I must admit that letters to the editors and responses to articles on Web sites are one of my main sources of fodder for my rants. "USA Today" prints the best letters to the editor though. They tend pick out some great letters from morons all over the world. I don't have any particular Web site that goads me into open rebellion. Web sites vary, but you can be sure that there are many idiots who post replies to articles on news and technology sites that inspire me too. 

For some reason I get very angry when I see or hear coolspeak. Words like "partying", "party animal", "bonding" "mic" for "microwave", "fridge" for "refrigerator", "hang out" - as in "wanna hang out with me?", "cloud" when used as "Internet" or "Web", "gathering", when used to describe what used to be called a "get together" or "party"; well you get the idea. 

I am digressing.  

"USA Today" recently published an article on how sled dogs might hold the key to curing diabetes in humans. This might be good news for those who suffer from this nasty malady, so no doubt diabetics read the article with some degree of interest. The article, of course, opened the door to a raft of coolspeakers who basically blew off the article as just so much drivel. Which brings me to another coolspeak word I loathe and that word is "vegan" (pronounce vee-gin or vee-gun depending on how cool the coolspeaker is). It used to be "vegetarian". I guess so many vegetarians were slacking off by drinking milk, eating Cheetos, fish, chicken, turkey, etc. that those who now call themselves vegans - as a badge of honor - became the protestants of vegetarianism; a separatist group so to speak.

Better than mere vegetarians, this band of holier-than-thou coolspeakers believe that a vegan diet can prevent or cure all manner of diseases including diabetes and cancer. (I want to note here that vegans do, like everyone else, die. And they die of the same things everyone else does.) If you know any vegans then you know they like to make a big deal out of their veganism. If you have ever known any than you know what I mean. With just a glance of their gleaming white eyeballs they say to me, "You dirty, scummy, meat eater - you're going to die from eating that cottage cheese man - wake up!" Hey! I like cottage cheese "man"! I really like it which ketchup in it. Anything wrong with ketchup? Is that meat? 

I know I am a cantankerous, anti-social, meatbag; I don't need a vegan to point out the errors of my whales. The vegan assault on the "USA Today" article about sled dogs and diabetes riled me - not that it takes much to rile me these days. Their comments smacked of oily, snake oil salesmen spreading their gospel from a wagon in a travelling carnival. Telling people with diabetes that they would have never become diabetic if only they wouldn't have eaten hot dogs, chicken, dairy products, fish or anything else than comes from animals - which I want to point out includes Jell-O - really irritates me (can't you tell?). And, vegans condescending to diabetics with such advice as - "if only you would switch to a vegan diet you could throw away those insulin pumps and blood-sugar meters", makes my blood boil. Blood is an animal product too.

I would find it hard to bond with a vegan and I sure wouldn't like hanging out with any. I can't see myself partying with them or going to a gathering of vitality-filled vegans. Vegans are the worst proselytizers of all - even worse than those guys and gals that bang on my door and offer to save me from the fires of hell. That's another rant for another time. 

If you are a vegan keep your coolspeaking, purified bodies away from my disease-ridden, meat-fouled, carcass unless you can promise to eat your bean sprouts in peace. I'm doing just fine, thank you. A hundred years from now we'll be dead and your tofu-veggie-stuffed corpse will be just as rotten as my omnivorous one. You'd be able to tell us apart by smell. You don't think you'll be dead, but you will. My only regret is I won't be able to put a bouquet on your grave and whisper lovingly, "I told you so." I would really love to do that; those are my favorite four words. 

I would expect that a swell of vegans (that's what I call a group of vegans - like a gaggle of geese type of thing) would attack me while I pondered my pan-seared Pacific Wild Salmon with dill sauce, if they ever read this. I know that salmon will kill me - but I eat it anyway. I know that that next glass of milk could be my last. I'll drink it anyway. And, on those rare occasions when I order a filet mignon -which is a rare occasion indeed - I promise not to think of those lithe-bodied tofu-on-a-stick-eating vegans who would look with amazed disdain upon me.

Count me among those who choose to enjoy life rather than spending it reading vegan cookbooks, inspirational screeds from other suffering vegans, or worrying about death.  So what if vegans live to be 90? Our nursing homes will be filled with mindless vegans sucking pureed carrots from a sippee cup.   

I know what causes death. It isn't meat, fish, foul, dairy products, eggs, pork gelatin - no, it's not even smoking and drinking. The biggest cause of death is birth. If you don't want to die then don't be born. If you were never born you'd never have to choose between eating tofu-filled crepes made with organic buckwheat or a sizzling, succulent pan-seared Rainbow Trout fillet served with spicy au gratin potatoes. You'd never have to worry about being obese, having a heart attack or stroke or being a burden on your children and forcing them to choose between warehousing your old, mindless, carcass in their home - and disrupting all those little league games and "gatherings" - or sticking you in a nursing home and forgetting you.  

Next time you can avoid all these tough choices by making the right choice - choose not to be born. Birth is the single biggest cause of death even for coolspeakers and vegans. It's going to happen to you, no matter what you eat.  

"I'll have a cheese omelet and a glass of milk, please."