Don't Wait Until It's Too Late. Talk to Your Loved Ones Today About "Going
Veggie"
by Ingrid Newkirk
If you've read any anti-PETA articles, you may have read this quote
from me: "If experimenters could find a cure for my father by using
animals ... I would take no comfort in that." What is always
conveniently omitted are the words "which they will not."
They didn't. My father died this year.
All the monkeys who were given arterial plaques and
the dogs who were force-fed high-fat diets and all the rats and pigs
who had their organs sliced, diced and examined did not save him.
On my desk are his medals from World War II, when he fought with the
Black Watch in France; the pictures of him as a boy, playing with
Mickey, the mixed beagle he adored; the wedding announcement of his
marriage to my mother; and the notebooks that constitute his memoirs
of the oil exploration years he spent in the Persian Gulf and in the
weeks leading up to the big bomb test on Easter Island.
I think this "man's man" sometimes I didn't know what to do with a
daughter. I remember my mother giving us one of "those looks" when she
found us sitting on the running board of the car together. I was about
7 years old, and the two of us must have looked like characters out of
a Monty Python skit: We were wearing handkerchiefs on our heads to
keep the sun from burning our scalps, and my father was teaching me to
spit cherry pits in a straight line. We got that same look when he
took me climbing up a 200-foot navigational tower in the French
countryside, the wind blowing, the tower swaying, and no straps to
hold us in place if our hands [ATW200049.jpg] slipped. I can still see
her smiling when my father tried to teach me to drive by digging out
his books on how to repair a crankshaft or some such mysterious car
part. I remember staring at the oil-covered diagrams and wishing I
could just put it in "drive" and head for the beach.
This wonderful, clever and fearless adventurer, who surveyed the
sinking sands of the Little Rani of Kutch in India and took his boat
out in the roughest of Gulf Coast storms, didn't have to die the way
that he did. His death was preventable. His downfall was that he lived
dangerously at the table.
It has been almost 30 years since I stopped eating meat and dairy
products. Back then, the plaques in my father's arteries were just
forming. Because I made the switch out of my feelings for animals, I
didn't push the health advantages of the diet. My father liked his
food too much--from calves' brains on toast to his cholesterol bomb,
the breakfast boiled egg--to be swayed away from his old-fashioned
hearty diet by my stories of mother cows mourning the loss of their
infants and tales of the fear you see in all animals' eyes at the
slaughterhouse. My mother, wanting to please him, made sure our family
larder stocked "real" butter and that Daddy had his glass of milk in
the evenings to "help him sleep."
In later years, during my visits home, my parents
appeared to have made the switch to vegetarianism, thinking that I
would stop worrying and nagging. But I found the can of corned beef
tucked away behind the pickles and heard the "slip" in the tale of a
newly discovered restaurant that featured some meat dish.
When my father came down with gout, the meat-eater's curse, the jig
was up. When he developed prostate trouble, I started in again,
sending books on nutrition, giving stern warnings, and e-mailing him
news articles on the link between heart disease, cancer, and stroke
and a meat- and milk-based diet.
By the time the first stroke hit, I knew he wasn't listening. Then
came the first heart attack and the loss of circulation in his legs
that caused him such pain.
I last saw my father just days before he died. He had been dozing, but
two minutes before I was to walk out the door to catch my flight home,
I heard him wake up and struggle to speak. Then he stopped short.
Immediately, his face turned purple, and he was gasping for air. I
witnessed my father, the epitome of decorum, swearing like a trooper
as he tried to deal with the pain, to breathe. He yelled for his lost
dignity. He cursed the loss of his real life. There in front of me, as
if in a cruel game of charades, was my father demonstrating what
"crushing" chest pain really is.
He didn't want the medics again, the hospital again, the endless tests
again, the wretched prognosis, the oxygen tubes. My father, who had
scaled mountains, taken jeeps over uncharted desert, fought in war; my
father, who played the mandolin and recited Kipling to his wife,
wanted his dignity back.
The next day, seeing him in good hands, hooked up to oxygen and
resting comfortably, I flew back home, planning to return later in the
month. Two days later, he suffered a final painful heart attack and
died.
One day, I have no doubt, there will be wrongful death lawsuits
against the meat and dairy industries. Their alluring ads will be
replaced with court judgments against them and admissions that yes,
they realized long ago that meat and milk were addictive. That fact is
borne out when you see people who acquire an early taste for meat and
milk and are somehow unable to break the habit, no matter what they
later come to know about its ill health consequences and the plight of
the animals exploited for its production.
There is no point in waiting for a magic pill that never comes. Let's
enjoy our fathers for as long as we can by doing all we can to make
them vegans. You may get a dirty look or two, but so what? You might
just get to have their company for a few extra years.
Purrs to the U.K.'s Hampshire Wildlife Trust for vowing to end fishing
at Abbotts Barton. Says Dennis Garratt, site manager, "We are an
environmental organization, and we can't tolerate these people messing
about with nature on our land. The point of conservation is to
preserve the natural state." Thank-yous go to: Patrick Cloughley, 8
Romsey Road, Eastleigh, Hampshire, S050 9AL, UK.
[drew.jpg] Purrs to Drew Barrymore, who won't wear clothes by
designers who use fur. Our "angel" turned down an appearance on the
cover of Vogue because the magazine's editor in grief, Anna Wintour,
wanted her in clothes by pelt-peddlers instead of by Drew's pick,
cruelty-free Stella McCartney. Thank Drew c/o Eddie Michaels, 9025
Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 450, Beverly Hills, CA 90211.
Purrs to the British armed forces for adding veggie options to their
ration packs in response to growing demand. Said a spokesperson: "We
are happy to oblige. After all, an army marches on its stomach."
Thank-yous go to John Spellar, Esq., MP, Minister of State, Armed
Forces, Ministry of Defence, Horseguards Ave., London SW1A 2HB, U.K.
And
Grrrs to the British army for resuming its participation in NATO's
"Danish Bacon" exercises, in which young pigs are strung upside down,
shot with high-velocity weapons, operated on, and killed. Write: Dr.
Lewis Moonie, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Ministry of
Defence, Horseguards Avenue, London SW1A 2HB, UK.
Purrs to Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the hosts of NPR's Car Talk, for
listing zoos as a pet peeve. In their book In Our Humble Opinion the
brothers declare, "You want to see a panda, go to China." Write them
at Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Sq., Cambridge, MA 02238.
[ATW200051.gif] Grrrs to "Jennifur" Lopez for wearing a skunk coat on
the cover of W magazine. Please remind Jennifer that fur stinks!
Write: Jennifer Lopez, c/o Benny Medina, Handprint Entertainment, 8436
W. Third St., Ste. 650, Los Angeles, CA 90048.
Purrs to model Riya Sen for trying to stop horse rides along the
burning hot beach in Bombay. Riya helped rescue a horse who had
collapsed and who later died. Please write letters to Bombay's Mayor
Harishwar Patil (B.M.P.C., Mahapalika Marg, Fort, Mumbai 400 001,
India), asking him to enforce the law and get horses off the beach.
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