It has been reported on TV that 68% of wild life has been eliminated from the world since 1970 according to i24 TV news station. That is only 50 years. What will the next 50 years bring us? Will we wipe all wild life from this earth? Will the only place that we will be able to see wild life will be in zoo's? I guess they could no longer be called wild life.
For every five blue collar worker only one will be replaced. This is the main reason why not everyone should go for a college degree. First, discover what you really enjoy doing and then discover the best way to get to that point. The US Air Force gave me a battery of test before I joined. I found out there were several areas where I would be good at. So I picked electronics and a 53 week course at Keesler Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi. That was the longest course for enlisted men. I loved electronics and went on to earn my BS in electronic engineering. I enjoyed studying so much that I went on to earn degrees in psychology, business, accounting, MBA, and my Ph.D.. I considered going for a second Ph.D. but I finally decided against it.
Vegans have been living with flesh eaters for centuries. We do not like the fact that people are eating animals but we do not riot. We do not want people eating our friends but rioting is not the answer. Those rioting around the USA for various reasons need to take lessons from us.
Leap year happens only once ever four years. I have a better idea for a new calendar which is recommended by many. We should have thirteen months each year. The months would be made up of four weeks of seven days each. Then every year we would have a world day except for once every four years, world day would be two days instead of one.
All major religions teaches love over hate. Of course there are those in
every religion that distorts the teachings of their founder. Let us take
the good from every religion and forget the distortions.
I watched all of the videos of the police officer killing this Black man. The videos were from his body cam and other peoples cell phones. I am not on the jury but it is obvious that the man was not putting up a fight and was begging for the police man to take his knee off his neck. I believe that the officer should not only be fired along with those officers that watched without doing anything to stop it but they should have been put behind bars right away awaiting trial.
Today we had another Black man killed by a police man. The police officer kept his knee on the man's neck for over five minute. The man kept saying that he could not breath. This is not me speculating, it was the video that was very clear.
Throughout the world countries are quarantining their citizens and having them work at home if at all possible. This Coronavirus is bad but it just might bring about some changes in the world. First, the custom of shaking hands may be eliminated. It is a good way to spread Coronavirus or any other virus or diseases. So one of the Asian custom would be much better. The Japanese bow and most other countries in Asia place their hands together and nod.
For years I have been saying that people should become debt free. I have talked about something bad happening like you losing your job, a catastrophe happening, an illness, or other things that would cause financial ruin. I doubt that anyone took my advice. Now the worse has happened and it is causing a huge amount of problems.
People at the dog shows prance their dogs around in order to win ribbons. These dog shows have the dogs coming from dog breeders in order to get the most exotic dogs from specialized breeding programs. I am not in favor of that but I am in favor of people getting their companion animals from shelters.
I am 78 years old (born in 1941) and I am not sure how much longer that I can maintain independent living. I have been trying to buy an assistant living center for a while with no luck. When I find one, I will make the cafeteria totally vegan with the people having the option to have a non-vegan meal delivered from an outside restaurant and eaten in the cafeteria.
Veganism is about animals, health, and the environment. Electric cars are very important to our environment and thus veganism. Some say that electric cars are too expensive for us to purchase. That is not true.
What makes me upset is that President Bush kept us from going into a worse recession by giving everyone a check and other things to stimulate the economy. Where did he get the money? He borrowed it and put us deeper in debt.
This is a classic. A university was having trouble with seagulls dropping their bowel and urine all over the campus. A business class decided to take this on as a class project in order to get rid of the seagulls. First phase is just having a lot of fun throwing out ideas. No matter how stupid the ideas are, they are written down. During the first phase they came up with a lot of ideas some of which were really stupid. For example they knew that birds are afraid of snakes so they proposed putting snakes all over the campus. They also knew that the seagulls were frightened by loud noises so they proposed putting loudspeakers all over the campus with loud music being played. They could poison seagulls. These are just three of the suggestions that they came up with in phase one. In phase one criticisms are not allowed. Laughing about an idea is encouraged but not laughing at the person who came up with the idea.
