Sustainable Hunting and Farming May Be Realistic for the Masses, But It Doesn't Mean I Like It.

[written to my friend, Y., who is a radical animal rights activist.]



i got into a discussion with a recruiter for greenpeace this week and was saddened and appalled at the way he viewed animal rights activism. some of his perspective i understood the reasoning behind - taking the "middle path, "as it were, in their tactics for activism, so as to better include the masses, who tend to be freaked out with anything that identifies animals too closely with humans (for some bizarre reason).

but he so unquestioningly castigated anything that was done solely for the sake of the animals in their own right - even calling PETA violent, which, to my knowledge, they are not. he said "they give real animal rights activists who act sensibly a bad name." he said a "middle-path" reaches more people and you get more people behind it. whereas, taking an extremist path, you lose people. i said it depended on what your goals are. i told him all approaches are necessary and all have a role to play in aiding animal rights. he supported hunting and farming, claiming it can be sustainable if done responsibly.

ok. so here's my take on that. i, myself personally, am against hunting and farming, even if it is sustainable, because of how much i identify with animal consciousness. however, i do recognize that part of the gross abuse of various animal species in the world come from allowing human beings to hunt and farm in such a greedy, unscrupulous way that's nothing short of genocide. and it occurs every single day. their lives are not just ended but their time spent living is torturous. i do understand that it is likely human beings en mass will be more inclined to work to make sure farm and game animals are treated and killed humanely and are given a better quality of life BEFORE human beings in large, large numbers are likely to abolish eating and killing animals altogether.

that being said, however, doesn't mean i feel we should all just sit and accept the farming and killing of animals. in my view, while the "middle-path" will likely be achieved first for the bulk of humanity (meaning, animal consumption via types of farming/hunting where the manner and method of their lives and deaths occuring are humane, the numbers not so grossly out of proportion with the ecosystem of this planet) still doesn't mean that i won't work to see if i can change people's minds ENTIRELY about ANY sort of animal consumption and exploitation. it doesn't mean i am content or desire the "middle-path" as an end goal in and of itself. and finally, i DEFINITELY feel that without the "radical" element there, pulling people forward, we do not get nearly the same amount of change accomplished overall. it's like the old adage, "shoot for an A, and maybe you'll at least get a B."

in other words, knowing that the masses will more likely respond to a "middle path" re animal exploitation doesn't mean that i just give up on trying to raise awareness about animal consciousness at its highest potential; about the fact that this is a thinking, feeling, sentient being who would LOVE to simply live their life fully without being used or consumed at all.

another metaphor would be - just because i know that hybrid vehicles are financially viable "baby steps" for the auto industry before going fully electric/or other sustainable fuel, doesn't mean i'm content to let that industry rest on it's laurels until we're finally where we should be for an earth-friendly transportation system.

i understand that hybrids are the spoonful of sugar to giving a complete overhaul to an industry which is the bread and butter to some. hybrids have been a way to adhere to the demands of the public while circumventing auto industry full-scale PANIC for having to throw everything out (reads source of obscene wealth) - of course, they're panicking now for other reasons, ha! ha! these hybrids spoons of high fructose corn syrup allow that industry to merge slowly into other more sustainable fuel sources in a way that still gives 'em enough time to figure out how to corner THAT new market. understanding this reality doesn't mean i like it. i'm not going to stop pushing for the auto industry to go fully electric/or other. and btw, this isn't to say i support *any* industry monopolizing any market, esp something so disgusting as petrol. i do not at all. i just ruefully know that it's one of the things they were waiting for. i mean, ultimately, they'd rather not lift a finger, of course, but when they do, they want to make sure it's for something that'll allow them to turn just as much profit as they ever did. many yrs ago, my cynicism lead me to predict the auto-industry, being the greedy bastard that it is, would likely try to pacify us with some sort of hybrid car so that they could satisfy public demand while enabling themselves to buy time until they could figure out how they could monopolize the new "it" resource - whatever it ends up being. but doesn't mean i'm happy about it.


