OkCupid is Free Online Dating.

Seriously. Suck it.

I've always had a chip on my shoulder concerning PETA. Why, you ask?

1.) You cannot compare yourselves to Mohandas Gandhi (issues concerning his spiritual beliefs about vegetarianism is another matter) and then support violent actions.

2.) You cannot call yourself a group of personal choice if you are out to change the *cough cough* ethical *cough cough* beliefs of others through legal sanctions.

3.) You cannot equate acts of cruelty (such as the meat industry, yada yada) towards animals to the horrendous conditions of the Holocaust (Oh, you didn't know? PETA put out a campaign a few years back called "Holocaust on Your Plate". Check it out!), slavery around the world, and the genocide still raging in Darfur.



4.) You cannot equate the emotions of animals to those of people. Little bunny foo foo and kitty kat klaws aren't equipped with the fundamental brain structures to feel the same emotions as we are. Those vertebrae with an amygdala and hypothalamus are able to feel a remnant of what we do (Mostly for survival purposes), but they are nowhere near as complex. Comparing the emotional state of an artificially inseminated cow and with that of a raped woman is grossly stupid and insensitive. (But, I guess the Holocaust thing kinda ruled out any conviction that these people can be sane and sensitive.)

5.) PETA cares more about animals than people. Animal testing for cosmetic purposes is sickening, yes, but if it takes a thousand lab rats to save one child in Africa from being orphaned because of AIDS? Sorry ratties. I love you, but you got to go. (By the way, if you watch the video I have below, you'll find out a Mary-Beth Sweetland who is the vice-president of PETA takes insulin. You can just guess how insulin was developed.)

6.) ALF. Oh lordy, ALF. The Animal Liberation Front. If crazy-ass arsonists setting fire to research labs isn't enough, I don't know what is. Of course PETA supports ALF. Don't pretend like you don't.

7.) The total liberation of animals? You have GOT to be kidding me. Yes. That means all of us who are pet lovers? Gotta let 'em go. Animals are not to be degraded for our entertainment purposes. Seriously, people. Come on. Zoos now-a-days are working to protect endangered animals. How do they get money for it? From educating us about animals and letting us take in the awe that is the animal kingdom. Most animals were either born in captivity (which means if we let them out and about, they'll probably die of starvation), or they've been rescue cases. Any rescued animal capable of going back to its natural habitat after treatment is gladly sent back home. You talk about the ethical treatment of animals, PETA. Isn't it our ethical responsibility to take in sick and orphaned animals? Or are we just supposed to adhere to the biological force of survival of the fittest. Let them sort it out? If that's the case, go grab a hamburger.

8.) Concerning number eight: To believe that human beings are naturally not meant to be omnivores is ridiculous. Guess when we started to develop our sophistication in thinking? When we started eating meat! You know why? Protein is vital to the human system - especially brain development. We are natural omnivores. When you have to have a medicine cabinet of supplements to keep up your vegan lifestyle, what does that tell you? If you want to be a vegetarian for personal reasons, that is totally fine. Just don't try to say that we're biologically not supposed to eat meat.

9.) Brain-washing. PETA feeds its members video upon video, picture upon picture, sound-bite upon sound-bite of horrendous animal cruelty in farm settings. The truth is people, laws are already in place to protect animals from this cruelty. But PETA keeps pumping it in, creating more crazed animal-rights activists every day. I've had a number of friends after going PETA refuse to even return calls because I'm a meat-eater who rides horses.

10.) The members are SO ill-informed. For Pete's sake, people! If you're going to believe in something, do some honest to god research about it. That means, don't go to some bias personal site for your information. Stop roaming the Internet for outrageous factoids. (Actually, you should probably stop using your computer all together. Keyboards are made with animal glue, you know.) Go to a fucking farm! A humane shelter! A reasearch lab! A college course! Anything. Come here to Southwest Virginia and see how gloriously the cows here are treated. The cattle around here probably have it better than most of the people in this area.


In conclusion: You can be an animal rights activist. You can philosophically or religiously believe that the rights of animals is equal to the rights of humans. You can rally, promote, and fund your message. You can do this without being a part of PETA. I know that not every member of PETA is a crazy radical. So, if you're not, look at what you're supporting. Look at what you're funding. If you really want to change the way we look at animals in today's world, being part of a radical group who "understands" violence isn't the way to do it.

