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How to Convert a Chicken Into a Blood-Spurting Pistol in One Easy Step
Read a review of
Planet Chicken, an "odd bird’s-eye view" of the
poultry industry, from
a man with a chip on his shoulder and bird blood in his eyes.
After recounting his summer farm job, which included chicken mass
murder (“If you pull the neck too hard and the head comes off,
chickens become blood-spurting pistols”), Spiked's Mick Hume
gets into it:
An unsentimental attitude towards farm animals is actually sensible and human. Those who have to work with them for a living have always been the most clear-eyed about these matters – at least until the advent of hobby farmers who give their hens names like ‘Chickpea’.
His swashbuckling wrap-up:
The notion that the wonders of modern farming amount to ‘industrialised savagery’ is the product of a conveyor belt of overfed dull ideas in our Chicken Little society, where people who should know better rush like headless chickens from one food and health panic to another (as epitomised by the bird flu scare about UK poultry). It reflects a culture that not only fears the future, but has also lost faith in the achievements of its own past, so that a great stride forward for human nutrition can be dismissed as ‘inhumanity to animals’.
In the past it was said that you could judge the level of a society by its treatment of its prisoners. Frederick Engels argued that we should judge it by the way it treated the female half of its population. But only a society up to its own neck in misanthropic crap would accept that civilisation be judged according to how it treats its bloody chickens.
Side note: An Amazon search for this book yields the suggestion to "See our Chicken Seasonings selection in Grocery." Awesome.
Read more about life down on the farm from Ron Bailey.
|7.3.07 @ 2:35PM|#
Ah, nothing like a good false dilemma argument.
Either it improves human nutrition, or it's inhuman to animals.
Can't be both. Nope. Not around here.
|7.3.07 @ 2:43PM|#
Ah, nothing like a good false dilemma argument.
Either it's one way around here at Reason, or it's the other.
Couldn't be a third way. Nope. Not around here.
|7.3.07 @ 2:47PM|#
One could argue that modern industrial farming chicken farming
practices have become less humane than our chicken farming
'achievments of the past.'
I havent really heard of debeacking or high density as being a
histroically wide spread practice. Those practices have nothing to
do with a stride towards human nutrition, but rather the bottom
line; there is nothing wrong with maximizing profits, but lets not
confuse the issues.
Of course when you throw out pedagogical crap like, "but has also
lost faith in the achievements of its own past, so that a great
stride forward for human nutrition can be dismissed as 'inhumanity
to animals'. ", reasoned discussion really does go out the
window.
|7.3.07 @ 2:52PM|#
Jim Bob,
Other than demonstrating that you don't what a false dilemma
fallacy is, was there some other point you were trying to
make?
Because that's really all you managed there.
Greg|7.3.07 @ 2:53PM|#
Reason should to a profile on the boys behind Spiked. Are they Marxists? Are they liberal? What gives?
|7.3.07 @ 2:54PM|#
I think letting your resentment towards animal rights activists take over you rational faculties and actually glorify and make light of mass systemic torture of innocent conscious animals is pitiful.
|7.3.07 @ 2:58PM|#
Exactly, rickm.
I call it Goldberg Syndrome, after Jonah Goldberg, who admitted
last year that the main reason he supported the Iraq War and
ignored the arguments against it was because he perveived the
opposition to be lefties.
Everything's culture war with some people.
Timothy|7.3.07 @ 3:00PM|#
When chickens have metaphysical debates I will respect them as moral equals, not before.
Ellie|7.3.07 @ 3:03PM|#
Eh, there's shades. I don't think it's immoral to raise animals
for meat in a general sense (certainly not when it's required for
the society's survival), but I think we can all agree that it would
be immoral to run a slaughterhouse that killed the animals in the
most long-drawn-out, painful way possible.
Nor do I necessarily think there's anything wrong with judging
societies by how they treat their chickens, so long as they don't
treat their humans worse.
It's a muddy issue and a tough call.
(Full disclosure: I eat mainly vegan; I do occasionally buy from
local farms that raise humanely, but then I feel conflicted about
it.)
|7.3.07 @ 3:05PM|#
When chickens have metaphysical debates I will respect them
as moral equals, not before.
Why do they need to be equal? Why not lesser then you and your
children but maybe slighly above a couch?
I\'m a chicken shit farmer fro|7.3.07 @ 3:05PM|#
Every moment you spend defending animal rights is a moment that could have been spent defending human rights.
|7.3.07 @ 3:06PM|#
Timothy-
Your straw man fallacy is so obvious that you should be embarrased.
One, you are operating under the assumption that a necessary and
sufficient condition for being considered as a 'moral equal' is
that one can partake in metaphysical debates. This is patently
false.