Going cold turkey (an odd statement for a vegan) is not that easy. There are several ways to become a vegan which are much easier to make the transition and each has its pros and cons.
Some people are purest and feel that a vegan should only be one for ethical reasons. I believe that the word has expanded to included people that are vegan for health reasons. A smaller percentage is vegan for environmental reasons. We can criticize each of these points of view. There are health vegans and environmental vegans that will go out and hunt and fish. That really upsets most ethical vegans since they are vegan in order to save the life of animals. Hunting and fishing can not be called ethical.
CRISPR is something that is evolutionary. Without going into a lot of technological details I will just say that they can now take out sections of mutated DNA and splice in healthy DNA in its place. Theoretically it can cure diseases like cancer. The 19 December 2016 issue of Time magazine has an excellent article about CRISPR. I can understand someone dying from cancer trying this possible cure but I have a problem with it being used for other diseases. Why would I say that? We do not know enough about DNA to understand what might create a larger problem then it solves.
Do you know the difference between a vegan diet and a plant based diet? Actually the difference is very simple. A plant based diet is a vegan diet without the sugars, salt, and oils. They are against the mock meats. I go to a monthly meeting of a plant based group. We usually have just under 100 people attending. Of those, about 25% are medical doctors, nurses, or those involved in the medical field.
Many who say that they are on a plant based diet are actually on a vegan diet. A vegan diet usually has sugars, salt, and oils in it but they do not have to have those three ingredients. That does not mean that someone that designates themselves as vegan can not actually eat a plant based meal or meals. Of course they can since a plant based diet is a vegan diet. On the other hand, a vegan diet is not necessarily a plant based diet.
I am back on this blog. Let me start out by reviewing what veganism is. Some strict vegans feel that the only people that should call themselves vegan are those that in it to protect the animals and of course not eating them. Then there are the health vegans who may or may not be concerned with animal welfare. They are vegan only for health reasons. Finally, there are the environmental vegans who are concerned with the damage to the environment from people raising animals for food. There are methane gases, use of antibiotics on them, waste products from the animals going into the rivers and the water table, more water and grains are used to raise a farm animal then to go directly into food for humans, and more. So which is the proper use of the word vegan?
To answer this question let me put it this way. I became a vegetarian in 1967 (49 years ago) for ethical reasons. I did not do it for health reasons since I listened to the science of the time and actually believed that I would shorten my life span. After 29 years, I realized that animals still suffer from dairy and egg production, so I became an ethical vegan. Even though I was willing to trade a few years of life to help the animals, I soon found out that the science of the past was wrong. New studies have shown that vegetarians, on average, live around five years longer than someone on a SAD diet (Standard American Diet). A vegan lives, or average, ten years longer than someone on a SAD diet. That is good news and I can accept it. Newer studies are now showing that a plant based diet is even better and has an even longer life span. In a future write-up I will cover the difference between a vegan diet and a plant based diet.
Now I am a vegan for ethical, health, and environmental reasons. We should not be tearing down fellow vegans if they are not just like us. For example, if someone is eating a vegan diet for only health reasons, they are also saving animals. So who cares if they are using the word vegan for one of the other two reasons to be vegan. Let us respect them for what they are doing. They are helping to bring about a predominately vegan world by 2050. So let us stop being elitists and instead embrace our fellow vegans.
McDonald's has dropped an egg supplier after Mercy For Animals, an animal rights group, exposed cruel treatment of the chickens. Their investigation of Sparboe's facilities was conducted over three month in their facilities in three States. That then caused the Food and Drug Administration to start an investigation. They also found filthy conditions and unacceptable rodent activity. Sparboe is the fifth largest egg producer and marketer in the United States. You may remember that last year that more than a half billion eggs were recalled after Salmonella sickened more than 1,000 people. That was the largest egg recall in U.S. history. Sparboe's eggs were involved in that recall.
