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Aug. 6th, 2003 07:41 amI have a non-refundable ticket on usAir that I won't be able to use in forever. Anyone need a plane ticket? I think the location and date can be rescheduled for like $50. It's probably only good for east coast travel price-wise. I don't have the time to use it myself.
I spent much of last night in another slaughterhouse, this one around Richmond, VA. There must be something wrong with me - I like the places. I like looking at the chickens, yellow and brown with filth, sitting in their cages in front of the fans that keep them cool. I like the machinery moving around inside. I like the people with their gold-toothed smiles. I like the tattoos. I like the fact the place is huge, absolutely huge. I like the fact they run all night, machinery and lights pushing their way through the dark. It's such a simple thing they produce there, food, though such a horrible process - raising life to kill it to feed us, but the process itself is fascinating. I watch the machinery taking all those variations among them, and reducing them to nothing. The most rebellious act here is to have a piece of intestine slide down to the running water below to be washed to the rendering plant early - variation that is easily accounted for by the machines.
I try to imagine what these creatures think as they sit there - I think they're like us. They all are missing their tail feathers, as they constantly attack one another to establish their rank or just to be cruel. They tear each other apart, pouncing on every apparent weakness, every opportunity to cause harm or pain, out of hate or boredom? All of their energies are focused upon each other, their closest relatives, while the world that threatens them lies outside of their sphere of interest. Do they have any idea what they are about to face? Do they fear? When they are hung up-side-down on the moving metal conveyer belt, are they scared? What does it feel like when their head enters the electrified water? How many, if any, survive to feel the spinning blades cut into their neck?
What do they do with all the guts, blood, and feathers that wash down the drains in these places? What is a rendering plant? How do we put the waste products from this murder for meals back into the environment?
The chickens attack each other, we attack the people most like ourselves. People very different than ourselves don’t bother us nearly so much as family.
Fuck professional athletes. You want to inspire kids to stay out of jail? Off drugs? You want to inspire kids to stay in school? Convince them college is worthy of their effort? Let them spend a few hours in a blue-collar environment. Have them hang the chickens on the moving rack. Let them cut organs out of animals next to people that have done that same thing, that same organ, that same cut, for 8 hours a day for 18 years. I think that would inspire a hell of a lot more accounting degrees than some illiterate Nike wearing basketball player.
Today is a day I really wish you could rule emotions with logic. Dissonance can really suck.
I spent much of last night in another slaughterhouse, this one around Richmond, VA. There must be something wrong with me - I like the places. I like looking at the chickens, yellow and brown with filth, sitting in their cages in front of the fans that keep them cool. I like the machinery moving around inside. I like the people with their gold-toothed smiles. I like the tattoos. I like the fact the place is huge, absolutely huge. I like the fact they run all night, machinery and lights pushing their way through the dark. It's such a simple thing they produce there, food, though such a horrible process - raising life to kill it to feed us, but the process itself is fascinating. I watch the machinery taking all those variations among them, and reducing them to nothing. The most rebellious act here is to have a piece of intestine slide down to the running water below to be washed to the rendering plant early - variation that is easily accounted for by the machines.
I try to imagine what these creatures think as they sit there - I think they're like us. They all are missing their tail feathers, as they constantly attack one another to establish their rank or just to be cruel. They tear each other apart, pouncing on every apparent weakness, every opportunity to cause harm or pain, out of hate or boredom? All of their energies are focused upon each other, their closest relatives, while the world that threatens them lies outside of their sphere of interest. Do they have any idea what they are about to face? Do they fear? When they are hung up-side-down on the moving metal conveyer belt, are they scared? What does it feel like when their head enters the electrified water? How many, if any, survive to feel the spinning blades cut into their neck?
What do they do with all the guts, blood, and feathers that wash down the drains in these places? What is a rendering plant? How do we put the waste products from this murder for meals back into the environment?
The chickens attack each other, we attack the people most like ourselves. People very different than ourselves don’t bother us nearly so much as family.
Fuck professional athletes. You want to inspire kids to stay out of jail? Off drugs? You want to inspire kids to stay in school? Convince them college is worthy of their effort? Let them spend a few hours in a blue-collar environment. Have them hang the chickens on the moving rack. Let them cut organs out of animals next to people that have done that same thing, that same organ, that same cut, for 8 hours a day for 18 years. I think that would inspire a hell of a lot more accounting degrees than some illiterate Nike wearing basketball player.
Today is a day I really wish you could rule emotions with logic. Dissonance can really suck.
