kilometer zero running eye blog

I don’t eat animals for three main reasons: i) I think they are treated rather horribly on industrial farms; ii) widespread meat production is ecologically unsustainable in a world with 7 billion people; and iii) when I look at a dog and a pig (or a lamb or a cow) I don’t see any real difference between their nervous systems or their souls and I would never eat a dog.

That said, I am a sucker for arguments on behalf of omnivorism and I came across an astounding one while reading the Gnostic text The Gospel of Thomas. In it, Jesus says:

If I am interpreting this correctly, the argument states that it is better for the lion to be eaten by us than to roam free because in that moment between being chewed up and defecated into a toilet, a few lion cells are absorbed and eventually transformed into human flesh and it is only through this glorious union that the lion can ever know God.

Now, I have had many a discussion with Christians who believe that animals are fulfilling God’s destiny when they are eaten by us, but I have never heard the argument that we are doing animals a favour by eating them because we are bringing them closer to God. Admittedly, the Gnostic texts were declared heretical 16 centuries ago; but, nonetheless, I have to admire the chutzpah.

While I was preparing files for a new version of my website, I made a single screen image of the results of my tomato experiment from a few years ago. I find it astoundingly beautiful. For the curious, more on the experiment *here*

I recently received a note from the California artist Ken Christensen. He spent a lot of time in Paris in the 1980s, including a spell at Shakespeare and Company. He was recently back in the city and was horrified by the transformation of his favourite drinking spot, Polly Magoo’s, from classic Paris dive to antiseptic tourist trap. The new incarnation, he wrote, was ‘a mockery of what it once was.’

Ken kindly passed on a sketch he made of the original bar in 1982. More of his work can be seen at www.kenchristensen.net

The efficacious among you can stop reading right now. But those of you who find yourself procrastinating by, oh, I don’t know, spending two hours searching for Internet rumors about Adrian Mutu’s possible transfer to Olympique de Marseille, this is for you.

Freedom it’s called. It shuts off the Internet for a set period of time and you can’t override it. Which means you can work distraction free for 90 minutes or three hours or whatever you choose. It’s pathetic that I need it; but it’s awesome that it’s there. Hell, Nora Ephron and Nick Hornby swear by it, so I guess I can too.