I discovered a company that makes fantastic vegan meals. The company is Macro Vegetarian. So far I have tried four of their meals. They were all great. Their meals are distributed by One Stop Natural.
Can a vegan be in favor of war? Here is what I believe:
It is estimated that over 30,000 people were killed in the war in Libya and over 50,000 people were injured. Less than a thousand people were killed under Qaddafi during the uprising before NATO entered the war. I am not saying that he was a good man. Actually he was a horrible dictator.
I have been a vegetarian for 44 years and the last 15 years of that time I have been a vegan. I keep learning something new about veg'nism every few weeks. Recently I found a great tasting meal. It was Tai Pei's Mini Vegetable Spring Rolls. I purchased them at Wal-Mart for $2.50 for 11.4 ounces. They were delicious! I was going to buy another package and they were out of that package. I saw another package that was a little larger and was a little more expensive. On the front of the package it said the same Mini Vegetable Spring Rolls and it was the same company. After eating the entire package I noticed that on the larger package there was an ingredient that was not vegan. I can not remember right off hand what that was. I called the company to find out why both said the same thing but had different ingredients. To my surprise I found out something
In 2000, I predicted that we would have a predominate vegan world by 2050. It is now 11 years later and I still believe that we will see it within 39 more years. If we look at 1972 which was 39 years ago you will see what I mean. Of course we did not have an Internet or even emails back then. I had been a vegetarian for five years and was taking a college course in nutrition which was a biology requirement. I fought for the course since as an ethical vegetarian I refused to take a normal biology course that required me to cut up animals. Even when they said they would allow me to skip the dissecting of animals I still refused. It came down to the college eliminating the biology requirement for those with moral issues or I would just not graduate. We finally came up with a compromise.
The hybrid was a great improvement over the internal gas engine cars and the Prius is the best of the best. In the past I have owned two electric cars and because my first degree is a BS in electrical engineering (electronics), I see the value of the electric car. It is much simpler so there is much less to go wrong with them. The main limitation is with the batteries which limits the distance traveled. It is, in my opinion, the next step.
Here is something that will help convince others why veganism will help them. I have two leaky heart valves! My cardiologist stated that I would have to have mechanical heart valves if I was not on a vegan diet. You might ask why a vegan diet will keep me from having to have mechanical heart valves. That is a valid question. I will tell you why.
In December 1963 I became a Buddhist because a friend challenged me to read a book. Because of the teaching of Ahimsa (non-cruelty towards all sentient beings), I decided to become a vegetarian. I tried several times and I failed several times. My first attempt was my eating cottage cheese and cheese to almost the exclusion of everything else. I got very sick. I was a steak and potato man so I did not like veggies. I did manage to cut back on my consumption of flesh but that was not enough for me. I wanted to become a vegetarian. My next major move was to not eat flesh most days of the week. When I did eat flesh it was usually a large steak. That was not enough but I just did not know how to make the final step. Then I remembered that when I was about ten, we had a landlord that was a Seventh Day Adventist vegetarian. He was not very strict but his wife was. My mother kept tempting him with her baked rabbit baked in wine. He would eat it and when he left we made fun of him. His wife would not give in to the temptation and we somewhat respected her.
On a past ABC Evening News segment it showed where gas was a few cents below $5.00 per gallon. Across the street was a service station with gas about a dollar less. It is obvious that there was, and maybe it still is, a lot of gas gouging going on in the USA. The good part is that people are starting to conserve. People are starting to combine trips to the supermarket, shopping centers, etc. Some are even driving slower which saves gas. Some are checking the air pressure of their tires which also saves gas. Others are driving with less jack rabbit starts. This is something that everyone should have been doing all along.
