The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 33, Ed. 1 Friday, May 10, 1991 Page: 3 of 12
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THE RICE THRESHER FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1991
RAY! TIME TO NOT ME, MAN.
HAUL A, MAN! I JUST GOT
WE'RE MOVING NEW ORDERS.
OUT IN TEN. I'M HEAPING
MINUTES! I NORTH.
'I VOLUNTEERED
TO WORK IN ONE
\ OF THE REFUGEE
\ CAMPS. I MISSED
YOU'RE
OUT OF
YOUR MINP,
RAY! YOU
PONT P06 ME OUT,
DUPE! WE'LL BE
OUTA THERE IN TWO
WEEKS! THREE,
OH, YEAH? LESSEE.
WHICH CAMP? CAMP
/ QUA6MIRE.
DONT WORRY,
PEOPLE! THE
UN, WILL LOOK
AFTER YOU'
NO! PONT
GO! THE
U.N. CANT
PROTECT US
FROMSAPMM!
WHAT H-.PPENED
TO MY VICTORY?
WHAT HAPPENED
TO MY SHINY,
NEW VICTORY!
WE
PIDNT
WANT TO
BOTHER
YOU,SIR.
YOU WERE
WHY DOES AMERICA BETRAY
US ? BUSH TOLP US TO REVOLT
A6AINST SAPPAM! UJHY
POES HE NOT CAFfr?
THE PRESIDENT POBS CARE !
HE'S P0IN6 EVERYTHING HE
CAM! THE REFUGEES ARE
HIS FIRST CONCERN!
FISHING.
/OOOBO2
(/
I
DURING THE WAR, WE KILLED
!00,000 IRAQIS. BUT WE
CONTROLLED THE MEP/A, SO
NO ONE SAW THE dOPIES.
WITH THE KURDS, IT'S A
PIFFERENT SITUATION. EVERY
BABY BURIAL MAKES THE
EVENING NEWS
I'M AFRAID WERE GOING
TO HAVE TO JU5T TOUGH
IT OUT. AT LEAST UNT/L
WE CAN GET THE PICTURES
BACK ON OUR SIPE.
H0WAB0UT NOTUNLESS
PA RAPES? YOU WANT
COULD WE TO CALL UP
SCHEDULE THE RESERVES
MORE PARADES?
SO WHAT
HAPPENS??
WHAT HAP-
PENED DMT
PERFECTUT-
TLE VICTORY?
WE LOST
CONTROL
OF THE
PICTURES,
SIR...
I
TM AFRAIP WELL HAVE TO GET
USED TO IT, SIR. THERE ARE TWO
MILLION CJOUP, HUNGRY, HURTING
PEOPLE OUT THERE, AND WE BEAR
MUCH OF THE RESPONSIBILITY
P0 YOU WANT US TO START WORK-
ING ON A NEW LONG-RANGE
GAME PLAN, SIR?
I JUST CANT GET OVER
IT! THE WAR WAS SO IM-
PECCABLE! IT WAS CLEAN!
IT WAS PERFECT! AND NOW
THIS PREAPFUL REFUGEE
YOU KNOW
WHAT IT'S
LIKE? IT'S
LIKE HAVING
THE PAINT JOB
ON YOUR NEW
CARSCRATCHEP
A PLAN,
51R! WE
NEED A
PLAN!
UH...SIR?
•I Ml
SIR., I CAN'T EMPHASIZE
IT ENOUGH -WE'VE GOT TO
REGAIN CONTROL OF THE
PICTURES.
EVEN THOUGH THE MARINES
ARE DOING A GREAT JOB, THE
FACT IS, THEY'RE STILL-
WE'VE GOT TO
SHIFT THE
FOCUS.' NOW,
THE NSC HAS
DRAWN UP
A FEW SUG-
GESTIONS
COOP! ILL
START WORK
I NO THE
PHONES
I
LET'S
HEAR
EM'
1. START
ANOTHER
WAR...
H/P-PEEPIN IRAQ! THEY'VE
ALREAPY NAMED
ONE OF THE CEN-
TERS 1CAMP
QUAGMIRE.
MR. PRESIDENT, I SHOULD WARN
YOU, WE'RE GOING TO BE HEAR-
ING FROM YOUR FORMER WAR
CRITICS IN THE WEEKS AHEAD. A
LOT OF THEM WILL SAY
BUT THEYDtDtfT! WHAT THEY
PREDICTED WAS AN OUTPOURING
OF ARAB ANGER AGAINST THE
U.S., ISRAEL AND JORDAN
BEING DRAGGED INTO THE WAR, AND
THEY DIDN'T PREDICT SADDAM
STILL IN POWER, A BLOODY
REVOLUTION, TWO MILLION
STARVING REFUGEES, AND
THOUSANDS OF U.S. TROOPS
YOU'RE RIGHT,
SIR. THEY
MISSED'BY
A MILE.
