my body is a harbor of guilt and pleasure,
slowly bit surely decaying back into the earth, water,
glazed polar sober eyes drip with ice
in masked disguise nobody had seen that it felt so good
I have pasty white skin and bones of wood,
knocking on the door of some other stranger let me in
I hear noises, noses, sniffle and break, broken
where do we fit in this picture, shatter frames
altogether, enjoying, exposed in the worst of weather
you can only think a dream
but if you can touch a dream is it a real dream
the human mind assumes a dream is only fantasy or an illusion
but what about dreams that create hope in ones life
like the starving people in Africa or India whom are used to ingest drugs
that we don’t even know work, do they feel a state of parallel existence
before they’re swept into infinity
or when one falls into a state of metaphysical existence
does it compensate for the physical conflicts
like if you’re walking in familiar places and feel the
endorphins releasing in your brain for no particular reason
as the soft rain falls on your cheek and irritates your eyes
but you can’t stop looking at the beautiful greenery in front of you
as you keep walking you realize you’re light-headed because you
haven’t eaten all day and that part of you is secret
as is the dream of the place right in front of you, the beautiful
wonders of the sight that you seize to notice every single day
that you walk that path to resume your everyday life
but what if that stopped and you had no worries on your back like
how will i pay rent or does it matter that every day you kill yourself
a little at a time, collectively it constipates my mind
because all i want to do is touch a dream
I live here, independently - maintain great marks. I work, I do fun stuff with my boyfriend, lots of homework. It’s all good. The hardest part to overcome - getting hips. Yep, my size 3 dreams are over- those days are done. Why can’t I be short. Or just, content.
Our NYE was fantastic. And I remember it woo! We had a couple friends over, drank and whatnot, headed to NFS at almost 11- too late! Usually it takes half an hour to get there by subway, apparently we should have left at 10 though! The trains were packed past the doors and they had to trick people out of the trains. About 20 seconds before we got to our destination, 3…2..1…HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!! On the subway ahahah! Ah well, I have a story to tell. The moment we got off the subway, we booked it up the stairs (my legs still kill) so fast! We caught the last of the fireworks at the square and tried calling everyone on our contact lists - like the other millions of people around us. Cell phone reception for the first ten minutes was impossible! Anyhow, called all my friends and chilled for a bit- grabbed a vegdog from the stand and made some wonderful promises for this year with my boyfriend Sam. We made our way back home eventually and brought a few friends along, talked for a bit, they left and good night.
:)
The holidays were great - I’ll post some more pictures of stuff. One thing we did was Sam’s dad sent me and Sam a bit of money so we went and got the lamps and shelf unit from ikea, loves it!
To Slaughter or not to Slaughter
Cassandra Asselstine
Not long ago, yet long enough that most today wouldn’t recall, farming was our main source of food. Farmers raised and maintained a natural, healthy, yet controlled environment for animals such as cows, chickens, and pigs, to live on. These animals were fed proper proportions and were cared for, only being used for produce when their time in life was coming to an end. What we’re faced with now, not only farmers but society in general, is a mass industry of food production. Now rather than hundreds of farms all over, there are only a handful of companies that control more than 80% of the market today. These technologically based companies use systems that cause many issues such as animal torture, health and safety issues, environmental issues and social issues.
The companies who create this mass industry claim that their system is much more sanitary, effective, and meets to societies’ needs when it comes to our food. The industry has close links with the government, making political debates concerning the issue irrelevant in most cases. They have the power to make it illegal in the United States to post pictures of the food production, not to mention the rights to go after anyone who opposes their products. They have genetically modified all products, everywhere from chickens growing too fast and too much white meat for their bones to support, to the soy beans and corn found in approximately 90% of food products found in grocery stores today. Organizations that control food production maintain the rights to shut down any farmer who attempts to wipe off these dangerous chemicals for their own use, as they have also made it a law that once you genetically modify a product, it is copy-righted to you. In a case where they were opposed of this law, the opponent stating that they should label and brand any genetically modified product, the company argued that the consumers would begin to unnecessarily question the safety of their production.
Their system has in fact, proven to be efficient. However, as said in the documentary Food Inc (2009), the food industry causes ‘Unintended circumstances’. Slaughter houses are a sure example of what happens when food is so controlled by such enormous companies. Not only are these ‘main-course’ animals forced into rooms of over-filled capacities and hardly distinguishable light accommodations, the issue that makes this even worse is that these animals are also genetically modified to fit consumer’s needs. All animals dealt with the industry (any from fish to cattle), are taught to eat one cheap, unnatural, food: corn. Corn grown in mass-production environments are sprayed and altered using pesticides and other dangerous chemicals to keep them from going bad such as ammonia. These animals are not naturally supposed to consume corn or the chemicals they’re loaded with, so they must be taught to do so therefore making the animals fat on top of the genetic modifications; it makes them fat, faster. At an early age, these animals grow into huge, unnatural proportions and therefore are prematurely slaughtered. Many of these animals are also sprayed with pesticides to keep bugs containing disease away, however this has proved to be counter-productive as these pesticides build up in the animals (especially from being so tight-knitted their entire lives) cause bacteria that get inside and on these animals, whether it be infection or a case of E coli. Not to mention that chicken coops and any other (unsuitable) living conditions these animals are enslaved in, have dust and feces floating around all other the place, yet it doesn’t matter to these companies if an animal gets sick. These animals as well as the workers must often be given antibiotics to prevent disease from living/working under these conditions; however their bodies have become so immune to the environment that the antibiotics become ineffective. Daily slaughter rates have become astronomical, therefore making it impossible to determine whether or not E coli or other dangerous bacteria will contaminate the product. Companies such as Tyson claim that any cow with an infectious disease is to be tipped over (not mentioning by machine in an inhumane manner). This has proven to be untrue as there have been many cases where the companies have to recall their products or have been sued for E coli poisoning, for example the case of the ‘Kevin Law’ where a young boy goes from perfectly healthy to dead from E coli poisoning in twelve days from eating a cheeseburger. E coli occurs mainly in cattle that are produced by these large-scale companies and cause major harm to the cow, as they develop E coli that is acid-resistant in cows, which causes mutation to occur. The meat from these cows will still be shipped out from the slaughterhouses and onto the consumers’ dinner plate.
Your question may be, how do we avoid this contaminated, modified food from entering our kitchen? The industry has made it difficult for safe, organic farmers to hit the big grocery stores and fast-food restaurants as they demand thousands of products. However, shopping for your own kitchen you can chose to either stop eating meat to halt your support towards animal slaughter, or you can shop from whole, honest farmers’ markets. To halt your support towards animal cruelty and slaughter has been made easy by society, many brands offer a wide range of various animal-product free foods such as ‘fake meat’ or tofu. You can also find vegan-friendly cheese and more at either large grocery stores or organic food stores. Simply read labels and know that big words you can’t even say usually means the product contains dangerous chemicals. It’s your decision as to what ends up in your body, and it’s your decision to help change society and save the world from environmental issues caused by these companies.