© 2009 Copyright by Paola Lopez

The Simpon's vs. The Family Guy

[the larger context to the posting below is that i had gotten into an argument over this subject on, of all places, the live chat room on coachella's website, and then continued the debate on facebook with my friend T. included below is just my response to T., who favors The Family Guy.]



i find the animated tv sitcom, the family guy to be sexist. just like the simpson's was and is. both endeavor to reflect the typical american family, which is still sexist in many ways, and to make other various social commentary, of course. the simpson's, being the first of its kind at the time, seemed much more tolerable to me because such a candid assessment of familial patterns had never been portrayed in prime-time cartoon format before. it was plucky and hilarious to realize what buffoons we all are through this great show.

however, after awhile culture needs to not just reflect society but understand that it shapes it, too. after two decades such a commentary then becomes the very force that is continuing to propel those stereotypes. a single generation's worth is one thing (simpson's), but several generations of depicting an apathetic, infantile father figure linked to a passive, repressed, unambitious wife and mother who's always begrudgingly tolerant of a family which doesn't support her as a strong, productive individual gets old.

so in essence, for me, the issue isn't about which is funnier or better written,* it is about the role both shows have in the environment they're portraying. and both of them follow a similar model. my argument is that in light of the simpson's, king of the hill, futurama, and south park - family guy, whose name itself indicates a male-centered perspective - would really be offering something noteworthy if it didn't render the same low-impact, supportive female characters that they rest of them do and did something more than simply remind us how fucked up we all are. i mean, a society always needs biting satire - i'm not suggesting we lose that - but i'd like to see conscious influence as well as mere reflection. (btw, i thought futurama's leela was a little more ballsy and independent, but she'd still easily fall into the responsible-mother cliche, keeping everyone together while the male characters got to be zany.)

*granted, family guy does have *many* hilarious jokes and they have perfected the art of the tangent, though IMO the biggest reason family guy is more topical than the simpson's is because it's simply a newer show, the writers and cast are more fresh, tuned in, etc. i feel the simpon's in their prime, was just as tuned in as family guy is now, if not more so because the simpson's were the first to recognize the american nuclear family *needed* to be satired with ruthless precision and thus, created an entirely new genre - whereas the family guy just continues to do the job already invented by the simpson's, only with a newer sheen and sharper claws. but you def. gave props to the simpson's on the point of ingenuity. :)

i super enjoyed your post as you can tell, T., and feel your points are excellent and infinitely more eloquently executed (say that five times fast!) than the 20 something year old i had the misfortune of talking to in the chat room the other day (no slam meant against my 20 something friends) - this guy could only respond with expletives and repetitive questions regarding my sanity. he kept assuming i could not appreciate family guy's sense of humor, while i continued to remind him it wasn't about the sense of humor or which one was funnier for me - it was about historical timing and the role of culture in society.


© 2009 Copyright by Paola Lopez

The Quality of the Marquis de Sade's Literary Canon

[my friend S. sent me an e-mail asserting that the marquis de sade's writings were not actually misogynistic nor did they depict women in an abusive light. needless to say, i contested this assertion with the following response. yes, i definitely went easy on him.]


S., i am intimately familiar with the marquis de sade's writings and his life. i am glad your interest in sadism as a philosophy is based on a foundation of the man's actual work - i had hoped this would be so. it makes our conversation all that much more interesting. while the practice of bdsm is quite delightful (i enjoy partaking in sex oriented masochism quite often), i must say that a familiarity with the man's life, work and philosophy are truly essential to time spent in pursuit of s&m fetish play.

in his writings, sade does portray women to be free of consequence to an extent, however, he is far less interested in them (as in the all-too-brief story of juliette) as he is in immersing himself in the luxuries of punishing the women who go against his credo of utter moral depravity and anti-socialism (as in the epic horror/fantasy of justine, 120 of sodom, et al).

i see his philosophy as largely reactionary. when you look at what he really offers in terms of a complex organism of thought, unfortunately, it isn't much more than life in "opposite land," where one merely says and does everything the church tells you not to. original and groundbreaking? eh, so-so. rebellion against organized religion
(christian and pre-) has existed since the institutions themselves. the sociopath had not only been documented but already glorified for centuries. and people had written about their personal exploits and sadistic fantasies in a fictional setting before - though perhaps not so detailed...but then again, there *is* the bible itself - lotsa glorified sadism there, and in a highly fantastical environment too!

was his work compelling? at first, but when you really start pouring over it, it isn't the most creatively written, even his fantasies are very narrow in scope, as most fetishists are. they're rigid as opposed to open and malleable, which translates into one dimensional work. it's legitimate literature, fer sure. and compliments the time he was living in very well (in fact, the timing of his life and work are critical factors in his success, I feel), but in the end, i came to believe his work's place in literary history was secured more for its novelty and simple, yet delicious declaration of pain=sexual pleasure (which is part of who we are as human beings) than for containing any elements of great sophisticated writing.


© 2009 Copyright by Paola Lopez

Did I Really Die of a Heart Attack and Walk Around Dead for 3 Days?

