Dark Meat

[groovedaddy]

According to the Jewish calendar we are now in the month of Av, a period of increasingly intense mourning that culminates with a total fast on the Ninth of Av, which this year coincides with Sunday, Aug. 10.

One of the customary practices in these nine days is the avoidance of meat: it’s the way we commemorate the destruction of the Temple, where daily animal sacrifices were once brought.

Refraining from food is symbolic, of course. The idea is not just to avoid meat but to limit ourselves so that we can better focus on the spiritual.

Unfortunately, this year kosher meat has become a different type of symbol, one not of mourning and spiritual devotion but of ridicule, embarrassment and hypocrisy. In May in Postville, Iowa, immigration officials raided Agriprocessors Inc., the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/opinion/06herzfeld.html?th&emc=th

[silverweb]

1. I trust NO industry anymore.

I've been a vegetarian for several years now, but continue to learn about the horrific abuses endemic in the factory farming system.

The video, _Earthlings_, documents these abuses well and includes secret video taken inside a "kosher" slaughterhouse.

Perhaps not in all, but I'd bet money that in many if not most, "kosher" isn't.