I have talked to several ex-vegans and I have heard so many excuses for why they
left veganism. The major reason they gave was that their health would not allow
them to be vegan. This is so much against modern science. I can not find any
reason that a person could not be a vegan for health reasons. What I believe is
actually happening is that they could not stand up to society. They are
conformists! What really bothers me is that they could not be honest and just
say that they could not stand up to society. Instead they look for excuses and
they use a lie about their health. That makes veganism look bad to people
looking into becoming vegan. For every one person that uses the excuse of
health problems I can find many more that had their health improve by being
on a vegan diet.
I have been reading posts that I made to VEGAN Mailing List for five years in order to pull out business posts for the book that I have been working on. I have reread many posts written by Fran Hutcherson. Sometime we were on the same side of an issue and other times we were on the opposite sides. That was OK because she always made me think. Let me tell you about this fantastic vegan activist.
This year has gone down as the hottest in recorded history. There are still those that say that it is just a freak occurrence. They quote a few so called scientists that deny global warming. A few of those even say that global warming exists but it has nothing to do with human interaction. Remember that these doubter scientists are in the minority. Some talk show hosts only look at these few doubters and bypass the majority of scientists. I am going to look at this totally from a different viewpoint.
We need vegans to go on Survivor, Big Brother, and some of the other realty shows. So far they have had vegetarians but they all gave in and ate bugs, flesh, and other non-vegetarian things. On Big Brother this season they had a Jew that I had to respect because he never gave in and ate non-kosher foods or gave up any of his Jewish practices. It built up a lot of respect for Judaism. I think that a vegan going on these programs and not giving in even if it costs him or her to be voted off will do a lot of good for veganism. Also if they do not do what the others do by lying, cheating, and deceiving it will show that veganism is more than just diet. They could teach so much about what veganism is.
Do you remember when gays wanted equal rights so they could do things like being able to visit their loved one in the hospital just like a married person? This made a lot of sense. Many States were willing to pass laws that would give them all the rights of a married couple but they would call it domestic partnership and similar names. The idea would have spread until all States would have eventually had that kind of law. Eventually they could have changed the name to "marriage". Did it happen? No! Gays wanted all or nothing. So because of their unwillingness to compromise on one word they got nothing except in one State.
Females are in danger in the USA and most parts of the world. Little girls and even baby girls are being abducted, raped, and murdered. Teenager girls can not even walk anywhere without having to worry about worring about their safety. Young women have to worry about the same thing that teenage girls do plus they have to worry about the men that they live with. More and more young women are being killed by their husbands or boyfriends. Even older women are not safe. I personally know of several women that have been raped. Some of these women were raped by their fathers when they were girls.
I talked to a friend of mine this afternoon. He is almost a vegan. He does eat flesh when he goes to a friends home. He mainly eats vegan for health reasons. He told me about one of his friends. She had cancer and was in a wheel chair. They started giving her vegan meals with a huge amount of veggies and fruits. I forget the length of time that they had her on this vegan diet but after a period of time she was cured. She now is out of her wheel chair and her doctors can no longer find any cancer.
Big Spring, Texas passed an excellent city ordnance over a year ago. Dogs are not allowed to be tied up in someones yard. They must be placed in a fenced yard with water and shade.
I would like to ask you a few questions. Would you give up one year of your time to work hard for veganism if you could double the number of vegans in the world? Would you give up a years income to double the number of vegans in the world? If you would not do either than what would you do in order to double our numbers?
If you or one of your friends or family members are going to build a new home please make it energy efficient and use alternate energy. It is estimated that will only increase the price of the house by about 10% on average. Yes it sounds like a lot of money but think of it this way. If the house will cost you $200,000 to build without the energy efficiency, it will cost you only $20,000 extra to build it energy efficient. Now look at what the $20,000 will cost you with a 4.5% mortgage amortized over 15 years (I only recommend a mortgage no longer than 15 years). That is only $153 per month. On average you could easily save that much money each month.
Your home will be far more comfortable and you are going to do something good for the environment. You can also sell back your extra energy to your utility company. So your extra $153 per month on your mortgage could partially be offset with energy that you sell back to your utility company. After the 15 years of your mortgage this energy savings will no longer cost you anything.
If you do not want to spend $220,000 on a new home here are a few suggestions. First, do you really need a home as large as you envision? A smaller home will save you even more energy and it will take a lot less work to keep the home up. Of course it will cost you less to build. Second, how about a bale home made of straw? They are very inexpensive and very solid. You can also build a tire home. They will even pay you to take their old tires. Third, a dome home is much more energy efficient than a normal home. Even with the same square footage of livable living space, they save you about a third in energy costs. Why? Because of their shape the internal space is about a third less than a normal home. Forth, is something I am going to do. I am going to build an above ground, underground home. My present home is a 3,500 square foot underground home. It uses less energy than my former home that was 1,020 square foot and well insulated. The only problem with an underground home is if a pipe bursts, you will have a swimming pool. Since I am 69 I am starting to have trouble going up and down stairs so by building a home on one level it will help. I will build it above ground and then cover the home with dirt. So even though it will be above ground it will still be below ground. If it is still above ground the water will flow outside. It will be very energy efficient.
Right now I am looking for a dome that is strong enough to withstand being covered with dirt. If anyone knows of one please let me know. I want it to have 1,200 to 1,600 square feet of internal space. I would prefer a used dome but I would consider a new one. After I move into the house I will report on this blog what it is like. I will also report on any problems that I encounter.
This is the first blog entry in Doc's VEGAN Blog. I will try to blog once a week. In these blogs I will be covering topics that represents what VEGAN 2050 is all about. At least 50% of the blogs will cover vegan, environmental, animal protection, and health. I am hoping that some of these topics will stimulate discussions on VEGAN Mailing List. I am no longer a subscriber to the list and it is not because I do not like the list. I ran it for about 12.5 years. I just had to leave the list because I am writing a book and it takes a lot of time when I add it to my other business ventures. In some of my future blogs I will be talking about some business tips on how to become debt free and how to become rich. I will not go off topic more than 50% of the time.
I want to say something about VEGAN 2050. On 17 June 2010 VEGAN 2050 will be 13 years old. During that time it has evolved from Vegan Mailing List to VEGAN Mailing List to VEGAN to VEGAN 2050. It now has VEGAN Mailing List, VEGAN Resource Library, VEGAN Q & A, VEGAN Ads, and now this blog. VEGAN 2050 will contiune growing and will continue helping people to see the value of becoming vegan and staying vegan. I hope you will enjoy this blog every week.
Doc