I also am a member of this group - and this is one of the lesser unhinged rants of 2025, but a great one nonetheless.

If Minnie J. were real and had authority (whatever a milk bottle scepter allows) I have a feeling they'd be encouraging quite the opposite to consuming more dairy

I cry 10x more and can eat at less restaurants, but the tradeoffs have been so worth it for what I've gained. I recommend it!

Using the choices and privilege you have to better orient to suffering isn't going to solve it, but it might open your heart to all suffering in a way that fundamentally changes you into a more compassionate person. I recommend it really for that reason alone.

for lack of capacity or resources, but who can see it for what it is, than someone who makes eating bacon a personality trait. We're without choice opted into many systems of harm (tax dollars to build prisons) while also recognizing soberly the suffering they cause. Why not with food?

Am I fully rid of systems that harm people and animals? Not at all. Are there multiple ways to reduce harm in both areas? Absolutely. Passive complicity makes that impulse to not name suffering for what it is appealing - there's a big difference from being someone who consumes animal products

Dogs, the highest approval rating animal, are bred for testing legally in the US for our shampoos, makeup, medications, etc. I look for products with a cruelty free label for the same reason I vote for people who want policies that support the most vulnerable people in our community.

I see the liberation of all beings as bound together - so I have little hope of solving human suffering if that doesn't stretch to all sentient creatures. Otherwise, we're all just drawing our own fences of what suffering we're cool with, which so far hasn't gotten us very far.

The same ethical/moral DNA that causes me to care about homelessness, mass incarceration, and other human issues is the exact same reason I care about animals that never touch grass, who are experimented on, and who are crammed so tight in a cage they can't turn around (see the overlap?)

but hadn't applied to a choice I make 3-4 times every day. The moral consistency has been cool, but the real change is that it opened my heart up to be broken by suffering and to look at it soberly, which has fundamentally changed me into a more compassionate and caring person in all areas of life.

I used to turn a partial blind eye towards animal suffering because I had seen the documentaries and hadn't changed. The arguments that upheld consuming animals were the same ones I had worked to rid myself of in other areas (circle of life, way its always been, higher on food chain)

the new Wednesday album is SO GOOD

he's going to EXPECT them Tony!

Not a MPLS exclusive problem, but taking the green line between downtowns would be a great one - so slow!

it was Cathy Bennett with Twin Cities Housing Alliance - I work at FHF so this jumped out - we rarely weigh in publicly

Who did you work with for solar? I had the same water heater installed last year and it's great!

Amtrak WiFi has not worked at all - just stalls out. Cell service has been super spotty - I had planned to work on the ride but that hasn’t really been possible