| JezUK Ltd - In response to a survey showing that lot ... |
| << Previous | March 2001 | Next >> |
Obviously the people invited are chosen to express polar opposite views and any agreement that arises is by accident rather than design. In this media-savvy age, you'd expect the participants to be aware of this. Anthony Worral-Thomson, pro-meat, certainly was - he was pretty calm and reasonable, gave ground willingly on factory farming, was aware of things like when and where The Vegetarian Society was founded. The pro-vegetarian Chrissie Hynd, who must have done a few interviews in the course of her illustrious career, on the other hand was a shrieking gobshite. She wasn't listening to the questions put to her, butted in, was aggressive, sarcastic, and assumed all vegetarians have the same views as her.
Attitutes to vegetarianism have changed greatly in the last twenty years or so, but it's still common to encounter suspicion and hostility. Ridiculous ranting in public fora does nothing to promote vegetarianism as a sensible thing to do. Quite the contrary, it makes us look like a bunch of emotionally-crippled oh-the-poor-animals tossers.
I personally enjoy being a veggie and never, ever make people feel uncomfortable about eating meat. Unless asked of course, then I carefully discuss the topic without preaching and with care not to offend. I don't even force my choice of food on my son. He can make his own mind up when he's older.
It's like telling smokers to give up! It just offends and causes defensive attitudes. Carla Lane is a pain in the arse too. Noone likes being told they are wrong or bad, and that's what these fanatics come over as doing. [added 28th Mar 2001]Angie 2 said I'm glad I missed her fanatism. Who is going to listen to someone that looks down on people for what choice of food they eat? Culinary bigotry isn't attractive or clever.
At first I was pleased that they hadn't got Carla Lane on. She's a pathetic, irrational whiner who's about the worst advertisement for the causes she esposes there could possibly be. Then we got served up another lunatic celebrity instead. Perhaps the script called for a "meat vs. veg celeb debate (must have loony)". [added 28th Mar 2001]prashton said All those pictures of burning carcasses we are seeing (even on TV in Texas) is enough to turn people in vegetarians. Although I am not of this persuasion, we eat very little meat in our diet and can easily identify with those who abstain altogether. It is indeed a crying shame when shreiking nutters become spokespersons. [added 1st Apr 2001]While the editors are under no obligation to get speakers who are "good" adverts for their various viewpoints, it does damage Today's reputation as an informative and authoritative current affairs programme when they do something like this. Surely it couldn't have been too much work to get someone from The Vegetarian Society for instance, rather than "couldn't get Tony Banks MP - who else is on our celebrity veggy list?" [added 2nd Apr 2001]
[Add a comment]
The Forest Road Reader, No 37 (1)
The Forest Road Reader, No 19 (1)
The Forest Road Reader, No 17 (1)
The Forest Road Reader, No 10 (1)