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?

Temple Grandin's House of Slaughterhouses

Folks, have you had it up to here with stubborn animals that refuse to enter the killing room? Then maybe it’s time to replace that old slaughterhouse with one of the many new designs at Temple Grandin’s House of Slaughterhouses. Whether you’re a big supplier or a local family farm, we’ve got the perfect solutions for all your killing needs. Folks, I’m considered the authority on farm animal welfare, so every slaughterhouse from Temple Grandin’s House of Slaughterhouses comes with unbeatable PR.You’ll get kudos from PETA the Humane Society and countless other animal rights organizations.

At Temple Grandin's House of Slaughterhouses, we’ve taken my cutting edge insights into animal behavior to create state-of-the-art slaughterhouses that will improve killing efficiency and increase profits! See, the problem with ordinary slaughterhouses is cattle often refuse to enter the chute, fall down and jam up the entryway. And a downed cow means downed profits! But my curved cattle chutes take advantage of the natural circling behavior of cattle, so they move toward the killing room peacefully, without holding up the line. Or maybe your animals slip and fall when you’re trying to restrain them in the holding pen. Then get rid of that old slick concrete and check out the non-slip flooring options from Temple Grandin’s House of Slaughterhouses. We start with the highest quality concrete then we use a special grooving machine to make it virtually slip-proof. We haven’t forgotten you pig killers, either. This handsome diamond-patterned flooring was specially designed for the unique shape and texture of pig hoofs.

Best of all, when you shop Temple Grandin’s House of Slaughterhouses, you can rest assured that everything comes with our risk-free, six-month guarantee. If after six months, you’re not convinced your new slaughterhouse has improved your killing efficiency by at least fifty percent, return it and we’ll give you your money back, no questions asked. Big companies like Hormel and McDonald’s swear by the slaughterhouses they got from me and you will too. But don’t just take my word for it. Listen to what some of our satisfied customers have to say.

"Thanks to the curved chutes I got from Temple Grandin’s House of Slaughterhoues I kill more cattle in a day than I used to kill in a week."

--- Billy S.

All that slipping and sliding used to drive me nuts. It lowered productivity and the video of my workers beating downed cows with a metal rod resulted in negative publicity that had our PR department working overtime. So I went to Temple Grandin’s House of Slaughterhouses. She showed me how her non-stick flooring keeps the animals from slipping and I couldn’t be happier.

-- Ron K.

So if stubborn animals who don’t want to die are making your slaughterhouse less efficient, depriving you of the profits you deserve, give Temple Grandin's House of Slaughterhouses a call today. Call in the next fifteen minutes and we’ll throw in these mats made from woven tire threads, guaranteed to reduce hoof damage, absolutely free. Kill more. Make more. At Temple Grandin’s house of slaughterhouses.

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.

HSUS and Hormel: separated at birth?

Was reading Wayne Pacelle’s blog and saw a post on the horrific conditions at a Smithfield Foods supplier farm. He talked about the gestation crates…

Asking that animals merely be able to turn around hardly seems like asking too much, especially for a company that had $144 million in profits in the second quarter. But it’s the right thing to do.

It’s the right thing to do. Those words had a familiar ring. I went back to the Hormel site on humane treatment and there it was.

This is simply about treating animals humanely because it’s the right thing to do.

But that’s a common enough expression. One of the world’s biggest slaughterers couldn’t have any more overlap with the world’s biggest animal advocacy organization. Well, they do cite the same authorities…

Wayne Pacelle: “Dr. Temple Grandin, among the world’s foremost farm handling experts, properly observed that these crates need to be phased out.”

Hormel, on their website, takes great pride in being a Temple Grandin-approved slaughterer (though, in fairness, it’s hard to find any deep-pocketed animal slaughtering company that isn’t TemplGrandin-approved).

Temple Grandin says, “[Hormel] has been a leader in working with university researchers on studies that will improve animal welfare”

Okay, how do Hormel and HSUS react to undercover videos documenting abuse of pigs?

Hormel on the video taken in one of their supplier farms: “We find the images in the video appalling.”

Wayne Pacelle: "It is shocking to see these intelligent curious animals immobilized in the crates with bloodied heads and gaping wounds … endure rough handling with no veterinarian in sight."

No veterinarian in sight. The Hormel PR people are nodding in unison. We couldn’t agree more. We have a head veterinarian. His name is Daryl Olsen. According to the Hormel website, Daryl Olsen loves animals and takes pride in producing top quality hogs. Proper judicious use of antibiotics is going to ensure the consumer a better product in the end, he says.

But can we digress back to Wayne Pacelle talking about the shock of seeing “these intelligent curious animals immobilized.”

As intelligent and curious animals these pigs might wonder how you could film undercover videos and document the horrific abuses and hold press conferences about said horrific abuses but not once in all your many pages of literature offer up the suggestion that people could end the abuse of these animals by not eating them. Here’s your big opportunity, HSUS. Separate yourself from Hormel. If people stopped eating pigs, you’d never see another video like this again.

Silence…

Wayne? Wayne? There's a blank page on your blog, just waiting for you.

