“Fair enough. That’s fine. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Tell me about milk.”
Oh, dear Diary, that is when I said to Ryan and Burt, “A cold glass of milk is so perfect with cookies. And of course where would our wine-tasting parties be without all the wonderful types of cheese we get from milk.”
Ryan Talks About Milk
Ryan nodded in agreement as Burt politely smiled. “Cow milk has been consumed by humans for centuries. A cow would select a mate in the pasture, get pregnant, and give birth to a calf nine months later. Then the cow would produce a gallon of milk for its calf every day for six to ten months—any leftover milk went to us. In more recent years, however, we modified the process to become more efficient. To a lot of farmers, one memorable improvement is zero-grazing, a system in which cattle are confined indoors where feed and water are brought to them. This method stands in stark contrast to old-fashioned open-field grazing, which many farmhands now regard to be too time-consuming and more expensive to operate. With the zero-grazing system, you don’t have to bother with cultivating a pasture or spending time herding animals, and the animals are safe from predators and tick-borne diseases. And by feeding them in stalls instead of letting them graze in the pasture, you know exactly how much food they are consuming. And since you’re not using land for grazing, that land is now available for other purposes.”
“So cows never stand on grass? They spend all their days indoors? Or in stalls?” I had to ask.
“Pretty much, but as I said, there are all kinds of variations and hybrid methods depending on the farm’s preferences, so some cows may sometimes walk on grass. But the vast majority of them don’t.”
“Oh, I see,” I said.
“Another vast improvement is that, nowadays, through selective breeding and the feeding of a high-protein grain diet, in addition to the administration of antibiotics and hormones, a daily yield of over seven gallons of milk can be obtained, sometimes even as high as twelve gallons. That’s right—seven to twelve gallons a day, compared to only one gallon just a relatively few years ago. That is a huge increase from what we got in those less efficient days.”
“Isn’t this high-protein grain diet unnatural to them?” asked Burt.
“Correct, it is not their natural diet. However, we have made it natural for them. After all, we are part of nature, too; the things we do to influence other components of nature are part of nature’s mechanical scheme, if you think about it, just like an ant colony’s use of aphids is natural as well.”
“Okay.” Burt scribbled a few notes onto a miniature composition tablet.
“Shortly after a cow turns one year old, it is artificially inseminated. This is a wonderful invention of ours. A farmer sticks his or her arm up the cow’s rectum while using the other hand to insert a gun into the vagina to deliver semen obtained from a bull. In the hands of a skilled operator, the procedure can go quite smoothly and the cows don’t seem to mind. As I said, the pregnancy will be nine months long.
“Once it gives birth, a farmhand takes the calf away within twenty-four hours, often as soon as minutes after birth. The mother cow lactates for ten months after giving birth. And since we’ve taken away her calf, we now can actually have all of her milk, not just leftovers. We can hook her up to a milking machine two or more times a day to get that milk even more efficiently. That machine is another ingenious invention by us.”
I had to interject, asking, “What happened to her calf?”
“The calf may be used as a dairy cow just like its mother. Or the calf may be taken immediately, or after fattening with nutritious milk substitute, to slaughter so its meat can be used in fast food restaurants or for pet food.
“Or the calf can go to a veal crate where it will be isolated from other calves in tight confinement for up to eighteen weeks in semi-darkness in a space too narrow to turn around in, tied at the neck, fed a diet low in iron so its skin remains pale, and without bedding, which it may try to eat if present. It may sound harsh to some ears, but it’s well worth the sacrifice—veal is rich in protein and iron, much more so than chicken or beef. And veal has less calories than beef. Very good for the human diet.”
“I do love veal. So tender,” I exclaimed, “but I didn’t know it had to be in that crate to get it.” I was taken a bit aback. I asked, “But do you have to take away the baby from the mother like that?”
