Future Overachiever

Does a decision become a moral one when the choices have an irreversible effect on future generations?

This question seems easy enough to answer, but the reason I post it is that I read an argument against environmentalism that said “Environmentalism goes beyond science when it elevates matters of preference to matters of morality” (link). Should environmental issues really be simplified to matters of preference? Can I prefer to destroy in part what the public collectively owns? The question posted above would also answer whether or not decisions regarding the well-being of the environment should be elevated to issues of morality. If the answer is no, then maybe it is time to consider what conditions are necessary for a decision or issue to be accepted as a moral one?

It is my understanding that science is the collective human comprehension of the behavior of nature. This makes environmentalism a logical facet of science when concerns for the welfare of nature do arise. Science has always struggled with moral issues — nuclear weapons, stem cells, cloning, etc. Often there will be a moral decision between two or more choices for which a scientific framework has provided logical predictions. The environmentalist movement is such a situation. I wonder how the author of the above quote can possibly believe that his argument is strong/valid when it is science and scientists who are at the heart of environmentalism, especially since global warming and genetic engineering controversies have developed. I would invite him to take any course that explores the ethics of science. Surely he’ll realize that science and morality are not as independent as he asserts.

Using the scientific method, I hypothesize that in any debate between scientists and economists I will always side with the scientists. It should be noted that I do not side with environmentalist methods across the board, but that I recognize the environmentalist cause as necessary for the well-being of humanity and nature. But then, I don’t measure humanity’s well-being by financial wealth.

Just for fun, here’s a link to an article about the most polluted city on Earth.

I recently read Violence by James Gilligan. After working with violent inmates for 25 years as a psychologist, Gilligan has come to the conclusion that violence is caused by shame and humiliation, and that the conditions for the development of this shame and humiliation are inherent in the American class structure as a whole. He supports this conclusion with inmate biographies, reputable references, and his personal long-term studies. Its a strong case and very insightful read, but it was the section about the structure and failure of our entire prison system that kept me awake last night.

Gilligan goes into great detail about widespread prison violence, and specifically, prison rape. Not only is prison rape far more common than outsiders could ever imagine, but Gilligan explains that it is often encouraged by prison guards and officials. The reason for this is to redirect any aggression that would be against the guards, and keep it amongst the inmate population. Gilligan states that some prisons purposely segregate by race for this reason also — if blacks, whites, and Mexicans are all fighting each other, there’s less chance that they will fight the very people who keep them there. Prison officials have a strong interest in keeping all internal aggression within the inmate population.

After illustrating the prison structure of violence, Gilligan draws a parallel with class structure in the U.S. The richest ten percent have a vested interest in maintaining crime and violence amongst the working class. This crime and violence gives the middle class and the non-criminal working class a population to point the finger at as the cause of their oppression. That is, honorable middle and working class people are too busy condemning criminal activity to realize that it is the rich upper class that is the root cause of their hardships and overall economic inequality.

It is these two illustrations of prison system structure and class structure that led me to a realization late last night: The U.S. government and military have no interest in preventing or reversing the civil war that is developing in Iraq. With a civil war going on in Iraq, the U.S. military can back off slightly while the entire country kills one another. Not only that, but with Iran backing the Shia and Saudi Arabia backing the Sunni, with finances and weaponry, military spending should decrease slightly for the U.S. (but surely those funds will be redirected to support what will be the Iran War in coming months). Continuing with this thought, the U.S. would benefit more if the violence in Iraq escalated — the faster the region falls apart and kills each other the better. All the U.S. has to do is wait for those smoldering embers to completely extinguish themselves so that the ashes can be easily swept up. At that point, we can swoop in and consume the natural resources. I keep imagining one of those Bugs Bunny scenes where a brawl breaks out and Bugs crawls out from the bottom of the fight and watches the fight from the sideline while eating a carrot.

Hardcore Woody Allen fans and fast-food-slurping Westerners might not know this, but the banana is the most incredible food ever to exist. They were first cultivated in Papua New Guinea 10,000 years ago, and they currently are ranked fourth in human consumption, behind rice, wheat, and maize (ref). These four foods make up two-thirds of global human caloric consumption (ref). That’s a lot of bananas.

