A Vegetarian Journal for Quakers and Other People of Faith

The Peaceable Table is intended for the mutual support, education, and inspiration of people of faith in the practice of love for our fellow animals and observance of a Peace-full diet

July 2016

A Glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom

Salati (Leopard) & Tommy (Golden Retriever,) friends at the Glen Afric Country Lodge near Pretoria in South Africa

Editor’s Corner Essay:  In Memory of Harambe, Part I:

Helen Rescues Richard

Another Story

Mister Rogers was singing his going-away song, and Richard felt sad.  As Mister Rogers went out of the door of his house, Richard kissed him goodbye on the front of the TV.   Then he went into the kitchen, where Mommy was carrying dishes.  “Mister Rogers is gone, Mommy.  I don’t like him to go away.”  Mommy said “He’ll come back, Sweetheart.  Just wait till Monday.”

Richard said, “Monday isn’t for a long time.”  He wanted to do something happy now.  “Mommy, let’s go to Merryland.  I want to play in the sandbox with Maggie.”

Mommy said “No nursery school today, darling.  Perhaps we can go to Maggie’s house after your nap and play with her then.”  But it was a long time until after his nap, too.  Richard picked up The Monster At the End of This Book from the floor.  “Mommy, read me about the monster Grover was so scared of.  I’m not scared of him.”  

Mommy smiled a little.  “I’d love to sit down and read to you, Richard dear, I’m so tired.  I will soon.  But it’s 10:30 and with all the interruptions the kitchen still isn’t cleaned up.  Why don’t you sit down and just look at the pictures for now.”  Mommy was always tired.  Richard looked at her side.  Her tummy was big.  Richard sat on the floor and looked at the pictures in the book about Grover, but he wanted Mommy saying the words too.  And he wanted to play in the sandbox with Maggie.  He put the book down.

Richard was a big boy now, almost three.  He knew how to get to Merryland all by himself.  He went into the living room and took hold of the front door thing.  He pulled it and pushed it, but the door wouldn’t open.  He tried turning the door thing one way and another way.  He tried again and again.  The door opened!  He went fast down the steps and on the little sidewalk and  on the bigger sidewalk toward Merryland.   Then he came to the road where Mommy always stopped her bicycle a long time while a lot of cars went by.  He didn’t want to wait for the cars.  As Richard stepped into the road, big hands took hold of his middle part and pulled him back.  He looked around behind him.  A strange lady was smiling at him.  She took hold of his hand and was taking him to a house on the corner.  She said “What is your name, little boy?”

Richard said, “Richard.”

The strange lady said “Do you know your other name?”

Richard said “No.  I don’t have another name.  My name is Richard.”

A girl bigger than Richard was playing with a little table and chairs and little cups and water.  The strange lady said “Richard, this is Natalie.  You may play with her for now.”  The strange lady went to the window.  Natalie gave him a bigger cup thing with water in it, and showed him how to pour the water into a littler cup.  She spilled some of it.  Then she drank it from the little cup.  Richard tried pouring the water into his little cup.  Most of it went in. When he drank it, some got on his shirt.  It was cold.  

Richard thought this wasn’t so much fun.  He looked around.  There was a TV with Captain Kangaroo talking on the front of it, but Captain Kangaroo wasn’t as nice as Mister Rogers.  He looked at the wire coming out of the TV, going to the plug going into the two little up-and-down holes in the wall.  Richard loved wires and plugs; something magic came out of the up-and-down holes into the wires, and made the picture on the TV.  When he pulled the plug out, the picture went away, and when he put the plug back in, the picture came back.  It made him feel very strong.  He got up from the little table and was going to the plug.

Then the strange lady went to the door fast and went out.  Richard heard her saying  “Are you looking for a little blond boy about three years old?”  Then he heard Mommy saying “Oh, yes, yes!  Have you seen him?”  Mommy sounded funny, like she was going to cry.  The strange lady said “I saw him walking down the street alone and heading for Del Mar boulevard.  He’s safe in my house, playing with my little foster daughter.  Please come in.”

Mommy came in and went to Richard fast and picked him up.  She was smiling, but her eyes were wet.  It was nice to see her, but she hugged him so tight his chest hurt.  Mommy said “Oh, thank God, thank God, thank God.  Thank you, Mrs--Mrs.--”

“Patterson.  Helen Patterson.”

Mrs. Patterson, God bless you--I owe you so much.  So much.”  Mommy hugged him some more, and then Mommy and the strange lady sat down and talked about him.  Mommy had Richard on her lap.  Her tummy was big and there wasn’t much room for him.  She didn’t hold him so tight now.  Richard slid off her lap and went to the plug and pulled it out from the up-and-down holes in the wall.  Captain Kangaroo went away.  Richard felt very strong.