Hey, did you hear the latest on Michael Vick? I put a photo of him on my blog, addressing some school kids on the importance of treating pets with kindness.

Yeah, Michael Vick's having a great season, getting plenty of ink, and if the HSUS can position itself as his moral rehabilitator, it could mean plenty of $$$. But put it somewhere, anywhere, in your blog. Tell people they can stop consuming animal products. It isn’t hard to do. A vegan diet is surprisingly delicious. Far healthier than an animal-based diet. Yeah, we know, Reducing the consumption of meat is in one of your campaigns, part of the Three R’s. But instead of Reduce, why not Eliminate? It doesn’t begin with the letter R and "Two R’s and one E" doesn’t have the same sing-song catchiness as the Three R’s.

Okay, how about an asterik next to Reduce? Then way down at the bottom in mouse type, so none of your donors can see it unless they squint, say, “If you really want to do your part to make sure pigs aren’t treated this way, don’t reduce your consumption of animal products, stop. Just like that. Stop. Go vegan."

To paraphrase you, Wayne Pacelle, asking that you merely offer up the possibility that people stop consuming animals hardly seems like asking too much, especially for an animal advocacy organization that had $97 million in donations last year.

But you won’t do it because of that same R word. Reduced, as in reduced donations. Look, nobody’s asking you to invade your donors’ suburbs with leaflets. Just say the word. Once. Vegan. Or maybe the same way a child is forbidden to say the word “fuck” the Humane Society can never use the word "vegan." Their donors eat meat, they don’t want to offend and that’s that. And, of course, there are only so many hours in the day. Waste time on a post advocating veganism and you might not be able to weigh in on that day’s developments in the ongoing saga of of Michael Vick’s rehabilitation and his worthiness for dog ownership.

HuffPo readers don’t like having their animal rights credentials challenged

Sarah Palin said on some caribou-killing reality show, “Unless you’ve never worn leather shoes, sat on a leather sofa, or eaten meat, save your condemnation.”

This really pissed off screenwriter/playright Aaron Sorkin. He wrote an angry essay in the Huffington Post. He said, unlike Sarah Palin, he took no pleasure in the slaughter of animals whose flesh he consumed.

Prof Gary Francione wrote a brilliant rebuttal to Aaron Sorkin.

You object to her killing the caribou because it was unnecessary; she did it because she enjoys it. And why do you eat meat and animal products? That’s a rhetorical question. There’s only one answer: because you enjoy it.

The fact that you pay someone else to do the dirty work is morally irrelevant. I teach criminal law. If you pay someone to kill another human, try telling the judge that the killer actually enjoyed the act of killing but that you just paid for it. The judge will tell you that you’re both guilty of murder. You’re both equally culpable.

Of course Prof. Francione’s post didn’t get printed. People with views like his can’t enter through the front door of the Huffington Post. He gets relegated to the comments section. And the HuffPo progressives didn’t like what he had to say. One wrote...

I am grateful for the animals that bring me comfort and sustenance. I go to great lengths to buy from caring, humane farms where the ranchers show genuine concern for their animals. I pay nearly twice as much, in some cases, to avoid buying from farms whose conditions I don’t approve of.

He pays nearly twice as much. He goes to the grass fed, open range meat section in places like Whole Foods, where none of the meat is injected with hormones, but it’s injected with plenty of clean conscience. The clean conscience is well worth paying nearly twice as much for. The progressive can enjoy the juicy meat while at the same time ridiculing people like Sarah Palin for their barbaric treatment of animals. She’s a savage. A neandretahal. Man, this steak tastes great. But now here comes this law professor, this abolitionist, saying the progressive eater of flesh is no better Sarah Palin, and the clean conscience he paid good money for at Whole Foods is spoiled. Spoiled conscience is way worse than spoiled meat. The professive wants his money back.

What about the gratitude he feels for the animals who bring him comfort and sustenance? He’s got a point there. The gratitude of a progressive gives meaning to any farm animal’s death. If his throat is slit merely to feet the belly of some dirty Walmart heathen, forget it, the steer will struggle like crazy to avoid walking town the Temple-Grandin designed cattle chute. But if his death can bring about the gratitude of a progressive, he can’t get to the stun bolt gun fast enough. The commenter continues...

I refuse to be lumped in with people who send trusting companions out to fight and die, or people who dance around a dead moose so people think they’re a maverick.

He can’t tolerate being in the same group portrait as people like Sarah Palin and the factory farmers. In a way he’s right. He can’t be lumped in with her. She at least acknowledges her disregard of the animal’s interest in living.

Next commeneter says to Prof. Francione…

I’m not sure what you mean by serious animal advocacy but I know from my own personal experience that there are a great many serious animal advocates and organizations out there accomplishing wonderful things, one baby step at a time.

One baby step at a time. You hear this one all the time. You heard it constantly during the HSUS campaign for Prop 2. Baby steps. We insist on bigger cages for laying hens because that’s all the industry will give us. Baby steps. People won’t realistically stop eating meat. We can’t stop the animal from being slaughtered, but we can give him a better life before it happens.

