Realism and Sacredness

This has happened to every vegan on the planet: you make plans to eat with a nonvegan friend who loves you and cares about you, and in an effort to be considerate of you s/he asks, "is it okay if I eat meat [in your presence]?" Today I had to explain to a friend I love and admire why asking this question is worse than not asking at all, and later posted something about this on Facebook. I had an interesting discussion/argument with several meat-eating friends, which helped me solidify and shape my thinking about this. Here's an effort at an explanation. First, the actual answer: No, it is not okay to eat meat. Whether the meat is eaten in my presence or not is beside the point. Animals are exploited, tortured, and slaughtered regardless of the outcome of this horrific process is made explicit in my presence. The whole question is misguided: it is not that it is wrong for you to eat meat when you are with me . It is wrong for everyone to eat meat, no matter who they a

As we all watch the news in disbelief, seeing our country turn into Nazi Germany before our eyes and the man in the White House condoning the most vile ideology produced by the human race, my thoughts go to a much more minor and mundane incident that happened a few days ago. No one was a monster and nothing turned to tragedy. And yet, I find myself still thinking about it. I was at a fitness instructor training for an acrobatic discipline. It was rigorous and required physical and mental concentration and effort. There was to be a practical exam at the end of the training, in which we were to teach a complicated, multi-step sequence of poses and transitions to the general public while spotting them for safety. With or without justification, the students were stressed out, fearing they would forget something or mess up the sequence. Some of us were truly gifted athletes and yoginis, whose ability to demonstrate poses exceeded their ability to spontaneously come up with rich and prec

Yesterday the news reported a distressing incident in Switzerland . Jewish guests were astonished to find the following signs at their Swiss hotel: To our Jewish Guests: Please take a shower before you go swimming and although [sic] after swimming. If you break the rules, I'm forced to cloes [sic] the swimming pool for you.  To our Jewish guests: You are allowed to approach the fridge between the hours: 10.00-11.00 in the morning and 16.30-17.30 in the evening. I hope you understand that our team does not like to be disturbed every time. Apparently there's a bit of context to each of these signs (and you can read about it by clicking the above link), but it naturally does not justify this disturbing display of antisemitism. Reading the piece, I was reminded of Jeff Wiltse's book Contested Waters , in which he reviews the history of swimming pool segregation and desegregation in America. As a (now semi-retired) swimmer who often reflects on the accessibility of swim