“We’ve found that the sooner you take the calf away, the better it is for both of them, since insufficient time is allowed for a bond to be established between the mother and calf. Even with this, though, it is true that mothers often seem affected by the separation. You’ll see a mother bellowing and looking around helplessly for the newborn for days, even many weeks. Sometimes she may seem to eventually forget about it but then suddenly begin acting like she’s in acute grief, bellowing again in the same way for hours. Or you’ll see her staring blankly, standing in the same place, not even moving from there unless a handler guides her to a different location within the pen. So yes, the process has its negatives, but the benefits far outweigh those.”
“Wow,” said I as Burt continued taking notes.
“Now let’s go back to our cow who gave birth. It does what cows do—lactates for ten months after giving birth, after which time it ceases making any more milk. Cows must give birth to be able to make milk, so to keep things moving seamlessly and not lose the opportunity for even more milk production, the cow is artificially impregnated again as early as two months after giving birth. Then the same cycle is repeated. It is repeated over and over again continuously until the cow reaches five to seven years of age, at which time it can no longer sustain the unnaturally high rate of milk production and becomes what we call a ‘spent cow.’ That cow is no longer useful to us, so usually, it is transported to be slaughtered.”
Checking off another box on his paperwork, Burt asked, “These are fairly large animals. How do you kill cattle here on Earth?”
“At some farms, the process can be handled right on the premises, so no transportation is required. If a trip to the slaughterhouse is needed, it can be cramped for space and can sometimes take days in whatever extremes of weather may present at the time. We prefer to try to avoid extremes in this process, however, because we know that to preserve the quality of the meat it is best to do everything we can to avoid inflicting stress on the animals. Along this line of thought, we try not to mix animals from different groups, since unfamiliarity might elicit stress or combativeness. It’s also best to provide adequate ventilation.
“Unfortunately, you can’t avoid the unfamiliarity of being on board a transport truck that makes noises, stops and starts, and jolts as it rolls along the roads, and this heightens the stress the animals feel. Many of them may also suffer from motion sickness, something they would never have had to deal with before. If it is very hot outside, and they are crowded together, they can only try to dissipate the heat by panting. In cold temperatures, they are vulnerable to hypothermia.
“Typically the cows go without food or water twelve to twenty-four hours prior to slaughter to assure complete bleeding out and ease of evisceration. Upon arrival at the slaughterhouse, the cow will be exhausted and possibly ill or injured from the adverse conditions, but not always.
“At the slaughterhouse, procedures vary but one common method is to have the cattle move through chutes that limit their movement. At the end of the chute, a worker usually fires a steel bolt that dents the animal’s skull but does not penetrate the brain. This stuns them. You’ll see their eyes instantly close, mouth open, and neck go lax. Usually, this is successful at rendering them unconscious so you may proceed to hang them upside down by a leg so another worker can use a knife to sever the carotid artery and jugular vein. This allows their blood to flow out of their body onto the floor. Down the conveyor line, other workers will strip off the hide to make it into leather while other workers cut the parts off to get the meat.
“I would sum it all up by saying that human ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills have combined forces to create greater efficiency in the food chain that ultimately benefits consumers. In nature, a cow could expect to live over twenty years, producing milk only up to the age of eight or nine and at a significantly lower overall yield. Through our enterprise, we’ve drastically reduced costs and only need to keep a cow around for seven years, during which time it gives birth five times and generates a lot more milk, all of it for human use.”
“Very well,” Burt said.
Cool! My book sits between tutoring services and vegan condoms! (March 14, 2024)
January 4, 2024: Although my book is concerned with the mistreatment of people deemed Other, the greater portion of the plot becomes tangled in the mistreatment of nonhuman animals. Because of this, I am now happy to announce I will be partnering with PETA.
In this excerpt, Bilal asks about the unusual name of an animal rights group, Charlie Don't Surf:
Monique explained, “It’s from the line in Apocalypse Now where the commander decides to have his troops surf in a dangerous location where the enemy can attack. Since Charlie—the nickname for the enemy—does not surf, he was saying that you won’t have to worry about encountering the enemy surfing out there on the water while you surf. Nothing to be afraid of. Screw Charlie,
we’re going in. A brazen disregard for possible danger.”