Also, one does not need to be morally equal to a sentient human
being in order to be granted even a modicum of respect and
decency.
|7.3.07 @ 3:07PM|#
I'm a chicken shit farmer from Carolina -
Every moment you spend attacking people for defending animal rights
is a moment you could be spending attacking people for not
defending human rights.
Randolph Carter|7.3.07 @ 3:08PM|#
Another reason why I've taken up a "I won't eat stuff unless I
would feel ok killing, gutting, and butchering it myself"
diet.
I went to boarding school in Delaware, and that place is the mecca
for chicken farms. Those places are truly disgusting, and most
people that work in them get crazy lung diseases from inhaling
powdered chicken shit all day. Not particularly humane for the
animals or the workers.
GILMORE|7.3.07 @ 3:10PM|#
Your straw man fallacy is so obvious that you should be
embarrased. One, you are operating under the assumption that a
necessary and sufficient condition for being considered as a 'moral
equal' is that one can partake in metaphysical debates. This is
patently false.
"Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your
newsletter."
- Homer Simpson
"Fuck chickens"
- GILMORE
|7.3.07 @ 3:11PM|#
I think letting your resentment towards animal rights
activists take over you rational faculties and actually glorify and
make light of mass systemic torture of innocent conscious animals
is pitiful.
I, for one, try only to glorify and make light of mass systemic
torture of guilty animals.
When chickens have metaphysical debates I will respect them as
moral equals, not before.
This raises a question. Is it alright to eat severely mentally
disabled people? I've worked with individuals with less
intelligence and awareness than baby chimps. So I've always
wondered what makes a human with less intellectual/emotional
capability than a chimp worth more than a chimp?
Chickens, however, were meant to be eaten. By me. In great
quantities.
|7.3.07 @ 3:12PM|#
GILMORE
If your idea of a refutation of an argument consists of "FUCK
CHICKENS", why even both engaging in a conversation about animal
rights?
Or is it that you resent animal rights activists and gain pleasure
in disparaging their putatively noble cause by shallow name
calling?
Eat shit and die|7.3.07 @ 3:13PM|#
How many of you actually look where you are walking or driving
to make sure you don't crush any insects? Why are insects of no
concern but chickens are? And why aren't we more humane to rats?
How about those goddamned city ordinances that make it illegal to
keep chickens, forcing me to buy from third parties?
Head lice are animals too! Save the tapeworms!
GILMORE|7.3.07 @ 3:15PM|#
D.A. Ridgely | July 3, 2007, 3:09pm | #
That chiken link pretty awesome.
My fave is the Yukio Mishima one, which is pretty obscure but still
on the money...
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Mishima: The dark courage of the
chicken was as beautiful as drops of dew upon jade at midnight,
struck by a partial moon, its light filtered through clouds. One of
the
deeply aroused roosters could stand the intensity of the moment no
more and bit off the head of the beautiful, courageous
chicken-hero, whose wine blood was deliciously drunken by the road,
and he died.
|7.3.07 @ 3:15PM|#
Eat shit and die-
If you are not going to even engage in a quasi-serious refutation,
why not just retreat into quietism?
Randolph Carter|7.3.07 @ 3:16PM|#
Eat shit and die,
Well, I'm not a Jain, so no, I don't walk around with a broom in
fear of killing bugs. I fucking hate bugs. But I wouldn't feel
comfortable killing and plucking a chicken - it's my personal
preference, and I don't want to force it on anyone else. Does that
really bother you?
GILMORE|7.3.07 @ 3:16PM|#
Or is it that you resent animal rights activists and gain
pleasure in disparaging their putatively noble cause by shallow
name calling?
Bingo!
and I also think you are gay. Not in the homosexual way. In the
not-cool and self-important way.
|7.3.07 @ 3:17PM|#
Every moment you spend defending animal rights is a moment
that could have been spent defending human rights.
No, this is wrong. Justice and decency are not a zero-sum game -
quite the opposite, by pushing for greater justice and decency in
one field, you not only bring about your first-order results, but
you make the pursuit of those ideals a habit among the people you
win over, which they bring to other aspects of the their lives.
Timothy|7.3.07 @ 3:17PM|#
*sigh*
I give up, it is no longer worth even attempting off-color jokes. I
always forget that the animal rights kids are absolutely humorless,
worse than Marxists.
|7.3.07 @ 3:18PM|#
GILMORE-
You've exposed the intellectual shallowness of Reason readers.
Congrats!
I\'m a chicken shit farmer fro|7.3.07 @ 3:19PM|#
Every moment you spend attacking people for defending animal
rights is a moment you could be spending attacking people for not
defending human rights.
True, but I don't pretend to give a shit about human rights. You
are the one with the moral dilemma, not me.
