Jottings from the Granite Studio

It’s enough to make you want to go kosher. Or halal. Or vegetarian for that matter. A mysterious illness is decimating Guangdong’s pig population causing pork prices to spike and the former head of China’s FDA was just convicted and sentenced TO DEATH for taking bribes. I’m not implying there is a causal link, but these are NOT two stories you want to read one right after the other before dinner. Yikes.

The fascinating blog Beijing Newspeak has a chilling look behind the scenes of China’s Porkygate. There’s been no confirmation on the extent of the epidemic or the full story behind the rise in pork prices, but it’s definitely a situation worth watching. As Beijing Newspeak says, there are many factors here, but to deny that the disease is playing a role is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst.

Other than that, I’ll let Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, and Quentin Tarantino have the last word on this one:

Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don’t eat filthy animals.

Vincent: But bacon tastes good, pork chops taste good…

Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy motherf—–s. Pigs sleep and root in shit, that’s a filthy animal. I don’t eat nothin’ that ain’t got sense enough to disregard its own feces.

Vincent: How about a dog? A dog eats its own feces.

Jules: I don’t eat dog either.

Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?

Jules: I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy, but it’s definitely dirty. But, dogs got personality, personality goes a long way.

Vincent: So by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filty animal. Is that true?

Jules: We’ have to be talkin’ ’bout one charmin’ motherf—–’ pig. I mean he’d have to be ten times more charmin’ than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I’m sayin’?