Readers comment on food, legal aliens
Letters
Food production:
not a pretty sight
Obviously Lewis Coulter (Letters,
Dec. 3) has been reading too many
“Farmer Brown” books.
You know, those books we read as
children depicting the friendly farmer
feeding his animals, where the cow
grazes in the field with her wobbly
calf. The chickens roam the yard,
pecking tor worms, bvidenily,
Farmer Brown keeps these animals
around for his enjoyment, for this is
nothing like the meat industry of
today.
That “raising animals for food is
not cruel and inhumane” is a popular
misconception. It is popular with
meat caters who would rather not
know the origin of their dinner. It is
popular with meat producers who
wouldn’t want their profit potential
ruined by bad press.
Animal husbandry is big business,
and animals arc treated as machines.
The problem is, machines can’t feel
pain. Animals do.
Most animals never sec the light of
day. They are crowded into buildings
that are constantly lit with artificial
light or kept in constant darkness.
Often they are insufficiently healed
and cooled.
Calves are whisked away from
their mothers before being weaned
and tethered into stalls 2 feet wide,
making it impossible to turn around.
Pigs and cows suffer severe inju
ries in their legs and feet from stand
ing on hard concrete or wooden slats
with no bedding. Stalls arc never
cleaned. Medical care is not cost
efficient, so the many animals who
die of infections, broken bones, heart
attacks caused from stress and heat
stroke are quickly gathered and made
into pet food.
Coulter insists farm animals are
well-fed, but Farmer Brown doesn’t
feed them. A conveyor belt brings the
food saturated with growth hormones
and chemical vitamins. The animals
arc never allowed to graze or exercise
for fear of spoiling the meat.
Male chickens hatched in an egg
production facility arc suffocated in
plastic bags and used for fertilizer.
Hogs arc routinely castrated, have
their tails cut off and have notches cut
in their cars, all without anesthetic.
Cows arc artificially inseminated
or strapped to “rape racks” for quick
and easy reproduction.
There may be a few Farmer
Browns left, but these conditions are
very much the rule, not the excep
tions.
Your pet dog yelps when its tail is
caught in a door. Animals feel pain as
much as we do. Sometimes animals
arc electrically shocked so they are
unconscious at the moment of death,
but their entire lives arc stories of pain
and suffering. As for animals being
“dumb,” pigs have been proven to be
smarter than dogs, yet we cry out with
anger when we find out dogs are
raised for food in the Philippines.
Clearly, brain power is an excuse, not
a reason.
What makes this treatment even
more inhumane is that it is not neces
sary. Millions of people live long and
healthy lives having never eaten
meat, milk or eggs. Doctors have
proven time and time again that all
necessary nutrients are easily, effi
ciently and abundantly provided in
the vegetarian diet. Even the leanest
meats contain dangerous levels of fat
and cholesterol, and no fiber. And it
hardly bears repeating that vegetari
ans arc much less likely to suffer heart
disease, strokes, colon cancer, obe
sity and osteoporosis than even mod
erate meat eaters.
In the time it took to read this letter,
more than 5,000 chickens were hung
upside down on a conveyor belt and
slaughtered.
And for what? Because some of us
like the taste.
I suggest that Coulter visit a veal
farm or a slaughterhouse and then tell
us that “raising animals for food is not
cruel and inhumane.”
Ginger K. D/.crk
freshman
arts and sciences
Alienation of foreigners
encouraged by Bourne
Jeanne Bourne’s editorial (Daily
Nebraskan, Dec.l) is intriguing. I
wish she had defined “foreigners”
explicitly. If, on reading between the
lines, she wishes that these people
whom I shall refer to as legal aliens
arc detrimental to the American soci
ety, should hence be asked to leave
the United States.
It is in my firmest opinion that
there ought to be such an exodus as
never seen before in the annals ol
history, considering that this country,
with the possible exception of the
descendents of the passengers of the
Mayflower, is made up of “foreign
ers” who immigrated to this country
in one era or the other; thus bringing
this country to a full stop.
Let me highlight some facts that
seem unknown about these legal ali
ens. They leave their home, thou
sands of miles away, come to this
alien land with the primary intentions
of gaining more knowledge. They
rally up domestic resources to pay
tuition that costs 300 percent more
than their peers at school pay. As a
part of admission, they are subjected
to academic persecution by taking
trivial and expensive exams such as
tests of spoken English, English as a
foreign language, etc.
Even more environmental
changes, courtesy, local mores, dic
tion, phonetics, academic alike puts
an enormous pressure on them, leav
ing very little or no time at all for
social activities — so we speak for
more than.half the population. But
then, when we, legal aliens, take time
to let loose our pressures, we now
have Bourne warning Americans to
stay clear of them.
What amazes me is the sheer hy
pocrisy of Bourne, considering she
took the pains to write another col
umn extolling these legal aliens a few
months ago. To quote her, . .
Americans are so often ignorant of
foreign cultures. They assume all
foreigners, especially non-Europe
ans, are barbarians.”
Now she preaches to avoid them.
She carries on, “But often Ameri
cans don’t listen, if they did, they
would hear a whole new perspective
of things they take for granted.”
Though falling prey to her own ad
vice, she now restricts her vision.
Summing up, quoting her, once
again, “Open your eyes, kids, there’s
a whole other world out there.”
Bharat Savel
graduate
electrical engineering
Letter Policy
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes
brief letters to the editor from all
readers and interested others.
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