As is the problem for most advocates, the people who are already on board with their idea nod enthusiastically, while the people who aren’t tend to… well, disagree. Engaging people long enough to hear your opinion is difficult, whether it’s completely substantiated or not. People want to feel comfortable, and conflicting opinions generally don’t inspire that feeling. I think that the best way to achieve this is through art, which can warm someone up to a level where their mind is provoked willingly. Graffiti, especially this particular graffiti with this particular message, will probably just turn someone away, possibly forever.

Granted, there are a great deal of effective graffiti artists out there. Banksy, for one, has a style that leaves people to figure out the message for themselves. I think that most people who see his art don’t feel as though their beliefs were intruded upon. A slogan like “9/11 was an inside job,” however, sort of feels intrusive. It’s an opinion presented as fact, and people can spot those kind of shenanigans from 1.6 kilometers away.

Personally, I think this idea runs along the same train of thought as the assertion that Kurt Cobain killed himself. The people that believe this generally look at his struggle with addiction and depression and use that as Absolute Proof, but it only takes the slightest peek at the surrounding facts to realize how suspicious the entire incident was. And regardless of one’s opinion, an official police investigation was never done, and the only definite conclusion that anyone can come to is that he died.

Case in point, the only definite conclusion that we can come to about 9/11 is that the World Trade Center was destroyed, many innocent people were killed, a vague definition of terrorists were blamed, and countries that may or may not have been involved were attacked in retaliation. And then, because of this, many, many more innocent people died.

It’s hard to believe that this year will be the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. Some people are satisfied with The Official Story. Some people aren’t. But as each day passes, that difference of opinion becomes less relevant; eventually, as history goes, what did or did not happen becomes subjective to who tells it. Meaning, of course, opinion. Presented as fact. Only in this case, the shenanigans are harder to spot.

I think it’s important to be skeptical and objective. This world’s a crazy place, and some opinions aren’t necessarily true just because they’re asserted. Just like this one.

As long as your diet is not completely self-sustained, someone else is involved in what you eat. Maybe it’s the gardener where you get your potatoes, maybe it’s the butcher where you get your free-range chickens; someone else is involved. And maybe you eat more than chickens and/or potatoes, maybe you’re like me and hardly grow any of your overall food consumption. That’s a lot of people involved in your food choices.

And then let’s think about the food itself, what the average person eats. Most of that food is produced by great big automated farms, and these automated farms — as well as the corporations that own them — are of course concerned with making a profit. And when they can produce food more quickly and cheaply, they make more profit faster. That’s pretty much an ideal situation for them. That’s like Godzilla finding an ice cream factory, assuming Godzilla loves ice cream.

And then let’s think about the indirect consequences of these corporations and their products. Dirty water from factory farm runoff, dirty air from their ships and trucks, plants that do not reproduce naturally sprayed with pesticides engineered to kill. There are the immediate health concerns like poisoning and long-term health concerns like asthma, diabetes, and arthritis. Worse, there are health concerns that we aren’t even aware of yet, ones that will be found within the current generation. And because any of these products exist, whether you support them or not, the indirect consequences affect you.

When we go to the grocery store we have an abundance of choices, foods from all over the world. In the past, I never considered my own personal impact just by supporting these products. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized, if organic produce exists — produce grown without harmful chemicals, synthetic vitamins, and genetically-modified plants — then how is all the other stuff made?

Truth is, if you knew, you probably wouldn’t eat it. (Not like Godzilla in an ice cream shop. He’ll eat anything.)

All of us eat together in an interconnected world-wide society, and what food we choose is just as important as how that food is produced. It’s easy to mistake these choices as personal when you’re the only one holding the burger, but there’s a lot more going on in that bun than you may realize. It’s seen bakers and farmers and perhaps even chemists, and maybe this would be more obvious if all those people were around when you ate it, but they’re not. They’re busy baking and farming and chemisting, because other people need burgers too. Because, guess what: it’s more than just you.

“I have found the missing link between animal and civilized man: it is us.”

The quote was not the substance of my argument, but it articulated my thoughts more concisely. When the response came a few hours later, I was surprised to read that my argument wasn’t being disputed, but instead disregarded because of the quote’s author, Konrad Lorenz. His biography includes, among many achievements in medicine, association with the Nazis.

