More gift ideas: Michael Pollan hypocrisy-isolating headphones

State-of-the-art headphones designed exclusively for listening to Michael Pollan audio books. Two separate channels for crystal clear playback of Michael Pollan talking out of both sides of his mouth. One channel plays his profound sympathy for the plight of farm animals, the other channel his drooling accounts of watching animals get slaughtered.

Channel one:

The lives of billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms are horrible to contemplate, an affront to our image of ourselves as humane.

Channel two:

Mike and I drove to the ranch to choose our animal and watch the itinerant butcher slaughter and dress it … Mike cuts a few slivers from the loin and passes them around; a ceremonial tasting of the uncooked animal is, he explains, a butcher’s privilege.

Channel one: 

Broiler chickens spend their lives in cages too small to ever stretch a wing. Every natural instinct is thwarted, leading to a range of behavioral vices that include canablizing her cage mates and rubbing her body against the mesh until it is featherless and bleeding.

Channel two: 

Melissa … has a sure hand with the hacksaw and the butcher knife; within 20 minutes the goat is transformed into considerably more appetizing cuts of meat:  the baron, or hindquarters, and the saddle … two racks of ribs (for tomorrow’s lunch); the shoulders (destined for an overnight braise) and the scraps…

 
Contradiction-canceling technology reduces ambient hypocrisy by 87.4%
Comes in heifer black and white

Conscientious, Compassionate, Cash-earning Carnivores.

Let’s see we’ve got Conscientious Carnivores and Compassionate Carnivores.  So don’t want to offend, you know, but it’s hard to keep the two of them straight.  They both shed crocodile tears over the plight of farm animals and chatter endlessly about their personal conflictedness as they chow down on the remains of said animals.  But there must be differences. Is it like belts in martial arts? Does a conscientious carnivore work his way up to becoming a compassionate carnivore?  Who gets first dibs on the shank?  Maybe the compassionate carnivores came first and the conscientious carnivores were an offshoot.  They had doctrinal differences, split off like the Lutherans.  Or maybe it was a naked power-grabbing move.  The conscientious carnivores were sick and tired of being in the shadows while the author of Conscientious Carnivores, Catherine Friend (as in with friends like this animals don’t need enemies), was out doing the talk show circuit, getting reviewed by the NYT, hobnobbing with Michael Pollan.  Michael Pollan could tell them both there’s plenty of money to be made off all those hungry progressives out there, salivating for a juicy steak and a good rationalization.  Why don’t the two of you join me? Michael Pollan would say.  All three of us can be Cash-earning Carnvivores.

Does Michael Pollan belong in the Meat Industry Hall of Fame?

The 2010 class is pictured above. What about this year’s class?  Does Michael Pollan have a chance? Purists will scoff.  He doesn’t have the big numbers like, say, a Hormel executive who slaughters millions of pigs a year. And what about Michael Pollan’s scathing indictment of factory farms?  The true greats of animal slaughter don’t have qualms about what they’re doing.  Hormel executives don’t know what to make of the public outrage over videos documenting sadistic cruelty at supplier farms.  But this is exactly why Michael Pollan belongs in the hall of fame. He does understand that outrage and also the guilt some people feel for continuing to eat meat, and he showed the meat industry how to use this guilt to increase sales in his best-selling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The dilemma in a nutshell is people feel bad about eating food that perpetuates the atrocities in factory farms.  But, damn, meat tastes good. The solution:  eat meat from farms where you can convince yourself the animals lived carefree pre-slaughter lives. Michael Pollan has made conflicted meat eaters feel good about eating meat and for that he deserves to be in the hall of fame.  To use a sports analogy, just as Yao Ming brought millions of Chinese fans to NBA basketball, Michael Pollan has made countless self-styled progressives realize they can profess concern about the suffering of animals and still eat those animals. I say he’d better get busy writing his induction speech.

