Fischer Family Farms Pork

The Fischer Family Farms pork pig is practically a member of the family.

That he shifts so easily and readily from category to category—on the left he's a sentient being, on the right a delicately ruffled chunk of meat—is only part of his charm.

Separating them is a gossamer thread. Each self, each half of the whole, can regard the other with grace. "Hello, Brother Who Shall Be," says the living pig. "Hello, Brother Who Once Was," says the dead one.

Like you, we are reminded of this dramatic representation. Before and After shots of this kind are always sobering. For us, at least. For the pigs, they are merely confirmation of the rightness of life, a validation of The Way of Things. Which is why the Before pig here is quietly pleased with his situation. Here, alive and smiling; there, dead and sliced by practiced hands. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Calf Club

We'd like to tell you all about this, but after reading up on it, we're still feeling a little dizzy. From the Calf Club's website:

Originally the day was known as Calf Club even though children exhibited animals like lambs and goats, but with fewer children now having access to 'farm animals' the day has become known, in some areas, as Pet, Livestock or Agriculture Day, with events for all classes of animals, pets and handcrafts.

LIC strongly supports New Zealand's dairy, beef, deer and sheep industries and recognises that there are young farmers who work hard each year to select, prepare and show young animals at these school events.

This website provides information and guidelines to help you and your child select, train and show a pet - and most importantly, ensure everyone enjoys the experience.

Okay! Did you spot it?

It's the seamless, oh-so-natural conflation of the categories pet and livestock.

Let's be fair: The organizers of this event explicitly encourage young people to take good care of their animals, to treat them kindly, to make sure they have proper food and clean bedding. It's clear they believe—and the kids feel it too—that the up-and-coming "farmers" form a strong bond with their (ahem) pets, a connection born of duty and affection. We would assume that many "farmers" find this a commonplace.

But to us, that adoring calf—with its serene smile and worshipful gaze—knows more than it lets on. For, whether destined for milking or "rearing" (that is, being raised for meat), it will not long be anyone's companion. Are we wrong to detect a trusting nature in the calf? Not a trust that it will always be—and have—a friend, but a bedrock faith in the entire administration that will see to its eventual disposition. From friend to food, the calf is in their hands. Where it belongs.

European Fur Breeders' Association

The industrious European fur breeders of the European Fur Breeders' Association need to learn to dial it back just a bit. A smidgen less... enthusiasm would serve them well. We're uncomfortable giving them pointers, but their videos look like hoaxes or something we might have cooked up just to make the EFBA's position look even worse.

We've seen footage before where animals speak about their yearnings and their fears in their own voices, and, far from grounding us in a comforting reality, they only make our skin crawl and our bowels loosen. What begins as an attempt at cinéma vérité becomes cinéma putréfié, as the cognizant beings patiently explain their eagerness to die.

Fred the mink gets the ball rolling.

"...nice farmers and vets take care of us," he says—and they sure do take care of them!—"and we are useful to people!"






And then things get a little personal when Fred points out the real value of his friends Simone the chicken and Lola the cow:

Where the EFBA's little videos compound the insanity is in their central, axiomatic proposition that because raising and killing animals for their meat is ordained by the animals themselves, there can be no legitimate objection to raising and killing animals for their fur. It's logic so simple even (only?) a child could embrace it!














After all, there's no difference...














(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for the referral.)






Addendum: If you really need to watch one of these videos, knock yourself out.

Addendum 2: Enjoy a suicide-clothing digression from four and a half years ago.

Hard Ball Farms

We're going to be honest. What really draws us in here is the stunning, totally unironic aptness of this place's name. Yes, there's the whole pig-with-the-cheap-crown angle. But after all this time, another pig seduced by the false promise of a better life—a life of clout and authority—hardly has the power to move us.

We've seen the Nahunta dupe, the Pork Palace pawn, "King" Richard, the Pink King, and the Brooklyn Boob. And that's just the pigs! So forgive us our lack of enthusiasm.

But the name. Hard Ball Farms. Could the pigs hope for a clearer signal that the good life is over for them? The name conveys the idea that they will now be treated with no tenderness or consideration. As though now they'll learn the true meaning of ruthless.

