I was flipping through yesterday’s paper and came upon an ad for the local grocery store. A large banner was proclaiming “PORK IS SAFE”. What? Has there been some concern with this nation’s pork supply?
As an aside: Yes, yes there is something wrong with this nation’s pork supply but it is still safe. In fact, some of the very issues related to the modern pork industry are exactly why it’s so safe. Pigs are now so fragile and so unlike real pigs now that they live in these weirdly sterile environments suspended over a lake of toxic shit. There is about 12 inches of dead air between this amazing dichotomy. Sterility to the point of fragility above, overwhelming toxicity below. Incidentally, the next time you eat a mass produced pork chop close your eyes and think of pee. Really! Do it. Just once. That weird flavor you’ve been covering up with sauces and brines? Ammonia! You can’t live over that much physical effluvia and not absorb the gases. Next time, take some care and buy small farm pork.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Of course the pork supply is safe. Why do we need a big old ad telling us….
oh…right….the ‘swine’ flu. They took out a great big old ad to assure people that you can’t get the flu from a pork chop. Ads are expensive and I imagine they would not have placed the ad unless this was a real issues with consumers.
Holy 12 pound pig shit on the floor! Seriously? Enough people believed this that pork sales went down? I do not have words for this, I really don’t. Is the general pork buying population so lacking in basic science that this is an issue? Sure, in Afghanistan they quarantined their only pig against the possibility of it just spontaneously developing the flu….developing the flu in a strain that can transmit from pigs to humans! I think it’s pretty easy to see that education in Afghanistan has been a pretty sketchy proposition since 1979. Basic biology might not have been a big priority. Egypt? Well, yeah, pig slaughter but it’s pretty obvious that’s more about politics and religion than anything.
But here? HERE? Really? Well, this is a nation where we debate the scientific merits of religion and people actually believe that the philosophy of creation should be taught in the science room. maybe that’s the problem, a systematic unraveling of logical processes, a discounting of scientific method and rational thought. Teaching creationism isn’t about promoting a religion, it’s about teaching blind acceptance. No evidence, no experiments, no hypotheses, no proofs, you just accept that this thing happened.
Things get dumbed down over and over and I guess it is little wonder that someone is dousing the spare ribs in Thera-flu and chicken soup.
Well, thank god they’re cutting education funding again in the state! Holy crap! Who needs education funding? We’ll just send out monthly newsletters based on whatever current panic is in the news and just tell people what to think.
This is why I drink so much Blue Moon, people! I have no faith in the future! I fear I’ll be walking through the refrigerated section to find an exorcism being performed among the fish in order to the Salmonella Demons from attacking the eggs and perhaps little altars to the Gods of the Complete and Balanced Breakfast will be erected by the Cheerios.