Michael Pollan will be having a carcass signing

Michael Pollan’s website says he’ll be having a book signing October 12 at the Barnes & Noble in Methesda, Maryland. Book signings are so passé. Why doesn’t his publisher organize a publicity event more in keeping with Michael Pollan’s writings and stage a carcass signing instead? It couldn’t take place at a bookstore. They wouldn’t want blood and entrails all over the espresso machine. They could stage it at the farm where Michael Pollan purchased steer 534 so he could witness first hand the raising and slaughter of a steer.

First, he’ll read a quotation from one of his outraged attacks on factory farms..

The lives of billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms are horrible to contemplate, an affront to our image of ourselves as humane.

Followed by an excerpt from his NYT article on a 36-hour dinner party he hosted...

Mike and I drove to the ranch to choose our animal and watch the itinerant butcher dress and slaughter it.

As he signs copies of the carcasses, he’ll explain how slaughtering animals in factory farms is an "affront to our image of ourselves as humane" while hungrily watching an itinerant butcher slaughter them for a 36 hour dinner party promotes fellowship and goodwill. Is it because the butcher is itinerant while the factory farms exist in a fixed location? Only way to find out is to attend this gala carcass signing for yourself.

But Michael Pollan won't only be signing steer carcasses. No sir. Pick a farm animal, any farm animal, he'll sign them all. He'll sign carcasses of pigs, chickens and goats he consumed at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm as he reads another excerpt...

In Polyface Farm, chickens live like chickens, his cows like cows, pigs, pigs ... animal happiness is unmistakable. And here I was seeing it in abundance.

He’ll then describe his own unmistakable happiness as he sat back and let his digestive juices go to work on those animals whose happiness he just got through celebrating.

He’ll finish with a final one-two punch of moral outrage and meat-juice-dripping-down-the-chin ecstasy. The outrage...

Broiler chickens spend their lives in cages too small to ever stretch a wing. Every natural instinct is thwarted, leading to a range of behavioral vices that can include canablizing her cage mates and rubbing her body against the mesh until it is featherless and bleeding.

The ecstasy...

Melissa has a sure hand with the hacksaw and the butcher knife; within 20 minutes the goat is transformed into considerably more appetizing cuts of meat ... Mike cuts slivers from the loin and passes them around … the raw meat is surprisingly sweet.

There’s sure to be plenty of talking out of both sides of the mouth for everyone at the Michael Pollan carcass signing. He’ll share some his favorite rationalizations. He'll offer up recipe ideas. He'll explain how condemning the abuse of animals in factory farms while celebrating their slaughter by local farms has made him a best-selling author. So mark your calendar and be sure to bring a knife and fork to the Michael Pollan carcass signing.

Michael Pollan and the Ghost of Steer 534 audition to be the new spokesmen for Sonic

While we’re on the topic of the pork board’s new tag line, there’s a fast food company in need of a new advertising campaign. Not Burger King. It has the king. McDonald’s, of course, has Ronald McDonald and Temple Grandin. But Sonic recently fired their long-time ad agency, so they’ll be needing a new spokesman. Hmm… Spokesmen teams can work well if they’ve got the right chemistry. You had the two Budweiser Lizzards. Bartles and Jaymes. How about Michael Pollan and the ghost of Steer 534? Naturally, Sonic executives won’t just hand them the role. They’re going to have to audition for it. So let’s get started…

MICHAEL: Hi, I’m best-selling author and conscience of a meat-eating nation, Michael Pollan.

GHOST OF STEER 534: And I’m the ghost of steer 534. Michael purchased me because he wanted to experience the entire meat production process. He raised me, fattened me...

MICHAEL: Then I ate you.

GHOST OF STEER 534: But before you did, you cared deeply about my suffering. You wrote very movingly about it.

MICHAEL: I felt deeply. I said…

The lives of billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms are horrible to contemplate, an affront to our image of ourselves as humane.

GHOST OF 534: I think I remember you quoting that passage as you delivered me to the slaughterhouse door. It was so thoughtful of you to speak with such fire and outrage in what was a very emotional moment for me.

MICHAEL: I couldn't contain myself.

GHOST OF STEER 534: Michael cares deeply about the suffering of all farm animals, not just me

MICHAEL: That’s right, ghost of steer 534, and you know the most horrible fate that can befall a steer like yourself? Being part of bland, tasteless burger. That’s why Sonic uses only the freshest cuts of choice lean meat. Then they top it with ripe, juicy tomatoes and slather it with tangy barbeque sauce.

