[283] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
some thoughts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Laura C Dilley)
Thu Dec 1 01:25:32 1994
To: vsg@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 01:22:56 EST
From: Laura C Dilley <elsiedee@MIT.EDU>
Hi, all,
As the first semester draws to a close (yay!), there were some thoughts that I
had that I wanted to share with you all.
First, in order to get a sense for the composition of our list, I wonder if you
each could send me a brief email with the following information:
1) your name
2) year in school, staff/faculty, or other (affiliation with MIT?)
3) if you live on or off campus (optional)
4) primary reason for being vegetarian: ethical reasons/animal rights, health
reasons, religion, environmental, or other
5) any comments - your opinion of posts to this list, what you'd like to see
more/less of, etc.
VSG exists as a resource for all of us as vegetarians. It is a chance to
interact with other non-meat-eaters, both electronically and in person, to find
out how other vegetarians survive in a meat-eating society, and discover others'
views as well as mold our own views. In view of this, the more discussion that
takes place on this group, the better. Use the VSG connection to air your
thoughts, concerns, whatever. When I was a freshman I timidly lurked on the vsg
group, but once I asked a question, which went something like, "What reasons do
others have for not eating fish?", since I had been asked this by well-meaning
omnivores on several occasions and couldn't come up with any satisfactory
response. To my pleasant surprise, I received at least a half-dozen responses.
And that's just one example.
On this group I see myself filling the role of a kind of moderator, a person who
keeps the list active, but I also am a mediator between our group and other
groups with more resources and members. I get anywhere between 40-70 messages
_per day_ in my inbox from the various lists that I'm on. (Imagine sorting
throught _that_!) My point is that I have connections. Very pointedly, you may
feel free send me questions for specific information; if I don't know it
directly, I can forward the request to the big internet groups. So far this
semester I have found a recipe for someone for minestrone soup, wrangled up the
address and phone number of a local wildlife rehabilitation center, and
uncovered that sheep velum is _not_, after all, what diplomas are printed on.
If you would like to see more of a certain thing on this group, kindly let me
know. I have been sending out more recipes lately because I got a positive
response to the first few I sent out.
If you have any vegetarian friends that are not on this list, ask them if they'd
like to join the list. All you have to do is send email with their username to
vsg-request. More members are always welcome!!
Additionally, there is a list called seta - Students for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals, an offshoot of PETA - which has not been very active this year but
which occasionally gets animal-rights-oriented traffic. VSG and seta were
originally separate organizations entirely, but I believe that since seta
activity has dropped off, VSG may be picking up some of the slack. Anyway, if
you would like to be a part of the seta mailing list, send email to
seta-request. (I wasn't sure if new members of vsg were aware of seta's
existence.)
Whew! I think I'm all opinioned-out for the moment. Any and all responses to
this message are welcome.
Sincerely,
Laura
P.S. I discovered today - to my chagrin - that Yoplait light yogurt contains
gelatin. :( Beware!
