Jerry, You Pig, You’ll Live Forever
Author’s Note: When I first took a few minutes to jot down the story below, I thought that more comments would result relative to the traffic I received. But upon review, I feel I may have obscured some of the issues I was trying to make visible in a feeble attempt at humor. But I believe, what a word but I can’t find better, in particular that discussions concerning animal rights have a legitimate, even necessary role to play in forming one’s concept of the social self and the moral self. It is disturbing to me that animals are to be cloned for food and that animals are used as food. In this, I am faced with my own hypocrisy wherein I am disgusted with the eating of meat and seafood, but I push those feelings aside and do it anyway and enjoy it.
A friend of mine who lived on his uncle’s farm as a child was never allowed to play with the pigs, which had numbers on them, lest he develop an emotional attachment. He was never informed in advance when one of the pigs was shot for the family’s consumption, and was forbidden to discuss the matter. When I was young I was invited to dinner at the home of a girl I briefly dated, whose father had survived Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He was wearing a short sleeve shirt, and on one forearm a tattooed number was starkly visible. I was suddenly and permanently saddened by the realization that the construction and operation of Auschwitz was a purposive activity of an entire society. I believe there is a connection here that I am unable to adequately articulate, but it goes something like this. If we are unable to appreciate the wonder and beauty of life to such an extent that the taking of it can become a routine, every day affair, are we in some sense less “human” than we believe ourselves to be? And is this approach to life unethical? Why is it so easy for us to read a war’s casualties as a number. And is there some way that we can educate our selves out of this condition? I hope you get a kick out of the story, of course, and that some of you will look beyond the plebeian humor, to issues that are more important than my writing is able to convey. Thanks for reading. -R
Jerry, a world champion porker, has a grin on his face that’s hard to describe without using profanity. But you may read here the amazing story of Jerry’s salvation from near certain execution, and of his happy latter days.
As one of the world’s few talking pigs, it seemed that his future was assured and a life of luxury leading to a blissful retirement was in Jerry’s stars. Alas, the publics’ taste for talking pigs had declined over the years. Some maintained that the “talking” was fraudulent. Others were offended by a claim of U.S. Government’s scientific community that, although talking pigs are rare, all pigs who do talk suffer from Tourette’s syndrome, rather like our public officials. Whatever the case may be, and in spite of the fact that Jerry could delight crowds everywhere by urinating upside-down, the day arrived when Farmer Al had to tell Jerry that the end was coming; he was to be sold at auction.
“This is Bullshit with a capital fucking B,” said Jerry. “Ain’t there no way out?”
“Well,” said Farmer Al, “there is a hog judging contest at the county fair on Saturday. Win that, and we’ll clone you forever.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about, if you’ll pardon my fuckin’ French? I just get upset about that damned Iraq fiasco, remember.”
“Well,” said Farmer Al, “FDA just now said cloned pigs is good food. You be the champ, and I’ll let the chumps chomp your clones. And I’m the judge in the hog contest.”
Saturday at last rolled around and things went well for Jerry and Farmer Al. A shill brought Jerry to the fair, Al handed out the prizes, and before sunset Jerry was home with his blue ribbon.
So for the foreseeable future, if you’re riding out past Al’s farm, you may hear a happy porker singing a little ditty he made up to celebrate his victory. It goes like this.
Well, you ain’t gonna munch on me
Hell, you ain’t gonna munch on me
No, I won’t be the goop
in nobody’s soup
It’s my clone in the pot, not me.
By way of further explanation, if you do get to see Jerry, you may read, painted on his right side, the words “Eat my clone, you f***ing drone”. Farmer Al thought it best to remove three of the letters. But be forewarned; Jerry may yell it at you anyway. It’s just the Tourette’s, you see.
| 2.5 |
January 15th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Very funny! Keep it up!
January 16th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I paid Jerry five rotten apples to paint my chicken coop, and the porker stiffed me!
January 27th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
The day something comes along and eats you, you’ll realize all that worry was for naught.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Learning the World by Ken McLeod had a fascinating plotline regarding sentience and the willingness to consume. It also has a blogger in it, well worth a read, lots of cool concepts.
I feel a bit overly pragmatic about food in this kind of situation. Were I without modern convenience, I would kill and eat animals. I’m not really psychologically adapted to this need right now, I imagine it would be difficult initially, but despite not having been “desensitized” to the killing of animals (I’ve probably seen far more people killed on tv/etc than animals) I basically consider them a food source in the event of need (I’d never kill one without reason, ie sport hunting or whatever).
The same does not apply to humans, and it’s plausible there are certain classes of animal it would not apply to either. Sentience being a bit of a gray area, gorillas, chimps, dolphins and some others would probably fall under the same “last resort, someone is relying on me” scenario that eating dead people would be. I basically have a rough scale, starting at plants, going up through fish, birds, farm animals, then hitting a point where my fuzzy gray line gets crossed and it turns from a legitimate regular source of food into one that demands more desperate justification.
I liked Ghosty’s comment though
We’ve grown a bit comfortable with the idea that we’re the biggest fish.