GHOST OF STEER 534: Don’t forget the melted cheddar cheese and crisp lettuce.

MICHAEL: I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

GHOST O STEER 534: I wish I could help you out, Micheal, but you already ate me.

MICHAEL: Don’t make my mouth water when I have to say the tag line.

BOTH: Sonic. Because people who care deeply about the suffering of animals don't let them wind up being boring burgers!

Have your conscience and eat it, too.

Dan Cudahy of Unpopular Vegan Essays has a penetrating essay on the rationalizations people use to keep themselves ignorant of the suffering caused by their consumption of farm animals.

There’s a different type of rationalization used by people who acknowledge the misery and horror farm animals endure but are unwilling to stop consuming them. People like Michael Pollan. One of his recurring themes is how conflicted he feels about it all. Michael Pollan doesn't want the animals to suffer. He wishes there were a way he could get at their tasty flesh without having to slaughter them. This desire to eliminate their suffering lets Michael Pollan off the hook. Because as Kant said, it's the intent of the act, rather than its outcome, that determines whether or not an act is moral.

Michael Pollan gives himself big points for the forthright way he questions his consumption of meat. The honesty of his self-analysis cancels out any culpability he might feel and even allows him to vview his consumption of animal flesh as a morally praisworthy act. He offers up his sympathy to the soon-to-be slaughtered animal and manages to convince himself this somehow lessens the suffering. After all, the tortured, slaughtered animal is far better off being tortured and slaughtered by someone saddened by its suffering than someone who couldn’t care less.

You read his dismissive remarks about vegans and it becomes clear his rationalizing mind takes him a step beyond that. Not only is he morally superior to the unwashed masses unconcerned by the suffering of the animals they eat. He is also superior to the people who aren’t strong enough to endure the same moral conflict he does. He is willing to agonize and bear the burden of his hypocrisy and, ultimately, rationalize his way out of it. People who refuse to consume animal products take the easy way out. They are unwilling or unable to endure the moral conflict that Michael Pollan endures.

He credits himself for having beliefs counter to his own self-interest and for how strictly he holds himself accountable. He also gives himself a point for the moral courage it takes to be so frank about a belief which indicts not only himself, but, by extension, the animal agriculture industry and so might be frowned upon by executives with the power to cancel his lucrative speaking engagements at colleges and universities.

It's his pride in considering himself a thorn in the side of animal agriculture that explains how Michael Pollan can constantly express outrage at the way factory farms treat animals without any apparent awareness of the irony that such an unforgiving indictment is coming out of the same mouth that chews animal flesh every meal.

Goat juice dribbles down Michael Pollan’s chin as he talks out of both sides of his mouth.

Michael Pollan is having a 36-hour dinner party…

Here’s the conceit: build a single wood fire and, over the course of 30-plus hours, use it to roast, braise, bake, simmer and grill as many different dishes as possible – for lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch again.

No, here’s the conceit: thinking people would be interested in reading a 4500-word account of 36 hours' worth of Michael Pollan’s cooking and eating over a “cob burning oven” in a “shady backyard of Napa.” But apparently Michael Pollan means conceit as in theme, not as in narcissistic presumption. So on to the 36-hour dinner party.

Since Michael Pollan is involved, you know he’s only whetting our appetite with all his rhapsodizing about baskets of morels, canopies of mulberry and oak logs burning in a cob oven. He’s biding his time, building up to his favorite topic: the lovingly described slaughter and consumption of an animal.

Which turns out to be a goat.

Mike and I drove to the ranch to choose our animal and watch an itinerant butcher slaughter and dress it; Mike says the experience made him want to honor our goat by wasting as little of it as possible.

Michael Pollan doesn’t fraternize with heartless killers, so we know his friend Mike will be deeply affected by the goat’s suffering yet still desirous of consuming it without pangs of guilt. Michael Pollan pulls this off by insisting a goat get to experience his “goat-ness” before he becomes Michael’s dinner. Mike takes a different route to guilt-appeasement.

