What I learned while watching The King of Queens last night: Once you give up meat, it's a slippery, slippery slope to becoming one of those nagging, know-it-all, hemp-hawking, finger-pointing, tree-hugging, self-righteous environmentalists we're all trying to distance ourselves from (or most of us, anyway).
The episode begins as main character Doug Heffernan -- a delivery-truck-driving, junk-food-loving, red-blooded American living in Queens -- almost runs over a chicken that has escaped a butcher in Chinatown. Rather than see the chicken meet an unsavory end, Doug puts it in the passenger seat. Blah, blah, blah ... musical montage showing Doug and the chicken spending the day together.
Doug returns home to find dinner on the table -- you guessed it, a roasted chicken. He can't eat it. He goes outside for some air, runs into a neighbor who whisks him away to watch one of those grisly slaughterhouse documentaries (you know the ones), and Doug's fate is sealed. He announces to wife Carrie that he's no longer eating meat. Good for him.
Could it be left at that, though? Could Doug have grown as a person and made an important decision about the food he eats and how it comes to be on his plate, and then just move on to the next joke?
Ha, ha, ha ... no.
Instead we fast forward to the next morning, when Carrie finds Doug sitting in the kitchen, wearing artsy thick-framed glasses and doing a crossword puzzle ("five-letter word for Russian river ... Volga!"). He criticizes Carrie for drinking unfair-trade coffee -- "Juan Valdez, that nice man with the donkey in the coffee commercials, is an actor ... I know that now."
He takes an interest in reading long, foreign novels. When they attend Carrie's work party, he asks her to wear a dreadful, shapeless hemp dress ("from the Woody Harrelson collection") that looks as if it's made from burlap sacks, and he condescends to the party hosts because they're serving meat.
In short, Doug becomes a total jerk. All because he's given up meat.
Is that how it works? Do all vegetarians become tweed-jacket-wearing, Volga-River-knowing pains in the ass? Is that what will happen to you, if you give up meat?
Well, no. Of course not. But that's what much of middle America will think now. Thanks for playing to stereotypes, King of Queens.
Postscript: The happy ending on this one? (You knew it was coming.) Doug succumbs to the marketing wiles of two competing fast-food restaurants, and Carrie returns from work to find him asleep on the couch in front of the TV with a half-eaten burger resting on his rotund belly. And the balance of the universe is restored!
Climate Citizen: Mary Stuart Masterson
Happy birthday, EMA Awards ... and you other groups, too
Comments
View as Flat
GreyFlcn Posted 7:26 am
17 Apr 2007
Every step up the foodchain maintains only 10% (ish) of the energy. Meat requires 10x more vegetables to make.
Eating vegetables makes you healthier
That said, am I a vegetarian? No.
But I eat a lot of vegetables.
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:25 am
17 Apr 2007
Would a big fat ugly guy like Doug ever get that hot a wife?
Also..."Heffman" -- that guy has to be Italian. C'mon!
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:36 am
17 Apr 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 6:57 pm
17 Apr 2007
On the other hand, the regular audience of "King of Queens" (a show I have never seen) perhaps is already thoughtlessly disposed to accept that a delight in intellectual pleasures, and vegetarianism, amount to unacceptable and un-American snobbery, pure and simple.
That would be a pity. Can people really be so uncritically stupid?
By the way, do "liberal" husbands really force their wives to wear shapeless dresses made from hemp? I have no experience of that whatsoever. Sounds like a reference to the "dirty hippie" bogey-man.
At least drinking fine wine and listening to chamber music was not included in Doug's decadence.
And one wonders if, during his brief vegetarian/intellectual/liberal enlightenment, he could have managed such a clue as, "seven-letter word for Ukrainian river." I think there is something fetching, actually, that Doug's intellectualism only got as far as "Volga."
So anyway, what happened to the chicken whom Doug rescued and befriended? Don't tell me that Doug returned it to the Chinese restaurant?!
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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RICARIZA Posted 1:59 am
18 Apr 2007
More information and images at:
http://www.juanvaldez.com
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Sven Cahling Posted 8:44 pm
18 Apr 2007
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caniscandida Posted 9:25 pm
18 Apr 2007
You are right, Dawn's description of the episode is much more encouraging than Sarah's. I am delighted to know that the chicken ended up in decent circumstances.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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jetflash Posted 10:28 pm
18 Apr 2007
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spaceshaper Posted 10:49 pm
18 Apr 2007
The takeaway from this particular vignette would seem to be not "don't be a vegan" but rather "don't be jerk". At the same time some serious points appear to have been made concerning unpleasant truths about our animal-based diet and the frailty of our ethical convictions when we run up against the juggernaut of commercial advertising. For this I'm prepared to be quite appreciative.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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caniscandida Posted 5:03 pm
20 Apr 2007
That badger sure did look dusty, hot and dry. And that place looked like the floor of one of the circles of Hell.