I saw a very convincing short film about bananas being the proof of god’s existence. As a skeptic, if I ever was going to head in that direction — the direction of gods, lords, and saints — I would definitely agree that bananas are an indicator of truth. But for now I’ll say that bananas are the pinnacle of perfect evolution. They come in their own biodegradable and easily-removable packaging. They don’t have to be broken into smaller pieces before eating — that is, their shape and size so perfectly fits into the human mouth that there is no need to ever touch the “meat,” also making them a clean snack. And they are nutritious enough to be a staple food for 500 million people worldwide. Surely, if I start to feel the spirit, and need to offer myself in complete humbleness before a divine entity, that entity would be Banana.

I’ll go out on a limb here — a very thin and unstable limb — and say that bananas are the reason that humans evolved from primates. Everybody knows that apes love bananas, and since humans evolved from apes, bananas cause humans. Let me clarify: BANANAS + APES = HUMANS. And even in this equation, the apes are more of a catalyst. The banana –> human reaction would have happened without them eventually, but apes were chosen by Banana to be the vehicle from which humans evolved. Bananas = life. Bananas provided the glucose needed in the amounts needed for the brains of our ancestors to evolve into the minds we have today. Bananas = reason.

Which brings me to the bad news: An article on The Guardian’s website by James Meek entitled “Yes - In Ten Years We May Have No Bananas” illuminates a horror that will end my future religious experiences before they start (link to Meek’s article). According to France-based scientists, bananas worldwide do not possess enough genetic variation to combat the two diseases, Panama disease and black Sigatoka, that are wiping them out completely. Meek compares the situation to the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. I’m not sure that anyone besides those French scientists, James Meek, and me, really understands the seriousness of this: no banana, no life.

Scientists say that frogs are an indicator species for our environment as a whole — when the frogs start growing two heads, it’s time to stop fucking around with Mums Earth. I would offer that the banana is the indicator entity for our spiritual well-being as a whole — when the bananas are gone, then god has simply given up on us… farewell solidarity, purpose, and tradition. Scientists also predict that ten years from now will be the tipping point for global warming; I guess there is hope that the ensuing climate change will be sufficient to wipe out the above-stated diseases so that we can enjoy some delicious bananas while the human race is slowly eradicated.

So the United States spent $419.3 billion on defense in 2006… so what. Four hundred nineteen billion three hundred million: $419,300,000,000.

That’s a lot of clams, but I think my beef is with the title and purpose of the Department of “Defense” — I don’t see them funding defense as much as an offense. I guess you could argue that it’s “proactive defense,” debilitating the nations who look at us crooked as a defense. And with this theory maybe you could justify building 20 B-2 bombers at $2.2 billion EACH, which is 31 times more than the $68.8 million invested in education in 2006 [.pdf]. Or maybe the title of “Department of Defense” refers to the defenses of those who are against us, which we eliminate with $419 billion worth of aggressiveness. This makes more sense, but I doubt it’s what they had in mind.

I would think that $419.3 billion, or the fraction that was spent in 2001, would be enough to defend against an attack of our own planes if it was properly spent — or for that matter, any attack that was actually on U.S. land. With this in mind, plus the conditions in Iraq despite the $361.6 billion that war has cost, it seems clear that military spending in the U.S. is mismanaged. And that’s not even mentioning that the combined cost of Afghanistan and Iraq is at $811 billion, and Afghanistan is still unstable. As the Washington Posts states, this combined cost has “far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the Vietnam War” (link) — a war that left this country in economic crisis. But hey, I don’t really study these things.

What distresses me more, is considering which programs had funding cut to add to the massive budget of the Department of Defense. If the U.S. keeps cutting funding to our internal programs to fund “defense,” I imagine that we’ll soon have nothing of value to defend. In my mind I picture gigantic walls all around the U.S. borders — kind of like the new Mexican border wall — with a multitude of guns and cannons and technologically advanced ray guns mounted all over them… but inside these vast walls is a barren wasteland, polluted and diseased.

Despite the president’s proposal in the State of the Union Address, I doubt that the United States government will ever offer suitable health care to its citizens. Not only has Washington never had an interest in the nation’s health, but it has taken action specifically to prevent the public from getting nutritional information.

A few years back, the PCRM sued the USDA, who was just about to release the new food guide pyramid, for having 6 of its 11 members with direct ties to the meat and dairy industry. Of course, colon cancer risks have long been correlated with red meat and processed meat consumption, osteoporosis with dairy product consumption, and heart disease with saturated fat and cholesterol intake found predominantly in meat and dairy products. The meat, dairy, and egg industries have lobbied heavily to determine where their products are placed in the food pyramid and to increase the recommended daily servings. Big pharmaceutical companies also lobby heavily to law makers and government organizations to promote their interest in an unhealthy nation. All of this lobbying costs the general population its health and its hard-earned money to pay for health care (most of the above information can be obtained in the book Food Politics by Marion Nestle, The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, and also on the PCRM website).