Mike says the experience makes him want to honor the goat by wasting as little as possible.

Typically, honors will be conferred in the form of medals, trophies, speeches, toasts, etc. etc. Mike has come up with something altogether new here -- conferring honor by consuming every last bit of the honoree’s flesh. Consuming only a small portion of the flesh would of course be an intolerable insult to the goat, throwing scraps on the ground a slap in his face. But having as much of his flesh consumed as possible, at a 36-hour dinner party, no less, knowing his flesh is helping Michael Pollan and friends rediscover the pleasures of the communal fire, what goat wouldn’t burst with pride at the honor?

They must run out of things to talk about at a 36-hour dinner party. To re-establish any animal defender credentials the goat bone he’s gnawing on may have lost him, Michael Pollan could quote some of the outraged passages from his article on the foie gras industry.

"...the lives of billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms are horrible to contemplate, an affront to our image of ourselves as humane" … hey, can you pass the goat stew?

Oops, better try again.

Legislation to ban foie gras has been introduced in six states. How delicious it must feel for a legislator to strike a blow on behalf of defenseless ducks and geese at the expense of an unpronounceable and Frenchified delicacy…

Did he ridicule this unpronounceable French delicacy while he was eating...

the [goat] scraps which Anthony collects to make a sugo – a slow-cooked Italian meat sauce..

Michael Pollan continues:

...the battle to ban foie gras must seem like a tasty target of opportunity.

Michael Pollan’s constant glorification of eating animals has started to affect the way he expresses himself. “How delicious it must feel?” “Tasty target of opportunity?” Can’t he come up with a simple descriptive modifier that isn’t related to flesh consumption?

By suggesting we’ve outlawed the most heinous practice in animal agriculture, the campaign against foie gras allows everyone to feel good about doing something for animals. Yet it leaves the much larger problem untouched.

No, the above passage wasn’t written by a critic of Michael Pollan. It came from Michael Pollan himself. How does he not see how seamlessly he fits into his own indictment? Simply replace foie gras with Michael Pollan and voila…

By becoming a prominent critic of the most heinous practices of animal agriculture, Michael Pollan’s campaign against the abuses in factory farms allows Michael Pollan to feel good about doing something for animals. Yet it leaves the much larger problem, i.e. animal torture and slaughter, untouched.

Because you see the same man who decries the “heinous practice of animal agriculture” delights in the details of carving up the goat carcass at his 36-hour dinner party.

Melissa … has a sure hand with the hacksaw and the butcher knife; within 20 minutes the goat is transformed into considerably more appetizing cuts of meat: the baron, or hindquarters, and the saddle … two racks of ribs (for tomorrow’s lunch); the shoulders (destined for an overnight braise) and the scraps…

Meanwhile, Mike is still in the process of honoring the goat…

Mike cuts a few slivers from the loin and passes them around; a ceremonial tasting of the uncooked animal is, he explains, a butcher’s privilege. The raw meat is surprisingly sweet….

Maybe this is the point, with the juices of the raw goat meat dribbling down his chin, that Michael Pollan slams his hand on the oak firewood and exclaims...

the lives of billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms are horrible to contemplate, an affront to our image of ourselves as humane.

Stop talking with your mouth full of goat flesh, Michael Pollan. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.

I said, “the lives of billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms are horrible to contemplate, an affront to our image of ourselves as humane”

His fellow 36-hour diners hear him this time and they pause for a solemn toast: to the billions of animals on American feedlots and factory farms. May mankind someday find the compassion to ease their suffering. And until that day comes, can I have another piece of the raw goat meat, please?

Joel Salatin on the importance of making pigs happy before you slaughter them.

He may look like the villain in the latest James Bond movie, but he’s really Michael Pollan’s number one sidekick in the heroic struggle against industrial farming. Virginia farmer Joel Salatin rose to fame after Michael Pollan featured him in Omnivore’s Dilemna. The Guardian newspaper paid a visit to Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm to talk about his role in the film, Food Inc. and find out more about this farmer so “admired for his outspoken articulacy on the horrors of industrial food.”