I do not know much about badgers, which belong to the Mustelidae, the weasel family, along with the true weasels (including stoats and ermines), ferrets, otters, minks, martens, fishers, wolverines and skunks (though some naturalists put skunks in a family of their own). Badgers look small, slow and cute, with very pretty black, gray and white coloring (which you can actually see when they are not so dusty). But in fact they are very tough critters, not at all disposed to back away from a fight; with their teeth and long claws, they can do serious damage to dogs and people.
It would be nice, in the case of your badger, if that toughness extends to being able to endure drought and poor-quality water. It is possible that it just wanted to soak for a bit, to cool itself off, in that rut full of muddy water, and so did not drink deeply.
You were wise not to try to pick it up and move it. Probably you did the best thing you could, which was to talk to the game warden.
For future reference, there are people scattered around the country who specialize in rescuing wild animals. One organization that can hopefully put you in contact with somebody near you is Best Friends, who run a large shelter for all kinds of animals in trouble, domestic and wild, in Kanab, Utah, near Zion National Park:
http://bestfriends.org/
They organized a goodly troop of volunteers who rescued many pets in New Orleans, following Hurricane Katrina.
Also, there is the Humane Society of the United States, an organization that I think very highly of. Here is a page from their site, mostly about what you can do if you find an orphaned baby animal, but which has good general advice if you come upon any wild animal in trouble:
http://hsus.org/wildlife/urban_wildlife_our_wild_neighbor ...
What I would do if I were you is observe if animals, of any kind, are getting sick or dying, on account of the pollution of the water sources which you specialize in studying. Ask the game warden about that, and anyone else with a good eye who goes walking around in those parts. And if you see a destructive pattern develop, then it is time to contact the major wildlife organizations, e.g. HSUS, Audubon, National Wildlife Federation, Defenders of Wildlife, and let them know about the environmental problem in Oklahoma.
As it is, I think I may send the story that you wrote for me to HSUS and Best Friends, because they would be very interested in your photographs of the badger. Not necessarily interested enough to do anything just yet, but still, interested.
If there is anything more substantial that you would like me to do, please let me know.
And by the way, since you still seem to be as if walking on eggs, please do not fear any lecture or harangue or jeremiad from me. True, I support animal rights, and would be very happy if everyone were to adopt a vegetarian diet. But I am realistic enough to understand that the general acceptance of those things is still some distance away; and meanwhile, to insist that they are non-negotiable issues is not the way to persuade anybody. More simply, I just agree with Michael Pollan, Gristmill's Tom Philpott and other thinkers far wiser than I, that we should encourage everyone to consider where their food is coming from.
And more specifically, I hope that it is more and more recognized, that the greatest single source of animal suffering in our country is the institution known as the "concentrated animal feeding operation," or CAFO, aka factory farm. And as the reality of CAFOs and what they do becomes better known, I hope that increased awareness will render them intolerable.
But I certainly do not hold it against anybody who is unprepared to leap at once into vegetarianism. These things take time.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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jetflash Posted 11:12 am
22 Apr 2007
I am glad that we are friends now and I wish I had gotten father along in my Arkansas stories before I found this site as my intensions would then have been obvious to all. Time .... I need more time but then doesn't everyone these days?
I'll try to update you guys when I get back on those stories as they are an integral part of understanding our situation as far government manipulation of the publics perception of important events.
As for the vegetarian issue I fully intend to be the most devout follower of that discipline and share a meal with you very soon. As a matter of fact .... everyone that reads these words will join us in that day when the Lion lays down with the Lamb and we all dine on the food prepared by God.
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mcjx3 Posted 3:57 am
28 Dec 2007
Treat others as you would want to be treated. Although I could very well be good at being a jerk towards meat eaters, I am not because I don't want people to judge me for what I eat so I try not to judge others for eating meat. In fact, you would be surprised at some of the "jerky" comments I get from the meat eaters.
Just something to think about.
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mrLee Posted 10:39 pm
30 Dec 2007
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