[the following is the first time i've attempted relaying to anyone in any sort of detail a Near Death Experience i had back in june of 2006. this letter to my friend was written and sent just two days ago. it's taken me this long to be able to talk about it. it will be, i'm sure, the first of many attempts to write about what happened. some of the details will change with each draft for a couple of reasons. one, in the version below, i altered the chronology of some of the events because i was too ashamed to tell them in the order they happened. i was too ashamed because i know the person who i was sending this to. in your case, anonymous blog-reader, it will be much easier to tell the story as it happened because i don't have to ever see your look of pity, or disgust or incredulity at what i have to say. two, because of the HUGELY traumatic nature of the NDE, i have blocked some of its aspects out and through the course of continually re-examining it will i, no doubt, be able to put together a more accurate and comprehensive account of the experience.]



[in response to Q.'s e-mail] wow, Q., heart failure is what my father died of. his heart wasn't pumping blood adequately to his system so over the years it enlarged to compensate, but it enlarged too much in the end and burst. but the good news is, you totally know about your condition. my dad had no idea and so was taking no precautions and measures to act against it doing what it did. if you don't mind me asking, what things do you do to safeguard against something harmful or lethal happening?

to the best of my knowledge, i have had mostly "only" panic attack type heart failure scares. meaning, i do not have a genuine heart condition other than the fact that i have a heart murmur. i word it like that because on three occasions i had panic attacks so badly that i thought i was having a genuine heart attack. i called 911 on two of them. the first two, i felt a sharp stab to my heart like someone was taking a butcher knife to it and then an excruciating pain running down my left arm. i could not move it at all after that. on two of those occasions, once i got to the hospital, the doctors told me i was fine, that it was "just" a panic attack. the third time was worse than the previous three, but by this time my husband, resentful from being syked out by the first two, refused to call 911 because he said it's "only" going to turn out to be a panic attack again. he was pissed at me because our health insurance would only cover the ambulance ride if it was a real heart attack. they had charged us $1000 each for the previous trips to the hospital because they turned out NOT to be cases of genuine heart failure. my ex-husband literally said to me, "it better be a real heart attack if i'm gonna pick up the phone." yeah, you can see why we're no longer together.

anyway, there was nothing i could do. i was in such excruciating pain all i could do was lie there and writhe. the last thing i remember is my heart literally stopping. it stopped like a sudden intense electric seizure - like a sharp, painful spasm - and then nothing. i swear to you, Q., i put my right hand to my heart for a good several minutes and could NOT feel ANYTHING. i was so scared, i passed out. when i came to, i put my right hand back on my heart and still nothing. i could feel absolutely no heart beat whatsoever. my chest felt like a block of hollow wood. and my vision was weird. everything was grey and cloudy. and every time i tried to talk to A. (ex) he acted like i wasn't even there. and strangely now, i felt no pain anywhere. i got up and went to the mirror and when i saw myself - i looked dead. my skin was blue grey and i had these deep, dark circles under my eyes. there was no light in them. A. was ignoring me, so i just went back to the bed and lie there. as the day continued on i kept putting my hand to my chest to see if i could feel a pulse. still nothing, no heart beat, nothing. there was something i noticed though. as i sat there on the bed with the tv on, but not even really watching it, tons and tons of flies kept coming over to me and sitting on me. i looked over at A. there were no flies on him at all. as i sat there contemplating my heart attack/panic attack, the flies, the lack of heart beating in my chest, the grey color of my skin and everything around me, i had a white light experience. suddenly, the whole place flooded in so much bright light. it was so soft. i felt at last i was free. at last i was going to be happy and satisfied. that i wouldn't be in emotional or physical pain anymore. i was so ready. i can't even tell you. i was ready to jump this fucking ship goodbye. but then i heard a fucking voice tell me that i wasn't crossing over yet. that everyone has a time and this wasn't mine. i begged and pleaded with it to take me. i told it i couldn't believe it was going to give me this cliche. now that i had felt what was in the light i was so all about being there - fuck the pain and misery of earth, why the hell would i want that when i could be at peace? when peace felt so fucking good!!!! but no deal. it said there were more things i needed to do here blah blah blah. to be honest, i didn't give a shit what it's reasons were. if it wasn't going to take me, i didn't care what it had to say. i walked around for 3 days in this weird state, where the light was both twilight grey and really bright sunrise - the whole time, these three days, i had no heartbeat whatsoever - at least, that was my subjective experience - i had no doctors with their equipment to tell me otherwise – A., for his part, barely acknowledged i was even there, it was so weird, it's like he couldn't even see me - he went to work, came back, turned on the tv, never really even saying anything or even looking at me - a lot like bruce willis' character and his wife in the 6th sense - i always wondered what the experience was like from A's end - could he see me? did he exp time differently on his end? - i never got the chance to find out, because he never wanted to talk about it afterward and then we split up. those three days i couldn't eat anything and i could barely even drink water. it felt unnaturally heavy in my body and was uncomfortable to digest. on the third day, my heartbeat returned and i thought i was going to have another heart attack out of sheer joy. i mean, since i was told i would be sticking around with the living, it was REALLY creepy to be hanging out not being able to feel my own heartbeat. i was like PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT, GOD! and like i said, when i looked in the mirror i looked like a ghost - it was really unnerving!!!