Joel Salatin offers up some of that outspoken articulacy...

Films like Food, Inc. are finally exposing the kind of corruption and evil when you don’t ask: how do we make pigs happy? .. the industrial food system is so cruel and horrific in its treatment of animals. It never asks the question, should a pig be allowed to express its pig-ness?

To summarize…

Evil, cruel, horrific = factory farms that shatter pigs’ skulls and slice open their necks without first taking into account the pig’s pig-ness and asking how do we make pigs happy

Moral, decent, good = family farms that take into account a pig’s pig-ness and ask how do we make pigs happy before shattering their skulls and slicing open their necks.

Sounds like a fair distinction to me. And if not fair, at least a money making distinction. After his starring role in Omnivore's Dilmena and Food, Inc, joel Salatin is in high demand. He’s got speaking engagements all over the country. His farm can barely keep up with all the new orders. He even had to leave the Guardian interview early to take a call from Oprah.

Joel Salatin lives and kills on Polyface Farm. (Polyface Farm maybe because Two-faced Farm wouldn’t do him and all his inconsistencies justice) The Guardian reporter is smitten with Polyface Farm. He rhapsodizes about the

...absurdly picturesque landscape … the rambling white clapboard farmhouse … and as if the children’s book looks were not enough, the roads have names like Cattleman and Sugar Loaf and Buttermilk Spring.

Guess he didn’t make it as far as Stun Bolt Drive and Carcass Lane. The reporter starts off the interview with a faux paus. He sees...

...the nicely treated hens, all happily pecking and glossy-feathered, and I’ve held one in my arms. Suddenly it makes little sense that this animal, whose welfare has been of such great concern, will be killed in a matter of days. Naïve, I know, and Salatin seems surprised when I ask if he ever considered becoming a vegetarian.

“Never crossed my mind,” Joel Salatin says. The problem is what he calls the “animals as people” movement.

You have to concede it, Salatin is right about that. Animals are nothing like people. People are unique. We have special abilities. For instance, we have the ability to slaughter other living beings because we enjoy the taste of their flesh while simultaneously perceiving ourselves as moral defenders of the animals whose necks we’re slicing open. A pig is simply not capable of such profound self-deception. That’s what makes pigs lower animals.

Self-deception is just one of mankind’s unique abilities. We also have the limitless capacity to rationalize our behavior. And some of us, like Joel Salatin, even have the ability to rehash trite truisms without realizing they undermine the very point we’re trying to make.

Joel Salatin thinks the way you treat animals is a reflection of the way you will go on to treat human beings.

Uhm, Joel, if that's true, since you kill and eat animals, is that a reflection of the way you will go on to murder and cannibalize human beings?

But the reporter doesn’t ask this natural follow-up since he’s still trying to make amends for naively getting the interview off on the wrong foot by asking Joel Salatin if he ever considered going vegetarian. Joel Salatin has now started to ramble and there’s nothing the reporter can do but hit the play button on his recorder and fasten his seat belt.

What happens when you don’t ask: how do we make pigs happy? Well, you view the pig as just a pile of protoplasmic structure to be manipulated however cleverly human hubris can imagine to manipulate it. And when you view life from that kind of mechanistic, arrogant, disrespectful standpoint, you very soon begin to view all life from a very disrespectful, arrogant, manipulative standpoint. And the fact is we aren’t machines.

There’s got to be some explanation for this whacked-out meaningless random jumble of words. Joel Salatin doesn’t inject his animals with hormones before he eats them. Maybe he injects them with LSD. But he's back to his main theme again.

Respect for animals leads to respect for people. If we don’t care for our least, we can’t care for our most.

Sounds like something on the crocheted wall hanging above the Salatin fireplace next to the "Slaughterhouse sweet Slaughterhouse" needlepoint.

And yet, and yet… "Joel Salatin is admired for his outspoken articulacy against the horrors of industrial farms." Maybe he should be admired in business school seminars about capitalizing on moral concern for animal welfare to expand his business by creating a demand for higher priced free range meat. Maybe he should be admired by self-styled activists who want to proselytize for animal rights without giving up their chicken dinners. Maybe he should be admired by sadists who simply appreciate torture and killing. But who else could possibly admire him?

