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| Today's voice belongs to Guest Columnist Jim Rix |
We were delighted to see Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of American director Ron Howard) in the role of Rosalind. She played Hilly Holbrook in The Help, of which I have made much metaphorical use in telling the story of my retirement from the University of North Carolina General Administration (see Features page "To the three white ladies, I was a colored maid").As You Like It (2006: Kenneth Branagh) [Rosalind (Bryce Dallas Howard), the daughter of Duke Senior (Brian Blessed, the banished duke), is raised at the court of Duke Frederick (Brian Blessed, who is younger brother to Duke Senior and took over his dukedom), with her cousin Celia (Romola Garai, daughter to Duke Frederick). She falls in love with a young man named Orlando (David Oyelowo), but before she can even think twice about it, she is banished by Duke Frederick, who threatens death if she comes near the court again. Celia, being Rosalind's best friend, goes with Rosalind (who is disguised as a boy, Ganymede) and Touchstone (Alfred Molina), the court's fool, to the forest of Arden. Upon their arrival in the forest, they happen upon Orlando and his manservant, who are fleeing the wrath of Orlando's eldest brother (Adrian Lester). What follows is an elaborate scheme devised by the cross-dressing Rosalind to find out the verity of Orlando's supposed passion for her, and to further capture his heart, through the witty and mischievous façade of Ganymede.] [E] 6-22-2012
...but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm my wit.Wiki.answers.com doubts it:
It was uncommon then to be a vegetarian. Most of the food that he will have eaten would be meat, so no, I don't think William Shakespeare was a vegetarian.I've emailed my college classmate Stephen Greenblatt at Harvard and asked him whether his Shakespeare studies have led him to any conclusion whether Shakespeare was a vegetarian.
ACT II
SCENE I
The Forest of Arden.
Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords, like forester
DUKE SENIOR
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.
AMIENS
Happy is your grace,
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
DUKE SENIOR
Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored.
First Lord
Indeed, my lord,
The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
Did steal behind him as he lay along
Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.
DUKE SENIOR
But what said Jaques?
Did he not moralize this spectacle?
First Lord
O, yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping into the needless stream;
'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou makest a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much:' then, being there alone,
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends,
''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part
The flux of company:' anon a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
And never stays to greet him; 'Ay' quoth Jaques,
'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse,
To fright the animals and to kill them up
In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.
DUKE SENIOR
And did you leave him in this contemplation?
Second Lord
We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
Upon the sobbing deer.
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| Photo taken yesterday in Durham |
When in their natural surroundings—not on factory farms—pigs are social, playful, protective animals who bond with each other, make nests, relax in the sun, and cool off in the mud. Pigs are known to dream, recognize their own names, learn "tricks" like sitting for a treat, and lead social lives of a complexity previously observed only in primates. Many pigs even sleep in "pig piles," much like dogs. Some love to cuddle and others prefer space.In many ways...
People who run animal sanctuaries that include pigs note that they are more similar to humans than you would guess. Like humans, pigs enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages. Pigs can even play video games!
–From "The Hidden Lives of Pigs"1
Researchers have found that pigs are among the quickest of animals to learn a new routine, and pigs can do a circus’s worth of tricks: jump hoops, bow and stand, spin and make wordlike sounds on command, roll out rugs, herd sheep, close and open cages, play videogames with joysticks, and more.Maybe hogs do...go to heaven too3?
Last week, an international team of biologists released the first draft sequence of the pig genome...Even on a cursory glance, “the pig genome compares favorably with the human genome...Very large sections are maintained in complete pieces,”...barely ch in the 100-million-plus years since the ancestors of hogs and humans diverged....
Many physiological and behavioral parallels between humans and pigs are reflected in our respective genomes. Pig hearts are like our hearts, pigs metabolize drugs as we do, their teeth resemble our teeth, and their habits can, too. “I look at the pig as a great animal model for human lifestyle diseases...Pigs like to lie around, they like to drink if given the chance, they’ll smoke and watch TV.”