And by the way, you might find some pretty nasty news about PETA if you watch the videos below. If you don't believe it? Do your own research. Their tax records are available to the public. PETA euthanized two thirds of the animals they saved in 2002. PETA EUTHANIZED 1,325 animals. So, it's alright to protest humane shelters for humanely euthanizing, but I guess PETA is above all that. Heh.


Penn and Teller's Bullshit: PETA

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsHUBEfBNMo

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Eo4KtBJFc&feature=related

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXjwDqz4gWM&feature=related

Bring on the hatemail.

tearing of petals

listless petals
quivering, gasping, reaching
stretching themselves
towards the big yellow ego
spanning centuries
wars, famine, pride, and guilt
sucked up
pulled in
and pushed out
through the common will


i tear at the red cornucopias –
jutting from the sepal - receptors
for all this crime and punishment
i waste through them
with a girl's chanting lilt
" i love you
i love you not"
and each falls like a titan
to the grass

they wiggle squirm fight scratch
scarlet little worms -
upper-cutting petals of thought
crying for one last moment
to retch up
piles of doubt
to deify
the all encompassing one
only to bask bloated in waxy thought

and then the stillness of the pistil
breaks through
the bald yellow head
perched above the stem
weightless and serene
cradling in worship
her sex and spirit
like a god

So, interesting little tid-bit I found surfing the web. Also, if you don't understand the Tenacious D reference, you need to Youtube Tenacious D and Sasquatch. Or the variation of your choice, of course.

Copy/Pasted from: http://www.ktvu.com/news/17174989/detail.html

While Bigfoot sightings have been reported from the wilderness near Northern California’s majestic Mt. Shasta to the backwoods of Michigan, three hunters of the elusive beast announced Friday that they believe at least three have been living in a rural Georgia swamp for years.

To back up their claims, the men claimed to have a corpse of the hairy beast crammed in a Georgia freezer and will allow a group of scientists to conduct a necropsy.

Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer say they stumbled across the corpse in the woods of north Georgia, across the country from the remote regions of the Northwest where people usually claim to see the man-ape.

Whitton said the lifeless body was lying alongside a creek with a visible stomach injury. As the two were carrying the body out of the woods, they were followed by two other Bigfoots.

At a Palo Alto news conference, the men -- joined by veteran Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi -- said three DNA had come up inconclusive. One test said the DNA was human, another possum and a third did not reach a conclusion. They also released two photos showing the creature’s teeth and a photo allegedly showing one of the Bigfoot that followed the pair out of the woods.

Whitton and Dyer said they found Bigfoot dead near a stream after they had hiked into secluded woods for a camping trip.

"It was a pretty fresh body," said Whitton, who added that he and those who have seen the body, about eight or 10 people, have not officially determined how the creature died.

Whitton said he waited by the body for about nine hours while Dyer hiked out of the woods and retrieved his tow truck and the two then moved the body out of the area and into a freezer, where the supposed bipedal, apelike creature has remained for about 60 days.

When asked why neither man contacted local authorities or wild animal experts after their unlikely find, Whitton said, "I didn't see any need to call."

He later likened the incident to finding the world's largest diamond, in which case he said knowing exactly what to do would be difficult.

"We didn't know who to call and who to trust," Whitton said.

Whitton, who claims he and Dyer spotted three other Bigfoot creatures walking about 50 feet from them, also stressed his concern for the species and their habitat.

"They were aware of us," he said. "They didn't try to attack us or anything."

However, skeptics say it's just another Bigfoot hoax.

"What I've seen so far is not compelling in the least, and I think the pictures cast grave doubts on their claim," Jeffery Meldrum, a Bigfoot researcher and Idaho State University professor, told the Scientific American. "It just looks like a costume with some fake guys thrown on top for effect."

Meldrum said the DNA test likely won't prove anything and, at best, might yield a gene sequence that doesn't match any other known primates.

Whitton, an officer on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department, and Dyer, a former corrections officer, announced the discovery in early July on YouTube videos and their Web site www.bigfoottracker.com. The site on Friday would not load.

The picture they sent out in a press release and on their Web site shows what appears to be a hairy corpse crammed into a chest freezer. The accompanying announcement describes the creature as a 7-foot-7 male, weighing 550 pounds with 16-inch human-like feet and reddish hair.

In August, Biscardi, head of a group called Searching for Bigfoot, joined the men.