It’s hard to imagine opponenents of capital punishment honoring a death row warden because he spoke out against cramped jail cells and let the death row inmates stroll around the yard and served them a home-cooked dinner before he clamped them to the electric chair. But for some reason Joel Salatin, Michael Pollan, Temple Grandin and all the others like them are considered important advocates for animals. With friends like these, farm animals really don’t need enemies.

btw, the Bond villain comparison was flawed. Bond villains are kind to their animals. We all know that chicken's neck was wrung the moment the photographer finished packing up his gear.

The meeting of Michael Pollan and Steer 534

Michael Pollan decided to raise his own steer and bring it to slaughter so he could observe the entire process. He refers to the steer as 534. It’s hard to read the “Fresh Air” transcript of Michael Pollan telling Terry Gross about his acquisition of Steer 534 without thinking of those eharmony TV ads.

Michael Pollan: Well, I didn’t know the first thing about picking animals … So I asked the ranchers, you know, How do you find a good one?

Steer 534: Most of the cattle around here grow up assuming they’ll get picked by a buyer from McDonald’s, places like that. I always held out for something better. I wanted someone who cared about me before he slaughtered me.

Michael Pollan: And the ranchers said, when you’re buying beef flesh, you’re looking for a straight back, really even line without any kind of sway, and wide hips, or hindquarters, as they call them, and broad shoulders. And basically you’re looking for a really strong, level and plump frame on which to hang a lot of meat.

Steer 534: When I saw Michael walk into the field with the rancher, I held my breath. I mean, Michael Pollan. The author who wrote so eloquently about letting us romp around in the fields before it’s time for the slaughterhouse. Some cattle want ranchers that treat them bad before they slit their necks. It’s a self-esteem issue.

Michael Pollan: So I spotted this one … a nice stout animal. But he also had these three white blazes on his face. It was very distinctive … so that’s the one I picked.

Steer 534: Michael was stooped over, shaved head. Kind of an effete intellecutual looking guy. Not the hard muscled farm people I’m used to at all. He had this way about him. He wouldn’t look you directly in the eye. Like he felt guilty or something. It was so endearing. I mean he was after the same thing as all the others, but you know...

Michael Pollan: 534 was born on the Blair brothers’ ranch, which is a beautiful spread of 11,000 acres outside Sturgis, South Dakota.

Steer 534: just a small steer from South Dakota. Never in my wildest dreams did I think … I mean, come on, he’s Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan: And as soon as he could stand up and begin nursing from his mother … he’s number 534, she’s number 9534 … they send him out to pastures … you know, incredible salad bar of gorgeous native grass that kind of form a pelt in this ranch. It’s an idyllic setting. And, you know, these are the best months of his life, I dare say.

Steer 534: Best month of my life? That would be November. The first week. I’ll never forget it.

Michael Pollan: I met 534 the first week of November and chose him so he was already living the confined life…

Steer 534: I mean you don’t want to be killed by just anyone. It’s a once in a lifetime event, so you want to find the right person. Most of my friends end up in a can of Dinty Moore stew or maybe a quarter pounder with cheese. I’m like, no thank you, I’m holding out for someone who eats me with consciousness, ceremony and respect.

Michael Pollan: And, you know, my big question, as I look ahead to what’s going to happen to number 534 is, will he know when he’s traveling up that ramp at the National Beef plant … this is his destiny right now in June … will he know what’s about to happen to him?

Steer 534: Michael is so considerate. How many people are compassionate enough to care what we’re thinking when we’re about to be slaughtered?

Michael Pollan: And I asked Temple Grandin this. And she is the best student of the animal point of view I think we have. And she said she very carefully observed animals going through the chutes … that take them to their death. And she detected no difference in their reaction. And she claims there would be a whole lot more agitation on the part of the animal if they were getting any kind of inkling what lay ahead down the end of this ramp.

