Pork Council's 2008 Commemorative Toy Tractor and Hog Carcass

Painstakingly crafted down to the smallest detail, the 2008 Commemorative Hog Carcass comes with, not one, but two separate captive bolt stun gun holes to the head -- the misfired shot that merely stunned the hog and the killshot that pierced its brain.  But the attention to detail doesn't stop there!  It also comes with eyes frozen with ungodly terror and legs spalyed out as the hog struggles in a desperate but futile attempt to escape.  Squeeze it and it emits a realistic, piercing scream of pre-slaughter terror.  You won't believe how life-like it is!  This true collector's item makes the perfect gift for all those hard-to-shop-for sadists and self-styled compassionate, animal loving progressives who look the other way when it's time for dinner.  The vibrant and decorative 2008 commemorative hog carcass comes with its own display base.  It's sure to liven up any room.  So order yours today.

Also collect these other popular hog figurines:

Hog dunked alive in boiling water

Hog confined in tiny crate

Hog carcass dangling from meat hook

Pile of hog carcasses (deluxe edition)

The hamburger hall of fame

Each year, The National Provisioner magazine inducts one food processor, one retailer and one food service establishment into the hamburger hall of fame.  I couldn't make time to attend the ceremonies, but I was able to find a transcript of one of the acceptance speeches.

Inductee is standing at the podium waiting for the applause to die down.

Inductee:  Thank you!  Thank you so much!  I'm humbled in your presence.  Who ever would have thought that a guy from Storm Lake, Iowa would be standing up here before you today about to join the greatest hamburger people of all time?  When you're a boy growing up you visualize this moment, but you never think it's possible.  I want to thank ... ho, boy, where to begin?  I want to thank National Provisioner for selecting me.  All the great hamburger lovers out there.  And most of all, a special heartfelt thank you to the cattle.  I'd never be here today if it weren't for you guys!  There's people out there called vegans who refuse to eat hamburgers.  No, I'm serious.  I'm not making this up.  They don't like the idea of cattle getting slaughtered.  But there's something these vegans don't understand.  The cattle I know aren't content to spend their lives standing around in a field grazing.  Unlike these vegans, cattle aspire to greatness.  They want to become hamburgers.  But not just any hamburger.  They want to be the best damn hamburgers in the world.  And you know what, fellows, it looks like your hard work and sacrifice has paid off.  I'm the one up here getting inducted into the hamburger hall of fame, but you guys are with me in spirit, every one of you.  I'm sorry, I'm getting a little weepy.  It's just that I feel so much gratitude.  Especially to you, Vernon.  Vernon, he was my favorite.  A big old black and white steer.  I can see him now, tail twitching, big old round eyes staring at me.  Old Vernon understood his calling.  He walked right up and took the stun bolt to the brain without even blinking.  Sniffle.  I told myself I wouldn't do this.  It's hard.  These guys mean so much to me.  I just want to say in closing the future of the hamburger is bright as ever.  We've got a great new generation of cattle coming up, preparing themselves to become the finest ground beef in the world.  Together we'll continue to make hamburgers that are deserving of this great honor bestowed upon us today.  Thank you and God bless!

Prop 2 redux: Humane Society says, "Let fly the corks!"

 

Friends take a bow.  Open the window and give out a whoop.  Let fly the corks ... No agribusiness titan can overlook the mandate:  people do not want their animals treated with wanton cruelty.

 So said the blog of Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society, after the passage of Prop 2, which mandates that, starting in 2015, all chicken cages must be big enough so the chickens can turn around.  They'll even be able to extend their limbs.  Life is good.  Until it ends the same way it always has.  Which begs the question:  if a jolt of electricity followed by a knife across the throat doesn't qualify as wanton cruelty, what kind of cruelty is it?  Compassionate cruelty?  Cruelty-free cruelty?  "We can't acknowledge it without endangering our fundraising" cruelty?  So people do not want their animals treated with wanton cruelty.  Okay, fine.  But they still want their animals on menus and in refrigerators and on barbeques.  That's the problem, isn't it?  The narrowed spectrum of the debate.  Evil titans of agribusiness on one end, good people who insist animals have room to stretch their legs before the slaughter on the other.  Those are the two outer poles.  And veganism?  The possibility of eliminating the suffering of these animals by eliminating our consumption of animal products?  That's off in Siberialand.  If Wayne Pacelle mentioned any of that on Oprah, the sponsors would have all hightailed it for Judge Judy.  So Prop 2 passes, the chickens can stretch their legs before they're slaughtered and the Humane Society comes away with so much publicity I'm sure they've let fly a few corks of their own.

Even if we can't, so what?

A country stained for so long by slavery and its aftermath has elected an African-American to lead it.  The outgoing president has finally justified his existence.  His torching of countries and ideals made possible the otherwise impossible election of Barack Obama.  So the world rejoices, as it should.  But it's hard not to look a little further down the ballot and see that here in California voters took it upon themselves to tell people they've never met, sorry, but marriage is for us, not you.  And then a little further down still the proposition to "end cruelty" by adding a few cubic feet of legroom to the pre-slaughter lives of pigs and laying hens won a resounding victory.  In the minds of the voters, the issue has been resolved.  The all-you-can-eat conscience-free buffet is now open for dinner.

