July 19, 2006: Moby's journal entry from
his website
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what to write, what to write...
do i write about the unfolding disaster in the middle east?
what can i write?
that there's an unfolding disaster in the middle east?
that the simmering pot that is the middle east is now boiling over and everyone's going to get burned?
that it's a dreadful situation that is hurting a lot of innocent people on all sides?
it's tragic and depressing and i'm at a loss as to what to write.
which leads me to write about cows.
this weekend i went upstate to the woodstock farm animal sanctuary and spent the night and hung out with cows and goats and chickens and turkeys and sheep and pigs and cats and dogs(and people, too, although the weekend was more about quadripeds than bipeds...
although the bipedal creatures were nice, too).
a farm animal sanctuary is a place where farm animals go to live out their lives free from the threat of being killed or tortured or made to suffer at the hands of people.
the animals do what they like to do, which, in the case of cows, is to run around in a field eating grass and playing with each other. or, in the case of pigs, is to sleep a lot and eat a lot of melons. or, in the case of goats, is to eat a lot of hay and grass and rub their bellies on mounds of dirt and play with people and each other. or, in the case of the 3 turkeys, is to wander around the yard like elder statesmen, following whoever happens to be walking around. or, in the case of chickens, is to, well, be chickens. or, in the case of sheep, is to hang out with the other sheep quite far away from everyone else.
it had been years since i had been able to hang out with animals who were not people/dogs/cats/pigeons/rats.
and, to be a bit of a vegan animal rights evangelist, i don't know how anyone could look at a happy 6 month old cow or pig and say 'this is food, let's kill it.'.
these are sentient creatures, full of life and full of emotion and full of a desire to be happy and alive.
if you're going to eat meat i ask you to do this: go visit a small farm or farm sanctuary and spend some time with the animals before you eat them. if you can look a 6 month old cow in the eye and scratch it's ears and watch it run across the field with the other cows and still say 'there goes my food', well, then i don't know what to say.
these animals are happy when they're doing what they want to do. they're happy playing with each other. they're happy eating apples and grapes and melons. they're happy sleeping in the field next to each other. they're happy being alive and leading lives free of pain and suffering.
10 billion animals will be killed this year for human consumption, and the vast majority of those 10,000,000,000 animals will lead tragic, tortured lives before they're killed.
it's all unnecessary and unspeakably sad.
please, if you're going to eat meat at least go visit a small farm and look into the eyes of the creatures you plan on eating. watch them sleep next to each other.
watch them play with each other. watch them eat apples out of your hand.
they are smart, sentient creatures, and you owe them that much.
thank you.
moby