Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Inhuman Rights
I don't mention it much here, but I participate in a radio theater company in my spare time. Several years ago, one of our best writers (the selfsame Ron who has shown up in several comments here) turned in a parody of a talk show interrupted by various non-human rights activists. At the time, we felt it was so over-the-top that real life was unlikely to overtake it.

Smallpox is ... the most endangered viral species on Earth, existing only as two tiny, pitiful imprisoned colonies. Where once great tides of smallpox virus flourished within the bodies of Earth's mammals--

Now, nobody that I know of has actually suggested that smallpox has rights... but yeast?

In answer to Candy Sagon's question regarding whether vegans worry about such things as microbes in yeast [Food, March 13], the answer is yes. ... Being a vegan is more about protesting cruel treatment of living beings than about food choices.

I feel like such a... macro-scale chauvinist. What's left to eat, "circus peanuts"? And when I think of all the cotton that died so that I might have underwear, why, I am wracked with guilt.

No comments: