Raising a Stink

There is currently a proposal before the city to turn part of St. Boniface into a hog processing plant. The debate is primarily about the stink; but it forces me to wonder why I would continue to suppose that pigs raised and slaughtered the way they are good for me? It begs the veggie argument. When I think about all that blood and guts, all the antibiotics it's been pumped with, the miserable state of its existence.

Anyway, I continue to eat meat, knowing what I do about it, but I never sneer at a vegetarian. Some of the best people I know are vegetarians.

The whole meat thing is disgusting primarily because of how it is farmed in my opinion. I'm not against a good steak now and then. I just try not to think about the forced feedings, the crowded barn and that last and only trip the cow took: to the slaughter house. Was she marched to her doom, did she take a train or a semi, who put the bullet in her brain?

It's always "not in my backyard" when it comes to the slaughter house though, and St. B has always been the sacrificial benefactor of the meat plants. Because it is on the east side and the wind blows mostly from the west. Because the mushroom plant is already near by, and it's better to concentrate the stink. Because it is her destiny to be at the end of a very dirty bit of business.

That said, I'm all for having it even further east of the city altoghter. The wrong wind will send a wafft of that death right over the Red and into my life. Bleack hufft, pee-ew that is an awful. awful smell.