By offering socialized heath care, the U.S. government would be creating its own repercussions for the behavior it has exhibited in the past. Moving meat products down in food pyramid would cost lobbying dollars but save money in its health care plan, and vice versa. The government would create a conflictive interest in lowering meat consumption even though the beef industry alone contributes around $18 billion to our economy. Adding the egg and dairy industries, fast food and junk food industries, the pharmaceutical industry, and all the other levels of the medical industry, I think it’s safe to say that the unhealth of our population is relied upon for a large part of our economy. Our government doesn’t have the humanity and intelligence needed to restructure this economic flow, and without restructuring, socialized health care would be another economic burden that it will not choose to afford.

Here is a link to a story about how city officials in St. Petersburg, Florida are addressing the problem of homeless: article (watch the video too).

When I first watched this, my mouth dropped open an inch, my eyebrows signed my inquiry, and I started cracking up. I couldn’t believe that anyone would think that this would address homelessness on any level except community aesthetics. And even then all you have rid the community of are the tents. The homeless still need to eat and sleep.

Under the laughter was infuriation. Homelessness is a symptom. Racism is a symptom. Road rage, domestic violence, drug abuse, low standardized test scores… in my view, symptoms. And if you look close enough, if you trace the causes, you will run into economic inequalities as a main cause. But addressing them would mean the upper classes having less, and that is unacceptable.

I have friends who say that people create their individual circumstances. They insist that homelessness is caused by laziness, or at least indetermination. Statements like these, however, are usually spouted from the convenience of income stability and the luxury of on-time mortgage and car payments. Many of these same people would be offended if a homeless person even walked down their street.

Globalization made it profitable for factories to move outside of our borders and take all those jobs with them. Of course the profits that the upper economic class gained led to greater income disparities. Welfare reform cut funding and added restrictions while the minimum wage dropped and housing prices increased (in real dollars).

Slashing the tents of homeless people with box cutters is a bit like saying, “You are not allowed to be affected by the deteriorating economic condition even though you rely on it for your basic human needs.” And it pisses me off.

EDIT: There is an inspiring update to the linked article above (link). The local community and ministries have responded by donating fire extinguishers and fire-proof tents, which they spaced further apart to appease the city’s claims that the previous camp was a fire hazard. What’s more, off duty fire official drove by and admitted that tearing the camp down was wrong.

New photos of the NASA Mars Rover have been publicized (link to the full photo here). Every time I see the results of the NASA Space Program, I cannot help but weigh the coolness factor against their annual budget of $16 billion, and wonder if space exploration is the best use of this funding. This $16 billion budget for 2005 divided by the 20.5 million people between the ages of 18 and 64 who were below the poverty line in 2005 as defined by the U.S. census bureau equals $800 per person per year. This does not sound like much at first, but the poverty line guidelines for 2005 were defined by the United States Department of Health and Human Services as an annual income of less than $9,570 for one person. That makes $800 just under 10% of their annual income at the least. At this level, an extra $800 a year can change someone’s life, or at least help him or her provide for his or her children or start community college.

Now, I understand that in reality this money would mostly be caught up in bureaucratic ping-pong if a program like this was actually to be restructured in this direction. This is not an actual proposition, just my thoughts when I see photos of multi-million dollar machines on the surface of Mars or even the Moon. I also know that even if this money was not caught up in the bureaucracy of federal organizations, it would help very little with the long-term problems of unemployment, single welfare mothers, institutional racism, and what have you. I should also acknowledge here that I have not misconceived the intentions of the United States to help the poor—the U.S. government has shown that they have little interest in solving the problems of poverty nationally. NASA does create jobs and lend to our economy, but I wonder if the people below the poverty line see any of it. And, as my wife points out, NASA looks into global warming on a pretty large scale, which is great. It’s too bad that the Bush administration censors the scientific information coming out of NASA so severely, as explained by James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

I know that many people see the NASA photos of the Mars Rover, they see progress or prosperity or patriotism, but I see a misstep. I admit that my naive view on this subject will bring me nothing but frustrations, and that expecting compassion from a government is unrealistic and anthropomorphic… hopefully, though, it is just a beginning in the lifelong process of finding theoretical solutions and educating myself about why they are or why they are not actual solutions.

