Hug Me, I'm a Vegetarian

Today is apparently International Hug a Vegetarian Day. Who knew?


There doesn't seem to be much grander purpose to this, other than PETA's continued efforts to recognize the people who are putting our nation's chicken farmers and captive bolt pistol manufacturers out of jobs.

Here's another tidbit from the Web site:

There are a plethora of different kinds of hugs, and all of them are vegan—unless you cover yourself in butter before hugging someone, in which case you're just disgusting.

Whatever your dietary preferences, I think we can all agree on that. In honor of this day, I will hug my peanut butter and jelly sandwich before I eat it in a few minutes. Then I will probably suffer through another round of meat-based jokes from other people in the newsroom. Typical example:

News clerk: I saved you some sausage. Want some?
Me: No thanks.
News clerk: Are you going to order the cheesesteak sandwich?
Me: Not today.
News clerk: I LOVE MEAT AND IT IS DELICIOUS!
Me: ...(turns back to crossword puzzle)


WARNING: Hugging vegetarians should be avoided at all costs because their bones are brittle and easily breakable, due to the lack of proper nutrition and protein obtained through a steady diet of bacon and Thickburgers. Gentle pats on the back are also discouraged since a muscle system sustaining on rice and soy may shrivel under the added pressure.*



*statement not verified by anyone with any medical background

Reflections from Virginia

After a weekend of touring and job interviewing here:


• Several letters in the word "Norfolk" are useless. Several others arise mysteriously upon pronunciation.
• Virginia Beach is significantly less heinous than Myrtle Beach.
• PETA being based in Nahfik infects the surrounding city with vegetarian-friendly dining options.
• PETA is located on the banks of a river, possibly creating a runoff problem that apparently does not rise to the level of an ethical dilemma.
• Newspaper journalists everywhere are a depressed, downtrodden lot.
• Common sense will tell you to avoid eating an airport egg salad sandwich. Do not ignore this.
• Virginia Beach has Actual Surfing.
• Rarely is there a collective mood on an airplane that welcomes the irreverent gallows humor of the male flight attendant who mistakes the intercom for the microphone at Evening at the Improv.
• Having a baby immediately enters you into a rotating free dinner delivery service program.
• Newspapers are still struggling to understand "the internet"
• Newspapers' plan to save themselves is alarmingly similar to Bush's Iraq strategy circa 2005.
• Hampton, Va., is allegedly the most-integrated city in America.
• All the Tribune newspapers are being redesigned to resemble children's picture books.
• Virginia. Effing. Loves. Mixed-use development.
• Serious, weighty, pivotal thinking and decision making will dominate my next few weeks. Heavy drinking is expected to be called upon to lubricate the cogs of introspection.


(photos by me, except for the map, which is from hrrelocation.com)

PETA hates this vegetarian

I was initially much more excited when I walked into the newsroom yesterday and heard that PETA had written a letter to the editor attacking my lobster game story as a harsh joke on all of lobster kind. I thought maybe they were coming after me for glorifying this bar-based blood sport in print, or our video for the cruel and unusual use of the B-52s. Sadly, they were actually just issuing what reads like a form letter they send off to any time this particular item of offensiveness surfaces around the country:

It seems silly to have to point this out, but the Lobster Game that is turning up at local bars is needlessly cruel ("Love lobster? Here's a game that lets you grab one for yourself," May 24).

City officials in Key West, Fla., pulled the plug on a Lobster Zone game (similar to the Lobster Game) at a restaurant there, and police officers shut down the game at a restaurant in Irvine, Calif. As Officer Dennis Ruvolo explained, these games subject lobsters "to unnecessary, inhumane treatment."

PETA urges readers to stick to stuffed animals, not live ones, in their crane games. Turning an animal's death into a game has no place in a compassionate society.

Paula Moore

People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals
Norfolk, Va.

It is still mildly ironic that the only vegetarian on the news staff here would generate a letter of chastisement from the nation's biggest animal rights group. Oh PETA, if only you know it was your muckraking, thoroughly gross videos that drove me into life as an herbivore in the first place eight years ago. In fact, it was eight years ago this month that ate my last bits of meat (on purpose, at least). Scallops, at the Ground Round in Toms River, N.J. They were gross, and that was about it. But that's what I get for eating at the Ground Round I suppose.