40 Years of Big Mac: Ack!

Just as I turned another year older last month, it was announced that McDonald's Big Mac sandwich officially turned 40 years old. I was a bit young to remember its birth, but thanks to the commercial jingle, I can recite its contents: "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun." And I will admit that in my pre-veg teen years, I ate a few. Maybe a dozen. But I certainly don't miss them: I'm a Boca Mama big-time now.

So I won't be sending the Mac a birthday card. And even though you could probably fit 40 candles on the thing, lighting them might ignite all that grease and cinge the ceiling, so I'll skip the party, too.

Apparently the biggest Big Mac fans are in Pennsylvania. There is now a Big Mac museum restaurant in North Huntingdon, PA, opened by the former franchise owner who claims to have invented the sandwich in 1967. It contains memorabilia and the world's biggest Big Mac statue (which, if it were real, would contain enough fat and cholesterol to kill an entire small country).

I don't think a Big Mac museum would be complete without a gate at the entrance that measures your body fat index. Perhaps it could be like the limbo game, only horizontal instead of vertical: if your waist touches the sides of the entryway, you need to visit the McSalad museum instead.

McDonald's claims to sell 550 million – yes, million – Big Macs a year in the U.S. (Utterly Stupid). How many cows is that?

I think I'll just mark the moment by donating a few copies of "Super Size Me" to local libraries. And place a bet on whether the day will come when the burger outlives its customers.

Brad Delp and Lost Souls

Brad Delp would have turned 56 years old today. Brad Delp SHOULD have turned 56 years old today, had the hugely talented singer from the rock band Boston not passed away on March 9 of this year. I was among the millions of fans who were deeply saddened to hear of his death, and later shocked and bewildered to learn that he had died of his own hand at his home in New Hampshire.

Brad Delp, as well as Boston founder and guitarist Tom Scholz, were both vegetarians and animal rights advocates who went so far as to include activist messages on their album liner notes and, in the most recent Boston album, "Corporate America," include a reference to veal crates in their title track bemoaning our often materialistic and hard-hearted nation.

Brad was famous for not being typically famous; despite his amazing voice and great success, he was often referred to as "the nicest guy in rock and roll," a guy who spent countless hours talking with fans and performing at charity benefits with his side project, a tribute band called BeetleJuice. His ego was a no-show, and earlier this year it was reported that he was about to remarry and embark on another summer tour with Boston. He seemed to both appreciate and embrace life.

In 1988, I had the great pleasure of meeting Brad backstage after a Boston concert in Washington, DC. They were PETA supporters and I worked there at the time, and when they graciously donated some free tickets to the office, I jumped at the chance to go. They had always been a favorite band of mine — those guitars, that voice! — and I recall a most un-groupie-like moment when Brad showed me pictures of his kids and talked about living in southern New Hampshire, where I've spent part of every summer of my life. He was a vegetarian rock singer who loved the Beatles: in many ways, the perfect man in my book! I still have the backstage pass and autographed ticket stub.

In one of his suicide notes, Brad wrote that he was "a lonely soul" who had lost the will to live. It seemed so at odds with his gentle disposition, his zest for performing, and his desire to help save animal lives and souls. Perhaps, in the end, the world simply let him down and he decided his soul was better off elsewhere. I wish he could have been convinced otherwise.

So on behalf of the animals he kindly tried to help and in honor of the music he made, I offer my heartfelt thanks to him and hope that somehow, somewhere, he knows how much he was loved and appreciated and is lonely no more.

"They say it's your birthday/Happy Birthday to you..."

T. Chix Strikes Back

A recent report published in the journal Science claims that DNA taken from a 66 million-year-old T. rex dinosaur bone links the Cretaceous creature to modern-day chickens. Aside from the astonishing news that such DNA was available to examine in the first place (66 million years, people!), the finding was astounding.

My mind immediately envisioned a scenario based on a cross between the movies "Jurassic Park" and "Men in Black." In the latter, a giant cockroach from outer space (capable of navigating cracks in the universe as easily as his earthly counterparts do cracks in cinderblock) avenges the squishy fate of his fellows (and any other insect) callously crushed by human feet.

My version involves using Jurassic Park techniques to cross a T. rex with a battery hen to create T. chix, one kick-ass pullet about 50 feet tall who goes from factory farm to factory farm busting out the roofs and ripping open cages to let her feathered brethren free. She would then lumber Godzilla-like down Main Street USA, thrusting her snarling beak through the windows of every KFC and Popeye's joint and scaring the nuggets out of the poultry-munching patrons.

I wish there was some way to let the chickens know from whence they came. And I hope it's not another 66 million years before the tables turn again.

Belief

“Belief” by John Mayer

Is there anyone who
Ever remembers changing their mind from
The paint on a sign?
Is there anyone who really recalls
Ever breaking rank at all
For something someone yelled real loud one time

Everyone believes
In how they think it ought to be
Everyone believes
And they're not going easily

__________________________________________________


Since I was born on a Friday, it seems fitting to start my first official blog on a Friday. And since it’s also Good Friday, it seems equally appropriate to start with the topic of belief – mine, yours and the world’s – as it relates to how we view and treat the world’s animals, especially those who are eaten. I’ll go easy this first time, but be forewarned that this blog will often be devoted to ranting against the absurd thoughts and unconscionable actions that result in animal suffering.

My affinity for animals dates back as far as I can remember. I brought home my first stray cat when I was six, and recall always being drawn to creatures large and small. I am what animal rights philosopher Tom Regan calls a “DaVincian” (in his book Empty Cages), someone whose empathy for animals has been strong since childhood (although I didn’t become fully vegetarian until I was 21).

Once I graduated from college and became a full-fledged activist, starting with protesting the infamous Silver Spring Monkeys case led by PETA near my metro Washington, D.C., home, I began studying more closely the tangled thread called “belief.” Why do some people believe that because animals are nonhuman, they are beneath our concern, have no dignity or intrinsic worth, and must live and die at human whim? How do others come to believe that all lives deserve ethical consideration?

One needn’t spend much time standing on a corner with a protest sign in one’s hands before public reaction is swift and rude. I’ve been told to “get a life” so many times I could have been reincarnated a hundred times over!

Now, in my third decade of animal activism, I’m still trying to figure out how best to reach people’s hearts and minds and alter their beliefs so that they see the world’s animals through a different lens, one unfiltered by the self-serving prejudices we humans are usually raised to incorporate without question and are loath to relinquish.

John Mayer’s words in his song “Belief” about paint on signs and shouts in the streets make me cringe a bit when I think of how much painting and yelling I’ve done in the last 25 years. When you’re in the minority and don’t have megamillions in advertising dollars at your disposal, what’s an activist to do to get the point across? Whisper and no one hears you; shout and you’re labeled a fanatic, or worse, dangerous.

My earliest memories are of the protests during the Vietnam War, and seeing people shouting with banners in the D.C. streets only a few miles from my home. They certainly had an impact on me, showing that unjustice can and should be fought, no matter the odds.

So in reply to Mayer I will quote Thoreau, who said, “Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.” Let’s not wait for the world to change; let’s smack it on the ass and get moving!