You may have heard recently that Ringling Brothers is phasing out elephant performers.

I don’t usually write about “single issues” because I like to go after the fundamentals - compassion, moral exclusion, and so on. But the news that Ringling Bros. will free 13 Asiatic elephants is exactly why we take action: to save innocents from misery.

After the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, a lot of talking heads said that the people deserved what they got because they knew the storm was coming but didn't evacuate. What a lot of them didn't realize is that many of the people didn't have the means to leave, or anywhere to go if they did.

Raise your hand if you feel like an oppressor.

...Did you raise your hand?

When you take a moral stance, on some level you're accusing others of taking an immoral stance. When you fight for justice, it must mean some people are unjust. There's not really a way around that unless you draw really vague boundaries.

It's not a perfect world. I'm reminded every day of my own imperfections. As I gossip at work when I know I shouldn't. When someone is insulted and I don't stick up for them, because I fear being thought of as difficult or a goody-goody, or I'm just too tired to bother.

To be an activist, very often, is to be angry.

An activist is a person with a sacred vision of the world that they are trying to manifest. That means living in a world that runs counter to what you hold most sacred. Otherwise, what are you acting for or against? And in my experience, activists aren't just working for a world that would be nice, but fighting for the world that they believe should be. That’s not always emotionally easy.

It’s the harvest season and my garden seems to be slowing down. This has been my first season gardening and I’ve been thinking a lot about Demeter, the cycles of the Earth, and our place in all of that. In fact a good part of this post was inspired by a gardening comment I left on one of Michelle’s posts and conversations I’ve had about it.

Today I wanted to write about something I’ve seen a lot of lately. When you become a vegan – or a feminist, an environmentalist, an activist of any flavor – you start to notice things. You have interactions with people that you didn’t have before.

I grew up hating the use of pathos in argument. I always thought that we should accept an argument on its merits, not because we liked it, certainly not because we liked the speaker.