No matter. The pig doesn't mind. The pig never does.







Addendum: And don't forget the Festival on the "Noose" River. Perfect!

Suicide Art: a digression

As you know—even children know it!—animals want to die to enrich our lunches. And our wardrobes, our leisure time, our medicine chests, and our decrepit cultural institutions. And other things besides.

We've seen them all, all the ways animals are dying to serve us by serving up themselves. The July 3, 2011, edition of The New York Times Magazine suggests one that escaped our reeling imagination: art. Yes, we can now assume animals enjoy dying for our art.

In a piece titled "Among the Piglets," by Randy Kennedy, we learn about what Peter Nadin, onetime leading light of the intellectual New York City art circuit, has been up to lately. And what he's been up to is farming. We learn about how his experiences on the land have led him back to art. But we're not the only ones inspired. The animals are pretty darn happy about it, too! One of his projects is the artistic drying and curing of "a half-dozen mold-covered hams." Says Mr. Nadin, whether about his artistic or agrarian pursuits, we're not quite sure:

The pigs, for their part, might not agree that it's such a good thing to have happen, I suppose. But it seems to me like a pretty noble end, all in all. I wouldn't mind being eaten, you know? Meet your end in the forest somewhere and the coyotes and other animals eat your body? In fact, I think it would be quite a dignified way to go.

Almost as nobly dignified, we would venture, as having your entire life taken over by some artist who wants to make you his property, kill you, and make supper or art out of you.

Happy Mountain Farms

Have you been looking for a place to satisfy your dream of meeting miniature cattle while you satisfy your meat tooth? Look no further. Happy the 32-inch miniature bull—and the rest of his diminutive fellows—invite you to take it all in! See? He's talking to you!

Well, to be fair, Happy is mostly promoting the come-look-at-small-cows angle, but his parent company also deals in the edible side of the business, too.

Catering to the small-is-beautiful crowd, Happy and the rest of the shrimpy bovines make themselves available for anything you might have in mind. Petting, chewing, digesting, whatever.

(Thanks to Dr. Kirsten for the referral.)

Suicide Barnyard: a digression, part 2

A year and a half ago, we presented a letter printed in the New Yorker that reminded us all how much animals on loving farms enjoy their lot. Well, in the magazine's June 13/20 issue, a Ms. G. of Ashland, Oregon, has a similar message for us:

Placing a value on the existence of cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens as both edible and sentient beings gives them species-appropriate lives, albeit with a scheduled death. (Emphasis added, because that's plain weird.)

In other words… Oh, shoot. We lost it.

It's a squirrely thing, this idea.

No, wait. It's like this: The animals are better off when people think of them as walking foodstuffs—this is opposed to supporting the bioengineered ("vat") meat industry waiting in the wings, an industry that would eliminate the need for actual animals.

Because see, um…

Because if animals are nothing but commodities, then, even though, sure, someone else will control every aspect of their existence and their "scheduled" deaths, at least the animals will be granted "species-appropriate" lives. And who's deciding what's appropriate? Why, the people making all the decisions and doing all the killing, of course!

Hey, Ms. G. is just telling you how the animals see it. They are thankful for the opportunity to live and die at your pleasure. Like the most sycophantic subjects of the cruelest tsar, the animals live and die to serve.

Foxlights

This equipment is used for chasing predators away, thus safeguarding livestock.

Now, we would be ghouls if we refused to acknowledge that non-lethal means of dealing with predators and protecting prey are better than the alternative. Surely scaring off foxes and wild dogs with a bunch of lights beats poisoning, shooting, and trapping them.

And yet.

The freedom the livestock enjoy—the liberty—is the freedom to remain someone else's property, to be kept from harm until the time is right.

Of course, we're not surprised that, like poultry we looked at long ago, they would rather not be carried off in one set or other of slavering jaws.

