So many things remind us of something that Charles Krauthammer said once upon a time. Thank goodness for newspaper archives.
Here's something Dr. Krauthammer wrote in his column in 2015:
"I'm convinced that our great-grandchildren will find it difficult to believe that we actually raised, herded and slaughtered [animals] on an industrial scale--for the eating."
Our progeny might be horrified at zoos and trained killer whales, too, he wrote. "Which brings us to meat eating. Its extinction will, I believe, ultimately come. And be largely market-driven as well. Science will find dietary substitutes that can be produced at infinitely less cost and effort. At which point, meat will become a kind of exotic indulgence, what the cigar . . . is to the dying tobacco culture of today."
Ah, Charles Krauthammer. Thou should be living at this hour. Your country has need of thee.
Yes, one day the chicken house and the slaughterhouse will be a rarity. And it might not be as far away as some might think. Imagine back to your childhood, perhaps before microwaves, when mom had to heat a can of pork and beans in a pot on the stove. And imagine back to her childhood, when the pork was killed, skinned and preserved at home. In a generation or two, things can change fast. Some of us may stand astride the world yelling Stop!, but the world never seems to listen.
But until the day when science can make a T-bone in the lab, animals will be raised on farms. And some of those farms will make a mess, which is what animals do when contained in close quarters.
Pound for pound, we'd nominate the chicken as the messiest farm creature. Don't get us started on those summers walking chicken houses for $10 a day. But for the sheer mass of mess, the pig farm has to be the champ. And while the leavings of a cow might provide a sense (as in smell) of reminiscence for those who lived on or by farms growing up, and the droppings of 20,000 chickens might be rendered spent with a few fans, the smell of hog waste could choke the most hardy of American Gothic.
Pig waste doesn't just stink, it reeks. No neighborhood gardener is spreading that stuff on his tomato garden. Not unless he wants the Neighborhood Association to put a grenade through his porch screen.
The governor of Arkansas announced this week an agreement to buy out the controversial yet completely legal C&H Hog Farms in the Buffalo River's watershed. The state and The Nature Conservancy, the papers report, will compensate the owners of the farm to the tune of $6.2 million.
Not only that, but the governor suggests a temporary ban on large-scale hog farms in the Buffalo River watershed be made permanent.
And here some of us thought this controversy would never (1) come to an end and (2) be settled to the satisfaction of all concerned.
Surely a court would have to rule that the hog farm could stay, ensuring lawsuits from environmentalists for decades to come, a Jarndyce v. Jarndyce for Arkansas' civil system. Or a court would rule that the farm must close, leading to lawsuits from the owners and stays upon stays while appeals went from courthouse to courthouse over the years. Isn't that the American way?
Instead, the matter seems settled, and most commentators call it a win-win-win. Not just a win for environmentalists and the farm's owners, but for the state's residents, who don't have to read more news reports about whether the hog farm produces E. coli in the state's most beautiful river. For the record, no government agency has concluded that the farm was responsible for bacteria downstream in the Buffalo.
But let's not focus on that, for goshsakes. Whatarewetryintodo, start another fight? (Definition of an editorial writer: A person who comes down from the mountain after the battle's been fought and shoots the wounded.)
Instead, let us focus on this:
Everybody seems to think this is a complete good. The nation's first National River is to be protected, not just for now but into the future. (Thank you, Asa Hutchinson.) And the owners of the farm, who went through all the correct channels to get their farm up and running, will be fairly compensated.
As the kids say, it's all good.
Now then, somebody publish a schedule for when the pigs are to be moved. We want to make sure we're not using that highway on that summer afternoon. To be behind a hog caravan in traffic is something to be circumvented.
Editorial on 06/15/2019