Moo Moo Cows

Environmental Impact of Cows

   The other day a cow started to charge me.  So I've been reading about cows.  This link points to one of the main reasons I first became vegetarian. I was reading a WHO report about the impact of cows on our environment in like, 1989, and decided to not contribute to that problem (I was still eating cheese then, though).  Methane & Deforestation, etc, because of the huge increase in numbers.  I realize in some parts of the world, cows may be a necessary food source; but right now people are super meat focussed (in general), and I don't think that is a good thing, given the impact on the earth & industry trying to compensate for demand (Concentrated Feedlot Operations).  The waste from the cows in CFOs is why spinach & other veggies are getting contaminated with salmonella; and its contaminating our waters.   mmm. need balance.

Religion in the US

[I wrote this for World Have Your Say by the BBC news about the program aired today, August 25, 2010.]

 I realize the show for today is over, nonetheless, I want to express how frankly horrified I am by the inflexibility and lack of ...compassion for other religions and other people several of the callers from the US exhibited.

  This kind of attitude is embarrassing to me as an American, as it relays an extreme lack of education and understanding of other people in the world, which is quite disturbing, especially when they decide to kill people who don't agree with their religious ideas.  I'm thinking specifically of killing doctors who perform abortions.  There is no sense of the bigger picture.  For  example, that more women die when safe abortions are not legal; and who is taking care of all these extra children if you don't allow abortions?   Hasn't anyone noticed the hunger and homelessness problems in this country (and others), not to mention the abuse and neglect of children, and overpopulation?   And in these "Christian" communities, you are ostracized if you get pregnant, regardless of how it happened.

 As I mentioned, the ignorance and inflexibility astounds me.

 These people don't seem to realize we are living in a free country, which specifically includes freedom of religion.

 Thank you for your show; and for bringing up these issues.

goodreads. I like it.

Has the World Gone Deaf?

Why are movie theaters turning the sound up to 11? Why are small cafes turning up the sound full blast? What in the hell is going on? Is the world going deaf?

I wear Earplugs and the sound still hurts my ears. This was not the case even a couple years ago.

What is going on?

You know what people who work at the theaters and cafes say when I ask that the sound be turned down?

"It sounds normal to me." One woman additionally said, "I guess that's bad, isn't it."

Yes. That's bad. It's bad if you walk into the movie theater (especially Bay Street's AMC) and it's so loud you're in pain--and if you leave for a moment, your ears are ringing. Clamp your hands over your ears....with earplugs....and it is still painfully loud.

I will go everywhere *but* Bay Street AMC to see a movie, because I don't want to be deaf.

Picking chocolate chips out of cookie dough

Why am I picking chocolate chips out of cookie dough? I love chocolate. Why?

Because Ghiradelli is cheap and put cow milkfat instead of cocoa butter in their 58% cocoa chocolate chips. Thanks to some idiotic legislation last year (I believe last year--it is recent) it is okay to say "pure chocolate" even if it is not. You can say "pure chocolate" even if you're putting dairy cow milk fat in your chocolate instead of cocoa butter.

I notice the price of the chocolate chips has not gone down. However, their profit has gone up because of the low price of cow milkfat. Why is cow milkfat so cheap? Because we have CFOs -- Concentrated Feeding Operations -- which put all of the cattle together, standing feet deep in their poop. This poop flows out into our waters and contaminates anything growing nearby with salmonella, among other things. That is why we have spinach recalls--mmm. And I wonder what all that concentrated cow, pig, and whatever else warrants a CFO, poop is doing to our water supply. Don't you?

Anyway, these animals are packed together so tightly they can barely move, and they're forcefed corn (which isn't what they're designed to eat), which destroys their internal digestion, which is why the animals are given daily antibiotics so they don't just die from eating corn. The tremendous amount of antibiotics in their systems (and ours), give organisms the chance to become resistant to the antibiotics, so we then have "superbugs" which will kill you because we don't have antibiotics that work against them. But it's CHEAP!

Ah, all things have results. Every action has a consequence.

In any case. I am picking chocolate chips out of the cookie dough I just made because I am allergic to cow milk products (and eggs, blueberries, and sesame). I ate a couple of the chips and started to have an asthma reaction, which is not a comfortable sensation. So I read the label, and discovered this milkfat crap in the chocolate chips.

Why didn't I read the label beforehand, in the store? I am frustrated that I didn't, but I forgot to, and had bought their higher percentage of cocoa chocolate chips previously that don't have cow milkfat in them.

What a pain!

Thank god I am not allergic to corn or soy! They're in Everything.

The cause of my asthma and newfound allergies is another topic. Suffice to say here that it was caused by pregnancy which changed my DNA.

My head just exploded.

My head just exploded...I think so, anyway. I heard a popping sound, and then another, and it does not bode well for the future of my head.

To clarify. I'm firing my head---heh. See, even that sounds weird. There is a whole other language in ceramic work which doesn't mean the same (clearly) in regular language. This can be the case in many specialties; however, I am particularly enjoying the phrase "My head just exploded" and it is true! And I can still type!

I can't check to see if it really did explode yet, because the kiln is still firing the the required temperature, and there are other pieces in there.

I was trying out a new method of building a sculpture of a head. This method isn't very good for avoiding the tiny bubbles which occur when you're building something sculptural with clay.

I fired up my big deliciously large kiln (which my loved one wired for me for my birthday) today for the first time, and the firing is going well...except for this POP!

I don't mind very much because that head was an experiment, and I wanted to see if it would stand up to a bisque firing. A bisque firing is when you heat up the clay to very hot temperatures to harden it. Generally after a bisque firing you do other things to the hardened clay, like put colored slip or glaze or iron oxide on it, and then you fire it again.

The funnest thing for me is to Raku after I have bisque-fired something, as the results are unpredictable in a different way from when something is glazed and fired again in a kiln.

To Raku, you generally put a Raku glaze on your bisqued piece, then you heat it up in a kiln so it is literally glowing red-hot. You take this amazing glowing hot clay out of the kiln by picking it up with long tongs (and you want to be wearing heavy welding gloves), and you put the clay in a small trash can which is filled with sawdust, newspaper, leaves, ... pretty much anything you find you want to try out. This sets everything on fire. FIRE! You let it burn for a minute, and then put the lid on and the smoke and heat and combustibles do the work.

Sometimes a piece can't handle the shock of Raku--watching and hearing ceramic crackle in the relatively cooler air when you take it out of the trash can be amazing, especially when it isn't breaking, just cracking on the surface of the glaze, or the surface of the ceramic.

And, if you don't bisque-fire your clay before you Raku it, it will EXPLODE!

sigh.