so on the third day, i rose again and went back to living my life. LOL. i didn't know what to classify it as. i wasn't sure what had happened. since i didn't go into the doctor, i didn't know if the whole thing was a hallucination or one part hallucination and another part panic attack (the panic attack part indicating some symptoms were real but the medical conclusion not being lethal a.k.a heart attack or stroke) or if the whole thing from start to finish was straight up what i thought it was i.e. a fatal heart attack in which i died, had a Near Death Experience, white lights and all, floated around in some sort of purgatory for what seemed like 3 days and then came back to life because the ubiquitous Voice of God/Higher Consciousness/The Universe/Big Whatever told me i still have some work here to do. etc etc.

i've never been sure if a doctor could tell me whether or not i really suffered a heart attack/stroke that day. it's been some time now, like 2 and 1/2 years - would they be able to tell if i had DIED then? you'd think such an acute impact on the body would leave a trace. like if i went in today, would they have the technology to look at my body and say, "yes, P., you DID have a heart attack 2 1/2 years ago." ??? because, since i didn't go in right when it happened, i 've been afraid i have missed the opportunity for doctors to be able to tell me whether or not what happened was what i thought happened.

it lives on as a serious mystery in my life and mind and i consider it to be a real Near Death Experience as best as i can tell. i don't know what else to consider it as since i only have my subjective experience to go on.

i can tell you i came back with "superpowers" after it happened, hehe. just like in them hollywood films! by "superpowers" i mostly mean heightened psychic awareness - i was already a practicing psychic medium by then, but my accuracy shot up through the roof! and curiously, i came back completely cured of several long-standing addictions i had. one being coffee, another being pot. SNAP! just like that. stopped on a dime right after my heart beat returned. haven't had the urge to do either one.

i still haven't forgiven "god" though for syking me out and not taking me with her into that soooooo relieving light. i would have done anything to go into it.

so now when people ask me if i've ever had a heart attack, and yes, i do get asked, as you can see, i'm never quite sure what to say.


© 2009 Copyright by Paola Lopez

First Off, Some Qualifications About My Blogs

i need to get this stuff up in a hurry because i have racing thoughts and pressured speech right now and need to vent. no, it's more that i need to act on 'em while i still have the impetus to do so and this all goes away. i may have what the mainstream mental health community calls "bi-polar" and i'm going through some things, figuring some things out. i've been wanting/needing to start a prose blog for some time now. it will be, at this point, much in the vein of a journal. why not just write a private journal? i dunno, but for some reason i need people to be aware of my thoughts and feelings. it makes me feel like they're more valid that way. i have found that if i feel like i'm actually writing to someone, an actual human being as opposed to merely a blank piece of paper, i am more motivated to write about my experiences and the resultant feelings which follow them. the thought that there actually may be an empathetic soul there on the other side propels me to open up. and i don't seem to have the long-term discipline required to anais nin it. in other words, to write a journal with the notion that vaguely "one day" i may publish it and people will know i lived and suffered. this way, though it's a long-shot, maybe someone will know NOW.

subsequently, because of that nowness, many of my postings will be letters and e-mails that i have already sent directly to friends. some of my blogs will be direct cut-and-pastes from facebook threads where i felt my contribution was especially profound. i need the world to be able to be directed to tangible evidence of my introspective brilliance (har har) in one, easy to reach location.

i realize no one may ever read these in the end. i only have one subscriber to my other blog and i have no idea if he ever checks back on it.

i suppose i'm taking a big risk by posting my private correspondences here (the private ones, where my friends' thought they were communicating to me in confidence will always only be one-sided, *my* contribution only) because many of these things i have not yet decided to let everyone i know in on. but then again, i may not even decide to make this particular blogspot url public to anyone i know. the other blogs which will contain whole or segments of threads from my facebook acct on various topics of importance to me, may contain my friends comments because they were made in a public forum. we'll see. in many cases, my friends names will be deleted and only an a single letter given as substitute. as in the case of "A." representing my friend John Doe.

the other thing i feel i should qualify is that some of these postings will be quite rambling and manic - hell, i NEVER capitalize anyway, so don't look for that - but the sentence structures themselves may be hard to follow sometimes. so, if anyone does end up reading these, then i apologize in advance.

so, without further adieu....


© 2009 Copyright by Paola Lopez