I recently did a presentation and short paper on the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. The Dead Zone is a hypoxic area near the Mississippi River and Achafalaya River mouths that does not have enough oxygen to sustain marine life, due to runoff and pollution in the Mississippi River. It forms yearly and peaks in size around late July—in the last couple years it has grown to about 20,000 sq/km. While doing this project I learned all kinds of facts about the Dead Zone and the Mississippi River and pollution and agriculture, but one thing caught my attention specifically.

The Dead Zone has developed in the last fifty years, since synthesized fertilizers have become a common luxury. Because pollution affects environments and ecosystems, which are made up of geologic formations as well as biological organisms, we have to consider this amount of time with a geologic and biologic reference. The Gulf of Mexico has been in its current geologic state for about 200 million years—since Pangaea broke up and North America moved away from the African continent. Which means the biological ecosystems and food webs have been evolving there for about that long. When an environment is given 200 million years to evolve, without being altered by the byproducts of human progress, the result is a natural masterpiece of biology and geology. The Grand Canyon is a perfect example. Although the Gulf of Mexico is less visually stimulating because it is under an ocean, this ocean makes it far more impressive and diverse biologically. But fifty years of human-caused pollution and runoff has undermined 200 million years of natural development—development that cannot be recreated to that degree of perfection in a shorter amount of time.

Dead Zones are forming all over the developed world, but Westerners do not seem to understand or acknowledge the devastating environmental impacts that are the result of their desire for luxuries. Most people who do condemn environmental pollution have a hard time making the lifestyle changes that could reverse it. I am the same. I have made some positive changes in the last 3-4 years, but because there is more to be done, and I am capable of doing more, I must continue to make permanent positive changes in my life.

Calculate your environmental footprint at www.myfootprint.org.

The medical definition for stress includes mental tension and physiological reactions. I think most people, however, only consider stress to be a type of mental anxiety due to stressors from the outside environment: traffic, job, marriage. The natural biological reactions to unhealthy lifestyles, which can lead to diseases of adaptation, are not included in the everyday concept of stress. But if there’s going to be any kind of preventive medicine revolution in this country, these physiological stresses need to be understood.

Physiological reactions, or stresses, are happening to our bodies all the time. Exercise is regulated physical stress, in reaction to energy demands, with healthy benefits. Knocking our knee on the leg of the table and getting a bruise causes short-term localized stress while the body addresses the injury. Some lifestyle choices cause long-term stress to our bodies and result in unhealthy consequences.

Let’s consider smoking for instance. Nicotine, the stressor, causes blood vessels to constrict. The body reacts by working harder to pump sufficient amounts of blood. This high blood pressure is the stress. Depending on how much people smoke, their bodies might be in a constant state of this reaction. Someone who is on vacation lounging on an empty beach somewhere might think that their body is perfectly relaxed, but if they are feeding their smoking addiction, they are under physical stress.In 1936, endocrinologist Hans Selye developed a generalized series of three stages, which take place when the body is subjected to long-term physical stressors. It is called the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) and is still accepted today. According to Selye, when the body is subjected to a stressor, the first of three phases begins, the alarm reaction phase. At this stage, the body activates the sympathetic nervous system in reaction to the stressor. This causes a variety of different things to happen; among them are increases in heart rate and/or blood pressure, or secretion of hormones in some cases. Using our smoking example, the body would increase its heart rate and blood pressure at this time in reaction to the nicotine. Because the stressor is new to the body, it is assumed that there is plenty of energy for the system to combat the stressor. Sometimes the stressor expires and the body can resume normal functions, as in the case of an occasional smoker. If this first stage is insufficient to deal with the stressor, however, if the body detects nicotine at regular intervals for instance, then stage two begins.

Stage two is called the resistance phase. Here the body attempts to adapt to the stressor. As the body realizes that its initial reaction is insufficient to ward off the stressor, the stress of high blood pressure and hormone secretion will subside a little to conserve energy. Still, it remains higher than normal to compensate. When this has gone on for an extended period, it can be classified as a disease, or what Selye called a “disease of adaptation,” clinical high blood pressure or arterial hypertension. The body remains in this phase until the stressor is gone or the energy reserves to combat it are gone, which is the exhaustion phase.

