Last night I met up with my brother and two friends and attended one of the talks of the Locavore Literary Festival at Washington College in Chestertown, MD. We got to listen to Lierre Keith talk about her book The Vegetarian Myth and how the world is going to hell, followed by some local foods and booze, and then got to ask her questions. Lierre was attacked by vegans awhile back, so I had my brother on the look out for nutritionally inferrior people with an agenda. Our chance of smacking around vegans never came unfortunately.
That being said, I can completely see why vegans would get upset. I felt like I was at a Take Back The Night rally. As if someone took an ultra-liberal activist, shook them up, and then unleashed them on their own people. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed the talk very much, I just thought Lierre came across a little abrasive and very much against agriculture and civilization. A little too idealist for my tastes. That being said, her answers during the Q&A session were down to earth and I really liked how she responded when I asked her thoughts on the economic challenge of getting people, say college students and people on minimum wage, eating grass-fed/pastured meat. She touched on everything from sourcing your foods, to rasing your own animals (i.e. Chickens), to eating offal and hunting. Later in one of the questions she went in to how periodically she will eat raw liver. Hell, this morning I had lamb heart and kidneys with my bacon and eggs, however I do not know if I am ready (or willing) to go at it raw like the dogs do.
Lierre touched on population control (introducing incentives to keep from having too many kids) and women's rights and education (educated/powerful women also have less kids) as steps in the right direction. She has been working on a book that will layout a plan of restoring the earth. I highly doubt I will read it, as I know enough about human nature and therefore I think we are f**ked. Still, I think she is generally fighting in the right direction, so have at it Lierre! The dogs and I may sit this one out. If you get a chance to listen to her speak, I recommend it. Be sure to know that when she attacks agriculture as a scourge upon life itself, she is talking monocultures and other forms that degrade topsoil and are unsustainable. It was hard to grasp this at first, and I was thinking she was attacking my near and dear Greenbranch and Polyface style farming, but it was in the Q&A this got fleshed out.
In other news, Cyprus was gone for about a week with a professional handler that I intend to use to obtain her Champion title in the AKC conformation ring. Shaman and I got to have a lot of one-on-one time and truthfully I could not tell if he even cared his little sister was missing. I forgot how easy it is to travel with only one dog, so Shaman and I went everywhere together. Upon Cyprus' return, I was alerted that my diva was quite the dominant bitch with the other dogs and only drank cold bottle water. Knowing Cyprus though, it sounded as if she went from Bear Grylls to Ke$ha overnight. Both dogs were glad to see each other, so maybe Shaman did miss his sister a little.
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| Like old times, The Sham and I |
