Friday April 15, 2011

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THESE KIDS AND THEIR TEXAS INSTRUMENTS CALCULATORS? Jonah Goldberg on vegans and vegetarians:

That VegNews story reminds me of a longstanding curiosity I have about the ethics of veganism and to a lesser extent vegetarianism. Much of the industry (movement?) suffers from profound meat envy. So many dishes are attempts to simulate the experience of eating meat. That’s understandable except so many vegan types insist we’re not supposed to eat meat. If that’s the case why come out with fake beef stew?

For research Goldberg apparently glanced at the few frozen vegetarian items at his local convenience store as he dug past them to get a Fudgsicle. I'm not remotely a vegan, and even I know meat substitutes are merely the fast food of dilettante herbivores. See here, here, and here, or for that matter the kitchen of any actual vegan. For every "unchicken" entree there are about a dozen items proudly announcing their veggie provenance.

Plus he quotes a faux-P.J. O'Rourke article ("If meat is murder, why hawk products that look like the mutilated corpse?") that he says he wrote "years ago," in which he bitches about how bad soy pizza tastes. Which is like bitching about French food because you didn't like a croissant you had at Au Bon Pain in 1987.

Sometimes I think Goldberg is a performance artist, purposefully choosing to write on the subjects he understands least.