During the exhaustion phase, all energy reserves become depleted and the body becomes very susceptible to illnesses such as heart attack, stroke, or cancer. With smokers, the body might run out of energy to pump blood fast enough to meet the needs of the organs and tissue, congestive heart failure (and this isn’t even considering what smoking does to the lungs!). One-third of American adults have high blood pressure, it’s no wonder that heart disease is the number one killer.

This concept can be applied to all kinds of lifestyle choices. A high fat diet can cause central obesity, which secretes adipokines that impair glucose tolerance, eventually leading to type 2 diabetes. The diet, obesity, and hormone secretion are the stressors, diabetes is the disease of adaptation, and the symptoms of diabetes are the physiological stresses. It goes on and on: too much sodium leads to hypertension, excessive caffeine can lead to osteoporosis, alcohol leads to ulcers and liver damage… stressors lead to stress and diseases of adaptation.

The top four causes of death in the U.S. are, for the most part, due to lifestyle choices: (1) heart disease; (2) cancer; (3) stroke; and (4) chronic lower respiratory diseases (lung cancer). Patients and the general public need to decide how important their health is to them, if lifestyle changes are the costs to improve it. Judging by the present situation though, I’d have to say that the majority of westerners don’t give a damn about their health. I am in awe that people don’t make positive changes in their lifestyle, especially considering these statistics and that the cost of heart operation at around $40,000, a nice chunk of debt to will to the children.

It is the fundamental mistake of modern western medicine to address these diseases by suppressing the symptoms with medications or performing expensive surgeries that provide only temporary relief, rather than identifying the stressor and eliminating it. The simplistic view that patients are on their way to recovery when their symptoms are subdued—without lifestyle changes—must be retired. Physicians should understand that if they follow the series of stressors back far enough from the stresses, the main cause will reveal itself. Once the cause is determined and eliminated, the symptoms can be addressed. This method of treatment should be used even in the cases of suspected genetically predisposed diseases since it has been shown that even these need to be triggered to occur, usually by a lifestyle stressor.

Interestingly, the section on nutrition has been removed from the Hippocratic Oath. Hippocrates’ original version included this: “I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.” I guess health care officials omitted it since they had no idea what it meant.

The United States and the west is definitely having an obesity epidemic. We’re eating more, moving less, and packing on the pounds to show for it… we’re challenging furniture companies and airplane seat manufacturers to keep up with us and there’s no end in sight. I am overweight and find it extremely difficult to lose the pounds. Luckily, I made some calculations and I think there’s hope to use the obesity epidemic to solve the energy shortages.

The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy is increasing, that a small amount of energy is lost as heat in every reaction, and it cannot be recaptured. In a recent nutrition class I got in the habit of viewing body fat and calories purely as energy, and this led me to consider the cremation of obese people as an after-death option. Once that body fat is burned, the energy is gone forever as heat. What a waste! Isn’t there any way to harness all that energy that is released?

Exactly how much energy is in body fat? Well, one pound of fat is equal to 3500 kilocalories (kcal), which is 14,644,000 joules of energy. Just for fun, I looked into the conversion between joules and useable household energy. The Google calculator quickly gave me a conversion of 1 kcal to 0.00116222222 kilowatt hours (kWh)… so one pound of fat equals about 4 kWh. I went a little further: in November of 2005, the national average price of energy was 10 cents per kWh (9.74 cents rounded), which means there’s 40 cents worth of energy in a pound of fat. A typical U.S. household consumes about 800 kWh per month and pays about $77.92 for it, which means that an average house can run for a month off of about 200 pounds of body fat. So, to kill two birds with one stone, we can instal plugs into our asses and belly buttons and hook up liposuction machines to the power grid. All of the skinny countries who are laughing today, will be our energy customers tomorrow. All we need is a converter.

The social stigma regarding obesity in our own country might also take a turn for the better. Instead of people thinking, “Ohmigod, that dude is disgustingly huge,” they might comment, “Wow, how lucky you are to be able to run your house for four months in the case of a national emergency!” With my calculations, I could power our apartment for just under five days. That’s right America, prepare your collective middle finger for the energy companies.