A more recent while ago, I was having a discussion with my girlfriend about quotes. She argued that the context of the quote is important and ultimately inseparable from the quote itself; my argument was that this isn’t necessarily always true. More important than the context of a quote is the meaning to be taken from it. There can be a single sentence of hope in a book of despair, and this shouldn’t disqualify its usefulness, even regardless of the author.

Weeks ago I posted on Twitter, “Even the devil can honestly tell you it’s raining.” What I meant is that if something is true, it doesn’t matter who said it. I personally enjoy a good quote, even if I’m unfamiliar with its author. I won’t often read their biography for the simple reason that I don’t need to know each person that provides me spiritual truth. True, knowing the individual may help understand the quote better, but I don’t think it’s crucial in order to understand the meaning. On a bathroom stall I once read that peace is love, love is peace. I don’t know who wrote it, but I believe it — even if the author was the same who revealed elsewhere on the wall that so-and-so was a bimbo.

Without question, there are times when context matters, when one sentence shouldn’t be quoted without the book around it. This is the difference between truth and fact, and in my opinion it is fact that most often requires context. Truth is a more personal matter and people tend to have varying truths that they believe. Fact, however, is more literal and universal, and when quoted without its context, source, or evidence, it can easily be questionable. It is important to understand whether a quote’s substance is truth or fact before relating to it, and often we can make this distinction unconsciously. For example, another quote:

“What luck for the leaders that men don’t think.”

Would this quote have less meaning if you knew its author? Would it have more or less truth if you were told that Gandhi had said it, or Susan Sarandon, or Adolf Hitler? Is it suggesting literally that men do not think, or figuratively that men do not think enough? Most importantly, does it make you question the motives of a leader who prefers unthinking followers?

Another question: Does knowing the author help understand the quote, or does knowing the quote help understand the author? Both are possible, but I believe the latter has more value; our perception of a person changes more when we hear their beliefs, and a belief can exist independently of the person. And it can certainly be extrinsic of their other beliefs, making the identity of the author that much more irrelevant.

Like I said, I enjoy quotes. I am inspired by their simplicity and magnitude. But just like anything, a quote can be misused. They can be a Trojan horse of false information and it is important to identify their intent. This fundamental approach to assessing new information is not limited to quotes. We use our reason to pick out what we agree with and what we don’t, while leaving the body of the information intact. And we do this not to understand the source of the information, but to understand ourselves. And you can quote me on that.

And for the record, Konrad Lorenz was drafted into service and didn’t last long in the army. It’s an interesting biography, actually. I recommend it.

Throughout human history, similar events to the Martian invasion have happened. When the Europeans first arrived in North America, Native Americans were inconveniences in the process of expansion and were killed with the same mass carelessness as the humans in the novel. Similar things happened to the indigenous peoples in China, Africa, Australia. Historically, this is common in exploration, but there is little to explore today and this same pattern exists: the powerful abuse the weak. We see this same common theme in all forms of discrimination — racism, sexism, speciesism, classism — and it’s unfortunate that while we can identify it, the systemic abuse of the weak by the powerful retains a darkly dominant role in our humanity.

Discrimination requires one to believe in their own superiority to another. However, since this is subjective, it is not possible to become superior without first believing someone else is inferior. This is the key to all forms of discrimination, even those that exist subconsciously. The Martians knew they were superior to humans, so destroying us was justified. The Europeans knew they were superior to Native Americans, so killing them and claiming their land was justified. The majority of the world knows they are superior to animals, and so confining and consuming them is justified. It is possible to justify one’s actions only when they believe they are morally right, even if it is their own belief that provides them the authority. Discrimination does not reveal any actual inferiority of those discriminated against.

If ever humanity prevails into a time of peace and understanding, it will come from accepting ourselves as equal to all others. There is no superiority, not by gender or race, not by community or religion, not even by species. All discrimination comes from the same roots, and as long as one form exists, they all do.

I’ve told the dentist on two occasions that I couldn’t afford the procedure. And honestly, I can’t. Yesterday’s thirty minute appointment cost over two thousand dollars. This isn’t something that I just write off on my budget, this stays on my credit card for years. I find it hard to believe that the dentist actually understands this. His office is on the top floor of an expensive building and very rarely have I seen other patients there. Someone has to pay the lease.