Steer 534: can you believe it? He cared enough about me to actually ask Temple Grandin. I mean she’s a busy woman, what with her consulting gig at McDonald’s and her slaughterhouse designing and all .. yet Michael thought enough about me to ask her if we know we’re about to die. It was so incredibly thoughtful of him. I didn't have the heart to tell him of course we know we're about to die. His sense of self-righteousness is so adorable. I didn't want to change it in any way.

Michael Pollan: The slaughterhouse has promised me a box of steaks from 534, and I feel obliged to eat them.

Steer 534: That’s the kind of guy my Michael is. I know how much he prefers grass-fed beef and other forms of beef that are better for him and more defensible from an environmental perspective. But he’s going to accept the box of steaks carved from my carcass after I’m slaughtered because of his affection for me. I count my blessings every day that with a world of cattle out there, a guy who could have the steer of his choice picked little old me.

The beef industry is out to get MIchael Pollan.

There’s a Mother Jones article entitled Big Meat vs. Michael Pollan. And in interviews, Michael Pollan claims the beef industry is out to get him…

Michael Pollan rubs his hand over the hot motor oil sweat of his forehead. His eyes go to the chandelier. Shit, he didn’t check that yet. Maybe the meat industry thugs hid their listening devices in there. He grabs a screwdriver, loosens the plate from the ceiling. Removes the outer shell and shines his maglite into the socket cap. There. Could be light bulb filament, but you never know with the meat industry and their high-tech listening devices. He removes it and washes it down the disposal. Imagining the meat industry ops in their truck, sound of the garbage disposal exploding their ears, Michael Pollan laughs out loud, harsh laughter like his voice is scraping over metal. But then he sees a shadowy form moving outside the window. He peels back the curtain. It’s a guy from Time Warner Cable. Shit. Michael Pollan doesn’t have cable. It must be one of the meat industry ops in disguise. Michael Pollan falls to the ground so the op can’t detect him with his body heat detector. How can he convince the meat industry to leave him alone? Maybe he could go the dairy council, cut a deal. He doesn’t talk as much about dairy in his books. But, shit, who’s he kidding? They have it out for him too. Who can he trust? Joel Salatin, the friendly farmer from Polyface farm. He takes out the pre-paid cellphone he bought earlier in the day and dials.

“Joel, it’s Michael.”

“Michael, speak up, I’m butchering one of the sheep and I can’t hear you over her bleating.”

"Which sheep?"

"Sally."

"I remember feeding her on your farm. She’d bounce around and rub her nuzzle against me. She was adorable."

"Still is. Will be for a couple more seconds, too."

“That's why the beef industry’s after me. They read my books talking about all the happy animals on farms like yours and they think I’m against slaughtering cattle.”

“I’ll vouch for you. Hell, when you were at my farm we slaughtered cattle, pigs, chickens, rabbits, turkeys, sheep…"

"It’s not good enough for them. I criticize factory farms in my books.”

"You’re only doing it to make a buck. The beef people ought to be okay with that. Don’t understand how they can be after you. You’ve done more to ease peoples’ consciences and get them feeling good about eating animal flesh than just about anyone."

"Thanks, Joel, I appreciate the support. Shhh, there’s a clicking sound on the line!

"That clicking ain't on the line, Michael, I’m re-loading my stun bolt gun."

"The line’s tapped! It's the beef council. They're on to us!"

Michael Pollan slams down the phone. He slips out the back door. he turns into a dark alley and runs.

Michael Pollan eats animals with consciousness, ceremony and respect.

An Animal’s Place is a long article that starts with Michael Pollan recounting his first opening “Animal Liberation” while eating “a rib-eyed steak cooked medium rare,” delighting in the details of his steak as a way of reassuring his meat-eating, book-buying readers, “if in parts of this article I should appear to question the ethics of consuming animal products, don’t worry, it’s a long article, you can rest assured I’ll circle back and justify meat eating in the end.”

