Pork Palace

It is a cruel paradox. The royal suicide food animal—putative monarach—is the most powerless animal of all. Unable to stop his subjects from being killed and devoured, unable even to avoid the knife himself, his only power is the power of complicity. And he wields it like a scepter fashioned from his own bones.

As is the case with all so-called suicide food "royalty," our palace-keeper is a puppet. He looks to be more like the village idiot, his poorly rendered face hovering above his cardboard castle.

Could anything be more patronizing than the royalty conferred upon our "food" animals? Could anything be less sincere, less deferential? Why, directly above his stupid, grinning head is the careless legend "PIGS FOR SALE."

And below, one of our favorite expressions: "Farm fresh" meat. We maintain that in the pairing of those two innocent words—farm and fresh—there lurks a hateful suggestion. Namely, that dead animals can be described in the same neutral terms as fresh produce. Freshly killed: that, we could accept. But "farm fresh" meat is merely the discursive equivalent of the smiling cow, the hyper-sexual pig, the happy-go-lucky chicken.

It intends to lull and deceive.

(Thanks to Dr. Chardunk for the referral and the photo.)