There are other dentists in the sea, and I’m sure one of them would be more affordable. The problem is that this has been ongoing for years already. The first surgery with a different dentist ended up not working, another didn’t seem confident, and this one now was recommended to me by a friend. At this stage I only want this ordeal over, and I suppose this is why I relegate myself to meeting their demands and coping with the ensuing misery.

My health care from work covers very little of this procedure because it’s considered cosmetic. Translation: the insurance company believes I never really needed to stop vomiting every day because of an infection, not when the cure comes out of their profit margin. They have a fancy way of covering this up with legalese though, and when I called to speak to someone, they have an even better way to cover it up with empathetic indifference. “Yes, I understand you’re in pain, but your plan’s agreement doesn’t cover that procedure.” And of course there’s another plan that covers part of it, but of course it’s too late to add that plan, and of course there’s a fee involved that doesn’t make it worthwhile. I’m able to pay this off over a few years; how awful it must be for the many people who can’t.

I’ve dreamed of walking out of that office without stopping at the desk first, without paying. Oh how great that would be to leave them with their own parts and labour. I wonder how much it would cost then, without their mark-up, and how much the dentist and his assistant and his receptionist all made from me. I wonder how much of that is a swindle. And when I look further, I wonder how far that swindle goes. I believe it goes past health insurance companies, past the banks that work with them, right to the core value of money itself: gluttony. The concept of interest relies on the perpetual labour of the working class. Without us, no one can swindle anyone.

I don’t have a degree in economics. I’m not the most studied in that field nor am I all that interested. However, I do know that when a company is making money, that’s a good thing. So what about when a company is making money but people are still getting laid off? Surely there must be an underlying reason for that obvious disconnect.

There is an unspoken awkwardness after layoffs. It always seems to me like management is walking around thinking, “It could have been you. Be grateful it wasn’t.” And the employees respond like scolded children, working harder out of fear that they too will have to be looking for work in a difficult market. But the relationship between employer and employee is symbiotic, an aspect that seems lost only to the company. Yes, without a company, the worker doesn’t have a job; but without workers, the company doesn’t have anything.

I’m sure that there are more factors that go into deciding who to lay off than what I am aware of. But from an employee’s perspective, someone who has seen people with families lose their job, it’s hard to see how the executives look at anything but a spreadsheet with numbers. This is how people are turned into corporate assets, this is how we lose our humanity to shareholder profits. This is how we continue to automate the business of life.

This city’s O face is surreal. People of all ages were on the streets cheering instead of protesting the stunningly ignorant over-spending. Don’t get me wrong, I know that it’s about the celebration of uniting the world in friendly competition. That’s what people support. But this celebration is costing the province 14 schools. That’s why I bought a red and white track suit from Roots, because I care. Go team!

I’m not nearly as upset about the overall spending as I am about the enormous difference between that and the projected spending. It was a miscalculation, somewhere in the range of epic, but that’s how it goes, right? It seems to happen everywhere that the Olympics go. It’s part of the honour in hosting a guest who doesn’t take his shoes off and eats all your food. And when the Olympics are over, I’m sure we’ll notice some of our stuff is missing too.

The part of the Olympic torch relay that stunned me the most was police in the parade. Officers in cars, dozens on motorcycles, maybe thirty on bikes. Seriously, there were a lot, probably twice as many as needed, but definitely nothing close to a police state. That’s a disingenuous conclusion to draw from my observations. After all, I didn’t see anyone tased.

So now that I’ve got my Coke, my Roots track suit, and I’ve been seriously amused by moving my mouse furiously over Quatchi, I’m finally in the Olympic spirit. Hell, I’m so in the spirit that I don’t even care my country is being represented by a fictional animal! Go Team Canada! And to all the other athletes from all over the world who are here to give their best athletic performance at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games: please tip.

Unlike the previous few surgeries, this time I was awake. The chair was tilted far back and an anesthetic was applied to my gums and the roof of my mouth. Then the dentist cut open my gums and drilled a hole up into the site. I wasn’t sure if I could feel the drill itself or just its pressure, but I felt something and had to stop for more anesthetic. The dentist then pushed a large ratchet-like tool up into my mouth and told me I might experience some discomfort. He began to crank the lever.

The force he used was so great that had I not been gripping the armrests with all my strength, it would have pushed me out of the chair. I could feel the post slowly being ratcheted into my skull. This was more than discomfort. This was straight-up pain.