Karen added, “And sometimes you’ll hear one of us shout ‘Charlie don’t surf’ as we are about to go into a No Trespassing area. Dikembe is famous for yelling that out—sometimes too loud.”
“Yeah, we often find ourselves having to shush the big baby or else risk blowing our cover. He just has a hard time restraining himself.” Monique laughed as she chalked up a way to get even with the college boy.
“But that’s not the whole story,” Dustin said. “The line really means Charlie don’t surf but we do and we will because we have American exceptionalism and are better than them, superior to them. We surf. Charlie don’t. They are different from us, below us. Not cool like us. They are The Other, and that ain’t good. Therefore we are justified to annihilate them, to do whatever we want with them. We’ll dominate them, bomb them, and use their water to help ourselves to a little surfing.”
Dikembe continued, “The Clash put the line into a song and expanded it into ‘Charlie don’t surf and we think he should,’ bringing out all that American exceptionalism and imperialism. He should be like us. He’s not, though, so fuck him.”
Dustin said, “Most humans view animals as the Other. They are not like us. They can’t do what we can. Hell, they can’t use a surfboard like us. And they don’t cry. They don’t feel pain or experience emotions like we superior beings do because they’re not as advanced as we are. Charlie don’t cry, so let me oppress and exploit him.”
“And that certainly is not what we in animal rights believe. We know they have emotions and feel pain,” Karen said.
“Exactly,” said Dustin, “The ironic name was chosen carefully to accentuate that repugnant way of thinking. I don’t know, maybe we picked a name that’s too complicated and stupid. Sometimes I might wonder about that.” He laughed. “But then, I think it sets us apart from the other groups with predictable names. I think it’s good, all in all.”
“Simplicity in life would be nice. It would be the opposite of everything that super-selfishness represents. Simplicity would exist when everyone had the
freedom to pursue personal dreams; when everyone was truly happy, confident, and at ease; when everyone was healthy and safe; when everyone exercised self-restraint, abandoned selfishness, and became mindful to cause no harm; when everyone was free from discrimination and injustice. Simplicity would exist because everyone would feel loved and significant in a world infused with respect and kindness.”
And then, in a stunning bit of performance art, she offered a poignant encore.
“But today our lives are not bestowed with simplicity. We remember Vincent Chin and his family and friends; Matthew Shepard and his family and friends; Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair and their families and friends; Victor Jara and his family and friends; Balbir Singh Sodhi and his family and friends; Dr. Chee Long Tong, Wong Chin, Wing Chee, and the sixteen others and their families and friends; Rami Arafat Rajabi and twenty-eight others killed and one-hundred twenty-five who were wounded, some left paralyzed, at the Cave of the Patriarchs; we also do not forget their families and friends; Trayvon Martin and his family and friends; Big Foot and the nearly three-hundred other people killed and fifty-one wounded, some who died later, at Wounded Knee; we also do not forget their families and friends…”
Santagato, while continuing to recite names of victims of bias-motivated violence to highlight the darkest side of systemic hyper-selfishness, stood up from her seat on stage and began distancing herself from the mic, her voice trailing off in the distance the farther she moved away from it.
“Genevieve Bergeron and the thirteen other young women murdered, and the fourteen other people wounded in Montreal, and their families and friends.”
Entirely out of the microphone’s range, she continued slowly walking offstage while raising her voice to acknowledge more names.
“Anne and Margot Frank and the others hidden behind the bookcase, and their families and friends; the people from the Cheyenne and Arapajo tribes, mostly women and children, killed and mutilated at Sand Creek, Colorado, and their families and friends; Truganini and her family and friends…”
As these uncomfortable minutes continued, she eventually returned to the stage, still calling up from memory names of individuals badly treated on this Earth. No less than sixty incidents were enumerated. She finished in a whisper at the microphone, out of breath as if drained and disgusted by such a huge list bleeding out, reminding everyone of situations that happened, and apologizing for not being able to finish the recitation, “which would likely take me fifty years.”
