Mike Royko is Dead

A few years ago I used this column to lampoon Mike Royko, the great Chicago newspaperman, and a column he had written lampooning vegetarians. I thought I was being very clever in my lampoon of his lampoon—shooting barbs at Mr. Royko's arguments, and pointing to the places where the humor in his writing seemed to be wearing a little thin and exposing a narrow-minded point of view. (Hey, it's always fun to be a nobody and get the chance to attack a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer!) At the end of my column I noted that if Mr. Royko really ate in the "damn the cholesterol, full speed ahead" manner he espoused, he probably wouldn't be around as a target for pot-shots for too many more years.

It turns out I was right. Mike Royko died of a brain aneurysm in April, 1997, at the relatively young age of 64.

I felt bad when I heard the news. It was one of those situations (Remember when James Garner and Dave Thomas had heart attacks at the same time their beef ads were running on television?) when we vegetarians want to say "I told you so," but at the same time we don't wish harm on anyone. And there's certainly a fine line between making fun of someone else's beliefs and making fun of them personally.

After several months of consideration though, I've decided that if I could write my Mike Royko column over again, I wouldn't change a word. There are two reasons for that decision, and they're important enough to me, and important enough to vegetarianism, that I want to point them out. I'm sure Mr. R will agree.

The Right to be Offensive

First, we live in a marvelous society that recognizes freedom of speech. And one critical element of freedom of speech (an element that rarely gets mentioned in Fourth of July parades and high school essay contests) is that no one in our society has the right not to be offended. How critical is this to the vegetarian cause? Very. Several times, even in the life of this silly little column, issues involving "political correctness," my overall bad taste, and the sensibilities of others have threatened its publication. But think about it. If we vegetarians weren't allowed to offend anyone, how on earth would we get our point across? How would we ever reach the masses of meat-eaters who don't want their comfortable lifestyles upset by something as trivial as the truth?

Being offensive may not always be something to strive for, and I certainly don't advocate intentionally hurting anyone. But the right to be offensive in expressing one's beliefs—whether that involves me attacking an icon like Mike Royko, or your cousin Mel ridiculing this column with the boys down at the butcher shop—is critical. When that right starts to erode, I'll be headed to another planet.

Everything is Funny

The second item on my First Amendment soapbox agenda is humor. We live in a world of incomprehensible horror and tragedy. Humor is the only thing we've been given that allows us to cope. (The only legal thing, anyway.) The more serious something is—the more horror and tragedy that's involved—the more we need humor. Need I say that the battle between vegetarianism and meat-eating should be at the top of the list?

There's a lot of funny stuff out there in the dialogue over meat-eating, and a lot of it makes fun of us vegetarians. It ranges from the classic recipe for vegetarian stew ("Gut, drain and skin one vegetarian…"), to the sarcastic Boulder Vegetable Rights Association, to the People Eating Tasty Animals (PETA) home page. Offensive? You bet! But doesn't it beat serious men and women screaming out their message in angry prose? Doesn't it make their point so much more effectively?

Mike Royko knew a lot about being offensive, and he knew a lot about being funny. The former made his writing important, while the latter made him loved. It was only late in his career, when consolidation in the Chicago newspaper industry and the death of his wife left him battling depression and alcohol problems, that his anger became more pronounced and his humor began to fade. It was only then that people openly questioned his right to speak. That in itself should tell us all something about how to conduct ourselves the next time we're ready to spout off about our vegetarian beliefs.

Mike Royko loved to eat meat, and now he's dead. But we vegetarians can still learn a lot from his example.

Funny Things from the Newspaper [The original “Mike Royko” column]

Recently I spotted two things in the paper that were so outrageous, and so offensive to common sense and decency, that I just knew they'd make great column material. The first was an advertisement by the Colorado Beef Council promoting the cow as "Mother Nature's Recycling Machine." Make no mistake about it, this ad was so full of untruths and half-truths it should be framed and sent to New York, where it can serve as the inspiration for future generations on Madison Avenue. The beef industry types will want to quote verbatim from this one at the next Congressional hearings on grazing leases. They'd better have their lawyers with them.

