Dear CNN, you suck. / Dear non-vegans, don’t worry, I’m not planning to blow anything up today

all right folks. calm down. if this is your first experience with the word vegan, step away from the CNN Web site.

slowly :: slowly ::

ok. there. now we can have an intelligent conversation about the following headline, which has been running on the CNN.com

Vegan on FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ list

really? REALLY? what the crap?

one my twitter follows, foodeater, alerted me to the situation, with a tweet, and i immediately alerted my roommate with comments such as “I HATE CNN,” “CNN SUCKS!” and “WHY ARE PEOPLE SO STUPID?!”

here’s the issue: why do they have to identify the crazy person by his vegan status? if it were a story about a man burning down abortion clinics in the name of all things holy, would the headline have read “Christian on FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ list?” um no. it would not. and if it did, craploads of christians would undoubtedly raise their hands, point to CNN and ask, “what the frick?”

really though, this doesn’t make mad, so much as it makes me distressed. i spend all my hours trying to be cool and awesome and explaing to anyone who asks that veganism is not crazy, but actually just cool and awesome like myself. and that really, within the next few decades it may well move up a few notches on the “normal” scale.

but then, CNN comes along and is all: VEGAN = TERRORIST. and then millions of people around the interweb get the idea in their head that anyone crazy enough to “eat no meat or any other food containing animal products” will probably also be crazy enough to go around bombing things. and WAM!, vegan shoots way down to the bottom of the “normal” scale.

so yes, it makes me sad.

it’s not all bad news though. today i saw a vegan steak-like product at Whole Foods, so maybe that will convince a few more people that the whole plant-based diet is doable. what’s that? it doesn’t actually taste like steak? oh. ok. well, have you tried the fake chicken? because that stuff rocks!

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Comments

  1. I just tell people that I’m vegan because I hate animals and I want nothing to do with them. Once I get that point across, people begin to understand that I blow stuff up because I am taking revenge on a girl that dumped me in college; not for animal rights. I figure if I blow up two more of the corporate buildings she is employed at, it will make her resume difficult and uncomfortable to explain.

  2. I know how hard you work, or all vegetarians and vegans work to convince people they aren’t crazy. The article title is misleading. However, your post sounds a bit paranoid. On this I have to stand with the FBI. According to the peer reviewed research done by:

    “How Many Adults Are Vegetarian?”. Vegetarian Journal. Vegetarian Resource Group. http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2006issue4/vj2006issue4poll.htm. Retrieved on 2007-03-18.

    Only approximately 1.3% of the US population is Vegan. Last I checked there is currently 306,294,378 people in the US. So, by simple math, 1.3% of that population number is only 3,981,826 vegans in the US. So, by identifying this man who is wanted, by his choice to be a vegan, they have already eliminated 302,312,552 people. This makes the likelihood of identifying him statistically much higher. They accomplished this with only a single trait of his personality and habits. By doing this and publishing his picture, their chances of someone recognizing him goes up significantly. I don’t think they are doing this because they are “out to get vegans” or labeling all vegans as terrorists. Its simply a numbers game, and statistically that part of his personality singled him out far better than many others would have.

    Just some thoughts.

    Cheers

  3. re: SCVegan, your response is hilarious. i wish id thought to write it myself.

    re: lyndon, i don’t doubt that identifying him as a vegan as one of FBI’s search factors is legit. It’s the CNN headline that ran on their home page that frustrated me. It made vegan look like a dirty word, in the same way that saying “Islamic man on terrorist list” makes Islam look bad. Yes, I may have written that post in quick anger, but I stand by it.

    — Crystal

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