Reflections

This story, as the reader will have guessed, has a completely happy ending.  No one watching the toddler step into the busy street assumed the worst about the intentions of the stranger, Mrs. Patterson, as she pulled him to safety and took him indoors; no one screamed, shot her, or called the police to surround the house with drawn guns.  No one accused Richard’s mother of frivolously hanging on the phone and criminally neglecting her child.  She and Helen became friendly; later, Helen often babysat for Richard’s little sister while his mother took Richard on the bicycle to nursery school.  

The story of Harambe and the three-year-old boy Isaiah Gregg, who fell into the Cincinnati Zoo gorilla enclosure, had a bittersweet ending:  the child came through safely, and Harambe is dead from a bullet.  Not only the public, but primate experts also disagree about the zoo staff’s decision to shoot the gorilla.  One claims that Harambe’s actions, such as first tentatively pulling on the child’s leg, then his arm, then shaking a handful of his shirt fabric, were characteristic attempts to find the best way to pull him to safety.  Another said that if he had intended to kill the child, he would have done so quickly with a bite to his head.  Some pointed out that for a short time he was holding the boy’s hand.  More than one primatologist concluded that at first he was indeed trying to protect the boy, but that the crowd’s hysterical screaming alarmed and confused him; his dragging the child rapidly through the water with his head banging on the concrete, and then into a grotto, might have been to protect him from the perceived threat of the noise, or, since gorillas are curious, to gain a new play- mate for himself.  One expert pointed out that a result of the screaming was that Harambe went into “strutting,” a dominance mode that had its own dangers for the child, and a tranquilizer dart would have taken too long to go into effect.  Jane Goodall said that the zoo officials had no choice but to shoot Harambe, because his intentions at some points were hard to gauge, and, whether they were good or ill, considering his size and weight his actions were endangering the child.  On the other hand, primatologist David Watt proposed that the situation could have been resolved without violence if someone would have gone into the exhibit and distracted Harambe’s attention by curling up into a defenseless fetal posture; that, he said, is what he would have done. Alas, he wasn’t there, and violence is most people’s first thought in dangerous situations.  It’s a habit fostered by the Myth of Redemptive Violence, and we find it nearly everywhere.

Hosts of people were ready and eager to blame the boy’s mother, Michelle Gregg (pictured, with family), for neglect, considering their own speculations--e.g., she was probably hanging on her cell phone--adequate grounds for their judgment.  Nearly half a million signed a petition that she be prosecuted for neglect.  (The authorities declined to do so, having learned that Ms. Gregg had just told little Isaiah to stay away from the barrier, and as she turned her back for only seconds to attend to another of her four children, the boy made a beeline for the forbidden barrier.)  This thicket of fingers pointing at the mother, based on no concrete evidence, invites speculations of its own. Is it fired by the simmering resentment of an adult’s inner toddler, still angry at Mama’s failure to be a twenty-four-hour-paragon of perfect nurturance meeting every one of his needs?  Is it the still-widespread (despite feminism) cherchez la femme reaction, a mindset predisposed to blame an Eve or a Pandora for all the evils of the world?   I suspect that both these (linked) factors are involved.

(To be continued)

Now an adult and Director of Technology at a residential high school, Richard still enjoys playing with the magical energy that goes through wires.  He does not remember his adventure; it is imaginatively told from his viewpoint, with his permission, by his mother, who will never forget and remains infinitely grateful.

My thanks to Rosemary Carlson for suggesting I share this story with readers.

--Gracia Fay Ellwood

Click here to discuss this Editorial on our forum

Unset Gems

“Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.”

--Rabindranath Tagore

NewsNotes

UEP Pledges to Stop Killing Male Chicks

United Egg Producers, who produce ninety-five percent of eggs in the US (or rather their enslaved hens do), has announced it expects to stop the practice of killing male baby chicks in 2020, when a way of identifying the sex of a fertilized egg becomes commercially available (i.e., they’ll end the horror when they won’t lose money over it).  See Grinder

--Contributed by Robert Ellwood

Nineteen NIH Lab Chimpanzees Retired

After years of experiments on them, these unconvicted prisoners were finally released to a sanctuary to live out their days.  Some, perhaps all, are going to need PTSD treatment; let’s hope it will be available.  See Chimps Retired .

--Contributed by Lorena Mucke

Last US Med Schools to Close Animal Labs

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has announced that after thirty years of campaigning, all US medical schools have agreed to close their animal labs in favor of simulators.  The last two holdouts were Johns Hopkins and the University of Tennessee.  Too many animals are still in laboratory torture chambers, but US med students will no longer have to kill their first patient, a great benefit to medicine.  See No More Animal Labs

Film Review:  Zootopia

Zootopia, a 2016 animated Walt Disney movie. Directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Starring Ginnifer Goodwin as Officer Judy Hopps, Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde, Idris Elba as Chief Bogo.

