Meat guzzling

Coincidental to my dairy musings yesterday is today’s NYT feature on the impending “sea change” in the economics of meat consumption. It’s a very good piece; I hope you’ll look at the whole thing, but here’s a “meaty” excerpt:

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Time to call off the Big Dog?

I’ve already admitted that I won’t vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary.  If she becomes the Democratic nominee in the general election, I will vote for her - because even a war-hawky, centrist Clinton is better than a Romney, a Guiliani, or a Huckabee.  Might not be a whole lot different than a McCain, but I’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.

As for the former president and Attack Dog in Chief, I’m reminded of Molly Ivins’ Rx for Camille Paglia: “Get this (man) a Valium!  Hand (him) a gin.  Try meditation.  (Bill), honey, calm down!”  Maybe Bush has a little something to help Bill take the edge off (what, I can’t look at “The Globe” in the Safeway checkout line?).  Cuz this is just not pretty, it’s becoming THE whole story, and it looks like it’s starting to backfire.  Of course, it does turn our attention from the shady stuff going on behind the scenes.

Watch for falling satellites

Don’t worry… “Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation“:

A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or early March, government officials said Saturday.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. It was not clear how long ago the satellite lost power, or under what circumstances.

”Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. ”Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause.”

Getting real about what we eat

This morning I took a class on vegan cooking taught by Colleen Patrick-Goodreau. The class was entertaining and educational, and I came home with some great recipes and renewed vegan aspirations. The Better Half and I are vegetarians aiming for veganism, but have yet to successfully divorce ourselves from dairy products and eggs. We’ve been trying to strike “compassionate” and low-impact compromises by purchasing milk from the fabulous and relatively local Straus Family Creamery and hunting down eggs from cage-free, organic, veggie-feeding producers. But it’s kind of a cheesy compromise, if you’ll pardon the pun. I wrote to at least one of the egg producers we’ve tried, to ask whether and how they monitor conditions in their suppliers’ facilities, and received no answer. The devil is undoubtedly in the details.

I had known for awhile about the practice of debeaking chickens in factory farms. But only a year or so ago I learned that millions - yes, that’s millions - of male chicks are routinely ground into animal feed or conveyor-belted directly into dumpsters (where they are crushed or otherwise suffocated). This is because industrial egg producers have little use for males - males are not egg-layers, you don’t need many roosters to fertilize hundreds or even thousands of hens, and the male birds haven’t been genetically engineered to be good “meat” chickens. But the dang things keep hatching! And our demand for cheap eggs insures that this practice will continue - unless we vote with our dollars and show that we’re willing to pay a couple bucks more for humanely farmed eggs.

Tom Cruise needs meds.

Seriously.  Set aside 9 minutes to watch this, which was a featured post on the WordPress homepage when I logged in this morning.  I really can’t abide Tom Cruise (though I thought he wasn’t half-bad in The Minority Report), but even I am stirred to compassion by the spectacle of a man so clearly in need of the psychopharmacology he disparages.  Talk about word salad.  This is a recruiting tool?

True colors?

(Update: I missed this yesterday.  Read “Hillary Clinton’s Dirty Campaign Tricks” at Alternet.)

Why do I have a sudden hankering to watch “Primary Colors” again?

In truth, I kind of like Hillary Clinton. I think she’s incredibly smart, effective, thinks well on her feet, has a decent sense of humor, and seems to hold public service in high regard. In the past, I’ve brushed off as simple sore-loserism the suggestions that the Clintons are political opportunists who will do or say anything to stay in power. There is a vast difference, for example, between negotiating compromises, and pandering.  Bill Clinton - and to the extent we can evaluate her (because congressional deal-making is less visible), Hillary - always struck me as a master of constructive compromise, which is not such a bad thing. We can hold our respective hard lines and not move at all, or we can find a way to inch forward and maybe accomplish some good in the process. BC and HC (eventually; perhaps not during the Health Plan debacle) seemed to grasp that.

But…

I need this bumpersticker.

You can find it here.

Hillary wept.

OH. FOR. PETE’S. SAKE.

Think Progress snark:

Media Torn Over Whether To Cast Clinton As ‘Weak’ Or ‘Calculating’ For ‘Emotional’ Display

Allow me to take you back a few weeks in time:

Can we please get back to wall-to-wall coverage of Britney’s psychiatric hospitalization, now?

Oh, wait - let me award John Edwards the Left at the Altar Stupid Comment of the Day* award for this response to the whole brouhaha:

“I think what we need in a commander in chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are a tough business, but being president of the United States is also a very tough business.

“And the President of the United States is faced with very, very difficult challenges every single day, difficult judgments every single day.”

*not likely to actually be awarded daily…

1/10/08 updates: I reduced the photo slightly to let the sidebar fit again (and the Think Progress headline).

Humane apparel

Humane California is trying to collect 650,000 signatures by the end of February to put a Humane Farming initiative on the California ballot this year. Signature-gathering is not my strong suit, but I want to see this measure on the ballot, so I went to the volunteer page to sign up. Then I clicked on the Campaign Materials link to see if there was anything I could print out and start handing around while I wait for my petition packet. That page urges potential volunteers to “Get your Humane California t-shirts and other apparel. They’re great to wear while collecting signatures!!” OK, but…

On second thought…

…maybe it’s not “that time” after all. I’ve been missing posting on “Left at the Altar” lo these 16 months. After nearly a year of abstinence, I tried getting another, slightly different kind of blog going (Mental Map, which will soon be a dead link), but we just never really clicked. I’ve pulled some of those posts over to a separate page on this site, just in case there were some useful links. But I think “Left at the Altar” and I are ready to reconcile. There will undoubtedly be some dry spells — I’m co-teaching a course this spring and that will be my primary focus. But there’s just too much happening in the world, and too much work to do, to leave any medium unexploited.

Welcome! … or welcome back!

(I have no idea where this image comes from, but if it belongs to someone, I’ll take it down.  Unless they let me use it! )