More wind and solar energy production is
In Pecos, Texas many years ago the Whites had been treating the Hispanics almost like slaves. The Hispanic population continued growing because they continued having large families. Then one day when they had about 50% of the population there was an incident that changed Pecos' history. What happened is still in dispute. The Whites have one story and the Hispanics have another. There was a fight where a few high school kids got into a fight over race. I can not remember how many of each race was killed. I just know that when I bought what was called "Al's Drive In" I heard the story. Well, it was the beginning of the Whites rule. Soon the Hispanics starting integrating the all White areas of the city. Whites started fleeing the city and when I moved there in 1989 the population was about 84% Hispanic. Today it is somewhere around 96% Hispanic. I thought about this when I saw what unfolded in Egypt. Hopefully the Egyptians are now going to be free. You can not put people down forever. We see this all over the world and it even happened in the USA. It even happened in Pecos, Texas. Now WWVD.
Tonight (9 February 2011) on ABC Evening News they had a segment about an amazing dog. He can listen to his psychologist companion human and then find dolls and stuffed toy animals which he was told before what their names were. Even in a pile of dolls and other toys he can find the toy that he was ask to find. The reporter decided to check it out and found that he had a 100% correct find over many tries. The talking head on ABC had to find out for herself if it worked. It did! Oh, I can not leave out something that was even more amazing. The reporter brought a toy that the dog never saw before. He then placed the new toy in with other toys that he knew. When ask to find the new toy which they gave a name to, the dog found it after two tries. The first attempt he just looked over the other toys and finally came back to the reporter without bringing anything. When the reporter again ask him to find the toy by its name, he found it. He did it by eliminating the toys that he knew and picking the one that he did not know.
On a Barbra Walters special on ABC, they covered open heart surgery. Most of the problems were clogged arteries. I have two leaky heart valves but the difference is that I am vegan. That has kept my arteries clean so I do not have to have mechanical heart valves (I would refuse pig valves). My cardiologists all said that my veganism has kept my arteries clean. I ask each of them if they were also vegan and they also said no. I ask them why they were not vegan if they know that the vegan diet keeps most people from having heart problems. They all said that they should be vegans but they just did not have the discipline to eat vegan.
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You can now see the beginning of the changes that has to be done to keep our country from going bankrupt. It is only going to get worse before it gets better. I have a suggestion to help keep vegans vegan during the upcoming hard times. We need to set up classes to teach vegans how to cook and eat food for less money that are also nutritious than non-vegan meals This way when things get really tough they will not resort to eating a non-vegan diet because it is less expensive.
For years I have been asking my friends and other people that will listen that they should work to become debt free. I ask them to get rid of their credit cards. I also ask them to build up a reserve fund (also known as an emergency fund) in case they loose their job they would have enough money to live for no less than six months. Well, almost no one listened to me. Today we have an unemployment rate of 9.8%, not counting those that quit looking or took part time work or became under employed. Those few that took my advice today are in a much better position than their fellow citizen.
In the December 2010 issue of US News & World Reports and their last issue (yes, they will stop publishing their paper magazine as of this issue), they had the magazine filled with 50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2011. Starting on page 16, number one is an article called "Try a New Twist on the Atkins Diet".
South Carolina voted that hunting is a constitutional right. Most of us feel that this was a blow to our movement. I disagree! At first look it does look bad but at second look it can be very good. What? How could something so anti-animal be good? Let me explain.
The Constitution is a very well written document. To think that over 225 years ago "men" got together to write something that they all could agree with. It dissolved the Federation of States and created the United States of American. It was signed on 17 September 1787. In December 1787 the first three States ratified it. In 1788 eight more States ratified it. In 1789 North Carolina ratified it and finally in May 1790 Rhode Island ratified it. It was the most advanced move that any country ever made prior to that date.
What the world needs is more education. I am not only talking about college. I am talking about making birth control methods available to junior high and high school students. We also need to teach them how to use them correctly. We strongly need to teach respect for people no matter what religion, race, creed, national origin, sex, or sexual preference they are.
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.
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