So in case somehow in your vegan bubble it escaped your attention (though doubtful)-- Oprah is totally going vegan.
For a month.
Lots of vegans couldn't be happier at this turn of events; but I'm, of course, extremely dissatisfied and practically offended. It would be one thing if there was just the statement that she was going vegan. Fine. That's great. The more the merrier, one down, only billions more people to go.
But for one, there is a deadline, and a pathetically short one at that. If some dude came up to me and said, you know- I'm going to reject sexism for a whole month!, I wouldn't exactly be doing cartwheels. And correspondingly I'm not now. I guess compassion is only good less then ten percent of the year? SO odd.
She isn't doing it to be compassionate anyways, though. It's this "cleansing" thing from a book Kathy Freston wrote that is so hippish, it has me shuddering. Admittedly, I've only seen the offhand soundbite on Ellen or Oprah that other folks have tagged for me, but that has been enough.
Freston was on Ellen explaining the whole book (in ten minutes or less) and she was perfectly complacent with a situation where a person would just pick one day of the week to go meatless ("Meatless Mondays" was her suggestion). I get people sometimes need a starting point, but that is ridiculous. Maybe Mondays will be my meatless day, Tuesdays will totally be all about rejecting racism, Wednesdays will be my super feminist day... you obviously get the picture. It's insane, and other being deserve more then that.
To top it all off, Oprah is making this big production of all that she's giving up, and a lot of the things have nothing to do about veganism. Caffeine, sugar (alright, some types), glutton--nothing to do with veganism. So understandably, it is just confusing the issue even more. My mom called me up, in fact, to tell me I've been doing it wrong all along-Oprah isn't drinking coffee because it's not vegan--and if I've been "cheating" all these years anyways, why won't I enjoy a little ice cream with her? This is me, banging my head against the wall.
Oh! And Pink is standing up for puppies!! Finally, folks are standing up for beings that have no one advocating for them.
