to dance or tap their toes to music, suggests Aniruddh Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego" (CBS news online, "Animals shown to 'Dance' to music," April 30, 2009)

From what I've read, the human ability to appreciate and create music is based on brain areas we share with quite a few non-human animals (such as parrots). The whole area of the relationship between biology, language, emotion, and music is a very interesting one. I wonder...is there a thread on the Biology of Music? I'll have to check! Do any of you have stories about your animal friends and the impact music has on them? --Erica

lol i completely agree :]
i mean seriously no one wants to hear a bunch of people whining about eating cows...

Hi, AshleighJane...
Thank you for sharing your views. Actually, there *are* quite a few people who like to hear others whine and even sing about eating cows:hphones:. Generally, whatever the topic or type of music, there is at least *someone* somewhere on the planet who likes the message of a song or how it is presented. There are even people who like heavy metal! (gasp!) (I decided to give country music lovers a break, since I know they get a lot of flack).

AshleighJane, if you don't like to hear people whine about slaughtering and eating cows, how about calves, pigs, piglets, sheep, lambs, horses, goats, birds of all kinds, fish, cats, dogs, monkeys, apes, whales, and dolphins...most of whom people kill because, well, they just like how they taste? Do those animals *all* sit happily within your stomach? Do *any* cause a twinge of indigestion, and, if so, what are the reasons? Or, is how something tastes more important than all other concerns?

You may not realize that there is much more to veganism than concern about one animal species.

For example, do you support converting even more Brazilian rainforest to agricultural land to grow soybeans (for several years before the ground is spent) to ship to European markets to feed pigs for the wealthy?

Are you happy (or aware) that 1/3rd of the world's grain and 1/2 of the world's fish catch go to feeding livestock (Oxfam data), a huge diversion of money, time, and energy, while nearly 1 billion people on the planet try to survive on less than $1 per day, with over 800 million of them malnourished?

Those are all vegan causes and issues. I often find that many people don't know about the repercussions of our eating habits and food choices. I certainly didn't when I was a child growing up in the Midwest, because nobody talked...or sang...about treating animals kindly.

--Erica

Thanks for your insightful post! I think the message is basically that animals suffer in the industry which I completely agree with. It's one of the things consumers should be aware of and then decide accordingly.

Whaling is not a hot topic at all in Norway, it's just another hunt like there is on moose or ptarmigan (okay, with a small industry). People who are against hunting should of course be against whaling.

A problem with discussing whaling on the net is that there are tremendous amounts of fanaticism and misinformation out there, both about whales and whaling. Are you sure your numbers are correct by the way? Your catch number looks like two times the quota (~1000 I think) so they should be incorrect. Maybe you got the number for the total catch of minke whales worldwide?

Anyways, anyone supporting whaling openly on an international forum is likely to get death threats, at least I did the last time I did it and I wasn't even being supportive towards whaling - I was just trying to be a little factual. I've actually discussed whaling with Lars Walløe who used to be Norway's representative in the IWC (been to his lectures), but I don't really discuss it on forums anymore.

What I can say is that Norway stopped whaling and did extensive research on the minke whale population and after a while they decided that whaling could be resumed because the population was large and healthy and no ecological problems were predicted. Minke whales are now hunted in very low numbers because there's little market and, as you say, it's mostly for cultural reasons. There's a lot of international pressure and I believe it's managed rather well (quotas are well within the "safe zone"). Thus, the problem with norwegian whaling is not ecological - no species are going extinct - it's if it's right or not to kill minke whales for food and to preserve culture. That's what people should make up their minds about.

I expect you know this, but it's a little info for those who don't. :p

If anyone wants to discuss it, feel free to send me a PM!

edit :

By the way, I'm just curious - are polar bears hunted in the US? I've lived up in the arctic and I've seen pelts from Canada, but I'm a little unsure if they're hunted in Alaska or not.

Hi, Toretorden,
Yikes, I don't want you to get any (or any more!) death threats! It is very sad that people who care about whales would threaten to kill people...as if it were okay to kill a human or even to scare one!

Thanks for asking me about my numbers, because it gave me a chance to doublecheck them and find you are right. I got my Minke whale information from Wikipedia on Norwegian whaling, and reading more carefully I saw it said that the number of Minke whales killed by Norwegians was 2000 whales per year *before* the moratorium, and now the quota is a little over 1000, and rarely do people in Norway kill that many whales. So, thanks for noticing my error.

