ivantohelpyou

The New York Times has been standing up for the little pig:

• Today, an editorial describes the horror of hog confinement operations for over 95 percent of the 60 million pigs in the United States.
• Yesterday, a science article pointed out the irony of the "unclean" pig in Judaism and Islam, since "it was humans who infected pigs with tapeworm, not the other way around." One species of tapeworm thus transmitted may have been "acquired either by [humans] eating each other or by eating dogs."
  
• Sunday, there was an article about a dishware set showing butcher's diagrams of cows, pigs, and (to put the carving up of those animals into context) dogs. (Link, third row from bottom.)
  

Let's recap. Humans once ate dogs and other humans, and this led to the transmission of tapeworm to pigs. Although some religious authorities placed the pig off-limits, this did not prevent the pig from becoming a prominent staple of the American diet.

Now, there are 60 million pigs and approximately the same number of pet dogs in the United States. The pigs live in metal boxes until killed for food, while the dogs generally live in safety and comfort.

And they say pigs are as smart as dogs? Not if you judge by recent results.

My advice to the dogs: Be careful. Free-range puppy may seem a shocking idea today, but human tastes are notoriously fickle.

Labels: NYT, talking dogs