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Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society, Inc. 38 East Market Street, Rhinebeck, New York 12572 USA -  845-876-2626 Vegetarian - Vegan - Animal Rights - Health - Nutrition - Environment The mission of the Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society, Inc. is to promote the vegetarian ethic in the Mid-Hudson (New York) region, educate the community and aid anyone in the pursuit of a totally vegetarian (vegan) cruelty-free and healthful lifestyle. Newsletters Articles From the Spring 1997 Newsletter Little Red Riding Hood Goes Veggie?! by Mohan Embar If you read nothing else... If you read nothing else, then go here: http://www.execpc.com/~mohwan/bkintro.html I am a first generation, American-born Indian (from India). I graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1988 and have since lived/worked in Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Research Triangle Park (North Carolina), Grenoble, Toulouse and Montpellier (France) and Leiderdorp and Voorschoten (the Netherlands), thanks to my wonderful Dutch wife. Both Wanda and I are vegans (strict vegetarians) and Animal Rightists. You'll find more information about this on my Animal Rights/vegetarian home page. The Problem Years ago, I got a weird feeling when arguing with a meat-eater. As we argued, I felt this person's "adult self" trying to come up with rational arguments.  Yet I couldn't help thinking that all the while, this person's "inner child" was singing the Oscar Meyer Wiener jingle. As intelligent and rational we'd like to appear, we've all been shaped by our childhood.   And a big part of our childhood consists of inane songs and stories which give us a warped vision of animals and their true nature. We forget a loved one's birthday, but will never forget the lyrics to Three Blind Mice. We all know the gist of Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and so on. The tenacity of these children's songs and fairy tales tells us that: - they are fulfilling a need - their continued existence will promote a skewed vision of animals - they represent an opportunity for Animal Rightists and vegetarians. The Solution What if we replaced this arbitrary and haphazard nonsense with better stuff?  This better stuff would have to be: - as (or more) catchy as the nonsense it proposes to replace - freely distributable By "freely distributable", I don't mean "in the public domain". Rather, the author of a new work would include a statement like Copyright (c) 1997 by Mohan Embar. All Rights Reserved. May be used and reproduced in unaltered form if accompanied by this copyright message. In this way, we would allow free distribution while preventing attempts to thwart our efforts. So Let's Do It! "Cool," you say. "So let's do it!". Okay, then come check out the web site mentioned at the beginning of this article. There, you will find stories and songs that I have created as well as others that people have submitted to me. I have made the promotion of new, better songs and stories my life's calling.  If you share this vision, you are welcome to join me. I would like to: - revamp this site to make it more visually appealing and less "me-centric" - get a virtual WWW domain instead of my "home-pagey" URL - find creative ways of advertising this site in order to  encourage both consultation and submissions If you have any submissions or suggestions, please contact me at "mohwan@execpc.com". P.S. This article's title alludes to my rewrite of Little Red Riding Hood: see http://www.execpc.com/~mohwan/redrhood.html. P.P.S. My apologies to non-Internet folks. At present, my limited time only permits me to take computer submissions. Return to Spring 1997 Newsletter We look forward to hearing from you

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