You asked if it legal to kill polar bears in the U.S. Best I can tell, it is not legal to hunt and kill polar bears in the U.S., but it is legal in Canada, where people kill around 500 polar bears per year (Wikipedia).

--Erica

Hey, welcome, though I'm probably just as new as you.

Now I'm going to always think of Cattle Decapitation when I think of your band; I haven't gotten around to listening to them yet, but they seem to have a similar message in their lyrics. Just probably a bit more extreme (assuming you don't have gore related lyrics =P).

Cattle Decapitation
 

Hey, The Abominable Homan,
Thanks for the hello! Yes, we are almost equally new to MB! Also, thank you for telling me about the vegetarian death metal group Cattle Decapitation, which I didn't know about. I just looked them up and, why, yes, they *do* have a similar message to ours.:) I think you are right...their lyrics are a wee bit more graphic and direct than mine. For example, they have an album or song called "Humans are Horrible," which I thought was amusing because it was so straightforward (and would be something I might say in my misanthropic moments but leave out of the music). Cattle Decapitation are marketing themselves to the death metal scene and apparently doing so very successfully. Their music is an interesting contrast: the brutal sound of death metal vs. the mostly loving message underlying it. It's fun for me to learn more about what other veggie people are doing out there! Their music rather warms my heart in a scary way. Thanks again for mentioning them, and I hope to "see" you around MB. Say, how did you learn about Cattle Decapitation? --Erica

I actually just happened to find them when looking through some band shirts. The band name kind of intrigued me and I found it funny that the back of it said "GORE NOT CORE," so I looked into them.

I also find the album cover for Karma. Bloody. Karma rather funny.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...loodykarma.jpg

It's me, you nonce. lol...
I make music.

BTW, Erica, thank you! I guess you heard my track on the Myspace thing? I should really update that page.

Hi Freebase!
Yes, soon after I first visited MB last month and started looking at the content of people's posts, I saw that your posts about drums/recording etc. were very knowledgeable and thorough, and so I checked your contact information in case there was a link to your music, and there was!

I do hope you'll put more songs up, soon. As I understand it from reading your prologue/"epilogue" post, MySpace was having some technical difficulties, which perhaps dissuaded you from uploading more?

When I first visited your MySpace and listened, I thought several (many) things, including these:

(1) I love the name: truthful fiction.

(2) The B/W picture is fascinating. At first I didn't see the whole image (head, ear, second arm, etc.). It is like an ink(blood)blot picture and very thought-provoking. The picture repeats the concept of the name, which connects opposites (truth/fiction; black/white).

(3) The music: WOW! Technically perfect, but, beyond that, the song is hypnotic, with an eerie sweetness, plaintive quality, and rasping intensity that affects me a lot.

The classical sound of the acoustic guitar (I'm assuming that's you playing rather than using the synthesizer) begins the piece--beautiful, love the edgy sound of note-sliding. I enjoy that this acoustic beginning does not reveal where the song is going. It is like the paper on a gift that is being opened. It hints at what is underneath, but does not reveal it fully.

Then the electric-guitar-sounding synth (I'm assuming) begins to swell with a haunting quality, and soon the funky percussion starts, going in stereo from ear to ear. I like the fact that in the percussion the silences, like a held breath, are as meaningful as the actual hits.

The vocals are emotional and powerful...and I don't even know what all of the words are :)!...with perfect harmonization. I *would* like to learn the lyrics, even though for me the song works perfectly even without knowing the full meaning. The song *feels* like yearning and abandonment, despair and hope combined.

I've listened to the song oh, shall we say, several times now (!), and each time pick out new intricacies that keep my attention: for example, the whale-song like synthesizer, which haunts the background, and the percussion rhythm, which seems to change slightly each repetition (I'm still trying to figure out how many variations there are).

Still, none of those details are, for me, overshadowed by the feeling of the piece. It reminds me of classical music in several ways: it has a theme with variations; it evolves; and it has the same effect on me (or greater) than what are some of the most exhilarating parts of classical music...those moments when the music makes the hairs on your arm stand on end...not out of fear but because of the strong emotional content. Just like I said earlier, I find the piece to be mesmerizing.

--Erica

Erica,

I did get your message and I'm sorry about the delay, but you overwhelm me with your posts. Not only in length, but in what you write, too. I will get back to you soon through PM, I promise.

Hello! I'm also new here.

cool, what music do you like?