I am a healthy vegan. I am not someone who saw a photo of a mutilated chicken and decided to live off of peanut butter sandwiches in protest. My skin does not have a green tint and I am not underweight. When people ask me if they should go vegan, I say no… Not unless they are prepared to invest about 2 hours a day in their lifestyle change for informed grocery shopping, home cooking, occasional diet analyses, and reading regarding this diet. It is crucial to learn what to add to your diet in place of all the things that are cut out of it. Given that it is so much work to practice a vegan diet in a healthy way, people often ask me why I do it.

The reasons that I practice a plant-based diet are many. Foremost, is that I have never had more physical energy or mental clarity as I have since I cut animal products out of my diet. At 30, I simply feel better than any time in my life.

Health reasons are the strongest determinants for my current diet. Vegan diets greatly reduce the risks of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. This is not only due to removing cholesterol and animal fats from the diet, but from increasing the intake of fruits, vegetables, and grains (and the vitamins, antioxidants, and phytonutrients therein). Innovators like Dr. Dean Ornish have not only stopped, but reversed, atherosclerosis with a low fat, plant-based diet, and shown a 90% drop in angina among patients with CVD. T. Colin Campbell PhD., chair of the nutrition department at Cornell University and outspoken vegan, carried out a longitudinal study of 6,500 rural Chinese that found a close correlation between meat and dairy consumption and the incidence of heart disease, cancer, and Type 1 diabetes. Studies have shown that atherosclerosis begins in around the early twenties; I am happy to be reversing it as I turn thirty. T. Colin Campbell’s book The China Study is an extensive look at these and other health benefits of plant-based diets.

I also believe it is a strong political statement to abstain from food products made by the corporations with the largest marketing and lobbying budgets. As illustrated so well in Food Politics by Marion Nestle, many of these corporate giants launch immoral, yet legal, marketing campaigns that either target children, mislead the public, or promote unhealthy lifestyles in the guise of longevity. Further, many of the committees that represent and are financially supported by the meat, dairy, egg, and pharmaceutical industries, regularly lobby to government officials in order to pass laws and regulations in their favor. Almost every time, these laws and regulations go against scientific nutritional evidence and the public suffers for it. Sadly, our government welcomes this funding. The first step in fixing this problem, for me, is not to support these corporations in any way. While I have no idea what the second step is yet, I am proud that none of the money that I work hard for supports these measures or this behavior.

Practicing a vegan diet also has many positive social and environmental implications as well, regarding world hunger, water conservation, and agricultural pollution among others. Sixty percent of the grain grown in the United States goes to feed livestock. It has been calculated that there is enough grain on the planet to feed every person, but great numbers of people are dying of starvation because they are competing with livestock for grain as a food source. Those starving humans are losing the battle and the livestock live dismal lives while polluting our air with methane and ammonia, and our rivers and watersheds with nitrogen and phosphorus. It is estimated that there are 1 million head of cattle in the U.S. at any time so I made some calculations: 100 million head of cattle in US, cows make 65 lbs of manure a day, that equals 6.5 billion lbs or 3.2 million tons of manure daily; nitrogen content is about 12 lbs/ton of cattle manure, this equals 20,000 tons of nitrogen a day in the U.S. from cattle manure alone (phosphorous is about 16,000 tons daily). This nitrogen runoff is threatening Mississippi River Basin and causing the 20,000 square kilometer hypoxic area in the Gulf of Mexico known as the Dead Zone. A plant-based diet of local organic produce eliminates all indirect support of these corporate farms and their unethical practices.

There are also ethical reasons to consider. Many vegans choose not to support the harming of animals in any way. Often times this belief also dictates the products they choose to buy and the companies and practices they choose to support outside of the food industry. Animals endure an excessive amount of pain and a horrible quality of life as livestock; often times they are housed in pens that are not even big enough for the animal to turn around, much less run (this fact also relates to the health implications: the animals that get no exercise have a much higher fat percentage). Along the same lines, some vegans say that they would prefer not to put anything into their body that has suffered in any way. Hindus, for instance, believe in karmic consequences for their actions, that they will receive equal suffering for any animal suffering in which they have contributed.

I cannot say that I would follow a plant-based diet if it meant compromising my health, but given all the above reasons, I am happy to be promoting my health and energy levels while eliminating my support for unethical corporate practices including political lobbying, environmental degradation, and excessive animal suffering, just to increase their bottom line.