Sitting on the bus with bloodied tissue covering my mouth, my mind wondered what an animal being experimented on might go through. When the animal feels more pain than it can manage, is more anesthetic applied if at all? I was there by choice; how different would it be if I had none? How much greater would my fear be if I didn’t know what the procedure was or how long it would last?

Animal experimentation seems to me like an unnecessary torture. I’ve heard people describe these animals as though they were another scientific tool; something grown, manipulated, and discarded in the name of science. I understand the rationalization that the goal of saving human lives is more important, but I cannot agree with it. I see too much equality between all living things to determine which has more right to exist here. Without animal experimentation and the modern medicine that has come from it, many human beings would not be living as long as they are. Is that right there not cause for alarm? If lifestyle is the root of our problem, does it not make more sense to change our habits instead?

I am often asked questions like, would you kill an animal if…? The answer is that I cannot answer this question. I no longer define myself by hypothetical circumstances. To ask me if I would have another being experience physical pain instead of me seems like a moral pain I could never endure.

Culture includes such things as language, food, social constructs, customs, and religious beliefs. The non-physical aspects of culture are dependent only on its ability to be communicated, whereas the physical aspects — predominantly including food — depend partly on communication but greatly on available resources. For this reason, moving to a new country centuries ago meant leaving behind a lot of your culture, particularly food. Recipes themselves moved easily but when certain ingredients weren’t available, they had to be adapted to what was available. Even the non-physical aspects of culture changed, since some things are taboo or illegal in other places. Culture, then, always changes.

Let us remember that despite it being illegal nearly everywhere else, cannibalism is still an ongoing tradition in the Korowai tribe of Papua; imagine bringing that culture to Canada! In this absurdity lies truth; culture is always subject to local social standards, and it us today that determine these standards, not our ancestors. Such is the purpose of evolution; we adjust our behaviour when our necessity demands it and when our knowledge allows it. Or to put it another way, to blindly follow tradition impedes our development.

If we’d kept the cultural tradition of patriarchy and women were never accepted as equal to men, who would argue that society would be better off? Similarly, other traditions have been increasingly disposed of over time, such as circumcision, spousal abuse, and classical slavery. Even English is far different than what it was centuries ago.

In these ways, culture is selectively changed. We choose the traditions that carry on as they are.

Today, our survival is not as impaired as it was with our ancestors. I’ve heard culture used as explanation of dietary choice. The logic is that because our ancestors ate a certain way out of necessity, this must influence our choices now. This argument is accompanied by the belief that eating similar foods as our great-grandparents will help us remember our heritage. While I accept this premise, to truly remember one’s heritage involves more than a few meals. Our ancestors survived by consuming the foods available to them. I don’t believe that we can properly remember our heritage through diet when we live under different circumstances. We cannot suppose that we are more like our ancestors when our culture is derived by choice and not by necessity; and this is not to say that culture should be abandoned, but its context must not be forgotten. I don’t believe that our choices today can be rightly explained with the simplicity of culture when culture itself is a complex accumulation of survival necessities.

With the planet’s population growing and migrating, we’ve come to an impasse between sustainability and preference. Most people, particularly in developed nations, are no longer limited by what resources are available because globalization has made all resources available; so instead, we make choices. Products are shipped around the world to satisfy these choices, often at great economical and environmental expense. Never before in history has there been such an abundance of seafood so far from the sea. We seek a sense of self that many of us find in culture, but this culture is not the same as it was with our ancestors. It must not be forgotten that culture developed out of necessity; to survive, to thrive, and to explain the world we live in. And just like in evolution, when our situation changes, so must we.

And while she told us this, I chuckled sadly and ironically to myself, looking at the three different cheeses sitting half-eaten on the coffee table.

Everybody in the room was so full of love and I couldn’t imagine any of them deliberately harming or confining an animal; and yet, they’d been eating cheese.

In the most common production of cheese in our society, animals are not cared for under any better conditions than they are in the production of Premarin. Cows must be kept pregnant, because like all mammals, they only produce milk for a short period after giving birth. Once the calf is born, it is taken away from its immobilized mother as the milk intended for her child is sucked from her by machines. The milk is then curdled by casein, which comes from the stomach acid of another cow, often one that could no longer produce milk and was thus expendable. At every stage of production, animals are abused and eventually killed.

Although I wanted to, I did not say anything. I was a guest, after all, and this was polite conversation. It’s hard at times being aware of the overlooked aspects of our habits.