Monthly Archives: February 2009
The Virtual Battery Cage
People always act shocked when I tell them I’m vegan, as if it never occurred to them to think about where their food comes from or what is in it. If you are one of those people, then this is for… Read more
Can diet soads cause you to gain weight? There is some interesting evidence that they might do just… Read more
Happy Vegan News of the Day: Smithfield Foods Inc. said it plans to close six plants and shed 1,800 jobs, as the world’s largest pork processor by revenue battles the liquidity squeeze that already has pushed rivals into bankruptcy protection and widespread… Read more
It’s time to party like it’s 1234567890 – ’cause it is! On this Friday, Feb 13 at exactly 3:31:30 PM (PST), Unix time (WTF is Unix time?) will equal… Read more
Atalissa Is Complicit
The saga of the “Henry Boys” continues. It seems now that they were promised a non-existent ranch at the end of their “employment” at Henry’s Turkey Service: According to several Atalissa residents, the men were promised a “ranch” when they returned to Texas after they retired. Though retirement would have come next month, Thiede said there is no ranch in Texas for the men to go. Shades of George and Lennie there, no? That quote above is from an article in the West Liberty Index, a web-paper local to the scandal. In a recent article, the townspeople boo hoo in best paternalist fashion, and the author seems to be taking the slant that somehow something wrong was done by removing the men from the squalid, exploited position they were in. The people in the article go on and on about how important to the community, how loved and cared about, these men were. It makes me sick to read this feel-good self-exculpatory prattle. I am full of rage at the self-satisfied idiots who never,… Read more
Peanut Plant In Salmonella Outbreak Failed Inspections For Years
I don’t suppose that it should come as any surprise that the Blakely, GA peanut plant that has been identified as the source of the recent salmonella outbreak has failed inspections routinely since 2006. If inspection results do not result in action to remedy the problems, then the inspections are meaningless. This will lead some people to argue that inspection regimes should be abandoned, as they do not work to protect customers, cost companies unnecessarily in order to supposedly comply with the ineffective inspection policies, and fleeces the taxpayer to fund unnecessary programs. The idea put forth by these sorts of critics is inevitably some sort of vague self-regulation scheme supported by neo-liberal hand waving about the omnipotence of the “free market”. Of course, if a plant, or a whole industry, can routinely fail inspections without any real consequences, then the industry being inspected is effectively working under a self-policing regime. What we are seeing in this… Read more
On 9th February, 1950, Joseph McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin, made a speech claiming to have a list of 205 people in the State Department that were known to be members of the American Communist Party (late he reduced this figure to 57). The list of names was not a secret and had been in fact published by the Secretary of State in 1946. These people had been identified during a preliminary screening of 3,000 federal employees. Some had been communists but others had been fascists, alcoholics and sexual deviants. If screened, McCarthy’s own drink problems and sexual preferences would have resulted in him being put on the list…. Read more
It’s Still A Jungle Out There
Not much has changed in the meat processing industry in the 100+ years since Upton Sinclair penned The Jungle. Since the late 1970s, Henry’s Turkey Service has been shipping mentally retarded men from Texas to Iowa to work in the West Liberty plant. Henry’s has acted as the workers’ employer, landlord and caregiver — paying the men a reduced wage for their work at the plant and then deducting from their pay the cost of room, board and care. Payroll records indicate the men are left with as little as $65 per month in salary. Typically, their days began at 2:30 a.m., when they were awakened. At 4:30 a.m., they were taken into the still-dark yard and loaded into passenger vans for the six-mile drive to the West Liberty plant. Once there, they donned protective clothing and went to work “on the line,” cleaning turkeys. Gene Berg, a 53-year-old cancer patient, has worked there as a “gut puller.” Billy and Robert Penner, two brothers in their 60s, have pulled guts and plucked… Read more