a picture my son drew of a wave on a beach

55th ­Birthday

thirsty dog
One really should stop for a drink when one gets busy…

It was my 55th Birthday yesterday. I was ever-so-slightly stereotypically depressed about it. The night before I was kept awake not by the deep philosophical problems that beset humanity, it was constipation. I had a pain across my gut from a day of dehydration, easily done when living in the dry heat of Broken Hill. I could not poop or fart which would have helped. So I started day one of my 56th year drinking copious amounts of water which eventually got things moving again. Welcome to old fartdom, a time for obsessing over bowels, fibre and roughage.

Later in the afternoon I watched The Game Changers on Netflix (magnet link). I was surprised to see some actual sensible advice making it into the mainstream. As a teen at school I became convinced by George Bernard Shaw’s ethical views on not eating meat. Nonetheless I hypocritically continued to eat meat due to my own laziness and dislike of continual explanations to vexatious people. I wish I had read Georges response when questioned,

“Why are you a Vegetarian?” I began.
“Oh, come, Mr. Blathwayt! That boot Is on the other leg. Why should you call me to account for eating decently? If I battened on the scorched corpses of animals, you might well ask me why I did that. Why should I be filthy and in-human? Why should I be an accomplice in the wholesale horror and degradation of the slaughter-house? I am a Vegetarian, as Hamlet puts it, after my own honor and dignity, My practice justifles itself. I have no further reason to give for it“.
What Vegetarianism Really Means: A Talk with Mr. Bernard Shaw
by Raymond Blathwayt

Yeah, fuck you Mr Blathwayt! Go strap a burnt badger corpse to your face!

I think most of us are social creatures who prefer to avoid confrontation. We really should try to take notice of those annoying yet ethically and scientifically correct people who choose plant-based diets over the eating of animals. The Game Changers was clear and not annoying. I hope it convinces a lot of people. It really is time we stopped being so dumb and when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘I’.

Happy Birthday to me.

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