–From "Pigs Prove to Be Smart, if Not Vain," by Natalie Angier2
[In the article that follows, Motomynd puts the heat on Moristotle as well as on Moristotle's readers. But to show he's a good sport, Moristotle confessed yesterday that he turf turds his lawn.
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| Renaissance Concourse Atlanta Airport Hotel |
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| From an elevator opposite the spot where the photo above was taken |
In eleven days I'll no longer be who I am, so there seems to be little point in telling you who that was. But for those who don't know me yet I will say that this is my tenth annual meeting. I am, for the few days left before my retirement, the state coordinator for North Carolina.Well, the truth is I can't feel entirely glad about retiring from work that has given me a great deal of satisfaction. I think I'm feeling...diminished.
I've been asked one particular question so often lately, it might possibly be of interest to you how I'm dealing with the prospect of retirement.
The most interesting thing about it to me is the strong polar-opposite feelings I have about it.
On the one hand, I'm really glad to be leaving the organization I've worked in for fourteen years. One of the reasons is that it has already ceased to be what it was, and I very much dislike what it has become. Your organizations back home are hierarchical too. So has mine always been. But over the past few months it has become rigidly so—more top-down, more chain-of-command. The commands come down, and subservience is supposed to go back up. If you want to communicate with someone in a different part of the hierarchy, don't call them directly, but go up your chain to where the two hierarchies meet.
Enough! I'll be relieved to escape my division's oppressive regime.
But on the other hand, I'm already sad thinking that this is not only my tenth annual meeting—it's also my last. I'm going to miss working with all of you on our beloved tuition-savings program for college students in our states who want to pursue degrees that our own state doesn't offer. I'm going to miss each of you personally. We have become friends.
Of course, no one likes to feel sad, so I'm trying to focus on the glad part of the situation —escaping the division I've worked in for fourteen years. I'll try to put off the sad part until later.
There is no closed season for coyotes, so as long as it is daylight, then you can hunt them. This area is also outside the city limits, so there are no limitations on discharging firearms. I am a hunter/shooter and I say more power to these folks if they are hunting coyotes. Coyote packs are a danger to small pets in the neighborhood and perhaps even to calves and small livestock in the pastures down the road.While predators of course need to be dealt with for such reasons as he gives (I do not condemn the killing of a home-invader, for example, if that's the only way to protect oneself or one's family), I asked this hunter/shooter to suggest humane ways to reduce the local coyote population. I pointed out that shooting them might not result in a clean kill, but only wound the animals and result in their prolonged suffering. I told him that I was opposed to hunting on philosophical grounds (and I cited my statement on sentients rights).
For Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things [emphasis mine] that requires respect and care.(I myself avoid phrases like "metaphysical quality," however much they impressed me when I was in school.)
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| Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) |
...Are we here, perhaps, for saying: house,I didn't see it coming, that I would end up quoting Rilke this morning. But it is most agreeable to be reminded of the many transfixed hours I have spent reading his Duino Elegies, his Sonnets to Orpheus, and many others of his poems....
bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit-tree, window—
at most: column, tower......but for saying, realise,
oh, for a saying such as the things themselves would never
have profoundly said. Is not the secret intent
of this discreet Earth to draw lovers on,
so that each and every thing is delight within their feeling?
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
[– Archaic Torso of Apollo, Stephen Mitchell's translation]
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| Software for writing screenplays |
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| Cow being restrained for stunning |
Chemical (carbon dioxide)...The animal is asphyxiated by the use of carbon dioxide gas before being bled.The reader probably saw my April 14 log, "No country for old men," which quoted a passage about animal slaughter from Jonathan Safran Foer's 2009 argument, Eating Animals. The reader may even have read Foer's book. His tolerance for the inhumane treatment of other animals seems nevertheless much greater than mine2. Sensitivity to animal suffering is a minority position in this country.
Mechanical (captive bolt)...A captive bolt stunner is applied to the livestock so as to produce immediate unconsciousness in the animals before they are bled.