Russ 2000|7.3.07 @ 3:20PM|#
"Fuck chickens"
- GILMORE
I think there's something on you tube showing that.
|7.3.07 @ 3:21PM|#
I'm a chicken shit farmer from Carolina-
But you give a shit about attacking people on blogs--some
priorities you have.
|7.3.07 @ 3:22PM|#
*sigh*
I give up, it is no longer worth even attempting off-color
jokes.
pssst, make sure that the jokes are either funny or self evident,
lest your tone and facial expression get lost in the intertubes,
and we are left with naked text wondering wtf is up with that
comment.
|7.3.07 @ 3:24PM|#
rickm, you can stop now, your first comment was sensible and sufficient, the rest really havent helped your cause one bit
Eat shit and die|7.3.07 @ 3:25PM|#
But I wouldn't feel comfortable killing and plucking a
chicken - it's my personal preference, and I don't want to force it
on anyone else. Does that really bother you?
Heck no, it doesn't bother me. Yours is the only reasonable
position.
|7.3.07 @ 3:26PM|#
I have no moral or intellectual qualm about wringing, killing,
and plucking chickens; I just don't like to do it myself cause it's
very messy - just as I prefer to let someone else clean the fish or
slaughter the cows I eat. Plus I live in a suburban neighborhood
where livestock slaughtering probably violates all sorts of deed
restrictions.
But I am only one generation removed from people who did personally
raise and kill all the animals they ate, and I eat animal flesh
with no guilt. If I lived on a farm, I could kill the animals
myself.
I think that industrial farms where poultry live out their lives
indoors, packed in tightly with millions of other chickens in
appalling conditions, are bad for humans as well as for animals. As
noted, such factories are very dangerous from a health
standpoint.
But Timothy is right. Animal rights activists make Marxists look
relaxed and cheerful. (And Marxists make Southern Baptists look
witty.)
|7.3.07 @ 3:30PM|#
You've exposed the intellectual shallowness of Reason
readers. Congrats!
Why would you lump all Reason readers together after a negative
experience with one of them?
ed|7.3.07 @ 3:33PM|#
I think there's something on you tube showing
that
Not exactly chickens, but...lamb, anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsj2LmBCpuQ
|7.3.07 @ 3:35PM|#
Not exactly chickens, but...lamb, anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsj2LmBCpuQ
Without actually clicking on the link, Im assuming one of the
actors is Scottish and its not the lamb.
|7.3.07 @ 3:36PM|#
Ah, come on, Timothy, don't chicken out now!
If you try harder, Timothy, I think you can pullet off.
Randolph Carter|7.3.07 @ 3:46PM|#
Mr. Eat Shit,
Good deal. I thought you were one of those "What? Ya don't eat
MEAT! What a pussy you must be!" dudes. I would have no qualms
killing and eating one of them.
Ok, maybe I would.
Charles|7.3.07 @ 3:56PM|#
I guess what I don't get is why it is automatically foolish or
(as this article would have it) an attack on western civilization
to make sure we don't treat animals in the most painful, tortuous
way possible.
Also, that's a terribly argued article. For example:
Never mind that people's primary responsibility might be to
feed their family as economically as possible.
You know what's real cheap? Homeless people. Stringy, though.
SIV|7.3.07 @ 3:59PM|#
Animal Rights wackos are not content to stop the "systematic murder" of chickens.They don't even want one to die in a fair fight!
|7.3.07 @ 4:08PM|#
simple Libertarian position: doesn't really matter whether it's wrong to eat animals. If most of the population had a problem with it, there would not be such a huge market for it. If you don't like it, don't buy it/eat it, and you won't be supporting the industry. Why would you want to take away the rights of people who don't feel the same way you do?
|7.3.07 @ 4:10PM|#
Yes, Siv no sentient beings killing other sentient beings- what
a concept!
Katherine- Enough already. We already know that you don't give a
shit about the suffering inflicted on other living beings by the
unthinking food choices made by most of us. Just be thankful you
won't be on the receiving end of such treatment.
D.A. Ridgely|7.3.07 @ 4:17PM|#
Actually, I'd like to explore this whole "blood spurting pistol" business. I mean, are just talking Super-soakers here or is there some way to load the chicken first? What sort of velocity and range? Should we prohibit carrying a concealed chicken, just in case ... for the children?
Ellie|7.3.07 @ 4:17PM|#
I always forget that the animal rights kids are absolutely
humorless, worse than Marxists.
Hey, your sense of humor is nothing to crow about.
Ellie|7.3.07 @ 4:18PM|#
And I consider myself one of the "animal rights kids." Just because I'm not running around like a superhero with a capon doesn't mean I don't care.
Russ 2000|7.3.07 @ 4:19PM|#
Just be thankful you won't be on the receiving end of such
treatment.
I like to match this up with Randolph Carter's mention of
Jainism.
If you truly have faith in reincarnation, suffering is a non-issue
since you will be reborn anyway.
