My Eyes Are Opening And It's Not a Pretty Sight

When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. ~Ingrid Newkirk

Since I was a kid, I have always had a sensitive heart. I hated seeing people get hurt(physically and emotionally) as well as animals. I was a meat-eater but there were many times where I wanted nothing more than to be a vegetarian. The only reason I couldn't was because no one else was and I was too young to support myself and that desire. Now I am old enough and Taiwan has turned me vegetarian.

Granted, I still eat eggs for protein (although I've started to buy free-range as I have seen images of the battery farms) and I still drink milk although I try to drink more almond and soy milk. I used to eat fish until I got food poisoning a few weeks ago and was in the hospital. I am not a vegan, but the thought of eating meat makes me sick.

What has converted me? Well, I want to know the truth and thanks to Facebook, I have seen many videos and images of things that have shown me the scary and disturbing truth about things such as slaughterhouses, the wool industry and animal testing on beauty products AND...the product that I don't understand why it needs animal testing: chocolate!! I refuse to eat M&M's or Snickers because the Mars Chocolate company tests on animals. Why do they need to test food products on animals?? UNLESS they use new chemicals for flavor and color. Well if they are adding more chemicals to my food then they can forget about me!

Another thing as I have mentioned before were the split duck heads and god knows what else at the markets here!

http://www.weirdmeat.com/2008/02/duck-heads.html

Antoher thing I just read up on today was about the wool industry. Here is a lnk:
http://www.veganpeace.org/animal_cruelty/wool.htm

This was my Facebook comment:

"There are so many lies in the agricultural industry :( Were the pioneers (whose farming was their life and their survival) this cruel to animals as well or have we, as a modern society, grown a frigid heart and amuse ourselves by such torture????

We know there is one cause to all this madness: MORE money!"

I was also reading about dissection:
http://www.veganpeace.org/animal_cruelty/dissection.htm

This was my Facebook comment about dissection:

"Do we really need dissection in the classrooms? Our technology is advanced enough where we don't need helpless animals' corpses...in fact I'm sure we never did!

Ugh...the thought of it reminds me in Junior year physiology where we had to dissect a sheep's brain...WHY?? That didn't make me smarter or understand better a...nd I STILL got a D in the class because the teacher only gave A's to girls in skimpy clothes...Yet another thing that dissapoints me and makes me feel nauseous..."

Seeing the scary truth of it ALL makes me wonder if I really should bring a child into this world...will my child become a prey or a predator? This thought scares me...

My students are only 10-12 years-old and completely de-sensitized...They BEG to watch "Happy Tree Friends" and some kids get a kick out of the powerpoints that I show of people suffering. One of my students was happy to tell me with no thought of remorse that he and his dad saw a dog get hit by car somewhere and they didn't have time to help it. He said this with a smile on his face.
The students in Taiwan don't SEEM to be violent, yet they crave their online games. The movie channels here cut out swear words and SOME sex stuff, but they don't cut out the senseless violence? It just doesn't make sense?

Now as a liberal, I believe that video games and music aren't the cause of killings and shootings, but as a teacher I am seeing more and more that parents (and some teachers) are not educating the students enough on right and wrong. Nobody is teaching these kids that these songs and video games are just that and nothing more. The video game or the song IS NOT telling them to go do these things. They are either telling a story or for entertainment and that is it. But the kids aren't getting the education and it is causing a problem. We, as adults, need to teach them the difference between morally right and wrong! We need to show these kids that it is NOT OK to do these things...

How does this tie into animal cruelty? There have been articles that I have been reading about how most serial killers started out by violently torturing and killing animals. Now this is an extreme case, but it should be a red flag for us to watch our kids and teach them respect, not only for people, but for ALL of Earth's creatures. Whether it is true or not, we need to educate and enlighten again!

My goal is to not give up on these kids and teach them right from wrong. It worries me that my students BEG to see "Happy Tree Friends" (I used to watch it in uni but I was OLD ENOUGH to know that it is just a TV show and nothing more) and I will do what it takes to teach them that there are better things in life to see and experience!

"Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar." ~Bradley Millar