The middle of February.  Still winter.

So why during my walk this morning did White Rock Lake seem so empty, so devoid of this season’s normal inhabitants.

Too few waterfowl appeared as I strolled from Sunset Bay to Winfrey Point, back again, then to the Bathhouse Cultural Center before returning to Sunset Bay.

This area normally teems with life this time of year, from regulars like ring-billed gulls and mallard ducks to migratory visitors like snow geese and American white pelicans.

But this morning?

Few winter visitors could be found, and only the year-round residents were to be seen.

Climate change, in my opinion.

Our cold has been anything but this year, a tryst here and there with freezing, but mostly warmer than that, warmer than usual.

Have northern migrations begun early this year in light of the absent finger of frigid weather?  Did the lake empty so quickly because no one sees a reason to stay through such a temperate season?

I wonder.

Watch this video.

Watch it, I said!

If you eat meat of any kind, watch it.  You owe your own integrity that much.

Now consider this is what you eat, this cruelty, this inhumanity, this horrific abuse of sentient life.

You dine on these sick and crippled animals that can’t even rise on their own feet.

This is what you eat.  This barbaric treatment is what you request each time you eat it.  This troglodytic manhandling of living creatures is what you beg for each time you chow down on another animal’s flesh.

That’s it.

And now?

The largest beef recall in history has just been demanded by the USDA.  It would appear one slaughterhouse, notorious for mistreating animals, pushed the sick and infirm into the food line along with those capable of walking.

But don’t think this an isolated case.

Meet your meat.

Go ahead, unless you’re a wimp, a scared, frightened, inhumane asshole who doesn’t want to see the truth.

That last link is the nail that sealed the coffin of my vegan choice, the very truth of what I decided on moral grounds.  Before you bite into that chicken sandwich or throw those hamburgers on the grill, you owe it to your sense of humanity to watch that video (assuming the first one meant nothing to you).

If you don’t watch it, I have no time for you.  Period.  You’ve selected callous disregard over informed choosing.

If you do watch it and make no changes to your lifestyle, I have no time for you.  Period.  You’ve selected murderous horror over merciful living.

And don’t pretend you’re innocent just because you don’t eat meat but still consume eggs and cheese and the like.  Just watch the second video to understand why you’re doing nothing more than pretending to be human while acting out a murderous rampage upon other living beings, a pitiless, brutal, malicious consuming of that so vilely treated, so ghoulishly abused.

You call yourselves kind…

If you keep up with the images posted at my photoblog, xenogere unseen, you undoubtedly realized I have been posting more frequently than the once-per-week-perhaps schedule I originally intended to follow.

I went on to clarify that further by saying I would “post irregularly whatever catches my eye yet fails to wind up” on xenogere.

Even that seems deceptive.

So why the expedited exhibition?  Why have I posted 24 pictures in these past six weeks?

The answer seems clear.

xenogere boasts more than 1,700 images to date (almost 325 MB of photographic data, compression and resolution notwithstanding).

My collection, however, contains 13,447 photos (almost 29 GB of unmodified image data).

I have yet to scratch the surface of the whole, only recently finding myself reviewing what I captured on February 14, 2004.  That’s a mere 28 days processed out of 285 days total (days being the date-defined segregation of each set taken between October 31, 2003, and today, February 17, 2008).

The point is this: Only 12% of my images are available; only 22% of my videos are available.

In the case of the latter, compatibility and quality play an even greater role, so it’s unlikely I will ever be able to share the majority of my videos.

But in the case of the former?  Well, that’s quite different.

And hence comes the rapid revelation via xenogere unseen.

Since I don’t intend to stop taking pictures, the only way I can share what I have and what is worth sharing is to post what I think deserves your perusal.

Therefore, I will continue the rapid-fire presentations at xenogere unseen until such time as I have “caught up” with what from this menagerie begs to be shown.

At least in my opinion, since I delineate what goes there and what goes here by a very subjective set of rules.

In either case, you’re apt to see what I feel is noteworthy.  The only question is where: Here or there?