Mechanical (gunshot)...The gun is used to render the animal immediately unconscious (and presumably dead) before being bled.
Electrical (stunning or slaughtering with electric current)...The current applied is sufficient to ensure surgical anesthesia throughout the "bleeding" of the animal.
Each of these methods is outlined in detail, and the regulations require that inspectors identify operations which cause undue "excitement and discomfort" of animals.
[and, from the linked-to entry on slaughterhouses] Investigations by animal welfare and animal rights groups have indicated that a proportion of these animals are being skinned or gutted while apparently still alive and conscious [emphasis mine]. There has also been criticism of the methods of transport of the animals, who are driven for hundreds of miles to slaughterhouses in conditions that often result in crush injuries and death en route. Slaughtering animals is opposed by animal rights groups on ethical grounds.
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| Alec Baldwin narrates "Meet Your Meat" |
Thanks to Heather Moore of PETA for reminding us how horribly we human animals treat other animals, many of whom have sufficient intelligence and consciousness to suffer terribly in the process of being fed and slaughtered for our unnecessary culinary pleasure.I like it that there's a religious angle to all of this. If God wrote the Bible (and God were ethical), there'd be no animal sacrifice in it, Old or New.
Ms. Moore asks whether we "want to be truly horrified this Halloween." The answer, of course, is that we do not. We'll not spend a second longer on this topic than we need to realize that we must change the subject to preserve our peace of mind.
We won't stop eating animals, however beneficial to our health, or however much they suffer. Just don't make us think about it.
Philosophically, I'm not one of the "we" or the "us," but out of courtesy to my host I will eat animal flesh if it's served. Ms. Moore prompts me to reconsider whether that courtesy is morally justified.2
Want to be truly horrified this Halloween? Then forget Friday the 13th and watch "Meet Your Meat"—frightening footage from factory farms and slaughterhouses, chilling places full of panic and bloodshed. Nearly 10 billion terrified animals are killed in slaughterhouses every year. They bellow in pain and agony and fight for their lives, but they are no match for the knife-wielding killers who string them up, slice their throats, and often dump then in scalding water to soften their skin and remove their hair or feathers. Many are boiled alive or dismembered while they're still conscious.
This eerie scene plays out not just on Halloween, but 365 days a year. See it for yourself at www.PETA.org. But I warn you: It will give you nightmares. The only way to make the horror stop is by switching to a vegan diet.
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| Click to enlarge |
High marks to Joe Moran for the additional restrictions he suggests for honoring and protecting the sacredness of life.Background before I continue. Mr. Moran's letter, titled "Women's rights," appeared this morning, on p. A6. He was writing about state legislators who "were said to have 'wrestled with deep philosophical and political differences before coming up with new restrictions on women seeking abortions' (New abortion rules for N.C., June 9)."
If the issue is truly the sacredness of life, I suggest that similar restrictions...should also apply...in the following instances:My own letter continued:
1) For judges and law enforcement officers, prior to executing a person
2) For intelligence and military officers prior to dropping guided missiles or bombs from Air Force drones [sic] on homes where there are also innocent people....
But Mr. Moran could and should have gone further. Appropriate information would also be useful in the following instances:There, I feel better already. Or is it worse, for having thought about the suffering of other animals one more time?
1) For people hired to work at Chik-fil-A, McDonald's, KFC, Smithfield's, etc., tell them how intelligent (and capable of suffering) are the animals whose flesh they'll be required to cook and serve, and show them how those animals are inhumanely raised and slaughtered, some of them still conscious when they're being skinned and dismembered.
2) For diners before they're served their hamburger, steak, barbecue, or fried chicken, the same.
That is, Mr. Moran might have given a nod to the rights of animals as well. Or, to be more accurate, the rights of animals other than human ones.
