Things I Don’t Know

I have lived on this planet for 31 years now and yet there are so many things I barely know anything about.


Today, for example, I was browsing information on camper/RV rentals (a pending adventure I’ll get to in some future post) and was of course blown away by random industry-factoids that I couldn’t have guessed at to save my life. For example, did you know that even the little po-dunk motorhome dealers, whose establishments more closely resemble bait shops than car lots, sell motor homes that cost more than my house?!?!



Guess I’ll be haggling for the motor home of my dreams on Craigslist, whose RV listings caught my eye because several sellers offered to trade their motorhomes for things like 4-wheelers or boats or one said they’d take a snow plow. I wonder what kind of motorhome I could get for my waiting-to-be-recycled magazine piles and some outgrown baby clothes size 3 months.

I had NO IDEA how much motor homes cost. I don’t understand how there are twenty seven motor homes camping out under ugly winter tarps within a few blocks of here. Where do these people work? But I’m getting used to having no idea about things. These past few months–or should I stretch that out to years?–just keep feeding me exhibit after exhibit to underscore my ignorance about the world around me. 


One of the issues I’ve been picking at, slowly, is humane animal treatment (see all blogs about Dominion).  After learning a little more about it, I’ve been working out a stronger personal response to the inhumane slaughtering practices that drive food production in the United States.


As I mentioned before, most people assume that a “stronger personal response” equates to vegetarianism and are waiting for me to slap some sort of clever-veggie-lovin’ bumper sticker onto the Sentra (“There’s no such thing as Mad Tofu Disease”).


I’m not actually planning on enlisting yet, though I do expect that as I continue to reflect on new information, it will have a broader impact my eating choices. But I want to do more than throw my personal grocery list at the meat industry. I want to think about what combination of choices in a representative society like ours are most likely to pressure an overhaul of the meat industry. (As Derrick Jensen at Orion magazine has pointed out, “consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption for organized political resistance.”)


I don’t have any magic answers for translating bus boycotts and sit-ins or peace marches into animal rights activism, although–admit it–a peace march involving cows would make a great front page news story. So I’m going to approach it one step at a time, starting with today’s agenda: contacting all the chain restaurants in Jackson and asking them to consider more humane options. (Did you know, for interest’s sake, that PETA buys up a couple thousand dollars worth of stock in various restaurant chains just so they can petition the company’s boards to consider humane meat sources? I sometimes roll my eyes at PETA’s antics, but I like their thinking on this one.)


If you happen to live in Jackson, or if you have some of the same restaurants (Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, etc.), I’m providing the list of snappy e-contact information for impatient activists like myself. Also, there are a few tips on talking points. Check it all out here, folks.