This is the look of a man who's come to peace with what he's done, isn't it?
Well, not jailed, but convicted and soon to be sentenced: Stephen Trevor Montgomery has been found guilty, by a jury, of a host of charges that don’t include theft but all started when he tried to walk out of a supermarket with a family pack of steaks stuffed down the front of his pants.
As people do.
Well, maybe they do. I don’t know. I’ve been vegan for so long I can’t remember the correct way to transport steaks. I think you’re supposed to pay for them though, which Stephen didn’t, which resulted in a scuffle. And, uh, national security. Yes, national security was at risk. Hear me out:
This happened in America, and with the recent security changes in airports, the solution is clear: the TSA must expand their mandate to supermarkets. Full body naked scanners for all! Well, except for vegans. We’d get a pass somehow, because duh, why would we steal steak?
Admittedly, this is just a lame attempt on my part to divert security attention to meat eaters, because, well, really I just wanted to show the Spinal Tap clip about plant-based airport security:
I haven’t seen that in a while, so thank you, Steven Trevor Montgomery, for inspiring me. Next time, please consider stuffing a more humane grocery item down your pants, like a cauliflower or a dozen lemons.
Do fishermen not get cable? Have they never seen the Slap Chop ad? Because seriously, someone's gotta know we can't do this all day.
Here’s a lengthy article about sustainable fishery certification that was going to be the basis of this week’s Porncast but the final audio had a zillion clicks and pops in it, and the dulcet tones of my voice are generally click- and pop-free, at least as far as the internet knows. Seriously though, a big chunk of the show was me reading bits from this piece and sounding incredulous.
The bottom line: consumers of fish want to feel like they’re “doing their part” for the planet, but nobody really knows how many fish are out there, so they turn to the retailers, and now they’re off the hook. The retailers want to sound all progressive so they announce that they’re only going to source seafood from certified sustainable sources. Now they’re off the hook. The fisheries need to comply so they can keep selling their stuff, but who do they turn to? Why, a reputable third party certification agency, of course!
And OMG I just realized how many times I used “off the hook” in a post about fishing, and no, I didn’t mean it like “this party is off the hook.” Erm, I meant, of course, the Hook of Justice that punishes evildoers, not the Hook of Fishing. Moving on.
So now the whole issue of sustainability is in the hands of a group that, if I’m reading the article right, has only ever rejected two companies, and while there’s an official objection process if you don’t like who they’re approving, it’s never resulted in them changing their mind.
Meanwhile, do you know that the Canadian Pacific Sustainable Fisheries Society, who by their very name seems like the go-to place for info on what’s best for the fish and the planet, used to be called the B.C. Salmon Marketing Council? It’s like if McDonald’s changed their name to The Institute for Child Nutrition. Oh snap I have to send them that idea, maybe they’ll think I’m serious. Speaking of which, I’m launching the Council of No We’re Not Kidding, and our white papers are going to be the good kind of off the hook.
So what’s the big deal if you don’t eat fish in the first place? Chances are you know people who do, and the next time they ramble on about how they only eat sustainably, knowledge like this might make the difference in your battle to avoid driving forks into, well, let’s not give you any (more) ideas.
We posted some video of hot turtle on turtle action back in January, but sadly, the media’s been pulled due to a “terms of use violation” of some sort, and you know, I’d like to talk to the lawyer who had to figure that one out, because it’d be a heck of a clause to put into legalese, I reckon.
Never fear, however, because sometimes-porncast co-host PonderingWillow found us a new one from The Huffington Post:
There, that’s better, isn’t it? At only 16 seconds, well, that’s a long time to some people, so I won’t complain. This is one of those videos where sound is needed to get the full effect, because the noises are the whole point of the humour, but I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not to blast it over the cubicle walls – people are either going to recognize the sounds or not, and you’re going to either make new friends… or not. Totally up to you, for this is the power you hold.
I yearn for the day where we can slap a lightweight video screen (with speakers) on a stick the way that people use bristol board for protest signs today, and then we could blast this clip on a loop in front of any restaurant that thinks it’s remotely acceptable to cut a turtle out of its shell while still alive and make soup. I can’t claim to know for sure why turtles were put on this earth, but “for violent soup” places way, way, way behind “for sharing sex videos” in my list of possibilities.
