![]() Beef also requires 28 times more land and 11 times more water to produce than pork or chicken, and it emits five times their climate-changing gases. ![]() Uncritically expanding on unfounded assumptions, this tiny group further stated that raising cattle not only contributes 10% of those emissions, but it also takes 11,360 gallons of fresh water to produce just over two pounds of beef. Food and Agriculture Organization, the council insists that 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions - more than the total exhaust from all forms of transportation - comes from animal agriculture. Citing old and much-disputed data from the U.N. That's why it's calling for a "climate tax" on red meat. What the approach lacked in literacy subtlety, it made up for in ambitious statism.Īccording to a small Scandinavian nation's Council on Ethics, the country has a moral obligation to fight climate change. I suppose some Shakespearian carnivores will want to counter by quoting from the closing scene of Henry V when a French nobleman speaks in admiration of the English fighting spirit: "Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils." While that may be fine for as far as it goes, I've also heard vegetarian extremists offer the same line as proof that meat consumption fuels overly aggressive social behavior.Īctually, much of this highbrow musing was sparked last week by an article describing a distinctively European approach to the threat of global warming. Though Falstaff is portrayed as a general glutton with a specific liking for fish, the implication at the end of Part II seemed to be that the rotund clown died "cloyed with fat meat." repeats this mental health warning in the play "Troilus and Cressida" when the bitter slave Thersites snaps at this foolish (again with the foolish) master Ajax: "The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!"īeef-witted? Really? You'd think such trash-talk would be unworthy of such a wordsmith.Īnd then there's the famous fatty named Falstaff (who "lards the lean earth as he walks along"), the great comic foil of Henry IV (Parts I and II) who has a much greater appetite for meat and food than honor and danger. Just in case his audience had been dulled by too many burgers during intermission, W.S. In "Twelfth Night," Sir Andrew Aguecheek, one of the greatest fools in Shakespeare's impressive stable of idiots, explains to a friend exactly why he's so stupid: "Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit." ![]() Let me give just a few examples of what I mean straight from the Globe Theater playbook. But I'd been willing to bet my tights and codpiece that a disproportionate number of English majors currently eat on that side of the street. Maybe Shakespeare wasn't exactly a closet vegan. OK, if you must know, I hate it when the guy randomly deviates from a perfectly good plot just to take a fancy-word potshot at beef consumption. Please, forget that I even brought it up. ![]() Just little glitches of genius, minor flaws surely covered by his time-honored artistic license. It was the least I could do despite petty reservations, fleeting moments of annoyance. So it should surprise no one that I raised several cups of mead and flagons of ale last month commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Great Bard's death. Now I can't even remember my password to Amazon. Once I could declaim in front of the mirror with all the passion and skill of Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton. I'm not at all embarrassed to admit wasting my unemployed youth and father's money memorizing the great Shakespearean speeches: Mark Anthony's obit to Caesar ("Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.") Henry V's pep talk at Agincourt ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.") Macbeth's regretful tribute to his old lady ("It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."). For the love of Romeo and Juliet, it doesn't take a Fulbright Scholar to see that the quintessential poet and playwright had absolutely no problem telling one end of the quill from the other. (Public domain image)Īt the risk of sounding too highfalutin', too hoity-toity, too much of a culture-vulture, I've always been a huge fan of Billy Shakespeare. William Shakespeare wasn't exactly a closet vegan, but he was known to randomly deviate from a perfectly good plot just to take a fancy-word potshot at beef consumption.
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