Other Bigfoot hunters call Biscardi a huckster, a Las Vegas promoter and a scam artist looking for media attention he's gained since he began his search for Bigfoot three to four years ago. He released a photograph and announced the news conference earlier this week, drawing national attention.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Reserve spokesman Tom Mackenzie said officers also are not taking the claim seriously and will not investigate Bigfoot because it not a federal priority.

"It's not on endangered species on any list that we've got," Mackenzie said.

An anonymous letter to the agency in July said the creature is "the remains of a small gorilla or chimpanzee that may have undergone some taxidermy treatment."

Whitton, who also goes by the name Gary Parker, has been on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department since July 3 after he was shot in the wrist. Police spokeswoman Sonja Sanchez said the department has been fielding many media inquiries because of Whitton's claims, but she doesn't know much else.

"Right now that is just what they are -- claims," Sanchez said Friday.


Hmm... are you putting our hopes up Georgia-men?

Some experimentation going on in this piece. I'm not sure if I want to keep the simple punctuation/capitalization considering the formal language. Then again, he was all about simplicity... so at a cross-roads. Ah well. Still in editing process.

we hold the glass globe

mohandas, i see you now in dreamless hours,
myself a curled shrimp in egyptian cotton -
pink skin prickled with gooseflesh,
whittling at countless thoughts that roll away -
full moon thoughts with the indian ocean tides.

you spin and i want to join you –
sure dark hands working with ideals - the thin thread
of change growing substance
with every thrum of the wheel's turn. sitting patient,
khadi billows from you - brown bone flesh soul.

silent remarks on the state of the spirit,
whittling and spinning, and we're both lonely.
my pricey peace presses us in
while greed, fundamentalism, poverty and genocide
rap at the window with the blinds shut.

"where is my dhoti, mahatma?"
my words crack our stillness, breath
ragged remnants in my chest. I see
your tears – salt taste on your lips.
your ideas are wasting away - fasting for decades.
.

"your dhoti is not here anymore. your land
swallowed it up" fingers weaving, shoulder's bones
against white cloth, and im afraid you are dying again,
bapu, father to more than india,
and with you the comfort of peace.

i kneel to kiss your feet - plead you to stay –
to make me a dhoti from your thread,
to weave the world and make our minds born again
with tolerance and love, to walk through the dusty rubble
of the soul of man and rebuild.

"you must make your own shanti out there" –
fingers halting to gesture, hand spanning
the world without a flinch,
cupping it with delicacy - another fragile figurine
ready to splinter once dropped.

"in a gentle way you can shake the world"


© Copyright of Danielle Kennedy 2008

There’s something that’s been rolling around in the think box for the past couple of days, and it’s something that is troubling, but indeed almost liberating. For some reason, it dampens my somewhat rose-colored glasses perspective on the lives us human organisms choose to live, but it also brings to me a certain feeling of freedom – a certain lift to my gray-matter. Perhaps it’s that I’m taking excitement in a truly logical question, or that I already know its rose-colored answer.

The question has came to me once before, but the moment was small, and debased by its company. My ex boyfriend and I were curled up in my bed, and I think it was a Saturday evening. A rainy Saturday evening. We were snuggling after an intimate escapade – spooning, if I have to say it. I remember clearly his hands pressed against my stomach, and his face nuzzling into the back of my neck as the rain pattered against my window. I was feeling gloomy, under-whelmed, neurotic, and woefully disembodied from my usual self.

I asked him when he felt like he was going to die.

I remember there was a pause – an annoyed one, no doubt. All my silly questions that he once loved seemed to annoy him in the end. He cleared his throat, his fingertips slowly tracing quite a violent looking hickey on the side of my neck. His fingers actually hurt a bit, but I ignored the sensation as he thought.

“I don’t know,” was all he said, kissing the back of my neck.

“I think I’m gonna die when I’m twenty-four. I can’t see my life past twenty-four. I figure, I’ve been able to see my life up until this point, if that forward sight stops at twenty-four, then that must mean something. Right? I’ve always known I would die tragically. In a hospital bed, with some sickness, when I’m twenty-four. That’s how I’ll die.”

I heard a click in my Italian’s throat, and his large hands caressed the curve of my waist to my hip. It was almost an anxious movement, and I didn’t exactly feel any tenderness there. Compulsive. That’s almost what it was.

