Mad Cows or Mad People?

There’s a lot of talk about the mega meat recall of beef—perhaps the greatest in America’s history—from the Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. here in California. The scoop is that many slaughtered cows (which are therefore now in products or already eaten) were invalids and could possibly have Mad Cow disease—risky for humans. Apparently, the plant produces about a fifth of all the meat in the federal school lunch programs. Scary stuff.

If you haven’t followed this news item, look up details online. It’s a hot topic. But hotter still is my anger. It’s burning. Oh, not because of the meat—although that’s also burning. Literally. They’re incinerating tons of “at risk” meat. But still my point isn’t there. My own madness lies with the fact that this issue was discovered because those cows were being tortured.

An undercover video showed workers poking the poor debilitated creatures with electric prods. They also pushed, kicked and shoved sick and crippled cows, forcing them to stand, torturing them with electric prods, forklifts and water hoses. Such cruelty suggests that the greatest disease lies with man, not beast. Perhaps—and only perhaps—the cows are victims of Mad Cow Disease. But clearly the men are riddled with Mad Man Disease. It’s sickening.

There’s much too much cruelty in this world. Still, this news item brings much attention to the concern that we humans may get diseases from the “Perhaps” (capital P) contaminated meat. Very little attention is given to the fact that some people think that as long as no-one’s looking, they can bully and torture innocent creatures. Now I’m the one who’s MAD.

You see, what concerns me more than “Perhaps-contaminated-meat”—and I’m not minimizing how terrible it would be if the meat really is contaminated and actually made humans sick, which thankfully it hasn’t yet—is a greater sickness. Cruelty. Cruelty, in my opinion, should be highly penalized.

Let me restate something I’ve brought out in earlier posts. While cruelty to animals is abomination, it’s also statistically proven that people who hurt animals are likely to also hurt children. If we don’t make an issue with this, then what will happen to our children?

Think about it. Pray about it. Speak up about it.

Copyright©February 2008