Friday morning roundup

Kenya has newly discovered aquifers.

Venezuela--hardly the land of Monty Python--has its own "I'm not quite dead yet" stories. But it's hardly alone in terms of those kinds of place-naming conventions (see: my Nicaragua travel notes).

The Pope calls for perspective.
 Candace Pert reconciled science and spirituality, mind and body.

Carolyn explains it all... in terms of being responsible for our own well-being while still holding others responsible for their behavior toward us. Of course, that scenario is one of the easier ones: you can (and should) leave an abusive spouse; your choices are less stark when it's about an abusive parent. But even then, it's about setting and enforcing boundaries (see: a lot of this blog).

Women are generally regarded as more considerate, but I'll tell you that I'm pretty aggressive/retaliative when someone gets in my space on the Metro. I am not above elbowing them. What else do you do when dealing with these guys?

A friend of mine summed up this J. Bryan Lowder's ridiculous column best: "If I didn't know any better, I'd think I was reading the Onion." I thought of that friend even before I sent her the column, as I was formulating my own response, which is almost unnecessary because the comments say it all, and the comments are excellent (from the simplest, like "Funny, I always thought hosting others was about making your guests feel welcome and comfortable in your home, not to mention safe," to the more detailed, which I'll let you see for yourself. But the reason I thought of this friend is that she has been in a situation where she once chose to eat meat against her wishes to be polite to a hostess (and avoid an international incident), and became violently ill afterward. I know of other vegetarians who have found themselves in similar positions (usually in developing countries, where the host has really put themselves out for the meal with whatever they had), and I've written about how I pick my battles and make choices when I travel. But those are my choices to make (our choices to make). It shouldn't be some self-important yuppie lying to us because he doesn't think a little animal product is a big deal (much less doesn't think that vegetarian food is real). So, yeah, I'll compromise... by sparing you the trouble of cooking for me if you can't be bothered to respect my values. Oh, but as a longtime vegetarian, I must just not appreciate how amazing this guy's food is (just as, to reference his own analogy, I don't really see the point of driving a Ferrari). If vegetarians are so annoying, please take your culinary talents elsewhere. Your labors and refined tastes are clearly lost on us. If we’re tiresome and insufferable, leave us the f* alone. Quit inviting us to dinner. We’re so pathetic that we’d rather enjoy a lesser quality meal that is still vegetarian than the one you’ve made so superior with half a teaspoon of chicken stock. And we’d rather be in the company of people who don’t lie to us or take it upon themselves to make our ethical decisions for us.It is true that a small amount of chicken broth would not kill me (though, yes, it does make some vegetarians sick). For that matter, nor would a larger amount. Nor would chicken flesh. That’s not the point. The point isn’t even that it does kill the chicken, even though that point is more pertinent. There are two different issues here: is it meat (yes; it comes from an animal) and if it’s so little meat to make an ethical/environmental difference, who decides whether people who choose not to eat meat for ethical reasons consume it?