The other thing that caught my eye was a piece by Mike Royko, the syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He decided to lash out at vegetarian activism and healthy foods generally, and at Jeremy Rifkin and McDonald's phenomenally unsuccessful McLean burger in particular. Mr. Royko is a humorous guy, but what comes screaming out of his writing is the image of an aging good-old-boy threatened by changes in our society he refuses to understand. It almost makes you lose sight of the funny stuff.

For those of you fortunate enough to have missed these two journalistic classics, I quote liberally below.

First, Enlightenment from the Colorado Beef Council

[I swear they're serious about this. I'm not making these quotes up!]

"Cows make the most of our food production resources,"

Yeah, sure. And everyone who eats beef has an IQ of 200. I'm a millionaire with the bronzed body of a Greek god, and the Pope reads this column "religiously." Isn't fantasy wonderful?

"...healthful, nutritious, low-fat beef."

It's all in your frame of reference, I guess. Everyone knows the beef folks have financed carefully controlled tests of their product's nutritional value. When pitted against such popular foods as suet, fried "pork" skins, Ben & Jerry's double chocolate fudge ice cream, and wood alcohol, beef came out looking like a nutritional winner!

"Like mowing a lawn or pruning a tree, cattle grazing promotes plant vigor and diversity."

Anyone who's ever looked at a fence line in the American West knows this is true. Those darn "diverse" and "vigorous" plants sure are clever, too. They have a charming way of disguising themselves as erosion and mud.

"Cows are also environmental protection machines."

And how could they not be when they're managed by today's socially-responsible, food conglomerate, factory farmers! Yes, on the old environmental friendliness scale herds of cows rank right up there with the B-l "Stealth" Bomber, Mount Pinatubo, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator. Give them all Winnebagos for an even bigger "green" factor. Only Soviet atomic energy scientists could have come up with anything better.

Now, Words of Wisdom from Mr. Royko

"...veggie burgers, tofu burgers, seaweed burgers, cabbage burgers and other healthful delicacies. They could call them Twitburgers."

I suppose. Of course, if "they" were just a bit more mature and/or enlightened they might prefer to call them "Socially-Conscious Burgers," "Morally-Inspired Burgers," "creative," "visionary," "compassionate," or just plain "tasty." (This last adjective doesn't necessarily apply to the seaweed burger—I'll reserve judgment. And it assumes, of course, that "their" taste buds haven't already been deep fried in the last batch of hot grease out of Burger King or KFC.)

"America does not want a Twitburger. It prefers something it can really chomp on. Damn the cholesterol, full speed ahead."

For me, Mike's wartime imagery really captures the essence of the American eating experience. We can all join the Marlboro man—looking macho as hell in our hospital beds.

... "goofball"... "peepingTom"... "dimwits"... "public nags"... "common scold" ... "public nuisance"... "compulsive busybody" ... "intellectual gnat" ... "aging hippies"...

Choosing his words with the precision and accuracy of a skilled surgeon, Mr. Royko uses a number of adjectives to describe individuals and groups of people espousing vegetarianism and healthy eating. Of course Mr. R is merely demonstrating one of the golden rules of persuasive writing: When logic fails to advance your position, resort to name-calling. For obvious reasons, this technique is often used by those opposing the vegetarian cause.

"Now I must go have dinner. Steak tartare. That's raw beef, ground up. I prefer it on the hoof, but it's a chore chasing the critter."

Finally, at the end of his column, some levity! It's not too funny, though, if you're an individual of the vegetarian or bovine persuasion. I have to believe that despite the sarcasm Mr. Royko probably does eat the way he preaches, in which case he may not be around for too many more years of wit. It's a shame. If there's any justice, he'll be reincarnated as a cow.