Bilal found it intriguing how Ramona made a point of including family and friends as victims too. He was fascinated by her leaving the microphone and stage while continuing to try to make her way through all the names, as if indicating the list is so long that an allotted time to present onstage would never be adequate, the task instead incessantly ongoing, following you everywhere you go.
He listened to the entire discussion and Q&A session, thinking to himself, wow, I see my old friend has a lot to say. That is not how I remember her; she was always taciturn.
By the conclusion of the program he was visibly affected, recognizing that Ramona had just evoked many of the same issues with which he too had become particularly concerned.
October 27, 2023 Zoa's Arks is published.
New Novel About Wanting So Badly To Get to a Better World.
A Victory for Animals.
An Opportunity for Humanity.
Now available at amazon, barnes and noble, etc.
October 19, 2023: Zoa's Arks is now in production and should be out in November. Here's a fun excerpt:
In Australia, a surfer half-jokingly alerted stunned, just-arrived travelers that koalas were refusing to allow tourists to snap the expected, customary photos with them. The creatures were rudely turning their heads away from the cameras right before the moment the shutter was depressed. Not even the best professional photographers could figure out what to do to coax them into a renewed
cooperation.
As one disgruntled world traveler conveyed to everyone around, “What an embarrassment. I came all the way Down Under, spending I don’t care to remember how many countless god-forsaken hours stuffed inside a plane so I could get at least just one pic with a koala. I’ll be the laughing stock in front of everybody at the garden club back home.”
Her husband, sympathetic to her frustration but even more so wanting no part of being on the receiving end of her scorn for the foreseeable future should they fail, motioned to her to hold the harmless, cuddly animal even closer. He offered encouragement as he suggested, “Let’s just try this one more time. Come on, let’s do this. We can do it.”
Click. Click.
“The little monster did it again?” she guessed, hoping it wasn’t true.
“Yes, he did it again,” confirmed the husband who was striking out as a photographer but willing to try yet again. The marsupial had turned his head to the side with perfect timing before the desired image could be successfully captured. His wife looked down to the ground as she shook her head in disgust and shooed the animal away, before storming out of the room to try to find someone in the crowd who could snap a picture of her hugging a jar of Vegemite.
June 17, 2021: A novel entitled Zoa's Arks is now entering the final stages of the writing process!
March 23, 2019: The World is Around You but You are in Your Car and Yes You Are Home will form the basis of a fast-paced 5-minute micro-TED talk-like presentation by the author tonight on finding simplicity in the complexity of life. Twenty images were selected to be projected overhead to accentuate the presentation. A different image advances every 15 seconds. Looking forward to what the other speakers have to say as well and it should be a lot of fun! Check out the website! And hopefully you can attend this interesting event, Ignite 2019: A Night of Simplicity, at Millspace: Center for Art, History and Culture in Newmarket, NH.
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The William Fogg Library in Eliot, Maine held its first Author's Fair on Monday, October 28, 2013, featuring 20 local authors, including Jane Harper, Layne Case, Eileen Doyon, KD Mason, and W. Trently. The event was held in the library proper and the historic Fogg Homestead which is adjacent to the library.
New from the author! Snapshot: Ship's Dentists is a nonfiction book published in July 2011. The ADA New Dentist News (December 2011) featured Drs. William Trently, Jennifer Friedman, and Brian Tuttle in an article entitled "Transitioning From Federal Service Dentistry."
On Tuesday, May 3, 2011, the Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham, New Hampshire hosted its Local Authors Night. Authors Lara Bricker, Pat Parnell, M.F. Bloxam, William Trently, and Norman Phillips read from their works and engaged in an interesting discussion of the writing process and business.
A short presentation by the author and book-signing was held January 13, 2010 at the Lamprey Professional Building in Raymond, New Hampshire for an audience of about 23 people. The book's framework was discussed, including the blending of fiction with nonfiction.
RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire hosted a Local Authors Night on Monday, August 31, 2009 at 7 PM. There was wine and cheese and a chance to discuss books, writing, and publishing. The World is Around You was one of the books featured.
