I didn't get up today until 14:00. I must've been tired!

I've html'ed a few more poems for you. See Other Poems. A couple of them are among the first I ever wrote, and I'm kinda embarrassed to put them up here. However, as I was transcribing them, I was struck by the dissimilarities of the person that wrote them from who I am today. Even more eye-opening are the similarities! We expect ourselves to change, but it's strange to see that many of the beliefs that I hold today were formed either before or during the time I started drinking. The main difference is that then I was searching so hard for the answers, not at all sure about what I believed or should believe. Now I'm so damned sure that it scares me. Age and experience do not necessarily make one right, but I tend to really believe that sometimes. I hate to think of myself as being a righteous person, but the tendency is there, and only by working on it real hard will I be able to avoid it!

Karen and I were discussing vegetarians while we were eating at Courtney's tonight.

I've been reading and thinking a lot about vegetarianism lately. Several of the authors of the journals I read regularly are vegetarians, and they clearly (sometimes) express their views on their pages. This writing is not meant as a rebuttal or criticism of their views; rather it is an effort to express my views on the subject.

Frankly, I would probably be a vegetarian if it weren't for the North Star, the best steak house in Kansas.

The basic premise for vegetarianism is OK. We are killing living and sentient beings solely for our own gustatory pleasure. This is abhorrent. Yes it is, but... What's the definition of sentient? of living?

Of course, the prime definition of sentience is humanity as a whole. One of the problems here is that in different ages, different groups don't necessarily consider all human beings sentient. In the middle ages, the xians didn't consider anyone who wasn't an xian really human, and thus they could be killed with impunity. Without looking too hard, you can find groups today with similar views about people who don't agree with them. They don't eat them after they kill them, though.

Cannibalism, for some reason or other, has been abhorred throughout the ages by most cultures.

Logical extensions:

Any warm-blooded animal is sentient. Therefore, eating the bodies of warm-blooded animals is abhorrent. People who feel this way are not, in the strict sense, vegetarians, although they claim to be. It is OK to eat fish and birds and eggs.

All animate things are sentient. This includes fish and birds. I don't know if insects and reptiles are included in this group. people who believe this way believe that they are the true vegetarians.

All living things are sentient. Including all cellular material. This is probably the way to go in the strictest sense of the matter. However, these people would have to eat massive amounts of non-nutritive dirt every day to eke out enough to maintain life, and I have never met anyone who has done this.

1. Purely selfish: Karen says that if she were to become a vegetarian, it would be for her health, to cut down on calories and to feel better.

2. ideological: It is cruel to raise and kill animals to eat. The animals deserve better. I'm rather skeptical about this one, although it's the most common reason given. There is so much cruelty in this world to human beings, I think that this logic might be a way of avoiding thinking about that. Not meaning in any way that vegetarians of this ilk are insensitive to human suffering.

3. Religious: See #2.

4. Health: People with certain types of colonic diseases should avoid meats. This is kinda covered by #1.

In this, more than in most matters, it's the thought that counts.