. IT'S NOT A
T0LD-Y0U-
.SQ-TYBE
:SITUATION!
NOT AT ALL!
w
Veggie
FROM PAGE 2
nal factors, the vegetarian diet is still much
healthier. For instance, how do the authors
explain that in this country alone, not compar-
ing with Far East countries or any others,
vegetarians live and average of 5 years longer
than their meat-eating counterparts? How do
they account tor the fact that again, only among
Americans, people consuming a meat-based
diet run a 50% risk of having a heart attack while
those on a fully vegetarian diet have only a 4%
chance?
And so on. The numbers continue, but I
encourage readers to find out for themselves
by reading Robbins' Diet for a New America in
which he bases his information on literally
thousands of sources—only then can one make
such far reaching claims as he does.
The authors then tried to discount the cor-
relation between a meat-based diet and the
issue of world hunger. Political issues do play
a large role in such matters and though in
theory the claim would work, in our world
today perhaps all the hungry would not be fed
by the grain that a vegetarian diet would free
up.
Nevertheless, there is no justification for
the fact that for every 15 pounds of grain fed to
cows, only one pound of beef results for food.
Those 15 pounds of grain could directly feed
the population, making the process much more
efficient This is undeniably inefficiency.
Furthermore, 80-90% of the corn grown in
this country is fed to cows. Corn can be a
wonderful source for fuel because it can be
made into ethanol, yet the vast majority of our
corn is used for livestock feeding. And the
authors' statements do not discount the fact
that, as I had originally mentioned, 20,000
pounds of potatoes can be grown on the same
land it takes to produce only 165 pounds of
beef; or that 20 pure vegetarians can live on the
same land it takes to feed only one meat eater.
This is indisputably inefficient and wasteful.
And finally, the authors attempt to negate
the environmental catastrophe that occurs
because of meat production. Factory farms are
gross exploiters of all our natural resources. A
pound of beef takes 2500 gallons of water to
produce while to produce one pound of wheat
only 25 gallons are required. It takes 408 gal-
lon s of water to produce one serving of chicken,
and some chicken factory farms are known to
use up over 100,000,000 gallons of water a day!
Our fossil fuels will last for only 13 years (it
was 13 when the book was written—it would
only be 9 or 10 now) at the rate the world
consumes meat whereas they would last nearly
260 years if the world consumed a fully veg-
etarian diet
The amount of excreta dumped into rivers,
lakes, and oceans from factory farms, in fact,
constitutes nearly 50% of the waste found in our
bodies of water, and the rate of topsoil depletion
(again, livestock raising is not the sole cause,
but a major, preventable cause) occurring be-
cause of meat production is staggering: 85% of
US topsoil is lost because of it
These numbers, only a brief sample, easily
convict meat-production of gross irresponsibil-
ity toward the environment
Afinal point the authors mention in response
to the environmental issue is that of pesticides.
In the legendary Silent Spring, by Rachel
Carson, as well as in Diet for a New America and
numerous other books, the authors show that
the pesticides and chemicals (not to mention
all the antibiotics fed to the factory farmed
animals to ensure their survival—after all, if
the animal is dead they can't get her/him as fat
as they need to make a profit) related to meat
production easily cause far more damage than
pesticides related to plant raising.
In closing their article, the authors state
that "if meat has a higher production cost.. .the
price of meat will increase to reflect this." This
statement is false—meat production is subsi-
dized by the government making meat more
affordable for even the poor, who along with
the rest of us, have been brainwashed to think
we need more meat or we will suffer from
malnutrition.
The authors made one final point I would
like to address: they claimed that houses of hay
were more efficient than modern ones, and that
horses are more efficient than cars. Were the
comparisons even close in the proportion to
the flifference between a meat-based diet and a
vegetarian one, much more would have been
written about the issue. Perhaps there are books
that discuss this subject, but if not, I highly
encourage the authors of the counter-article to
write one themselves.
In closing, I think it it worth mentioning that
one of the two authors who responded is him-
self a fervent vegetarian and is actively cam-
paigning for a 'milk-free Lovett' One only won-
ders what his purposes were for advocating an
animal-based diet, but then again, it takes all
kinds...
Anuj Shah
Baker '92
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Zitterkopf, Ann & Howe, Harlan. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 33, Ed. 1 Friday, May 10, 1991, newspaper, May 10, 1991; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245785/m1/3/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.