This post’s soundtrack: The Bloodhound Gang’s “The Bad Touch” because I’m feeling nostalgically goofy – it’s the one with the “we’re nothing but mammals / let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel” chorus and it may have been an inspiration back when I was building the original VP back in 2001. (99 cents gets you the MP3, from which I think I get four shiny pennies as a commission)
It seems that, in my absence, because yes, they clearly waited until my eyes were off the prize, McDonald’s has commenced plans to introduce smoothies to their restaurants. The move is expected to line up some competition with places like Jamba Juice, which has counter-fired with something they call the Cheeseburger Chill:
Except not really. It’s a joke, but they did make a spiffy website to promote it where you can get a coupon for a dollar off any actual smoothie they make. Which might be tasty, or might contain donkey; I really don’t know because they don’t have them up here. Smoothies, that is. Donkeys we have in abundance thanks to the Donkeys For Igloos exchange project the Canadian government whipped up a few years back to modernize our villages.
So here’s the riddle of the day: would you stop at a McDonald’s, say, on a road trip, for a smoothie? Let’s assume that they make something remotely healthful – it’s quite possible that these things will end up being watered-down McFlurries with fruit, if a McFlurry is actually a thing – it sounds like something they’d make, and I’m picturing something like a Blizzard or Frosty, but I can’t visit their website to research it without risking an outbreak of Yelling At The Computer, which wakes the baby. Seriously, I’m not even allowed to watch most current affairs shows on TV anymore.
Anyway, if McDonald’s made a fruit-based drink that could legitimately tide you over and contained zero cheeseburger, would you try it? As a last resort when on the go maybe? Or just plain never?
I don’t eat a lot of flavoured potato chips (crisps to some of you,) so this is only a passing interest story for me, but it seems like a lot of chips with meaty names don’t necessarily have to have animal ingredients in them, what with the artificial flavour industry routinely turning out things that would make Willy Wonka weep.
That said, for some reason I had Walkers Crisps from the UK in my head recently as having something to do with vegetarianism, if not veganism, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I almost hope I’m wrong, because they just released a haggis flavoured offering that, as the reviewer put it, is “like a small piece of fried potato failing to recall a repressed abuse memory while sitting on your tongue.”
I’ve never had haggis – not even the veganized versions – but just knowing that this thing is out there means that there’s one more haggis vector I need to be aware of when I plan my daily activities. How does one defend oneself against the ongoing flood of haggis and haggis-equivalents out there?
And more to the point of this post’s headline, has anyone done the research on potato chips and veganism? Aside from cheese flavours, are there any surprises out there that you wouldn’t guess are vegan from the name but are in fact totally plant-based (as confirmed by the manufacturer, not a scan of the ingredients list)?
Then again, now that Daiya cheese is available here I might even forego regular chips from now on and stick entirely with corn tortillas in various nacho configurations. Know this: ethanol’s impact on corn prices will have nothing on the vegan nacho crazes that will erupt in this decade. Until they add haggis, of course.
Today’s S4 sat in my inbox for far too long, what with it being a Valentine’s Day piece, but hey, it’s about food, particularly aphrodisiacs, and food is always in season. Erm, particularly aphrodisiacs. While we normally focus Species Sex Study Saturday on the sex lives of animals, in the hopes that knowing how a being does it will make it harder to think about how to make him or her into pie, it’s worth noting that humans are animals too.
Oh, and like there was any doubt: this week’s link came from reigning S4 monarch Dagda Samildanc.
So, to the point! Gradually, anyway. Here’s “the hunt for an edible alternative to viagra” according to the New York Times. Wanna know what’s not a turn on? The lead-in picture of some women eating salmon topped with fish eggs. Yeesh.
There are, I’m sure, some pro-animal and some ant-veg quips in there, but my mind is scanning text at the rate of 4 gigavowels per second looking for tips I can share on how to, as I am prone to saying, “make more vegans.” And so, the money quotes:
“Chili peppers, for example, quicken the pulse and induce sweating, mimicking the state of sexual arousal, as well as stimulating the release of endorphins, which play a role in sexual pleasure.” What? I like spicy food. Just because I now know why doesn’t make it less enjoyable.
