Do-Something Friday

Several comments from the past couple of days have provided great suggestions if you happen to have some time for a little unplanned activism today.

First, Terry Cumming alerted us that Ron Reagan Jr. will be featuring Eight Belles’ death and the cruelty of horse racing on his radio show on Air America TODAY (12-3pm Pacific time). You can call in with comments.

Next, Emily wrote that:

The current issue of Yoga Journal has a prominent story called "How to Eat Like a Yogi" (page 35)? It compares several different diets ranging from ethical vegan to conscientious omnivore. As a vegan, I found the article troublesome, though I certainly understood that the magazine’s editorial team was in a very delicate position and couldn’t risk alienating thousands of readers and advertisers. I run up against this problem myself constantly as a public relations person trying to place a veg-friendly article in mainstream papers.

I hope that vegans who read the article will send a polite letter to the magazine. You can also go to yogajournal.com/foodvalues to post your responses about how your own yogic values have affected your thoughts on diet.

As a long-time meditator and yoga practician, I find the eating of animals to be in direct opposition to my daily practice. What’s odd to me is that if your practice is at all Hinduism- or Buddhism-based, you’d view the eating of animals as the ingestion of suffering, which wouldn’t exactly provide you a boost in the karma department.

I happen to have to run out to several health-food stores today. (With all that is available to me, and so close by, I have yet to find a store that offers everything I need/want. At least they’re all within blocks of each other so I haven’t created a new environmental problem for myself.) I’ll purchase Yoga Journal, read the article, and write a letter this afternoon.

And then I’ll catch (and record) Ron Reagan’s show for listening later.

Next, Bea had mentioned that horse racing is subsidized in the recently passed Farm Bill. The New York Times‘ editorial board lets our illustrious lawmakers know exactly what they think about the bill in "A Disgraceful Farm Bill" (a title which leaves no room for suspense). My favorite quotes are:

• Congress has approved a $307 billion farm bill that rewards rich farmers who do not need the help while doing virtually nothing to help the world’s hungry, who need all the help they can get.
• The bill includes the usual favors like the tax break for racehorse breeders pushed by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader. But the greater and more embarrassing defect is that the bill perpetuates the old subsidies for agriculture at a time when the prices that farmers are getting for big row crops like corn, soybeans and wheat have never been better. Net farm income is up 50 percent.

(For the record, I don’t think tax breaks for horse breeders are any less embarrassing than subsidies for farmers.)

Maybe today’s a good day to see how your representatives voted, and make a note of that for the next election. Go here and follow the links in "House Passes Farm Bill."

Finally, "Making Their Own Limits in a Spiritual Partnership," by Leslie Kaufman, is the most e-mailed article from The New York Times at this moment. It’s about a Buddhist couple who are teachers who live in a yurt in Arizona and are celibate. That’s a dramatic oversimplification, as my point comes from the Audio Slide Show, where the Michael Roach, the male half of the couple, says:

We’re trying to sell an idea. And the idea is that everything in your world is coming from how you treat other people. And if that’s true, then you could control your future. Then you could design your own world. You could decide what kind of world you want. And then just do that to other people.

I was profoundly disappointed to hear a Buddhist omit the earth and its nonhuman inhabitants. I’m sure he means well, but his language sent the message that people are the only ones that matter. The way you treat people determines what your life looks like.

Obviously, I disagree. I think the way we live, and that includes our choices regarding people, nonhuman animals and our planet, determines what our life looks like.

What does your life look like today?