read Fast Food Nation, one of the most comprehensive, factual, and disturbing pieces of book-length research i have ever read... it chronicles in great detail exactly how the meat processing industry works and what they have managed to get away with over many years... you may never eat another hamburger...
It appears that the Meat Barons are putting themselves above their consumers...again. How is it that the meat industry moguls find it necessary to whine about the cost invovled in providing the same information on their product that the produce industry now provides consumers regarding fruits? Aren't consumers the ones who ultimatley pay their salaries and bonuses and therefore are entitled to the information necessary to make well-INFORMED purchasing decisions? Maybe we should all just eat tofu instead, that'll wrinkle their hide. Pun intended.
a colleague i met while working on an economic development project in macedonia was a retired meat packing executive... he shared with me what i thought was a wonderful idea for keeping track of the origin of any meat, poultry, or fish product... actually it would allow tracking of any formerly live species used for human consumption... it's so simple and elegant, you would think it would already be in use...
given the state of today's dna technology, every live species food product would have a dna sample taken and recorded in a database that specified all the necessary elements necessary for tracking... in the event that a product was found to be tainted or responsible for causing any illness, the dna of that product could be then used to make a match with the dna sample in the database...
as simple and effective as it sounds, my friend recounted numerous instances of angry rejection when he posed it to feed-lot operators, industry association representatives, and fellow executives in the meat-packing industry who, as he told it, were adamantly opposed to "traceability..." when i asked why, he laughed... "c'mon," he said... "why in the world would they want to sign on to something that would make it easy to determine where meat came from...?" "avoidance of liability?" i suggested... "damn right!" he said... and there ya have it...
In various places, the practice of FGM can range from complete mutilation all the way down to the mere removal of the clitoral hood. So if you think it's okay to "trim" little boys by removing their foreskins, you should have no objection to "trimming" little girls for religious or cultural reasons by removing their clitoral hoods, right? That's the female equivalent of male circumcision, isn't it? Yet even that minimal operation is forbidden by law in the U.S. -- rightly, IMO, and so it should be for male circumcision as well.
In both cases, a superstitious culture is asserting its power over the individual by carving its signature on the genitals of a child who is powerless to
resist. How can you say there's no equivalence?
I don't question that the burden of mutilation has fallen far more heavily on women. But --
"...[T]he fact remains that the two are not, by any sane measure,
equivalent."
-- that oft-parroted statement is worthier of a Rush Limbaugh-stereotype
feminazi than of someone truly concerned for the human rights of all. I'm tired of hearing it, and I don't let it pass unchallenged. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
In various places, the practice of FGM can range from complete mutilation all the way down to the mere removal of the clitoral hood. So if you think it's okay to "trim" little boys by removing their foreskins, you should have no objection to "trimming" little girls for religious or cultural reasons by removing their clitoral hoods, right? That's the female equivalent of male circumcision, isn't it? Yet even that minimal operation is forbidden by law in the U.S. -- rightly, IMO, and so it should be for male circumcision as well.
In both cases, a superstitious culture is asserting its power over the individual by carving its signature on the genitals of a child who is powerless to resist. How can you say there's no equivalence?
I don't question that the burden of mutilation has fallen far more heavily on women. But --
"...[T]he fact remains that the two are not, by any sane measure, equivalent."
-- that oft-parroted statement is worthier of a Rush Limbaugh-stereotype feminazi than of someone truly concerned for the human rights of all. I'm tired of hearing it, and I don't let it pass unchallenged. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
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