Suggested reading: Jonathan Safran Foer's 2009 book, Eating Animals, which is this summer's assigned reading for entering freshmen at Carolina and Duke.*
When Yoineh Meir heard of this, he turned even paler than usual. He protested that slaughtering was not for him...The Trisk rabbi...wrote a letter to Yoineh Meir saying that man may not be more compassionate than the Almighty, the Source of all compassion....For the health of the chickens, Yoineh Meir gave up more than Isaac Bashevis Singer did. But, with a new slaughterer quickly appointed, the chickens didn't derive any benefit, any more than factory-farmed animals do when you or I or the next individual becomes a vegan for ethical or health reasons. There'll still be KFC's, there'll still be McDonalds, there'll still be Chik-fil-A's.
After the rabbi's letter, Yoineh Meir gave in....
Barely three months had passed...but the time seemed to stretch endlessly. He felt as though he were immersed in blood and lymph. His ears were beset by the squawking of hens, the crowing of roosters, the gobbling of geese, the lowing of oxen, the mooing and bleating of calves and goats; wings fluttered, claws tapped on the floor. The bodies refused to know any justification or excuse—every body resisted in its own fashion, and seemed to argue with the Creator to its last breath.
And Yoineh Meir's own mind raged with questions. Verily, in order to create the world, the Infinite One had had to shrink His light; there could be no free choice without pain. But since the beasts were not endowed with free choice, why should they have to suffer? Yoineh Meir watched, trembling, as the butchers chopped the cows with their axes and skinned them before they had heaved their last breath. The women plucked the feathers from the chickens while they were still alive....
Yoineh Meir wanted to escape from the material world, but the material world pursued him. The smell of the slaughterhouse would not leave his nostrils....
Yoineh Meir returned to his bed. All his life he had slept on a feather bed, under a feather quilt, resting his head on a pillow; now he was suddenly aware that he was lying on feathers and down plucked from fowl....
Elul is the month of repentence...when man takes an accounting of his soul.
But to a slaughterer Elul is quite another matter. A great many beasts are slaughtered for the New Year...everybody offers a sacrificial fowl...Each holiday brings its own slaughter. Millions of fowl and cattle now alive were doomed to be killed.
Yoineh Meir no longer slept at night. If he dozed off, he was immediately beset by nightmares. Cows assumed human shape...Yoineh Meir would be slaughtering a calf, but it would turn into a girl. Her neck throbbed, and she pleaded to be saved. She ran to the study house and spattered the courtyard with her blood....
In one of the nightmares, he heard a human voice come from a slaughtered goat....
Since Yoineh Meir had begun to slaughter, his thoughts were obsessed with living creatures.... An unfamiliar love welled up in Yoineh Meir for all that crawls and flies, breeds and swarms....
Yoineh Meir rocked back and forth in the dark. The rabbi may be right. Man cannot and must not have more compassion than the Master of the universe. Yet he, Yoineh Meir, was sick with pity. How could one pray for life for the coming year, or for a favorable writ in Heaven, when one was robbing others of the breath of life?....
A week before the New Year, there was a rush of slaughtering. All day long, Yoineh Meir stood near the pit, slaughtering hens, rooster, geese, ducks. Women pushed, argued, tried to get to the slaughterer first. Others joked, laughed, bantered. Feathers flew, the yard was full of quacking, gabbling, the screaming of roosters. Now and then a fowl cried out like a human being....
He stood there until sundown, and the pit became filled with blood....
Yoineh Meir thought that he would be unable to sleep that night....
Yoineh Meir shuddered and woke up...He put on his robe and went out....
..."Well, and what if the rabbi said so?" he spoke to himself. "And even if God Almighty had commanded, what of that? I'll do without rewards in the world to come!...." Yoineh Meir cried. "I have more compassion than God Almighty—more, more! He is a cruel God...." Yoineh Meir laughed, but tears ran down his cheeks in scalding drops....
He...began to walk toward the river....
He had opened a door to his brain, and madness flowed in, flooding everything....
For two days the butchers searched for him, but they did not find him. Then Zeinvel, who owned the watermill, arrived in town with the news that Yoineh Meir's body had turned up in the river by the dam....