"Foxes are not dangerous," avers a truculent bunny in the novel Watership Down, "to rabbits who know their business." Judy Hopps, a tough and smart policerabbit, proves the truth of that claim. She teams up with a sly fox to solve a baffling mystery that threatens to undermine the foundations of the anthropomorphic animal utopia that is Zootopia.

 Chief Bogo (voiced by Idris Elba, who played the smooth villain Shere Khan in The Jungle Book) does not assign Officer Hops to solve a crime. Either he thinks she is just a sweet little bunny, or she's a helpless female--or both. She is sent to hand out parking tickets. In short, she is an un-glorified meter maid. So of course she sets out to exceed her quota of tickets. Then Fate intervenes:  she catches sight of a crooked weasel running away with shoplifted plant-bulbs. The scene of Judy chasing the thieving beast through Rodentia (a ghetto for small rodents, such as voles and chipmunks) is a classic; it is hilarious and thrilling at the same time.  Both principal figures, law-enforcing coney and crooked mustelid, are small mammals, but compared to the Rodentians, they are Godzilla and King Kong. And the episode is not just a distraction. It supplies the most important clue for solving the big mystery.

Without revealing any details of the conspiracy that Judy and Nick confront. I will say that this story addresses important questions: Is racism worse than sexism? Can nature override culture?  Can a culture’s dependence on denatured food be overcome--e.g., can a rabbit live on microwaved carrots?  Our heroine cannot, will not--she throws them away without even tasting them. Presumably, and hopefully, from now on she will live and thrive on fresh, raw carrots.

Zootopia is both a good story well told, and a challenge to the unexamined life among humans.  It is now available on DVD.--Benjamin Urrutia

Pioneer:  Pythagoras, fl. 550 BCE

Pythagoras, the thinker whose dates, c. 570 - c. 500 BCE, make him a contemporary of the Buddha, is probably the first historical figure in the West to whom vegetarianism has been attributed as a crucial part of his worldview.   Attributed, because he did not leave any writings of his own, and while the secondary accounts that remain certainly indicate that he was an impressive and highly influential figure, they contain inconsistencies, including some on the matter of meat-eating.  Yet many of the Pythagorean groups which survived until centuries later strongly promoted vegetarianism, and the philosopher's reputed wisdom and sensitivity were a major influence on classical writers like Ovid, Seneca, Plutarch, and Neoplatonists like Iamblichus, in passionately condemning the slaughter of animals and favoring a plant-based diet.  Pythagoreanism also greatly influenced Plato; whether the latter’s own diet was strictly vegetarian is not clear, though abstinence from flesh was a virtue of his ideal city.

Pythagoras was born on the Greek island of Samos.  Restless, particularly under the island's tyrannical ruler, he left it to search for wisdom in many places, including Egypt, and under many teachers both men and women.  Finally he settled in the community of Kroton in southern Italy, where he founded a spiritual brotherhood/sisterhood which introduced its members to wisdom through strenuous initiations, study, and practice.   It is worth noting that women and men were equally his students; he married a Theona of Kroton, said to be his first pupil and a philosopher in her own right, whose writings have survived in fragments.  Other women Pythagoreans are also among the earliest female philosophers for whom we have texts, including Perictione, believed to be Plato's mother.

The order also in effect ruled the city, which reportedly came to practice pure, simple living, temperance (including vegetarianism), and a rational way of life, which undoubtedly influenced the model state of Plato's Republic--in which meat is regarded as an unnecessary luxury likely to lead to decadence and war.

Unhappily, Kroton, like other utopian endeavors, came to an end in its original form.   A war broke out with a neighboring town, and although the Krotonians won, as a victory boon the citizens demanded a democratic constitution rather than continued rule by the Order.  Protests led to riots in which buildings of the brotherhood/sisterhood were burned and the community dispersed.  Some say the philosopher himself died in the tragedy; others that he found a haven in another Italian community and lived there another ten years.

Pythagoras is well-known for his seminal contributions to many fields: astronomy (where he was the first to propose that the earth revolves around the sun), musical theory based on his investigations of harmony and number, geometry (e.g., the pythagorean theorem), and political science, developing Kroton as ideal community.  His investigations into these disciplines were all part of his spiritual enterprise, the search for God and the salvation of the soul.  Perhaps the central tenet of his worldview was the idea that the soul is immortal, a fallen divinity that incarnated not only in successive human forms, but also in animal forms.  Thus all animals are our cousins; injuring, killing, eating them were abhorrent to him, and compassion urged.

