Gosh, hate mail!

I got hate mail on my blog today. Some guy commented, “I hope you fucking die the most horrible death.” That’s not very nice. And strange.

When someone comments, I get an immediate e-mail with the comment. But it doesn't say where it was posted. So I went through my blog and found it. Right by the picture of the poor deer getting its throat slit.

Me and Pim Fortuyn, victims of animal-rights kooks. Of course, unlike Pim, I’m still alive, which is reassuring. But it did make me notice how much of my blog is devoted to killing and eating animals. But the caeser salad I made for lunch just isn’t nearly as interesting or photogenic (but it was delicious). And even that’s got a cute little anchovy packed in salt and then rinsed and filleted and chopped and mashed in a mortar and pestle. Talk about brutal.

I kind of understand being a vegetarian. Sort of. I mean, it is bad to kill animals. It wouldn’t surprise me if in many many years the idea of eating meat will be considered barbaric. It is. But it tastes good. And if they don’t eat meat many years from now, they’ll eat a lot worse. Their loss.

But if you’re willing to eat meat, you should be willing to kill the animal you eat. That doesn’t mean you have to kill every animal you eat. That’s what butchers are for. But understand that an animal is dying for you. Closing your eyes to the slaughtering process doesn’t make it less gruesome. In fact, it usually makes it worse. It’s better to be closer to the killing. That shrink-wrapped Purdue chicken had a horrible life in Delaware. That chicken at the live-poultry store around the corner from me is at least a real chicken. And it’s killed by person with a knife and not on some horrible assembly line that succeeds in a clean killing most of the time.

I don’t like killing animals. I’ve actually killed very few, if you don’t count all those ants in the driveway I smooshed with my thumb when I was a kid. I don’t even go fishing. Nor do I hunt. I’m a city boy (though I have thought about catching squirrels in clean parks or nabbing a few geese from the Western Islands in Amsterdam, but that’s another story).

I do eat animals. And I wear leather. Most people do. But unlike most people, I’ve actually thought about this. I think it’s OK. I don’t want animals to have a bad life for me as well. That’s why I prefer to buy live or free-range animals. I’ll even pay more for it (not that that makes it better). And I’m all for halal butchering (except for the blood draining part. Blood is flavor!). If you can’t handle an animal dying, you shouldn’t eat meat.

To me, it’s far more disgusting to buy cleaned and shrink-wrapped meat in the super market than go out hunting and kill and clean your dinner. The whole shrink-wrapped meat thing really bothers me. It’s too much like Soylent Green (“it’s PEOPLE!”).

And I’m off to eat some Korean BBQ right now. Mmmmm, Pulgogi.