Super-Size Me Baby!
This is in response to File Boy’s article regarding e-coli contamination effecting fast food. The post below started out as a “Comment” but quickly outgrew a typical response. So I thought I had enough ramblings to survive as a separate posting – in case you were wondering . . . Think in terms of point/counter-point.
Well-done sir! I mean if you eat your meat well done, you should be ok. Seriously, I really liked your article about fast food e-coli contamination. You speak so eloquently about a subject so near and dear to my heart (potty-anything). You know, you always get me thinking and not always in the direction you intended for me to go. But here I go, (and when you gotta go you gotta go) I’m not so sure that e-coli is the villain we make it out to be. My understanding is that it’s really only dangerous to individuals with compromised immune systems or kidney problems and that most people can withstand (quite easily) a direct exposure with little more than an upset stomach and some diarrhea, if that.
I think e-coli is one of those engines of natural selection – you know – something that keeps the herd on top of its game and in fighting form. It only picks off the little weak ones on the periphery. You, as the mighty hunter, should appreciate this argument. What happened before we invented plumbing, soap, and toilet paper, and people actually and quite literally got the shitty end of the stick?
I wonder if all of this medicine and bioresearch is really doing more to dilute the strength of the human race than better it in the long run. Aren’t we just enabling sick (or weaker) people to survive and contaminate the gene pool with their weak genes? And aren’t we expending tremendous resources for the sake of those on the periphery? Shouldn’t we be evolving toward some master race by this point? And do we really want lawyers making everything safer? I think if the world were a more dangerous place (like it used to be) you’d have a lot less dumb people running around screwing up the gene pool.
I want fewer warning labels, more dangerous products and hot coffee that’s not conspicuously marked as such. I want amusement rides with no height requirements. I don’t want to know how much salt is in my food and make all drugs legal and available over the counter.
Sooner or later (and believe me its sooner) this world is going to hit maximum occupancy and we’re going to have a huge problem on our hands. As it is, I have to eat dinner at 4:30 if I don’t want to wait an hour at most mediocre restaurants. Let humans fend for themselves damn it! And between you and me, I was really cheering for bird flu. Did you know there was a bird flu pandemic around 1918 that killed more than fifty million people world wide? With people living on top of each other today like they do, we’d lose over one billion people at least, when we finally get another one for real. Guess we better start digging.
By d.tkon
posted by File Boy & D.Tkon at 1:52 PM
12 Comments:
I couldn't agree more.
If we're all getting "levels" of e-coli, why are some getting so sick? Natural selection, baby. I'm from PA so I'm lucky, I have an iron constitution.
Well addgirl, it's certainly nice to see that we can agree on something! Stopping the disease processes is like putting out fires in the west. They finally figured out that the fires are an essential component of the life cycle of certain plant and animal species – without fire, their reproductive cycles are disturbed. I think there’s a whole bunch of people whose reproductive cycles should be disturbed!!!
I have an aunt, who despite her religious leanings and family affiliation is pro-choice because, as she argues, it will help keep the population numbers down, and the people who have abortions are statistically the poor class anyway. D.-I'm a little concerned with your comments: "Aren’t we just enabling sick (or weaker) people to survive and contaminate the gene pool with their weak genes? And aren’t we expending tremendous resources for the sake of those on the periphery?" I'm not sure if this is more Ebenezerish or more Adolfish. You know, without the sick and poor to make us appreciate what we have, we might be the dregs of society to others more wealthy than us. On the other hand, think of the money we'd save on insurance, taxes and hospital bills.
To me the thing that strikes me most about this E.coli and Hep A scare is that over the course of my lifetime, how many times have I ingested someone else's feces? I mean, there are statistics on how many bugs you swallow while asleep, how many pounds of dust you breath in, etc... but what I want to know is how many pounds of poo do we chew? I'm sure your number goes way up if you eat at fast-food restaurants. But then again, even those who are vegetarians likely eat some too, since what may have caused this recent outbreak was green onions from Mexico. And let's not forget about the Spinach scare that recently "went through" America. I wonder if at some point in the future fast-food chains will have to place a warning label on their food: "May contain animal or human feces" or "Studies have shown that eating here will increase your odds of ingesting poop", or "Your likelihood of contracting E.coli or Hepatitis A will decrease if you frequent this establishment less".
Could also be: Calories - 450, Fat - 19 grams, Protein - 4 grams, Feces - less than 9 ppm, Vitamin A - 20% of Daily Average, etc... kind of sneak it in there.
I spit out my coffee! "Studies have shown that eating here will increase your odds of ingesting poop", too funny!
If I were the lawyer in charge of drafting the warning, based on the average IQ of the people eating at fast-food restaurants I'd want the warning to be confusing, but still accurate. That way they wouldn't know whether they are better off eating there or not eating there. Maybe a double negative statement. I think this captures it best: "Your likelihood of contracting E.coli or Hepatitis A will decrease if you frequent this establishment less". In this way, we'd really thin out the herd since only the dumb ones would continue eating the poo.
Fileboy - I agree. That's all good stuff, especially the info regarding warning lables. I think we're on the same page. But I think we're all blowing this out of proportion a bit - I mean since when did we start caring about eating shit? Jesus! I must eat about ten pounds of shit each week just working at this place! How much crap do you have to eat doing your job? At least a Whopper is tastey.
At my job I try to stay positive. I say, "Mmm, shit, tastes like chicken! I'll have seconds!"
addgirl! You can work for me anytime! We serve most of the shit here open-face. :-0
Why doesn't Why I Shoot Stuff have an email address so that people can email you to say:
"Hello? It's 12/14, your last post was 12/11, get with it? POST!"
or
"I'm ADD, my job is too much like work without something to read. POST!"
Of course, I mean, you know, if people wanted to say something like that.
D- don't we have an e-mail address that people can use to send this type of request to (tkon@yahoo or something)? If not, you can always use the comment sections.
I thought your comment about allowing people to fend for themselves was interesting (I just re-read the article). I've often thought that since I am able to hunt and fish and bring home food, that if anything really bad ever went down, that I'd fare ok. But I was out hunting last weekend and it was 23 degrees out. I forgot my ski mask and I was sitting in the dark shivering (I couldn't wait to go back home and get warmed up). I actually thought about what I'd do if I had to do that to survive. And worse than just hunting for a few hours, what would I do if I had to survive in the woods indefinitely? I don't think more than 5% of Americans would be able to do it. I mean, from no hot water or bathing to no toilets, no toilet paper, no bread or soda, just mud, cold and snow. Lightning, rain, wind. Eating insects or small mammals. A situation in which we all had to actually fend for outsleves would thin out the population more than you might realize. Not to downplay the human spirit and the amazing ability of humans to adapt and survive, but we're so far removed from the life and death reality of our existence I think many would rather die. Most people I know wouldn't be comfortable camping overnight, let alone for ever. Most people wouldn't use a port-a-potty, let alone a bush and pine cones. Most people couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a gun, let alone a furry little woodland creature, and then (gasp!) eat it. So, all of our modern comforts are in some ways setting us up for a terrific failure and collapse, if we aren't careful. Not to mention our dependency on medications, rememdies and antedotes.
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