shocauto.com Blog

Seriously? Ben & Jerry’s Breast Ice Cream Ever? Ugh I hate PETA, I need to go eat a bunch of veal and other tasty mis-treated animals…

From Yahoo News:

Mama’s milk ice cream cone, anyone?

By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer Thu Sep 25, 8:04 PM ET

WATERBURY, Vt. – Mooove over, Holsteins. PETA wants world-famous Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream to tap nursing moms, rather than cows, for the milk used in its ice cream.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is asking the ice cream maker to begin using breast milk in its products instead of cow’s milk, saying it would reduce the suffering of cows and calves and give ice cream lovers a healthier product.

The idea got a cool reception Thursday from Ben & Jerry’s officials, the company’s customers and even La Leche League International, the world’s oldest breast-feeding support organization, which promotes the practice — for babies, anyway.

PETA wrote a letter to company founders Ben Cohen and telling them cow’s milk is hazardous and that milking them is cruel.

“If Ben and Jerry’s replaced the cow’s milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers — and cows — would reap the benefits,” wrote Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of the animal rights advocacy group. She said dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies and obesity.

Ashley Byrne, a campaign coordinator for PETA, acknowledged the implausibility of substituting breast milk for cow’s milk, but said it’s no stranger than humans consuming the milk of another species.

“We’re aware this idea is somewhat absurd, and that putting it into practice is a stretch. At the time same, it’s pretty absurd for us to be drinking the milk of cows,” she said.

It takes about 12 pounds — or 1 1/2 gallons of milk — to make a gallon of ice cream. Ben & Jerry’s, which gets its milk exclusively from Vermont cows, won’t say how much milk it uses or how much ice cream it sells.

As a standardized product under federal regulations, ice cream must be made with milk from healthy cows. Ice cream made from goat’s milk, for example, would have to be labeled as such.

Presumably, so would mother’s milk ice cream.

To Ben & Jerry’s, the idea is udderly ridiculous.

“We applaud PETA’s novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child,” spokesman Sean Greenwood said in an e-mail. He didn’t respond to requests for an interview.

Leon Berthiaume, general manager of the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, which provides milk products to Ben & Jerry’s, called the dairy products “among the safest in the world.”

“Milk from cows has long-term health benefits and has been proven to be safe and healthy and an important part of the American diet for generations, ” he said. “I’m not ready to make that change.”

Cow’s milk and mother’s milk aren’t interchangeable, according to La Leche spokeswoman Jane Crouse, who says breast milk is a dynamic substance that’s different with each woman and each child and might have difficulty being processed into ice cream.

Then there’s the question of who would provide the milk, and whether they’d be paid.

“Some women feel compelled to donate milk to a milk bank for adopted babies, or for someone who’s ill or unable to breast feed. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence about sisters who nurse each others’ babies. There’s a population of women very willing to share their milk. Whether there’s enough to do it for a commercial entity, who can say?” she said.

At the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, consumers gave a collective “Eww” to the idea Thursday.

“It’s kind of creepy,” said Jeff Waugh, 42, of Dayton, Ohio.

“I think it’s a little nutty,” said the Rev. Roger Wooton, 83, of Malden, Mass., finishing up a cup of Heath Bar Crunch.

“How would they get all that milk?” said his wife, Jane Wooton, 77.

Jen Wahlbrink, 34, of Phoenix, who breast-fed her 11-month-old son, Cameron, said she wouldn’t touch ice cream made from mother’s milk. She remembers her nursing days — and not that fondly.

“The (breast) pumps just weren’t that much fun. You really do feel like a cow,” she said, cradling her son in her hands.

 VS

Us vs. Them (or Them vs. Us, depending on your leanings)

It’s that time of year again, it’s election time. This year in addition to the local congress-people, we get to vote for our next president. It’s the greatness of our democracy (or actually, our republic.) We have the freedom to determine who we want to vote for, and create a government just like we want it.
 
Of course, the problem is that we all want something a little different. Somebody will always be unhappy with our government, because they wanted bigger government vs. smaller government or more taxes vs. new taxes or a governor vs. a congress-person, etc. We cannot have a perfect government, because we could never agree on what it should be. This is not a problem; this is our system, and our society.

This does, however, create an “us versus them” thought process that ends up affecting every election in negative attack ads. Instead of politicians telling us why we should vote for them, they seem to only want to tell us why we shouldn’t vote for their opponent. They are forcing us into a lesser of two evils decision. Why? Why do we always degrade any debate into name calling and slander? Why can’t a politician tell us why he’ll be great rather than how their opponent will ruin everything? On top of that, half of the crap they say are half-truths at best. So why are they saying it?
 
Our society seems to really push to tear things down, rather than build things up. There are still plenty of builders out there, and plenty of people to support them, but there is a significant part of our society that merely wants to tear things down, and it seems like all of these people are involved in politics. These are people who would rather make things worse for others rather then make things better for everybody. Again, why?

Perhaps I’m still, deep down, an idealist, but why don’t we figure out how to work with those who disagree with us, rather than blindly try to cram our opinion down their throats, while ignoring anything they may say in response. We will never agree on everything, but that disagreement can result in healthy debate, rather than overly emotional arguing. I love to debate with others, because I often learn a lot about how others think. That not only makes me a more rounded person, but the more I know about how “they” think, the more it helps me argue against the people who don’t want to listen.
 
