Should Al Gore become a Vegan?

Al Gore is a huge, if not the biggest, champion of the fight against global warming. He did get the Nobel Peace Prize for his actions As the U.N. has stated “Raising animals for food, the report said, is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems…” To read more about it download this pdf.
So my question, raised by a video I watched on Youtube, is Al Gore a hypocrite if he is not a vegan or at least a vegetarian? Or has he raised enough awareness and caused enough people to shrink their carbon footprint enough to offset his meat diet?

Dumbledore is gay

Who the #%@%#!@# cares if a fictional character (that might as well be asexual cuz the books are not about his love life) is gay ? Can you say free press? J.K. Rowling is probably worried that she is fading out of the limelight, well is she? I have no idea. I read the first book, thought it was okay and tried the second, but thought it was complete crap, so never finished it.

But dropping a “bomb” like this on the public seems like a way to get people all abuzz about the books again without having to write another one. Maybe there is a kid somewhere who hasn’t bought all the Potter books yet and this stunt is a way to squeeze a few more dollars out. This lady must be loaded. Isn’t the series over, yet? Are they going to be able to finish all the movies before the actors start having kids? Aren’t the actors already pushing their age range?

San Diego Fires

Sounds like Southern California is burning up again. 250,000 people had to evacuate. Some people stayed behind even though they were told to evacuate-
“Firefighters — who lost valuable time trying to persuade stubborn homeowners to leave…Firefighters complained that their efforts to stop the flames were delayed when they were confronted by people who refused to leave their homes. ‘They didn’t evacuate at all, or delayed until it was too late,’ said Bill Metcalf, a fire boss. ‘And those folks who are making those decisions are actually stripping fire resources.’

I say if you have been told to evacuate and you don’t that you are on your own. Why should your stubbornness get in the way of firefighters doing their job? Let dumb asses burn. Darwin rides again.
Similar to the people whose houses several years ago burned down in SD county. They didn’t want to put up sprinklers as the county wanted them to. They didn’t because it cost too much. Then fires come and burn their houses down. If they had spent the $5000 or whatever, they could have saved themselves, the city, the fire department a lot of trouble. (I can’t find an article on that, so if anyone finds one please tell me.)

Maybe harsh, but if you’ve been warned…
I know something about fires. The house I lived in that my great-grandfather built burnt down when I was in highschool. No one died, but we lost the house and most everything in it.


Contemporary dance

Well, I guess there is a definition of contemporary dance. Not sure how reliable that definition is and not sure how good of a term “contemporary dance” is. Definitions that are related to time are tricky. What is after contemporary? Post contemporary? People should drop the time aspect and give dance a name that explains what it is. Contemporary doesn’t define anything but time – when it happens/happened. In the definition yoga is part of contemporary dance and yoga is 5000 years old. Yes, it is just one of the things drawn upon. Contemporary dance, maybe should be called “and the kitchen sink dance” because everything is fair game.

How many of those things does one need to incorporate to be a contemporary dancer? If I just use Horton, Hawkins, Cunningham and Humphrey does that make me contemporary? No! Cunningham is the most recent and he hasn’t been contemporary since the 60’s. Okay, they used Ipods. Making a man a priest makes him neither celibate nor honest.

Couldn’t someone use tap and be “contemporary”? Or how about square dancing? Is that not contemporary? I am sure people are creating new square dances all the time. And ballet? New balletic movement is created all the time. Not sure how long it takes before some moves join the canon of ballet.

This definition is another instance of people valuing the tool over the logic or aesthetic. Dance is so much more than techniques about the body. Dance is the art form that uses the body to address various logics (stories, topics). The more I think about the term “contemporary” the more I dislike it. I have contempt for contemporary. Vague, vague, vague.

“What kind of dance do you do?”
“Oh, I do ‘of the present time’ dancing.”
“Interesting”

Labels, labels, labels…we do need them.

Reunion

First word- bizarre…walking around campus remembering how much I have forgotten. And remembering the things I remember- where I sat in chapel; where I lost my virginity; where we would builder around the dorms; where I took Honors history freshman year; where M. and I finally consumed alcohol on campus the day before we graduated. Probably a couple years later than everyone else.
Bizarre…one guy’s got a hedge fund; one guy works for a big hotel chain; another guy is a Hollywood agent. Everyone’s got kids and more on the way. Some people rounder, some people thinner. Car seats and minivans (O.K, so that was a rental).
If I tally up the drinks I had that day ( 7 beers and 5 glasses of wine), make me think that my alcoholic genes are kicking in.
The state of the climbing wall behind the gym is sad. Looks like no one is using it. The ropes course is also gone. I guess after Mr. Patterson died, no one was teaching that. The glue-ons on the side of the gym look like no one has touched them in years. Guess I’ll have to find another place to donate my holds to.
Bizarre…it was almost as if I had never left. Conversations weren’t as awkward as I had feared (well, a few drinks never hurt one’s sociability). Talked to some people more at the reunion than I did when we were in school together.

again in 5?

Gore and Airplanes

Too thoughts twoday- If people didn’t carry anything on to a plane, boarding and getting off a plane would be much faster. Less time would be spent going through security. Today all I carried on was the NY Times (It had been sitting outside our building since Wednesday, so I figured it was fair game.) and a book. Getting on and off a plane always takes so long because everyone is blocking the aisle cramming or yanking out their over-sized luggage into the overhead bins.

I vote for banning all carry-ons except for reading material. And water. And something to eat, cuz the bastards are now charging for food. And a sweater. And my laptop and camera because they would never survive if I checked them.
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Also Gore, why did he get the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, he has drawn the world’s attention more to global warming, but he hasn’t solved or worked to foster peace directly. Global warming will probably lead to massive conflicts- food shortages, people migrating due to rising ocean levels, fighting over water in areas of drought. But Gore hasn’t worked on any of those problems. Maybe he will in the future but give the Prize to him then.

“In 2004, the Nobel Peace Prize went to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, which Brende said shows the award committee’s focus on ecological problems as a source of conflict.”

Maybe the Nobel Committee needs to make another prize, one that is dedicated to environmental work. Seems like the Peace Prize is going to anyone who does something nice on a large scale. Don’t get me wrong, I think Gore is doing good stuff, but I don’t think he is doing peace work directly.

Better Complexion due to Global Warming

Recent studies have linked global warming to increased humidity. Increased humidity is good for the skin. Therefore as the globe gets warmer, everyone’s skin will look better.
Global warming ain’t all bad. Maybe GWB is looking out for everyone’s complexion when he is resisting doing anything about global warming.