Tradition

[Original Column]

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Zero Mostel in Fiddler On The Roof. I can just picture him in my mind dancing across the stage singing that song about "Tradition." Now I, of course, have no idea how Mr. Mostel or the writers of Fiddler really felt about the subject, but I've met plenty of people who, just like the character in the play, think tradition is sacred. I even admit to feeling that way myself sometimes—like when I get misty-eyed and nostalgic about my favorite baseball team.

We are all creatures of habit, and will cling to things that are familiar, even if those things are nonsensical or conflict with other values we may have. It doesn't really matter how it all gets started. Just like an untrue rumor, if an action is repeated often enough it develops a certain credibility. With the glossy patina of age, it becomes tradition.

Sometimes it's fun to think of some of the ridiculous things in our society that are perpetuated by tradition. For example, for years we have had a whole class of people called "cheerleaders" who go to sporting events in miniature pleated skirts, with funny things called "pom-poms" on both hands. Women in our society regularly wear uncomfortable shoes with spike heels, and paint their fingernails red and their eyelids blue. And lest you think that I'm pretending to be above it all, I freely admit that as I write this I'm wearing a tie. The reason for all this nonsense is beyond me. But then again, it doesn't need a reason—it's tradition.

Along with the frivolous aspects of tradition are some pretty serious ones. Tradition, of course, plays a large and beneficial role in helping to maintain the values necessary to hold our society together. Unfortunately, it can also work the other way. It can be a convenient excuse used to justify otherwise unacceptable behavior. This is what I call the "my daddy did it, and by golly I'm going to do it too" syndrome. Among the evils it's responsible for are bigotry, racism, and those fuzzy dice people hang from their rear-view mirrors.

Those of us who are vegetarians and who love animals often find the "my daddy did it" syndrome particularly disconcerting. It is the rationalization for barbaric behavior all over the world, from caged dogs in the back of South Korean restaurants, to lobster tanks in hometown America.

Sometimes the types of behavior tradition supports are as incongruous as they are barbaric. For example, lately I've been bothered by an inconsistency in our society that goes something like this: If you belong to a church and you torture and kill cats as part of your religious ceremony, you could be in big trouble with the law. If you perform the same acts under the guise of "scientific research" not only will you be protected, but you might even get government funding to do it. Now, that doesn't seem quite right to me. And I find it especially curious in light of the fact that the First Amendment to the Constitution specifically protects freedom of religion, but doesn't say a thing about scientific research.

So what explains the difference? What carries more weight than our laws, or even our Constitution? You guessed it—tradition. In this context tradition dictates that religion involves organ music and uncomfortable clothes, while "scientific research" has something to do with white lab coats and rats living on Diet Coke. Cutting open cats is antithetical to our concept of religion, but wholly consistent with our norms for science. In the scientific venue the value or morality of such an act is not even likely to be questioned.

A meat-centered diet is in general is so economically wasteful, so unhealthy, and so downright unnatural that its continued viability must in large part be due to tradition. Repetition over thousands of years (and particularly the last fifty) has given it a credibility that we vegetarians have barely been able to put a dent in. That's too bad.

A tradition like meat eating seems so deeply rooted in our society that maybe the only way to fight it is with tradition itself. Maybe we vegetarians need to start some silly tradition of our own-like eating millet burgers on Groundhog's Day, for example. If we did that for, say, fifty years, everyone would start to think it was the natural thing to do and would follow along. Of course, people will need to hear about it. It's tough to start a good tradition without lots of publicity. If we could just get some well-known celebrities to join us that would help... Too bad Zero Mostel isn't available.

The Role of Tradition

[Re-write]

Tradition is what gets us all misty-eyed when we think about our parents and grandparents, or the history of our favorite baseball team. It's the embodiment of our values, and the glue that holds our society together through the generations. Heck, it's the stuff Zero Mostel sang about in Fiddler On The Roof! With all that going for it, tradition must be pretty wonderful, right?

