Subject: Letter to the Editor

Some vegetarian readers don't like to think they are munching on live plants but are instread safely consuming the remains of the late vegatable. Sue Savage thinks lettuce dies very shortly after being disconnected from the ground. Does she die between meals? Cannot people go more than 20 days without food, five or six without water? How long can the humble head of lettuce last refrigerated -- surely long enough for it to be picked, packed, shipped, bought, and eaten, still blissfully alive. I mean, fresh vegetables taste the best and are the most nutritious, aren't they?

Maxine Gates is so proud of her lifestyle. She shares a kinship with animals, but not with plants, which apparently don't have mothers. How sad she will be to find out that they do! Yes, plants reproduce sexually, despite that fact that some can self-fertilize (pollinate) and some are hermaphrodites. As an avid gardener, I don't like to think that when I stick my nose into a flower and breath deep of it's wonderful fragrance, I'm really sticking my nose into it's sexual organ and inhaling it's version of sperm (which we call pollen), but that's the truth. No doubt she will be sad to also learn that plants communicate not only with other plants -- often an alert that animals are munching, causing swift chemical changes in surrounding plants -- but also her buddies, animals. No, it's safer for her to stay an anti-plant bigot and not think that in order for any animal (including us humans) to survive, it must kill and eat, while those pacifist plants, they can survive without causing any death. Yes, the difference between plants and animals is clear to any fool. Frankly, the only moral eating pattern is to eat only other killer animals, condemned by their own nature, and spare those harmless plants.

Thanks for your kind attention.