People are still giddy from last night's seismic change.  Suggest to them that maybe the passage of Prop 2 is a setback instead of an improvement and they'll shake their heads in frustration.  How can anybody be thinking about farm animals during a time of economic upheaval, unjust wars, corporate pillaging and catastrophic climate change that some day soon will render all other issues moot?  Can you really be such myopic, single-issue obsessives?

The answer is yes, when that single issue is society's daily imprisonment, torture and slaughter of millions of sentient beings and when this daily slaughter takes place with barely detectable resistance from people who eagerly join the fight against every other injustice.  Talk to these people about a day when animals are no longer deemed human property to dispose of as we see fit and they'll tell you it's naive, self-indulgence by wide-eyed fools tilting at windmills.  "It'll never happen, I wish it would but it won't, no matter how much you hope it will," someone said to me a few days ago.

Hope?  Who said anything about hope?  Dan Cudahy, author of Unpopular Vegan Essays, wrote recently in a comment on the Animal Person blog,

I'm not going to get into my personal lack of hope about the future regarding animal rights ... because it has nothing to do with my advocacy/activism.  I advocate for what I think is right regarding sentient beings ... regardless of my doubts of ever achieving it.  ... I have no need for hope.

We're guided by what we see in front of us, and what we see is one species, which has the capacity to reason, using that reason to decide it's perfectly legitimate to torture and kill other species who cherish their lives just as we do, who fear just as we fear and suffer just as we suffer.

A proposition to put an end to our dominion over other species won't be on the next election's ballot.  It probably won't be on next century's ballot either.  So do we really truly hope to succeed?  Do we honestly think people will ever give up enslaving and slaughtering millions of their fellow animals each day?  What we hope is beside the point.  It must be stopped.

Prop 2.5 -- Standards for Confining Tyson Executives

Tomorrow California will vote on Prop 2 -- standards for confining farm animals.

 

Prop 2.5 -- Standards for confining Tyson chicken executives will not be on the ballot.

Prop 2.5 states that the corner and window offices of all Tyson Foods executives shall be replaced by cages with dimensions proportionate to the size of the battery cages Tyson suppliers use to confine their laying hens.  Just as it has been deemed more cost-effective to confine multiple hens in the same cage, significant savings can be obtained by packing multiple executives in the same office/cage.  Therefore, each office/cage shall house no fewer than seven executives.  Much like chickens trying to establish a pecking order, executives are hierarchical by nature.  Executive VP's will attempt to dominate Senior VP's who will attempt to dominate ordinary VP's and so forth.  To prevent these executives from harming themselves as they attempt to assert dominance in such tight quarters, their pens, keys and other sharp objects should be removed prior to the executive being placed in the office/cage.  After all, an injured or damaged executive is far less productive than a healthy one.  Finally, as the intent of Proposition 2.5 is to ensure that the executives are treated humanely, it is mandated that each office/cage has sufficient space for the executives within to rotate freely on their swivel chairs, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.  Exceptions will be made for transport to meetings and feeding in the office cafeteria.

Dialogue between HSUS and Tyson Foods about Prop 2

The first line of the Humane Society mission statement:  "Celebrating animals, confronting cruelty."

So how exactly did that confrontation against cruelty go?

HSUS:  Killing animals for human pleasure is cruel!

TYSON CHICKEN, ET AL:  And your point is?

HSUS:  Come on, throw us a bone here.

TYSON:  A wishbone or a drumstick?  Hee hee hee.

HSUS:  Hee hee hee

TYSON:  Are we bonding?

HSUS:  We're bonding.

TYSON:  So...

HSUS:  Look, we celebrate animals and confront cruelty.  That's the very first sentence in our mission statement.

TYSON:  It also says in your mission statement that you join with corporations on behalf of corporation-friendly programs.

HSUS:  No, the actual wording is we join with corporations on behalf of animal-friendly programs.

TYSON:  Stop splitting hairs.

HSUS:  Sorry.

TYSON:  I've got an idea.  How about if instead of confronting cruelty, you appear to confront cruelty?

HSUS:  Not bad.  As long as it appears that way to our donors.

TYSON:  Hee hee hee

HSUS:  Hee hee hee.

TYSON:  Okay, tell people you want a little more space for the chickens to move around in.  We could work with that.  We've been doing the same thing ourselves.  You should see our website.  We go on and on about humane treatment blah blah blah.  People eat it up.  It makes them feel less savage.  Great for sales.

HSUS:  We could put a proposition on the ballot!

TYSON:  There you go.  Win win.

HSUS:  Win win.

TYSON:  High five!

The self-contradicting lawn sign

I just walked by a sign on San Vicente that said, "Stop animal cruelty.  Yes on Prop 2."  I can only assume the sign maker was a fair-minded person who, after writing, "Stop animal cruelty," decided the opposing point of view deserved equal space.  So he added, "Yes on Prop 2."