Do farm animals have rights? Do they deserve legal protection during their lives before they meet their deaths on your dinner table? In California, Proposition 2 is November 4 ballot initiative — better known as the “Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act” — and I wonder why we even need to provide that protection and why we don’t naturally have it in us to humanely tend those that feed so many as part of our basic human nature.
[Editorial Note: Blogging is a textual medium and you cannot easily read facial expression, vocal tone or body language and that can mean a lot of fun and frolicking intent can be lost. We want to make it clear how much we love all California people — especially those who move to that great state — and we mostly like those who were born into her soil and not transplanted. With that disclaimer out of the way, let the flaying begin!]
California born folks have to put up with a lot of kidding from the rest of the world that may try to label their “California style” of living flakey or “not there” as Gertrude Stein wrote in 1937 when she visited her hometown of Oakland and wrote in Everybody’s Autobiography:
What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.
Is there a there there in California now?
I have been exposed to lots of native Californians and nearly every one of them loves to talk about California at every opportunity and at every inopportune time! They talk about the water and the weather and the orange groves of their childhood that are no longer there and they rightfully brag about their home state’s daring educational initiatives.
When the “California Style” of teaching reaches the East Coat and Midwestern classroom, however, madness ensues! I was stuck in one graduate course taught by a self-identifying native Californian and we spent 57 minutes of the first class deciding who would bring what to eat on which days. It was complete insanity!
My younger and smarter friend and fellow Nebraskan Tom Boellstorff has a new book, The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia, and it is published by Princeton University Press. Tom is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at The University of California, Irvine.
If you are reading this then WordPress is correctly “auto-publishing” this post without me as I am currently sailing high above you in the air on my way to Sacramento, California to meet with the delightful Jeff Tanji, M.D. and his fine Sports Medicine staff.
If you are not reading this, then I am still in the air but the post did not make it out of WordPress.
by Bob McCulloch
Descending the hills into the seacoast town of La Jolla, California, you are at once taken by the variety of trees (eucalyptus, pine, palm) and plant life (cacti, mustard flower, ferns, pink and green ground cover) adorning the hillsides. The road winds its way past diverse networks of homes, many of which appear at first unassuming but with the views of the Pacific Ocean increase their value immensely. Being more accustomed to Eastern beaches such as NH, NY, MD, etc., I was amazed at the panoramic views I could see past the houses. I had no idea, however, just what lay ahead.
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