The arguments against killing animals for human pleasure seem to have caught Michael Pollan by surprise. He spends the first hundred paragraphs of the article being astounded by simple ideas. “Okay the suffering of animals is a legitimate problem,” he says, “but the world is full of problems and surely human problems must come first. But, hold on, “there’s no reason I can’t devote myself to solving humankind’s problems while being a vegetarian…”

Eventually, he gets to the horrors of the factory farms. He punctuates the harsh description with a sheepish apology. “Simply reciting these facts … makes me sound like one of those animal people, doesn’t it? I don’t mean to … it certainly wasn’t my intention to ruin anyone’s breakfast.”

And if you read further, I’ll redeem myself, proving I’m not one of those animal people by giving you a feel-good way of eating meat and feeling morally upright at the same time, which can best be summarized thusly: Animals may have an interest in not being killed, I’ll admit that, but damn their flesh tastes mighty fine so I’m going to find me a rationalization. I’ll first convince myself consumption of meat is a biological invetiability I’m helpless to resist. But I won’t stop there. Because I want to feel more than helpless. I want to feel a sense of moral purity when I chew the flesh of animals so I’ll pay a visit to a family farm overflowing with animal happiness.

"Before you swear off meat entirely, let me describe a very different kind of animal farm," he says, and he takes us to Polyface Farm. “Here, Joel Salatin and his family raise six different food animals … in an intricate dance of symbiosis designed to allow each species, in Salatin’s words, 'to fully express it’s physiological distinctiveness.'” At least for the few months it has remaining before Joel Salatin expresses his species’ psychological distinctiveness and kills the animals for money.

And dance of symbiosis? Are those randomly splattered words supposed to mean something or has Polyface Farm put Michael Pollan in some kind of ecstatic trance? He writes of “hens fanning out over the pasture .. a diet of grubs and grass makes for exceptionally tasty eggs and contented chickens … meanwhile the pigs are in the barn turning the compost.” When Michael Pollan starts rhapsodizing like this, you know he’s about ready to pick up his knife and fork and dig into another a rationalization.

"This is where, it seems to me, animal rightists betray a profound ignorance of the workings of nature. To say of one of Joel Salatin’s caged chickens that the life of freedom is to be preferred betrays an ignorance about chicken’s preferences.”

Life of freedom? Nobody’s saying Joel Salatin’s chickens want to thumb it across the country like Jack Kerouac. They want freedom to live out their lives without having their necks slit. But Michael Polllan is hell bent on ridiculing the his straw dog animal rightists.

"To many animal rightists, even Polyface Farm is a death camp. But to look at these animals is to see that as the sentimental conceit it is."

And why is it a sentimental conceit? Because these animals are happy.

"Chickens live like chickens, his cows like cows; pigs, pigs ... animal happiness is unmistakable. and here I was seeing it in abundance."

Nothing would make these animals happier than to wind up in the belly of a best-selling author. Nothing would make the best-selling author happier, either. Great tasting sausage with the happy awareness – yes, he too is happy; everyone’s happy on Polyface farm – that he’s not like those unrefined rubes who eat their slaughterhouse meat. Michael Pollack had pangs of conscience and he did something about it. He went through agonizing self-reflection and then Joel Salatin and Polyface farm showed him the light. You can have it all. Soft, chewy flesh and a country-fresh rationalization to boot. These animals have it good. “a mutualism between species,” Michael Pollan says. They couldn’t subsist in the wild. They’re grateful for the life farms like Polyface give them. They’d hoist the blade themselves if they only had hands.

But they don’t have to because Joel Salatin does it for them. Joel is a religious man who understands “people have a soul; animals don’t. It’s a bedrock belief of mine. Unlike us, animals are not created in God’s image, so when they die, they just die.” Joel’s bedrock belief just happens to coincide with the source of his income. Funny how that works.

Michael Pollan still can't over how good these animals have it, pre-slaughter.

"For any animal, happiness seems to consist in the opportunity to express its creaturely character -- it’s essential pigness or wolfness or chickenness."

And here Michael Pollan expresses his essential Michael Pollanness.

"Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent … maybe when we did eat animals, we’d eat them with the consciousness, ceremony and respect they deserve."

Well when he puts it that way. What animal wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to have its neck slit for the opportunity to be eaten by Michael Pollan with consciousness, ceremony and respect?