The older I get, the more I respect nonjudgemental understanding. It's truly a characteristic that is to be admired and respected because of how hard it is to maintain the more you get set in your own ways.

Saying that, it's especially hard to maintain when you have a set of ethics that contradict a larger part of the population. I'm not talking on behalf of the militias and the loonies but more personally, as a vegan.

On a day to day basis, I can forget about how most people are mindless about what they put in their mouth. My choice is personal and is based on the way that I see the world. Consuming thoughtlessly is the way of the world and therefore it becomes the "way it is". But on Earth Day, I have to mention how my heart boils over with anger over "green" people who recycle the basics without taking a minute to think of what sustains them everyday, but has a bigger consequence a.k.a. food.

Amongst the vegan community, there is an anger about "An inconvenient truth" and how it inconveniently forgets to mention that meat production is a HUGE part of pollution and the marker on the grave that we are digging ourselves. Even if you don't believe the whole "global warming" debate, it's pretty easy to understand that millions of farting cows doesn't help anything.

I guess I just wish that more people felt as deeply as I felt about this issue. I've always related to the underdog and personified upon meat and more specifically the animals that we take for granted each and every day. They are sentient and therefore, in my mind, the same as us. I don't understand why so many people find this so hard to relate to. I guess it all boils down to a choice. A choice to not care. And although it makes me saddened, it's everybody's right to chose to care or not.

Boooooooooooo! Care people, CARE!

R XO