Well, most of the time. Unfortunately, tradition is probably the biggest enemy to vegetarianism and many of the other sane things on this Earth! Here's why...

We are all creatures of habit and will cling to things that are familiar, even if those things are nonsensical or conflict with other values we may have. It doesn't really matter how it all gets started. Just like an untrue rumor, if an action is repeated often enough it develops a certain credibility. With the glossy patina of age, it becomes "tradition".

Think of all the ridiculous things in our society that are perpetuated by tradition. Here are some examples:

• For years we have had a whole class of people called "cheerleaders" who go to sporting events in miniature pleated skirts, with funny things called "pompoms" on both hands.
  
• Women in our society regularly wear uncomfortable shoes with spiked heels, and paint their fingernails red and their eyelids blue.
  
• Men in our society wear odd paraphernalia called "ties," which appear to have no purpose other than constricting unimportant things like arteries and windpipes.
  

  The reason for all this nonsense is unknown. But then again, it doesn't need a reason—it's tradition.
  

  Along with the frivolous aspects of tradition are some pretty serious ones. It can be a convenient excuse used to justify otherwise unacceptable behavior. This is what I call the "my Daddy did it, and by golly I'm going to do it too" syndrome. Among the evils it's responsible for are bigotry, racism, sexism, and those fuzzy dice people hang from their rear-view mirrors.
  

  Those of us who are vegetarians and who love animals often find the "my Daddy did it" syndrome particularly disconcerting. It is the rationalization for barbaric behavior all over the world, from shark's-fin soup in Asia, to genitally mutilating girls in Africa, to Thanksgiving turkey in North America. Tradition is the excuse given when all others fail to explain why sons of fishermen must continue to fish when populations of fishes are threatened or sons of loggers must continue to log when our forests are dwindling. Tradition justifies the ritualistic torture of animals as part of "religious" ceremonies in the Caribbean, and under the auspices of "bullfights" in Spain and Mexico.
  

  Let's say it again, just for emphasis (yes, that would be the traditional thing to do): If behavior cannot otherwise be justified, we defend it by saying it is "tradition".
  

  A diet centered on meat and dairy products is so economically and environmentally wasteful, so unhealthy, and so downright unnatural that its continued viability must in large part be due to tradition. Just like bigotry, racism and sexism, repetition over the years has given it a credibility that we vegetarians have barely been able to dent. That's too bad. Tradition should never be used as a source of comfort for those who cannot otherwise defend their actions to themselves or others.
  

Meat In Space

I read a lot of news stories about meat and dairy products. These stories are usually pretty predictable. Either they report on some new study that says eat less meat and dairy products and more fruits and vegetables, or they are thinly-disguised reprints of industry propaganda. (You can always tell the latter. Usually they have titles like: "Scientists Say Drink Your Milk for Healthy Bones!")

Every once in a while, though, a news story comes along that is so incredible it deserves a column of its own. That's what I thought when I read a recent ABC News story about Morris Benjaminson, a researcher at Touro College Applied Bioscience Research Consortium, and his research into growing meat in the laboratory. You see, Mr. Benjaminson is concerned about our astronauts on a future two-year mission to Mars. He wants them to have fresh meat, and he's figured out how to raise that meat in space—without the animals!

This is exciting news, and to prove that I am not making this up, I've decided to give you some actual quotes from the story and my reaction to them.

• "Benjaminson sliced 2-4-inch sections of flesh from large goldfish and placed them in a nutrient solution of fetal bovine serum, a liquid extracted from the blood of unborn calves. After a few weeks in the solution, …the fish meat grew by up to 16 percent."
  

  —This sounds so tasty that I bet the public will be signing up in droves for the next Mars mission. They say with Mars getting there is half the fun, and this sounds like the food on a luxury cruise!
  

• "To test the lab-grown meat's appeal, his team showed it to colleagues to analyze for color and fried the meat to assess its aroma. Benjaminson said most considered the fish meat appetizing, although no one actually tasted it."
  

