[blind-democracy] Re: Apocalyptic Capitalism

  • From: "Roger Loran Bailey" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
  • To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2015 15:50:48 -0500

I think I was given the job of feather plucking a couple of times myself. I am reminded of something else too. When I was in college I had an embryology class. We had an incubator and we incubated eggs and dissected them at various stages as the class progressed. Toward the end of the term there were some eggs left over and they hatched. What to do with the chicks? I volunteered to take them. I kept them in an enclosure until they outgrew it and I did not have a chicken coop at that time, so I just let them run loose. I was able to collect some very fresh eggs and some not so fresh eggs. What with the chickens running loose you never knew where you would find a nest nor how long the eggs had been there. It was a good idea to crack them into a bowl before the frying pan just in case they were spoiled. There are two good reasons to keep chickens cooped. One is that they are really messy and they eat things they shouldn't eat, like decorative plants. Actually, I think some neighbors were mad at me for having uncooped chickens even if they didn't say anything to me about it. The other reason is to protect the chickens. Eventually something picked off every one of them one by one in the night time. In the middle of the night I would hear a chicken shrieking and I knew that in the morning I would have one less chicken. When the flock got down to few enough that they would fit I returned them to the enclosure that I originally kept them in and the creature managed to get in anyway. This time it was not able to carry off its prey so instead of a missing chicken I found partially eaten chickens. I found one chicken that had apparently been eaten alive - well, half eaten alive - and the culprit had started on its stomach and gobbled out a large cavity. I think it was probably a weasel, but whatever it was it managed to wipe out my whole flock. I wasn't too disappointed at seeing them go though. Even uncooped chickens can be a lot of trouble and at that time I had a lot of pots on the stove, including being a college student and I was politically active too. I had a tendency to take on more work than I could comfortably handle.

On 12/13/2015 11:05 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:

Roger,
Your grandma and my grandma were cast in the same mold. I remember
looking at this sweet, smiling, silver haired lady bringing the
hatchet down on the neck of the hapless chicken. Once the body got up
and actually ran around for a couple of minutes before it realized it
was dead. One difference between our memories is that I was the one
who got to pull the feathers off. But grandma never let me burn off
the pin feathers. And as far as I recall, the innards went into the
slop pot on the back of the stove, along with the trimmings of the
potatoes and carrot tops. After it stewed a few hours, grandma would
toss in a few handfuls of grain, mix it in and I'd haul the slop pot
out to the chicken house and dump it into their feed trough.
By the time I was old enough to remember, grandpa no longer
slaughtered his own hogs. He had a fellow who came around and picked
them up and took them to his slaughter house. Grandpa tried teaching
me to milk the cow, but I was such a scaredy cat that I never got the
hang of it. I think I thought that the old cow would turn around and
bite me.
Grandma kept a big old goose. I think it ate some of the bigger bugs
and slugs. But it was King of the barnyard, and mean as all get out.
Many was the time that I barely made it into the house just ahead of
that hissing snake-like head. Once I didn't quite make it. That old
goose got me right on the bare leg, just below my shorts. That left a
good welt for some days.
Still and all, the good memories of that life will always trump the negative.
Carl Jarvis


On 12/12/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As a child I remember my grandmother preparing chicken dinners. She
would go to the chicken coop and grab a chicken. It was usually the one
that tended to produce the fewest eggs, but with their running around
trying to escape it was often just the first one she could get hold of.
She then carried the chicken by the feet with it looking very
uncomfortable. She took it to an old stump and with a hatchet she lopped
off its head. She waited until the body stopped flopping around and
picked it up by the feet again. I found it fascinating to watch the
disembodied head lie there with the beak opening and closing for several
minutes. She carried a pot of boiling water from the kitchen and in an
area where the feathers could be discarded she dipped the carcass into
the boiling water. Then she plucked all the feathers off and let them
fall to the ground. Then with a kitchen match she set a rolled up
newspaper on fire and ran the flames over the chicken to singe off the
small pinfeathers. Then she took the carcass into the kitchen to the
sink and gutted it. All the internal organs that were not to be cooked
she dumped into a pan and often I got the job of taking that outside and
feeding it to the dog. The rest of the job consisted of simply cutting
it up and frying, baking or cooking in whatever way she had decided to
to fix it for dinner.

On 12/11/2015 10:20 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
yes, this is the ultimate in intellectual dishonesty…as long as the
animal, be it chicken, cow, lamb, rabbit, is all sterile and protected
by plastic, it’s not really an animal…how easy it is for people to
delude themselves…
For several years of my young life, I could not eat meat, because I
could not stand the thought of animals being killed and, worse, killed
in horrifying circumstances. I eventually got over it, and I eat meat
now. But I don’t kid myself about where it comes from, and I believe
that I could kill my own chicken if I had to, because I already admit
that somebody killed the chicken, so what difference does it make?
BTW, I loved your descriptions of how it was in your mother’s kitchen...
On Dec 11, 2015, at 2:10 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Bob,

I've been listening to the coverage of COP 21 on Democracy Now for
days and
reading many articles about climate change and Chris Hedges is the only
person, so far, who has written that we could solve the whole problem by
not eating meat. For years and years I have been reading articles that
promote vegetarianism and give various reasons for its adoption.
Certainly,
the industrial farming and the industreal meat industry are harmful.
But no
one has yet convinced me that eating meat is bad for people. As far
as I am
concerned, we are biologically, carniverous animals and eating meat is
natural. If people don't like eating meat or feel physically better when
they avoid meat and dairy products, if they have moral objections to
eating
other animals, I accept their personal choices. But I don't
appreciate their
missionary zeal in attempting to convince others to adopt their
position. I
do think, however, that there should be changes in how the animals
that we
consume, are raised, and in how they are killed. I also hate the idea
that
we have to kill animals in order to eat them. Actually, I think that
people
like to think that all meat drops from the sky, neatly wrapped in
plastic
packages. This was brought home to me when, on Thanksgiving, I was
describing how, when I was a very small child, my mother would buy
chickens
from the kosher butcher. She brought home a whole chicken with all its
feathers and its feet. Only the head was gone. She removed the
feathers by
hand, and then removed the pin feathers by holding the chicken over
the gas
flame of our stove to burn them off. I remember that these chickens had
undeveloped eggs inside them, the yokes without shells. She boiled the
chickens for chicken soup and the little eggs were part of the soup, and
were deliscious. She skimmed the fat off the top, rendered it with
onions to
make chicken fat which was used in cooking and also, spread on rye
bread. My
older daughter was horrified by the foregoing description and said,
"I don't
want to think about a real chicken. I just want to get packaged parts
in the
store". So, perhaps Hedges is on to something. Perhaps if people had
to see
the cow slaughtered, steaks and hamburgers wouldn't be so appealing.

Miriam

-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Hachey
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 1:34 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Apocalyptic Capitalism

Hi Miriam,
Reading this brought to mind the criticism I get from a few of my vegan
friends and colleagues. They rightly label me a hypocrite based upon the
fact that I complain about climate change and the deleterious effect of
greenhouse gases while continuing to eat meat, eggs and dairy. Many of
my
favorite foods fall into these groups and boy do I love to eat. The gut
around my middle is purely based upon diet as I get a good bit of
exercise.
I politely eat vegan meals at the homes of friends, but could not
picture
myself changing to a vegan diet. Even reducing meat consumption would
not be
easy for me. This all makes me wonder if meat and dairy are
addictions like
drugs, sugar or caffeine.
Bob Hachey






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