“Plant-based foods have historical reputational significance because they either work or look like your junk. Animal-based foods were valued more because they were rare or expensive.” [paraphrased, obviously, or maybe not so obviously - it's only a matter of time before journalism cutbacks makes my writing talent worthy of the Big Boys, right?]
“Garlic contains an amino acid that enhances blood flow and could augment erections.” The phrase “Augmented Erections” is now in my head and will remain there long after Pew checks to see if the dot com is available.
“the aroma of [some fruit, never mind, the next item is My Thesis] caused a sharp drop in [sexual] excitation among women, as did the smell of meat cooked over charcoal.” All-vegetable kabobs aren’t just for breakfast, yo.
Seriously though, (OK, maybe not so seriously,) if you’re looking for a seductive meal, I recommend serving some kind of sports drink and some protein gels. Your date will appreciate the attention to his or her hydration.
I love reading maps of the world. Did you know there’s a Stan District? Kyrgyzstan’s in there. Population: about 4.25 million. Sheep, that is. This is a country with about 5.2 million people. That’s almost, quite literally, a sheep for every man woman and child in the country.
Here’s where it gets weird: most Kyrgyzstan citizens probably don’t travel much. I’m going to guess they don’t all have passports. However, under a proposed law, every sheep will have a passport.
People sometimes ask me why I don’t spend my energy fighting, say, child poverty or the Grammys instead of this “pointless” vegan thing, but don’t you think it’s a little weird that they spend their energy (three times a day, plus shopping) supporting an industry that does things like make sure there are more passports for sheep than there are for people in some countries?
C’mon, that’s a little weird. You gotta give me that one.
One of the things I often think about these days is the isolation often found in vegan activism. There are lots of other groups out there that do excellent work, most of the time, and as a movement we often fail to leverage their efforts.
Take, for example, the Plain English Campaign, which got into action after a British supermarket chain launched a product called “Ambient Sausage.” Nobody knows what that means. I mean, I’m going to guess it’s not vegan, but that’s just me playing the percentages, and my interest pretty much ends there. The Plain English Campaign, or PEC, or can I call them PECers? OK, the PECers didn’t let it go. These folks campaigned to get the name changed.
And change it did. To what? No idea. But “Ambient Sausage” turned out to be a printing error. And the sausage product is still out there, so no net change in animal killing. But hey, what if we turned these folks on to things like “Organic Meat” or just about anything with the word “natural” that didn’t come from the ground?
Of course, I run a porn site with no porn, so maybe someone else would be better off doing the introductions…
OK, here are some drawings of the lines: I won’t eat at McDonald’s. Ever. Even the stuff they have that might be accidentally vegan, like, I don’t know, water, maybe. I just decided at some point that that place wasn’t for me and I had no interest in supporting them.
I will, however, use their bathrooms when needed. They’re very handy with their many locations, and I figure it’s a service they provide as a means of trying to apologize for killing bazillions of animals. It doesn’t come close to squaring that particular atrocity up, but I figure if I’m going to piss on something, I might as well piss on something owned by McDonald’s.
Now, here’s where it gets a little fuzzier. I don’t know if I’d choose their playland area to pass out drunk in. I guess if you’ve got to pass out drunk somewhere, a playland would be an appealing spot. Do they have those pits full of plastic balls? That might be nice, maybe. I’m not sure. I’d probably stay on the “no” side of that particular line. Waking up hungover in a McDonald’s would be too weird and leave too many questions.
Joshua Alger drew the line and found himself on the other side this week, but veganism probably didn’t come into the equation. I know this for two reasons: the article didn’t mention he was vegan, and the news media loves them some irony, and also because he was there with his two kids, and he told them to “bite the faces off” of the police officers who came to arrest him.
Our vegan parenting site is still growing, but there aren’t any articles there yet that provide guidance on what you can tell your kids to bite off of what. It’s kind of assumed that you know that one when you do your vegan swearing in ceremony thing.
What about you? What will you use a McDonald’s for?
because I’m feeling nostalgically goofy – it’s the one with the “we’re nothing but mammals / let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel” chorus and it may have been an inspiration back when I was building the original VP back in 2001. (99 cents gets you the MP3, from which I think I get four shiny pennies as a commission)
