Whoa. I hate that they clip birds' beaks and are in cages so small that their feathers are rubbed away. I hate they male chicks are tossed into dumpsters and suffocate beneath the newest arrivals.

I hate suffering enough that I move worms off sidewalks. I step over ants. I rescue critters from the road. I once spent 30 minutes turning a swimming deer from a shipping lane and back to shore. And I eat small enough amounts of meat that people assume I'm a vegetarian. I'm more of a vegetarian than many people I meet who load their plates with chicken and fish.

What I'm urging is humility. I once went canoeing with a woman who complained that I would fish for our meal. I pointed to her windshield, which was a graveyard. We all kill and whereas you sense condescension and perhaps obfuscation in me, I sense insufficient humility in you. Do you have a car? Do you know how many animals died to create your car, how many poisons were leaked into ecosystems? Heck, do you have a bike? Again, your bike is a tombstone for the animals who died to obtain the ore that made your bike. We want what we want. I believe that wanting cheap chicken at the cost of animal cruelty is wrong. So do you. However, I think we'd both waffle at wanting a bike at the cost of an ecosystem.

And have you lived on a dairy farm? I have and I didn't see a whole lot of cruelty. The cows go out. The cows come in. The cows go out. The cows come in.

What lucienrau said.

Plus, there was no subtext of being man enough to kill. If they could put pork in a squeeze tube and color it blue and sell it as Porcie Paste, they would, and consumers would be yet one more step from comprehending costs.

Wow. I didn't know that. My itsy-bitsy sense of Mormons is Bush voters who wear white shirts and ties, knock on my door, and repeat their mumbo-jumbo. So, their Heaven is Earth in Heaven, but forever and ever. What about the boredom with one's sex partner? The boredom with one's routine? There will need to be another Heaven after the Mormon Heaven: death.

After reading about scores of fundy pols and preachers who get caught in rubber suits and with diapers on their bums, I just assume that every pol and preacher who pontificates about sex might be going home to a wifey, but not before sex.

I like that you posted in the thread and I wish more Salon writers would do that.

Therefore, it's all suspect.

I know it's trendy to say, "I have no regrets," but I do have one and that's that I didn't start saving for retirement when I 14, which was when I started working. I waited until my thirties. I urge all youngsters to save, save, save. It's hard enough being old. Being old and poor is doubly difficult.

Bush is today's Pilate, the guy who approves torture.

War is peace.

Up is down.

And I'm afraid that the Left is the Right and will collude in unpunishing these crimes.

Mr. Leonard.

I did recently read that about 60% of Boomer parents support, in some way, their kids, so you're right about childhood being extended.

I talk to young folks a lot about money. They don't listen.

However, one can earn a modest income and save. I did. Buy unprocessed food. Drive old, rusty cars. Buy used appliances, which are practically free in our throwaway culture. Live with folks of color, where it's nearly always cheaper. I don't even have to buy clothes at Goodwill.

My friends say, "Oh, you poor dear thing! Come over to my house. I have some clothes I don't wear anymore."

And they don't wear those clothes anymore...since they have so many. I got a dozen tops just yesterday, which will last me a decade.

The result of being riff-raffy is that when I run my portfolio through those investment calculators, they all say that I have to live to be 153 before I run out of money and that's doubling my current income when I start to withdraw. So, my key to being comfy is looking poor. Likewise, a lot of people who look comfy are poor.

Fine then, if that's the way you roll, I love you right back!

;-)

Here's another trick: I've turned my backyard into a horn of plenty. I've pears, plums, sour cherries, sweet cherries, gooseberries, serviceberries, blueberries, and black, red, and gold raspberries. I begin and end my days with berries! And because I live on a dead-end street, I'm going to plant apple trees at on the end and the whole block can pick them. Severin, are you old enough to remember magazines that touted thrift and running a "smart" household? Of course, those magazines locked women into their roles, BUT they were loaded with good ideas: ideas that will serve all of us, male and female, in this century of declining resources and wealth. Thrift is a forgotten value, but hard times will resurrect it.

When I say that thrift is forgotten, it's no longer a Madison Street meme. You don't see it in the ads. Maybe you don't remember the ads from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and early 60s, but they advocated for thrift. Of course, it was a selling meme in the guise of thrift, but the concept was culturally viable: I remember my mother collaborating with other mothers on thrift.

As regards rich people and thrift, I don't think they'll ever have to practice it. Even in the Depression, the rich partied on and there were even parties where they mocked the suffering of poor folks.

And her carpetbag is full of bigotry.