Because it was the holiday season and there was danger that Kolomir might remain without meat, the community hastily dispatched two messengers to bring a new slaughterer.[pp. 546-557]
Virtually all cows come to the same end: the final trip to the kill floor....I suspect that a vegetarian presidential candidate would have a harder time being elected than a homosexual. A gay president would positively remind many people of what they're relieved they are not. But a vegetarian would by counter-example remind almost all of us that we are not vegetarians, but participate by proxy in the cruel treatment of the animals we eat.
One way or another, they are herded onto trucks or trains...A number of animals will die from the conditions or arrive at the slaughterhouse too sick to be considered fit for human consumption....
At a typical slaughter facility, cattle are led through a chute into a knocking box—usually a large cylindrical hold through which the head pokes. The stun operator, or "knocker," presses a large pneumatic gun between the cow's eyes [like the Javier Bardem character did to his human victims in Ethan & Joel Coen's 2007 film]. A steel bolt shoots into the cow's skull and then retracts back into the gun, usually rendering the animal unconscious or causing death. Sometimes the bolt only grazes the animal, which either remains conscious or later wakes up as it is being "processed." The effectiveness of the knocking gun depends on its manufacture and maintenance [Anton Chigurh kept his in tip-top condition], and the skill of its application—a small hose leak or firing the gun before pressure sufficiently builds up again can reduce the force with which the bolt is released and leave animals grotesquely punctured but painfully conscious.
The effectiveness of knocking is also reduced because some plant managers believe that animals can become "too dead" and therefore, because their hearts are not pumping, bleed out too slowly or insufficiently. (It's "important" for plants to have a quick bleed-out time for basic efficiency and because blood left in the meat promotes bacterial growth and reduces shelf life.)....
No jokes here, and no turning away. Let's say what we mean: animals are bled, skinned, and dismembered while conscious. It happens all the time, and the industry and the government know it....
In twelve seconds or less, the knocked cow—unconscious, semiconscious, fully conscious, or dead—moves down the line to arrive at the "shackler," who attaches a chain around one of the hind legs and hoists the animal into the air.
From the shackler, the animal, now dangling from a leg, is mechanically moved to a "sticker," who cuts the carotid arteries and a jugular vein in the neck. The animal is again mechanically moved to a "bleed rail" and drained of blood for several minutes...If the animal is partially conscious or improperly cut, this can restrict the flow of blood, prolonging consciousness further. "They'd be blinking and stretching their necks from side to side, looking around, really frantic," explained one line worker.
The cow should now be a carcass, which will move along the line to a "head skinner," which is exactly what it sounds like—a stop where the skin is peeled off the head of the animal. The percentage of cattle still conscious at this stage is low but not zero...Explains a worker familiar with such practices, "A lot of times the skinner finds out an animal is still conscious when he slices the side of its head and it starts kicking wildly. If that happens, or if a cow is already kicking when it arrives at their station, the skinners shove a knife into the back of its head to cut the spinal cord."
This practice, it turns out, immobilizes the animal but does not render it insensible....[Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer, pp. 226-227, 229-230, 232-233]
Who has power over the narrative? Who has the power to tell the story of our world and our lives?I was powerfully reminded of a brief passage in Harris that I almost included in yesterday's excerpt:
[Tyrants] will come after you and try to kill you [if you try to tell it another way than theirs].1
...would it be ethical for cows being led to slaughter to defend themselves if they saw an opportunity—perhaps by stampeding their captors and breaking free? Would it be ethical for a fish to fight against the hook in light of the fisherman's justified desire to eat it? Having judged some consumption of animals to be ethically desirable (or at least ethically acceptable), we appear to rule out the possibility of warranted resistance on their parts.... [p. 211 of The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values]Jonathan Safran Foer's graphic story2 of the miserable life and death of factory-farmed (and other) animals unable either to defend or speak for themselves makes Harris's hypothetical questions so real for me, I despair anew at our tyranny over the animals we eat.
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