Why I Am A Vegetarian and More…

This is another of the new posts I'm trying that are sort of about me. I'll be posting a report on the local government strikes from the next few days once I've collated reports from the other members in North Wales (it may even have photos! - we'll its exciting for me!).

I don’t know if I have ever commented on my vegetarianism on this blog before, but I do think I have. The first question I often find I am asked is why? Now for me it is not solely a question of believing it is immoral to eat meat - although the conditions many animals are kept in are rather barbaric – but more a case of my teeth. As a child I broke my chin/jaw and it never set quite right meaning that I always struggled to chew ‘thick’ meat. From this, when I moved out of home I tended to only eat processed food, trued some vegetarian food instead, found I liked it and started eating that instead. But more than just stopping eating meat, I found myself willing to try and whole array of foodstuffs I hadn’t before and really enjoying them.
I think many people are somewhat ‘lazy’ when it comes to food, eating processed foods, especially microwavable meals or takeaways, but I think that’s because under todays conditions of never seeming to have enough time and being stressed out we simply revert to what’s easiest, something quick and that we know and like. This is not to say that I think everyone should be expert’s who can cook a range of the finest cuisine, but ordinary people should have the time to make that an option available to them, through trying to ensure that they can acquire easily the ingredients they need and have a shorter working week to give the time. But they should also have the option to be able to eat out as and when it suits them. I’m reminded of an article by Trotsky which called for the setting up of subsidised restaurants for workers in Russia after the revolution (I believe this was alongside setting up other things such as publicly run laundrettes etc. to take some of the ‘drudgery’ out of housework). I’d go further and call for decent quality food, with a good selection of choice for vegetarians, vegans and those with food allergies too.

Birthdays & Other Celebrations

Today is my little brothers birthday, yesterday was my dad's birthday and in six days time is my birthday. Yes, it's brithday season in my family. So we're going out for a meal to celebrate tonight and i've had to get presents for them. I have to say I have got them something, but with me it's a case of that I either get something really good, or something that's sort of alright but not great. these two are probably both the latter, but we'll see (last year was both the former). But it's got me thinking, bout the kind of forced nature of birthdays, of having to celebrate on a specific day.
Basically, I don't like it. I'd rather not just celebrate my birthday. It's mostly becuase it seems to be like it's just one nice day out of 365, whereas i just want people to be randomly nice to me, not suck up on one day.
Same goes for chrsitmas, everyone knows how busy it gets, how nothings ever open etc. Wouldn't it be great if we all didn't celebrate at the same time, then everything would work all the time, we wouldn't have busy periods (cos there'd always be some people off, and some people at work etc.) I also reckon people would enjoy just getting to spend time together more if it was when they wnated rather than kinda forced.
I don't think this kind of thing is possible at the moment, cos lifes so rubbish that getting the odd day that's really great is the best that people can do under capitalism, but i'd like to think that under a socialist society we could all enjoy every single day and get the feeling you get when you're able to just enjoy a day all year round rather than once a year.