His 3rd-century AD biographer Iamblichus (pictured) says "Amongst other reasons, Pythagoras enjoined abstinence from the flesh of animals because it is conducive to peace.  For those who are accustomed to abominate the slaughter of other animals as iniquitous and unnatural, will think it still more unjust and unlawful to kill a man or to engage in war." It was Iamblichus, in his biography of Pythagoras, who also tells us that the Krotonian tamed a savage bear by "stroking [the bear] gently with his hand," subdued an eagle by the same means, and held dominion over beasts and birds by "the power of his voice," or the "influence of his touch."  The many wonderworking legends that grew up around this  little known yet extraordinary figure relate that he understood the language of birds, healed the sick by music and dance, and could see into his own and others' previous lives.

None other than the materialistic modern philosopher Bertrand Russell considered Pythagoras really the most influential of ancient philosophers--though he once called the Krotonian’s metaphysics a cross between Einstein and Mary Baker Eddy--through his impact on Plato, who so much influenced everything else.  It is good to have a personage of such stature as Pythagoras on the vegetarian side.   Indeed, he was so seminal to the cause that his name was identified with the meatless diet until the 1840s, when the word vegetarian was coined.  We--humans and other animals--owe him much.

--Robert and Gracia Fay Ellwood

This essay further develops the Pioneer essay on Pythagoras in PT 11 , June 2005.

The authors live in a spiritual  community appropriately called Krotona (in Ojai, California), which like Pythagoras's Kroton that inspired it, enjoins temperate living, study,

harmlessness, and vegetarianism--though it does not also prohibit eating fava beans, as the earlier teacher mysteriously did.

Click here to discuss this month’s Pioneer in our Forum

Recipe

No-Bake Carrot Cake

1½ cups carrots, grated

1 cup walnuts

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

½ cup shredded coconut

1 cup pitted dates

⅓ cup oats (gluten-free)

1 tsp flaxseeds

Frosting:

1 cup cashews (soaked in water for 6 hours - alternatively you can boil them for 15 minutes)

2-3 Tbsp maple syrup

½ tsp vanilla bean powder

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

⅓ cup coconut cream

Toppings:

crushed pistachios

more vanilla bean powder

For the dough, place all the batter ingredients in a high-speed blender until combined. You want it to be rather hard - if it's too mushy add more oats and/or shredded coconut.

Line a baking tray with parchment paper and place the dough inside.  Use a spatula or the back of a pie server to evenly press the dough down.  Place in the freezer while you make the frosting.

Mix all the ingredients for the frosting and blend them in your mixer.  You might want to adjust the sweetness according to your personal taste.  Once smooth (shouldn't be too liquid but creamy), pour it over the hardened dough and spread evenly with a spatula.

Top with crushed pistachios and more ground vanilla beans and place in the fridge, if you prefer it to be more soft, or in the freezer, if you want it to harden up a bit (in case you store it in the freezer make sure to let it cool down at room temperature before eating).  Serve and enjoy.

--Kirsten,  The Tasty K                         

Poetry: Rabindranath Tagore, 1861 - 1941

The Bird

Though the evening comes with slow steps and has signaled for all songs to cease;

Though your companions have gone to their rest and you are tired;

Though fear broods in the dark and the face of the sky is veiled;

Yet, O my bird, listen to me, do not close your wings.

The lone night lies along your path, the dawn sleeps behind the shadowy hills,

The stars hold their breath counting the hours, the feeble moon swims the deep night,

Bird, O my bird, listen to me, do not close your wings.

There is no hope, no fear for you.

There is no word, no whisper, no cry.

There is no home, no bed of rest.

There is only your own pair of wings and the pathless sky,

Bird, O my bird, listen to me, do not close your wings.

Pictured:  Rabindranath Tagore

Photo of seabird by Alek Komarnitsky.  Mr. K. gave permission to use this eloquent photo on the cover of my book Taking the Adventure, but the publisher chose another.   My thanks.

The Peaceable Table is a project of Quaker Animal Kinship, a non-profit organization, also known as the Animal Kinship Committee of Orange Grove Friends Meeting, Pasadena, California.

It is intended to resume the witness of that excellent vehicle of the Friends Vegetarian Society of North America, The Friendly Vegetarian, which appeared quarterly between 1982 and 1995.

Issue copyright © 2016 Vegetarian Friends

The journal is intended to be interactive; contributions, including illustrations, are invited for the next issue. Deadline for the August  issue will be July  27. Send to graciafay@gmail.com or 14 Krotona Hill, Ojai, CA 93023.  We operate primarily online in order to conserve trees and labor, but hard copy is available for interested persons who are not online. The latter are asked, if their funds permit, to donate $15 (USD) per year, which does not cover all the cost..  Other donations to offset the costs of server, printing, and mailing  are welcome.  Send checks to Robert Ellwood, Treasurer, 14 Krotona Hill, Ojai, CA 93023, or donate by paypal..

Editor: Gracia Fay Ellwood

Book and Film Reviewers: Benjamin Urrutia and Robert Ellwood

Recipe Editor: Angie Cordeiro

NewsNotes Contributor: Lorena Mucke

Technical Architect: Richard Scott Lancelot Ellwood