A truly soulful live performance can make lasting impressions that will far outlive any plastic CD, and that timelessness is probably why rock giants still cover songs of the blues founders of the early and mid twentieth century. Soul can be equated with greatness and overall quality of a performance, but contrary to popular belief, technical musicianship has nothing to do with being soulful, although it can be an asset once the integrity has been established. Just to be clear, it is totally possible and not uncommon for an amazingly technical player to play with virtually no soul whatsoever. I think most musicians of this type are more inclined to become studio musicians and recording greats than their performing artist counterparts. Blues music has always been created to reach the soul, not the brain. It is the overall impression of the entire song that an audience will find piece of mind in, not whether or not it was musically executed correctly after it has been broken down by a critic.

Honesty, on the other hand, seems to be a large part of soulfulness. To me, a musician seems to have soul when the audience feels that they are getting to know the musician personally through the show—I am purposely using the word show here instead of music, because during a live performance it is the music, the lyrics, and also what is being said and done in between the songs that can add to the overall magic and soulfulness. This honesty would be nothing, however, without strong communication skills, in the lyrics and between songs. I can’t overstate the value, not only of having something powerful to say, but of knowing how to say it in a way that everyone can understand. I sense more soul when a musician invites the audience into their life and music in between the songs, and then performs the song to the best of their ability, with complete vulnerability, despite the audience. Anytime a musician uses a song for personal therapy, and the audience can watch the process, a bit of soul is revealed, and inspiration diffuses through the room.

Some say that a blues musician must have lived the blues before he has the right to sing them. This is because many people consider oppression to also be a large part of having soul and singing blues, but this leaves me wondering if I’m supposed to know the history of a musician before I am allowed to dig their music or refer to it directly as soulful. For me, initially, it is usually the opposite that happens. I fall in love with a song first, and then try to find out about the musicians life and story through liner notes and books, which usually leads me to other unknown soulful bluesmen. If it is a cover song, I find out who wrote it and recorded it first and I get the original immediately. One thing that has always been true for me is that once I learn about a musician’s life, my interest and enjoyment in their music immediately doubles, and every lyric and note has a stronger meaning. But instead of oppression, I tend to agree with local harp player Billy Watson that humility is one of the main ingredients that earn my ear and my respect; the more humbling experiences a musician can bring to the stage, oppressive or otherwise, the more soul and personality will be transferred. Local veteran bluesman Chris James adds that the humanity that comes out of humbling experiences is what an audience can relate to the most. He continues, “Talking about feeling is a very dangerous place to go. It’s not for me to say whether someone is playing with or without feeling. The question is, are you making the people you’re playing to feel something.” Once emotion erupts in an audience member as a direct result of the musician, the chemistry can create a bond in which soul and personality and general good feelings can be easily transferred in both directions.

I would rather listen to a Frankie Lee Sims record or an Elmore James record before an Eric Clapton record at any given time. This is not because Sims’ past is more tragic than Clapton’s or because James was more oppressed than Clapton or that they have earned it, it is simply because I hear more honesty there. I have a great respect for Clapton as a musician, but when I hear Elmore James sing, I consider it as direct as if it were the word of God with nothing lost in translation. Hearing Eric Clapton cover a tune that he heard Howlin’ Wolf cover which was an old Elmore James song leaves me longing for the source. The fact that Eric Clapton did a record of nothing but Robert Johnson songs should stand as testimony that he would not be in disagreement with me in this aspect. I don’t believe that Clapton was covering the songs in attempt to say that he had some amazing interpretation of them, as much as he was trying to remind his fans to go to the source for inspiration like he does. This is the same reason why the musicians I admire in San Diego cover the songs of known and unknown blues masters. I feel the same—musically, I prefer to hear the raw original. Similar to the childhood game of telephone, to me, for every degree of separation that transforms a song, a little of the original magic is lost. Almost every time, I hear more soul in the original recording.

I’ll end these thoughts with an idea that local guitar great Adrian Demain brought up to me in a similar conversation, which is that none of the definitions or descriptions of soul presented here mean anything at all, until soul itself is the definition. A musician won’t achieve soulfulness by knowing the ingredients and throwing them together, but when a musician does perform with a purity that can be defined as soulful, it will be unmistakable. So, whether or not it’s Muddy Waters singing “The Same Thing” on a record, or Chris James singing “Mona” at Patrick’s II, or Aretha Franklin singing “Ain’t No Way” in a dentist office waiting room, I know that soulful is the definition because the hair on my neck stands up, and goose bumps tremble, and I am able to absorb every note without filter… because music doesn’t have to, and should never go through the filter of the brain, to reach the soul.