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Diet
Losing Weight
Filing for divorce, buying a skirt that ended above the knees, getting a stomach-stapling operation
October 2000Happiness
Ground zero, fuzzy kittens, the most beautiful roundhouse right punch
August 2000Nature Of The Beast
An Interview With John Robbins On The Great American Food Machine
We call some animals pets and other animals dinner because our culture says that some animals are part of our circle of compassion and others are not. To some extent, an animal that is destined for human consumption is exempt from the laws restricting cruelty to animals. In other words, you can do anything you want to an animal as long as you’re going to eat it. There are Filipino communities in the United States whose members carry on their cultural tradition of eating dogs, and many people who don’t think twice about the treatment of veal calves find it very objectionable to see a dog treated that way.
October 1998Candy
Raising money for a softball team, sharing a bag of rock candy, making gummy-bear jewelry
October 1998What Miss Lena Prays For
Miss Lena goes into the dressing room, closes the folding three-way mirror, gets down on her knees, and prays. I wonder if she’s really praying for customers, as she tells me, or if she’s praying for bigger things, like peace in Yugoslavia, where she is from and which she calls Yugo, or maybe an end to homelessness. It seems to me you shouldn’t waste a prayer on attracting customers.
September 1998Sunbeams
April 1996And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.