But their gratitude feels a little… off. It's like being grateful for shag carpeting in your cell. It keeps the chill away and comforts your shackled feet, but wouldn't parole feel even sweeter? Cold comfort might be better than no comfort at all. Granted. But wouldn't you imagine that animals would aim a little higher? That they would reserve the Lady Liberty get-up for something that came closer to the real thing?

In Suicidefoodland, the animals think a little differently. A little strangely. They have long contented themselves with small blessings.

Australian Pig Farmers

This darling little thing is happy because he has the best of both worlds: A free-ranging existence and the death that will cut it short to satisfy the needs of the humans who cherish him.

The trusting pig is too innocent to understand the crucial difference between free range and free.

And so, uncomprehending, he leans on the banner that signifies his captivity.

Chipotle Revolución

Some revolutionaries burn with a fire only justice can douse. Some revolutionaries bristle with an anger only freedom can soothe. Some revolutionaries ache with shattered hearts only the truth can heal.

And then there's this bunch of luke-warm embarrassments.

El Pig's mild manifesto:

¡Viva la Revolución!

Okay pigs, it's time for us to get together and start fixing this system. We see the way that our pig friends get treated at the factory farms. And it's time we fight so all pigs can have the same rights we have!

No more tight, confining pens! No more antibiotics or non-vegetarian feed!!!!!!!!

We can do it!

Yours truly,
el Pig

We want equality, and we want it now!

P.S. Clear your calendars for next months (sic) talk-n-trough mixer.

Hardly the most rousing sentiment. He could call for anything on behalf of his imprisoned brothers and sisters. Anything at all. But he aims so low it's a wonder he bothers aiming at anything at all. The right not to be killed and eaten? Where is that on his list of demands?

Oh, we can understand the desire to end so-called factory farming. It's just that, when "fixing the system" means El Pig lodges a request for more comfortable shackles, we think his movement needs a new leader.

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







Addendum: You're reminded of these patsies, aren't you? And these, too? We understand.

Addendum 2: Another "food" animal revolutionary.

Fishy Farm

Our favorite thing about this, apart from the appearance of overalls tailored to a fish's physique, is the way the fish happily takes to his role as crop.

The Fishy Farm, according to the official site, can be used to produce "herbs, vegetables, fish and crustaceans for dinner."

Vegetables, fish. Six of one, half dozen of the other. The fish isn't splitting hairs and neither should you.

And so the fish loads up his basket—he's been out harvesting, you see—and he takes his fellow produce and they all plunk themselves down on your doorstep. And then he waits, blushing a bit around the gills, for you to sample the herbs, taste the tomatoes, nibble the carrots. And, his gaze becoming insistent, he fidgets and seems to ask, "See anything else you like?"

(Thanks to Dr. Idji for the referral.)

Billy's Boer Meat Goat Farm

No, no, you don't understand.

This goat really, really wants you to do this.

He is a meat goat. A meat goat. A goat made of meat, a goat made to be meat. And he's okay with that.

No, more than okay.

He is ecstatic about that.

His eyes are practically glowing in unendurable anticipation.

He has already looped the cord around his neck. He wants you to lead him to the Special Place.

Will you do it? Will you do this for him? For all of his kindred meat?

Whitney Farms

The animals—the three pigs and the ear-tagged cow—relish their servitude. We know this by the frolicsome familiarity with which they greet and nuzzle the farm's signage, its corporate identity.

The dreamy pig at the top, in particular, ratifies the proposition that he is indistinguishable from "all natural farm raised pork," the sort of being/substance with no need of autonomy or hyphens. He stretches, his aspiration that of the satisfied pilgrim, his belly painlessly pierced by the sign labeling him fit only for roasting.

The leaner in the lower-left is perky with thoughts of his impending end. The goggle-eyed hog in the lower-right appears almost surprised by how sweet life can be in the shadow of the All-Father, the paternal logo.

And among all of them, such contentment! For those only loosely tied to the present, life—this way station along the road to Better Things—is joyous.

Suicidefood Book Report: Animals Make Us Human

Editor's note: This should more properly be called a book reportlet, but as our spellcheck would have murdered us had we gone with that title, we had to use the less-than-accurate report. We pretend nothing more than a cursory familiarity with the book in question. And now, on with the… thing.