Negativity, person attacks, and mud-slinging are tactics of poorly educated and immature children. Most politicians are not poorly educated nor are they children, so does this, then, make them immature? Let’s drive our government and politics to build up our society, and our view of ourselves and the world, rather than try to tear down anybody that thinks differently than “us”.

Originally publish in the Utopian Status of America volume 1, issue 2, Fall 2001

When some of the passengers on United Airlines, flight 93 from Newark, NJ to San Francisco, CA realized that their aircraft had been hijacked by people intending to use it as a suicidal weapon of mass destruction, they took action. In a phone call to his wife, one passenger said that the airplane had been hijacked, a passenger had been murdered, and that he and some of the other passengers were going to do something about it. Shortly after that call, the plane crashed the woods of Somerset County in western Pennsylvania, and not into the building or monument in Washington, DC as suspected to be the original plans of the hijackers.

In a society that has taught us to follow the rules, to form neat lines, to wait our turn, to not rock the boat, to become sheep in the flock of society, it’s nice to see that some people are still willing to stand up and defend themselves when the situation looks futile. So many people today watch what happens around them as though it wasn’t real, and fail to take action when they should.

But what about the ability and want to take action when action is needed, isn’t that what our country is based on? Our fight for freedom from the British, the Boston tea party, the Declaration of Independence – these are all times when Americans stood up and risked life and limb in the pursuit of liberty and freedom. Some of the passengers on board flight 93 did just that. They took there lives into their hands and made sure that the hijackers weren’t able to complete their horrible mission and kill far more than the passengers on that airplane. It is a great tragedy that these heroes and the other innocent people on board flight 93 had to die this way, but a greater tragedy was certainly averted.

Too many people now have the attitude that somebody else will deal with the problem and that they don’t need to take action. The American spirit compels us to take action, even though all too often we don’t.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  – Edmund Burke

Originally publish in the Utopian Status of America volume 1, issue 2, Fall 2001

We used to have enemies that were easy to identify: they were Germans, Japanese, or Russians, they looked differently, they talked differently, they wore uniforms and were part of countries we could hate. But that time is gone. While we can still have enemies like Iraq, we now have far more enemies in fanatics and terrorists. Some, like Timothy McVeigh, are domestic. Others, like Osama Bin Laden, are Middle Eastern. Certainly some are European or Asian, as well. What do they all have in common? Nothing but an utter disrespect for human life. So how do we combat an enemy that doesn’t seem to exist, that is normally an invisible part of the world’s societies? Should we nuke the Middle East? Should we arrest anybody that disagrees with the United States or threatens us in any way? No, those kind of extreme actions turn us into terrorists.

Certainly we can increase our defenses, and perhaps be better prepared. Anybody who has flown into London knows that they take airport security  far more seriously than we do, but is  that really the solution? I think we need to look at why we are a target. We aren’t the richest country in the world, but we are rich; we aren’t the freest country in the world, but we are free; we aren’t the biggest country in the world, but we are big. So what is it about the United States of America that makes people hate us? It basically boils down to the old saying, ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease.’ As the remaining superpower, we have taken it upon ourselves to lead the charge on so many issues that affect others: not just politically, but commercially, in entertainment, and basically in how people think. We are molding the world in our image, and that threatens people who think differently than we do.

Very few Americans know what it’s like to be a militant Muslim, or Jew, or Catholic, or Protestant. We have no idea of the mindset that allows somebody to take innocent lives in the name of religion or homeland, especially the concept of terrorists who are willing to die themselves. We need to understand these groups, and to do so, we need to acknowledge them and listen to them. Far too many times we will do what we think is right only to enrage the people we thought we were helping, simply because we didn’t pay attention to their real needs. Many of the Afghani terrorists are soldiers trained by the United States to be terrorists against the Russians. Perhaps that training and “help” we offered was shortsighted, or even dangerous. We are the annoying friend who tries to help, but often messes things up, only we can’t be shooed away, we continue to try and help, and make enemies in the process. We should not stop helping those who request it, but forcing our help on uncooperative peoples is never in our best interest.

We cannot predict terrorism, nor can we stop most terrorist acts. Surprise is terrorism’s ally and we can only react to an act of terrorism. Our best defense is to be proactive, preventing others from becoming our enemies, and severely punishing those who have. Active intelligence gathering to find and monitor those who may act against us can also be very effective. Is terrorism our fault? Absolutely not. Though, If we ignore it, it won’t go away, therefore, it’s our responsibility to put an end to it. The war on drugs was a bust, but then, drugs were never at war with us, maybe we can make the war on terrorism a little more successful.

I hope everyone has a place in their heart for all of the innocent people, the men, women, and children, the Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others, who have been killed in terrorist attacks, not just here, but all over the world, may they rest in peace.

“Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot that people remember is the one that gets past you.” – Paul Wilkinson

Today is the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. As it turns out, as I’ve been posting articles from the Utopian Status of America, the next articles to post are from Fall 2001, and many relate directly to these terrorist attack. I will be posting several of these today. This is the brief article I added to the last page of the Fall 2001 newsletter:

Our Morbid Curiosity

Why are we so interested in death? We have almost no interest in people being born, but are almost always interested people dying. Our morbidity certainly stems from our fear of death. It is unfortunate that this leads us to a rather pessimistic life, always considering the end, only occasionally considering the beginning. Perhaps, if we stopped spending time worrying about our destination, we could enjoy the ride a little more.