Category Archives: health

Expanding the Golden Rule (Are We Taking Animals “Foie Gras-ted?”)

I don’t eat liver.  Doesn’t matter what animal it came from, it is literally the body’s filter, and I’m not putting that in my mouth.  Unsurprisingly, a large portion of humanity does not share my distaste for consuming fleshy contaminant processors.  Take foie gras, for example.  It’s a special kind of gross, prepared organ, which Wikipedia describes as “the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened.”  Thing is, “specially fattened” is a euphemism for “force fed with a metal tube.”

This was brought to my attention recently, as a student from my school was recently arrested for secretly recording video from inside a foie gras farm, and, allegedly, stealing some ducks.  She’s facing up to seven years in prison for this.

Now, I am a meat eater.  I love meat, hell, I evolved to eat meat, as did the rest of you (assuming all of our dear readers are human).  That being said, I don’t like meaty foods that require inhumane treatment of the animal that material’s coming from.  It’s why I don’t touch veal.  I think an animal should get to live its life like an animal, with its own kind, moving around, eating, sleeping, having sex… If the meal in question requires that an animal be pumped full of chemicals and locked in a box to restrict its movement to keep it tender, I will have none of that.

In general, the issue of “animal rights” is a tricky one, for a variety of reasons.  Mainly, because our use of animals is almost ubiquitous across every area of our lives.  We eat their meat, we ride on their backs, we drink their milk, we feed them to our other animal friends…  It’s hard to step back and reconsider something so inextricably incorporated into our lives.  And of course, there are other things that make the topic a sour one for many…

Go home, PETA.

Go home, PETA.

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Darwin Day!

A part of me would love to weigh in on Kat’s critique of Gordon’s critique of her critique of anti-femininity, but I’d say they’ve pretty well covered it (Kat won.  There, I weighed in).

You brought this on yourself, Gordon.

But no, I have other fish to fry.  In celebration.  I’m frying celebratory fish here, because it’s Darwin Day!

Yes, February 12 is a holiday to some, though not a federally listed one.  There are some who are fighting courageously to make it so, and I mean, why not? We do have federal holidays for some… Less wonderful people.

Seriously, screw this guy.

Now, Darwin was a pretty great guy, who gave us a pretty great idea (Natural Selection), and both are pretty misunderstood in today’s society, even by some of their supporters. Continue reading

3 Things Christians Parents Can Learn From the Death of Leelah Alcorn

On December 28th Leelah (Josh) Alcorn committed suicide. In the Tumblr note she scheduled to upload after her death, Leelah implies that her parents’ strict rejection of her identity was one of the factor that led her to this decision.

I’m not a parent, so I don’t want to ignorantly hand out parenting suggestions. However, I do want to start a dialogue about this story in the Christian community.

Instead of offering my own naive words of advice, I’ve pulled out three quotes from Leelah’s note to focus on. Each of these three points highlight things Leelah seemed to deeply wish that her Christian parents would understand.

1. You can’t force your child to accept your beliefs

They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy…

– Leelah

I love what Jamie (the very worst missionary) once said on this topic. In her post titled “Not All Pastor’s Kids Are Christian. Sorry.” she talks about her own experience as a pastors wife, parenting a child who now identifies as an atheist. While Jamie expects their children to act respectful towards her and her husband (and their chosen profession), when it comes to their faith she only asks her children to be honest with her in their journey towards truth. She doesn’t ask them to pretend to be something they are not:

“Believing in Jesus? Receiving His redemption? These are not commands to be given by a father and obeyed by a child. They are a loving invitation from God to his people, every last one of His people, and He is patiently awaiting their reply…”

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Stripping Jennifer Lawrence: Not What She Did, But Why

Okay, so Jennifer Lawrence. Kat and I actually discussed her in one of our first Culture War Correspondences ever, back when the actress [or actor, I haven’t decided how I feel about the term being gender neutral] and the positive attention she was garnering online was creating an equal if not greater amount of backlash. However these days people aren’t talking about how much she loves food or her general sense of coordination when walking up to receive an Oscar.

Kat’s most recent post delves into the perception of the leaked nude photos of Lawrence, falling firmly on the side [the same one I do] that the people who should really be blamed are the ones who invaded her and many others’ personal privacy. To once again quote the same two sentences from her Vanity Fair
interview that so many have been latching onto, and rightly so, “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime.”

Here’s that cover again.

I could have easily left it at that, except that her interview with Vanity Fair went just a little bit further. Lawrence explained that she had no reason to make any apologies to anyone, which I continue to agree with, but justified
the action of taking the pictures in the first place she said:

“I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”

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Yes For Scotland

Did you know that in a few days, Scotland will vote on becoming an independent nation?

On the 18th of this month, Scots will be flocking to polling stations to vote either “yes” or “no” on becoming a self-governed country, joining in the movement with many areas of Europe, currently campaigning for self-determination (though barring the Catalonians, Scotland’s probably the closest any have yet gotten).

And may that day yet come…

So is this a good thing? We here at CWR say yes. Continue reading

Fame Day: Carly Fleischmann, Giving a Voice to Autism

This is Carly Fleischmann:

carly

According to an article written by her father, Arthur Fleischmann, Carly was diagnosed with autism, developmental delay, and oral-motor apraxia (“a neurological condition preventing speech”) by the time she was two-years-old. Carly underwent years of therapy, which eventually allowed her to walk, stand, and feed herself. Unfortunately, Carly showed no hope of ever being able to communicate. In fact, her behaviour made it seem as though Carly would have nothing to communicate even if she could express herself:

“Carly went to therapy sessions, bleated, screamed and never ever stopped moving. Her actions were feral and, if not tightly monitored, destructive. Left unattended, she emptied containers of baby powder, smeared peanut butter on the furniture and overflowed bathtubs. One evening she slipped out of the house at dusk and crossed four city blocks before we found her stripped naked at her favourite park.”

Then, one day, something changed. Carly spoke. Just not in the way you might expect. The video below reveals how Carly turned to typing in order to express the feelings she could not communicate verbally.

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