They’re taking the longer view. They’re realists. Very hungry realists. And baby steps permit these "serious animal advocates" to fight for an animal's rights at the same time they’re consuming that animal’s flesh. It’s quite a sleight of hand and they manage to pull it off. They campaign for bigger cages with fire in their eyes and animal flesh in their bellies. And they don’t appreciate someone like Prof. Francione pointing out their hyprocrisy.

The 2010 class inducted into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

You think of the people who keep the slaughterhouses running and you imagine them forcing their gaze away, hardening themselves. The ceaseless screams of terror infect their dreams. They beg forgiveness every sleepless night.

Actually, it doesn’t bother them much at all. They think it’s kind of cool. So cool they set up a Meat Industry Hall of Fame to honor the most prolific killers among them. In a black tie ceremony in conjunction with the meat processors outlook convention, they recently had the induction ceremonies for the class of 2010.

There was plenty of misty-eyed camaraderie as the inductees and their presenters looked back on their careers. These aren’t some local yokels who brought down a few deer. This is the A list. We’re talking numbers that will never be approached. Six of them alone can claim credit for the torture and slaughter of over 50 billion farm animals. These six would be would Dave Thomas, Founder of Wendy’s, Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, Colonel Harlan Sanders, Joel Johnson, former president, CEO and Chairman of Hormel Foods and Richard Bond, former CEO and president of Tyson Foods.

(By the way, what are those inductees holding in their group photo? Do the trophies come in the form of miniaturized gulliotines? Maybe they don't want to risk missing out on a kill, even on the day of their induction. That's the kind of attention to detail that got them into the Hall of Fame in the first place.)

Not all the inductees are as famous as the big six. You had H. Kenneth Johnson, former vice president of the National Live Stock and Meat Board who was credited with being “one of the first people to educate the industry about listening to consumers and developing more convenient products to meet their needs.” Just as the baseball Hall of Fame has room for singles hitters next to the sluggers, the Meat Industry Hall of Fame can’t consist only of fast food company CEO’s. It needs its H. Kenneth Johnsons too.

You had Deven Scott, former executive vice president of the North American Meat Processors Association, “who received a spontaneous standing ovation in recognition of a long and influential career spent serving the industry in positions as the NAMP and at the American Meat Institute.” The spontaneous standing ovation couldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, his record seven National Provisioner cover photos is unlikely to be equaled.

Of course, what would a Hall of Fame induction be without controversy? Where were the slaughterhouse workers caught on video beating a downed cow with a metal pole? Granted, they’ve only slaughtered a fraction of the cattle slaughtered by some of the big boys. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. They found creative ways of inflicting pain. Surely there’s a place for people like this in the Meat Industry Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, outside the ceremony there were cries of speciesism, progressive ranchers asking why this Hall of Fame class was limited to people. Plenty of cattle achieved greatness too. They’re the ones shackle hoisted and stun bolted, who offered their bodies to the quartering saw and their seared flesh to so many satisfied meat lovers. They’re the ones who marched proudly down the Temple Grandin-designed cattle chutes, eager to bring glory to Wendy’s and McDonald’s. (Anyone who questions the cattle’s Hall of Fame credentials can find detailed accounts of their prolific self-slaughtering achievements here.) There would be no Wendy’s old fashioned hamburger without the flesh of a steer. Yet, Dave Thomas gets inducted and all the cattle his company slaughtered are mere footnotes. You can’t expect this injustice to be rectified overnight. It’s good to know there are people out there working quietly behind the scenes to put an end to this unfortunate speciesism and bias. The veterans committee would do well to start drawing up a list of worthy cattle for next year’s class.

But enough with the controversy. It’s a time of celebration. According to the awe-struck correspondent from National Provisioner, “the inductees spoke eloquently and at times movingly, about their careers, the milestones they experienced.”

So to all the young dreamers in agricultural schools from Iowa to Kansas, sharpen those blades. Oil up those stun bolt guns. The class of 2011 set records that may never be broken, but soon it will be time for the next generation of killers. It could be your bust that ends up next to the bust of Dave Thomas and Ray Kroc and Deven Scott at the Meat Industry Hall of Fame.

An account of last year’s Hall of Fame class here.

The Humane Society’s four Rs: reduce, refine, replace and rationalize.

The HSUS promotes eating with conscience and embracing the Three Rs.

The three R’s: Reduce, refine and replace. Three simple actions can reduce the suffering of billions of farm animals on factory farms.

The fourth R: Rationalize. This one simple action can reduce the guilt felt by people who want to advocate for animal rights without giving up the taste of their flesh.

Morality is like the cage of a laying hen. Just as we in the HSUS fight for bigger cages, we also advocate expanding the definition of animal welfare. The bigger cages permit the laying hens to turn around freely and fully extend their limbs. Our new expanded definition of animal welfare gives us plenty of room to consume animal flesh and still pass ourselves off as advocates of the animals we eat.

We can sign petitions in support of bigger cages for farm animals with one hand while holding a chicken sandwich with the other. Hypocrisy? Insanity? Not if you embrace the fourth R.