  —I bet they had to hold them back with chains.
  

• "Benjaminson, himself, restrained from eating it since he was wary of possible infectious agents from the fetal bovine serum used to grow it. 'I'm just as careful about prions as the next man,' he said, referring to the infectious proteins behind mad cow disease."
  

  —What a wimp! Well, I'm sure our brave astronauts won't have these reservations. After six months or so living on liverwurst out of toothpaste tubes, they'll probably be more than ready to gorge themselves at an interstellar fish-fry.
  

• "Eventually, Benjaminson hopes to improve the growth rate of his homegrown fish sticks and expand the technique for growing chicken and beef. The team also hopes to create a meat-growing machine to automate the process…"
  

  —Look for a late night "infomercial" on this machine, coming soon to a cable channel near you. Maybe George Foreman can even be bribed to put his name on it.
  

• "But growing meat in space has some serious drawbacks to consider. William Knott, the chief of biological programs at NASA's Kennedy Space Center points out that, unlike tending a garden of vegetables, growing meat will consume critical resources that the astronauts need themselves, namely oxygen and carbon. 'The problem is the meat would compete with the astronauts' needs,' Knott said. For that reason Knott suspects the first Mars travelers will subsist primarily on a vegetarian diet.
  

  —Hmmm. Do you just suppose that the same arguments could be made for not raising meat on "Spaceship Earth?"
  

• "Benjaminson is hoping his meat-growing technique might also find applications on Earth. For example, he wonders if some vegetarians would be willing to eat meat products that were not directly slaughtered."
  

  —Just what we poor, deprived vegetarians have been waiting for! (Some days I just can't control my cravings for the taste of goldfish in bovine serum.) Where do we sign up?!!!
  

• "Benjaminson says he has already heard from executives at a poultry company… who expressed interest in using the technique to grow boneless chicken products."
  

  —Why does this not surprise me?
  

  As Mr. Benjaminson's research demonstrates, meat in space can be a scary proposition. How are astronauts supposed to stay healthy eating a bunch of goldfish like silly college boys? How can they be expected to maintain weightlessness after a heavy dinner of meat?
  

  In response, I think it's time that the people of the Earth declared space to be an official "Meat–Free Zone." There's certainly precedent for this. Antarctica has been a nuclear-weapons–free zone for more than 40 years, and I have yet to hear anyone gripe about that decision. Anyway, if you don't count that one tragic evening when a neutron boy from the planet Xerox went on a joyride on his Farleigh-Dickenson antimatter motorcycle with a Fleshburger Supreme from Saturn's Golden Rings franchise, we Earthlings are the only folks in the whole Universe still dragging meat into space.
  

  I'm going to circulate a petition opposing meat in space. Be sure to sign it. If we all act quickly on this thing, there's still a chance we can get space declared the "Official Meat–Free Zone of the 2008 Summer Olympics."
  

  ***************************
  

  Petition to Designate Space as a Meat and Dairy–Free Zone
  

  To The Honorable Ban Ki-moon
  

  Secretary-General of the United Nations
  

  We, the undersigned people of the planet Earth, respectfully petition the United Nations and its member nations to actively promote such international treaties as may be required to designate space, including all areas of the Universe outside of Earth and its atmosphere, as a Meat and Dairy–Free Zone.
  

  In support of our petition, we call to the attention of the General Assembly the following facts:
  

  • The production of meat and dairy products is the cruelest and most environmentally destructive of all human activity.
    
  • The consumption of meat and dairy products is the leading preventable cause of human disease and death.
    
  • The goal of space exploration should be to strive for higher values, not to export our vices. (What's next—gambling on Neptune? A smoking lounge on the International Space Station?)
    
  • Cows, pigs, chickens and fish get nauseous in zero-gravity, and their space suits fit poorly.
    

  For these reasons and others, we hope and trust that the people of the Earth, led by our United Nations, will work to accomplish this noble cause. Thank you.
  

  Signed: