From: jmackey@moonlink.net (Jim Mackey)
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [ba.food] Re: Veggie Asian (was getting way off topic)
Date: 30 Oct 1998 07:04:43 GMT

Subject: Re: Veggie Asian (was getting way off topic) 
From: geoffm@netcom.com (Geoff Miller)
Newsgroups: ba.food

Greg Ellis <kcellisSPAMKNOT@aimnet.com> writes:

[ angst about eating "land-intensive" meat ]

> Only crackpots? Do you really mean to say that no knowledgeable person
> of sound mind could never make such choices?

Absolutely.  The only people who care about things like that are the
beard-and-wire-rimmed-glasses types who ride bicycles to work and go
to candlelight vigils.  The sort of people, in other words, whom P.J
O'Rourke once described as "losers, the three-bong-hit saviors of the
earth, lava lamp Luddites, global warming dolts, ozone boneheads, peace
creeps, tofu twinks, Birkenstock buttinskis, and bed-wetting vegetarian
bicyclists who bother whales on weekends."

> Remember Woody Harrelson climbing on the GG Bridge recently, in
> protestof the logging of the Headwaters Forest? Seems he sports a
> pretty clean haircut.

Uh-huh.  And Woody Harrelson represents how many data points?  *How* many?

This brings up something amusing that I've noticed in an awful lot of
liberals: a willful inability to grasp the concept of generalities.
They all seem to think that the existence of a single counterexample
is sufficient to invalidate a general observation.  The obvious
explanation for these rather odd mental gymnastics is the fanatical,
ideologically-based hatred that liberals have for any form of
stereotyping.  What really gets them exercised is pointing out that
stereotypes weren't made up out of whole cloth, but in fact exist for
a reason.

Which is silly, because when you're dealing with human beings and
the large numbers that they represent, *of course* there's going to
be a bit of variation even among the most homogeneous populations.
That hardly renders generalities meaningless or wrongheaded, though.
Woody Harrelson's tidy haircut no more invalidates the fact that the
overwhelming majority of leftist males have long hair and beards than
the existence of Grace Jones and Wally Cox could be seen to invalidate
the assertion that men are bigger than women.

> And a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast.  

What, no Super Colon-Blow?  I'm shocked, truly I am.  Even *I* eat Grape
Nuts sometimes.  (I used to think "grape nuts" was the slang name for
some sort of loathsome venereal disease.)

> Anyone can read the side of a cereal box.

I read the Chronicle instead.  There's nothing like an early- morning
exposure to all that leftist twaddle to get the ol' blood flowing.
By the time I get to work, I'm ready to cook and eat the first pinheaded
whiner who crosses me.  And in my job that's a plus, believe me.

> Nope, I do enjoy good deadly greasy smoky beef ribs every now and
> then.

Well, that's reassuring to hear.  Let's just hope that you don't blow
a ventricle getting out of bed one of these mornings after such an
unhealthy indulgence.  Have you considered wearing a bicycle helmet to
bed in case you suffer a heart attack while rising the next morning
and bonk yer noggin on the floorboards?  It could happen, you know.
You just can't be too careful nowadays.

> You seem to be suggesting that people with family histories of
> heart trouble should just go ahead and live it up, and eat all the
> cheeseburgers they can manage.

Of course not.  My position is that, as some Dead White Male(tm) once
said, moderation is the key.  The point of view I was decrying was the
one that leads a lot of people to avoid even an *occasional* meal that's
high in fat or cholesterol because they can't tell the difference between
something that's deadly poison in an immediate sense and something that
would only be harmful if one ate a lot of it over an extended period
of time.  If that's not the way you are, the relax.  I'm sure I'll find
some other, compensatory flaw in your lifestyle sooner or later, and we
can pick up where we left off.

> I much prefer to do as the French do, andscour my arteries with a good
> red wine. It goes much better with steak.

Not a damn thing wrong with that.  The thought of enjoying a good
cabernet or zinfandel with some dripping red meat that a huge tract of
Amazon rainforest got slash-and-burned for makes my pants want to get
up and dance.

And now if you'll excuse me, it's time to go drink and drive.


Coming soon to a residential area near you,
Geoff