Or as Apu said "Ha ha! You can't kill a Hindu! (Help me,
Jesus!)"
SIV|7.3.07 @ 4:23PM|#
Pope,
unthinking food choices
WTF? Excluding "sleep eating" most give a lot of thought and
consideration to what they eat.
Pepperoni vs. Italian Sausage
Hamburger vs chicken sandwich
Veal vs. pasta
Steak vs. Fish
Timothy|7.3.07 @ 4:27PM|#
I have tried to wing it on this thread, but I fear I've really beaked a few people.
Russ 2000|7.3.07 @ 4:27PM|#
Some people tried to goose up the thread a bit, but the extremists always feel like they're being tarred and feathered.
Russ 2000|7.3.07 @ 4:28PM|#
I'd like to stick my beak in and peck away at these arguments. But I'd rather talk rotisserie baseball.
|7.3.07 @ 4:31PM|#
Of course, my last comment was also a reference from Star Wars. A quote from Hen Solo.
Ellie|7.3.07 @ 4:38PM|#
If we could just fill this thread with chicken puns, that
would be quite a coop.
We might be running out of chicken puns, but we could move on to
other poultry. That would be the nest best thing.
SugarFree|7.3.07 @ 4:39PM|#
You had to take it too far, didn't you Ridgely...
The pun police will be here any minute.
D.A. Ridgely|7.3.07 @ 4:39PM|#
We seem to have driven the animal rights crowd away. I guess the yoke's on them.
Timothy|7.3.07 @ 4:39PM|#
Now I feel sort of bad about being such a turkey earlier, but I guess I'll just have to get myself back into the pecking order.
SugarFree|7.3.07 @ 4:40PM|#
Ellie,
Or quotes:
"I'm just a simple country HyperChicken from a backwards
asteroid..."
D.A. Ridgely|7.3.07 @ 4:42PM|#
Speaking of eggs, in England you usually get two eggs for
breakfast.
Of course, in France one egg is un oeuf.
Ellie|7.3.07 @ 4:43PM|#
The pun police will be here any minute.
I hope they don't drake him over the coals during questioning.
SugarFree|7.3.07 @ 4:50PM|#
I remember the first time I had sex with a chicken. She gave me a come hither look from across barnyard even a capon couldn't ignore. She drew a line in the feed with her delicate claw and displayed her cochlea, swollen and red with desire. I ran inside to get a box of chocolate-covered cracked corn I've been saving for just this day. I approached her shyly, not wanting to ruin the moment, but she was ready. Her head nodded, yes, yes, yes. We retired to the barn. I touched [SECTION DELETED] finished. I lit a cigarette for us to share and I held her in my arms until she pooped on my chest.
|7.3.07 @ 4:58PM|#
Between the bad jokes and the unusual amount of typos, I can only conclude that everyone has already started drinking in preparation for tomorrow :)
SugarFree|7.3.07 @ 5:04PM|#
Reinmoose,
Um, I'll have you know I'm ALWAYS drunk at work. How dare you
presume [SNORE]
Have a Happy 4th, everybody. I love you all more than any chicken
I've ever fucked.
M|7.3.07 @ 7:18PM|#
One hen to another: All roosters are pigs.
Well, maybe just this once, it was funnier in German.
ktc2|7.3.07 @ 7:58PM|#
Is People for Eating Tasty Animals (PETA) still around? I think
I need to join.
Chickens are for eating! Yumm!
|7.3.07 @ 8:57PM|#
I'm coming in late here, and really hate to break the
spell.
The above should be preserved somewhere in a cyberspace
cornerstone.
I was just going to say, that, back in my day in Tennessee,
wringing a chicken's neck was the way it was done. Me own meek and
kindly grandma would slowly feed out the kernels of corn to bring
one of her little flock into wringing distance.
When I got its head to play with, I was always curious why I
couldn't see light from the neck end into the beak end. But, at
least I could lift and shut the eyelids.
Has anyone read the James Thurber short story about the sprint of
the headless chicken through downtown Columbus, OH?
|7.3.07 @ 10:48PM|#
Holy crap, I came back to this thread late. That's funny
stuff!
And joe, yes, I do know what I false dilemma fallacy is. Instead of
being a sneering jackass, try actually reading what I wrote.
M|7.3.07 @ 11:26PM|#
I'd like to explore this whole "blood spurting pistol" business. I mean, are just talking Super-soakers here or is there some way to load the chicken first? What sort of velocity and range? Should we prohibit carrying a concealed chicken, just in case ... for the children?
It depends on whose ox is gored.
The Wine Commonsewer®|7.4.07 @ 12:00AM|#
How to Convert a Chicken Into a Blood-Spurting Pistol in One
Easy Step
Hands down best H&R Headline EVER.
The Wine Commonsewer®|7.4.07 @ 12:06AM|#
You guys are running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.
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