I rolled over to turn to him, rather sore from our adventure as I pressed a hand to his cheek, wanting to see those deep brown eyes. They were tired. He wanted a nap. Still, I pressed on, the question I had been afraid to ask slipping its way into the after-sex air.

“Don’t you ever think it’s weird, that we as humans forge such close relationships with each other? That, we fall in love, create emotional connections of trust and adoration, only to have it end in tragedy? Lovers are rarely lucky enough to die together. Some say Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy. Though it was my least favorite of the Bard’s plays, I’ll say that he did one thing right – he let them die together. They never had to face the world with out the other. Juliet never had to be a widow, wandering the rest of her days alone and world-torn. Romeo never had to sleep by Juliet’s grave to feel close to her tender heart. Romeo and Juliet had a beautiful ending. You won’t die before me, will you?”

I saw fear there, and I knew I would. I saw the certainty of mortality and the unknown flash before his eyes, and I felt guilty for a moment that I had felt the need to share the burden of feelings I was having.

He collected himself too quickly, and pressed a dry kiss against my forehead.

“Don’t be so morbid, Danielle.”

Don’t be so morbid. It’s strange how noticing the pressure of reality makes one morbid. Still, the question is there, and I think I know the answer. We do it for fulfillment. We do it, because being a living organism capable of abstract thought and highly developed relationships, we need one another. The tragedy is only the ending of the story, but it’s what is on all the pages in between the matters. The dash between the dates.

Alienation

You banished me from yourself. I
was discarded from your mother’s
warmth - and you were a betrayer of
our connection even then. Silent and somber –
you let that fat man with the thick glasses
shove his hands past my ribs
until I cried. Such a slaughter of trust!
You watched me squawl at that table
Mother – when I was still drunk on the dream
of you – when I was still drenched
in your pain to rid me - when I was still covered in what
was us (in what WE were).

Purple, yellow, and black – I was
tie-dyed and gaudy
from birth. I had no pretty pink flesh for you
to press those rosy lips against. I seemed
alien to you – an untrammeled imp of Gaia
rather than your own. There was no bright hue
of baby blues for you to set your eyes upon -
just lumps of coal – probably from the Appalachia
earth that left you so bitter. I was more the dirt
than I was you – and you couldn’t yank that rib
from me. My creator – you couldn’t break
your name from me. I was a picture of us with your
dark locks in wayward curls and your
prim nose in the center of my round face. Mother -
even then – I was not enough.

Immaculate woman you were – you still had your
make-up on and your hair tamed. Lovely
and fresh - you stared down at me from your post
and felt the tides from a bitter sea
lapping in my eyes – viewed the bark
swelling beneath my skin – observed the fruit
ripening behind my infant’s tongue. My lips
refused to drink from the tan and fleshy warmth
of your breasts - and the plastic of a bottle soon became
you. Mother - to you I was a creature of Terra held
in your rigid embrace. Even now –
when I am a creation almost complete - I am but a
woman of clay clinging to the thought of
when we were one – that time that you’ve forgotten.

Copyright of Danielle Kennedy

New piece I've been fiddling with. The lack of puncation and strange capitalization is really to prove a point in the piece.

Soul-Burning at the Curb

I sit there like a mangy cat
on the side street
inhaling smog from a pipe rocking
my head with the times -
falling into the rhythm I slip on
a pleather skirt (micro-mini world) -
my thigh-highs are running I smell
like sex and I am
god.

children run through the alleys with out faces
their S.S. number stamped - the blind imps skip by
and I want to stick out my foot I
want to trip up society with my black stilettos -
leather calves – bastille was revolution mad with
poverty - under mao zedong chinese farmers beat the men with fat bills
like pigs - in the world
women burned their bras - men burned books - here my Soul burns
quietly in the alley and I am
god.

frayed whiskers yowling around the trashcans and I
frown at them - meandering cats in heat
eating up community roles with their little cat paws
winding through legs listlessly senseless
creatures - heads lowered and asses raised waiting
for the societal master prick - mr. bourgeoisie and his political entourage
tell me not to stir the stew - bible man and his book
tell me not to stir the soul - society and its golden truth
tell me not to stir the rules and I look at
the cats - the kids - myself and this is where I say no. I am

the woman ignited at the curb and I am
the woman cracking open fate and I am
the woman who is the artificer of her happiness and I am

My own God.