We can summarize Temple Grandin's Animals Make Us Human (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN: 978-0151014897) in five words.

Treat 'em better, then POW!

We concede that while this is a finer sentiment than "Give 'em hell, then POW!" it's not the most transcendent philosophy we've ever heard.

Noted livestock advocate Grandin has devoted her career to understanding the mysteries of animals' inner lives and speaking for them in their muteness.

She tells us that pigs have "lively, active minds," that cows form "close relationships, especially between sisters and between mothers and daughters," and that chickens are "intensely attached to their mamas."

And where has her insight led her? Not to urgent pleas to spare the animals, possessed as they are of their own drives, desires, joys, and terrors. Nor to seeking legal protections for the most vulnerable among us.

No, no. Not there, but instead toward more thoughtfully designed slaughterhouses. In other words, toward making a grotesque industry merely sickening.

All that empathy, employed in the service of killing them with kindness—literally—on behalf of some of corporatedom's heaviest hitters!

(Read our first book report while you're at it.)

Arbor Acres

At Arbor Acres, you can succeed. You can achieve your fullest potential and be the chicken you were meant to be.

Climb the podium to the Winner's Roost, Mr. or Mrs. Gold-medal Poultry. Look down upon the weak, the scrawny, the stringy and inedible.

Your comb sculpted into a fleshy wreath of laurel leaves, your biceps bulging, your inferiors wither in your shadow.

Your breast is tender, your drumsticks succulent. The others are all feathers and feet, but you! You are somebody! You are the Ideal Fowl!

"Who's the boss now?"

You are, champ!

Now how about a victory lap through the scalding tank, and then we'll get you dismembered.

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral.)

Suicide Barnyard: a digression

According to a letter published in the November 30 New Yorker and written by a Mr. G. of Salt Lake City, Utah, it could hardly be more plain that animals want to be killed on small, family farms:

Is it better for aging animals to suffer, blind, arthritic, starving, or cancerous until merciful death? I grew up on a farm and can say with certainty that our animals gave their bodies in gratitude for a well-cared-for life. (Emphasis added.)

Not only do the animals participate consciously in some sort of exchange of services, à la Derrick Jensen's "bargain", but it is as if the entire process—their breeding, raising, and slaughter—were something the animals themselves established!

Can the humans be blamed simply for following the orders of their livestock masters?

United Egg Producers, a digression

Now, regardless of what a certain site would have you believe, we spend very little time bashing the free-range movement (or addressing it at all). While we insist that many free-range establishments are not appreciably different from their counterparts, we will stipulate that in some circumstances, animals are better off living under free-range conditions than those found on "conventional" farms. Moreover, speaking pragmatically, we concur that some free-range provisions or laws might be necessary steps on the way toward true change.

That said, let's take a closer look at the issue.

The United Egg Producers, proud prodders of chickens, explain the matter with an utter lack of bias!

And we're right there with them. Who was it who tried to peddle that free range malarkey to the chickens?

Freedom? The chance to rejoin the natural world, with its, you know, environments and, like, weather and puddles? What kind of monster would lie to a bird about the fictitious benefits of a freely ranging existence? It gives one pause.

All along, we knew that free range was a scam! Chickens are obviously better off in cramped cages, where they, um… Wait. What?

Sorry. We just… Hmm? Oh, um, where were we?

That's right: the evils of free range.

You see, chickens (like any sentient beings worth their salt) prefer not to be preyed upon. Though they find themselves outfitted as for war, with their GI rifles and helmets, they would rather be done with the whole bloody business.

Still, we confess we never knew they preferred a lifetime of imprisonment.

It's at this point where our credulity is almost (almost) strained.

Not wishing to be snatched up by a hawk? Fair enough.

Not wanting to get rained on? Well… maybe.

But fearing criticism for the oniony flavor of the unfertilized eggs your captivity was established to produce and profit from?

Then again, if the chickens say so.

All in all, a persuasive argument against free range. Like we've (not actually) always said, it's a hoax!

(Thanks to Dr. John V. for the referral.)