Paris Hilton, Horses, and Other Species on the To-Eliminate List

                Have you ever been on a farm? 

                Generally, they are not as bad as is often advertised.  I couldn’t watch that Paris Hilton-Paris Hilton (the name of her identical twin escapes me) show where they were on the farm, because frankly I don’t like people like her.  And, in general, I like farmers.  They are pretty honest people.  Yeah, there are some backwards people out there.  But they don’t mince words.  In Paris’s world, there is a lot of backstabbing, and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, and fake smiles, and bloated ghost-written charity speeches.  In a farmer’s, there really isn’t.  If they’re racist, they’ll let you know.  If they think you’re gay, they probably don’t want you around their sons.  But if you’re like them, they’ll probably treat you pretty well.  And even if you aren’t, you’re eating the eggs and bread and milk they grow every day of their lives.

                Now, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think those that work on and own farms are a wholly racist, wholly homophobic bunch.  There are plenty that aren’t.  I don’t have the statistics in front of me here, but I would say that most are not.  But even those that are, don’t have an ounce of fake inside them.  So, I like them.  More than the Paris Hiltons.

                So let me point out that, as a guy from Indiana, where farming and high school basketball are about all we have going for us, where my livelihood growing up was largely dependent upon the whimsy of farmers in and around Tippecanoe County, there is one thing about farms that I positively cannot understand.  And that is the phenomenon known as “horses”.

                Horses are the least useful animal.  Not just on the farm.  On the face of the planet.  Usually when I tell people I hate mosquitoes, the general consensus is “Yeah!  They suck!” (whammy).  But when I tell somebody that I hate a horse, especially if I tell a member of the female species, the normal response I get is “Why!? They are such beautiful majestic proud strong intelligent animals!”

                To which, I have to chuckle mightily.  Have you ever been around a horse?  They are not that bright.  They are not much brighter than your average animal, whose daily to-do list is: Eat.  Mate.  Mate with a member of my species of the opposite gender, if possible.  Poop.  Sleep.  Every horse I have ever encountered (and I would wager that I have encountered a fair number more than the average adult American) follows this pattern, until they die.

                “But Beef, that’s how every farm animal is.  What’s so wrong with horses?”  Well, you’re right.  Most other animals on the farm eat, mate, poop, and sleep.  Here is the difference between those other animals and horses: we eat those other animals.  We eat cows.  They’re where I got my nickname.  We eat pigs, in so many forms that they justify the awful stench they produce.  We eat duck, we eat lamb, we eat chicken (we eat a lot of chicken), those animals have a reason to continue to be born, to eat, to mate, to poop, to sleep, and eventually to be slaughtered. 

                Now, let me ask you this.  What do horses provide for us?  The best answer I have ever heard to this question was “glue”.  But the truth of the matter is, glue is not dependent upon horse hooves and horse parts.  If it were, why is the Elmer’s logo a sheep?  Why don’t they have a big ol’ horse head, a la The Godfather, just smiling right at you when you pull it off the shelf?  Because we don’t need horses to make glue.  It is just the best use we have for them, currently.

                We don’t eat horse meat.  I don’t eat horse meat, not because people say I shouldn’t but because I don’t imagine it would taste very good.  It would probably be very stringy, very tough.  It would probably not be delicious and succulent like a hamburger or a pork chop.  So, I don’t eat horses.  And neither does anybody else, that I know of.

                It used to be, we didn’t eat horses because they were valuable work animals.  We needed them to pull our buggies, to plow our fields, to let our young children sit on while we ran into the grocery store.  But now we have automobiles for all those purposes.  And not only are they more powerful, they are also more reliable.  Horses have been rendered useless.

                “But we can’t just get rid of horses!”  Is the chorus.  My question: Why not?  If we got rid of other animals, such as the mosquito, entire food chains would collapse.  Mosquitoes eat something, and that something is eaten by something, and so on, until the whole thing is an interdependent chain.  But what eats the horse? Nothing.  No other species would suffer if there were no more horses.  In fact, we would have more hay for valuable animals like the delicious cow.  And what is below the horse on the food chain?  Grass.  Are we going to be overrun by massive herds of grass, encroaching on our land and property, taking our possessions, planting violent and sexual images in our young teenagers’ impressionable minds if all horses are eliminated?  I would posit that the answer is no.

                As far as I can tell, the only legit use for horses is the Amish.  And as it is, we don’t mess with them much anyway.  They provide almost no drain on our economy whatsoever, and make comfortable furniture and delicious cheese.  So my proposal is thus: Eliminate the horse species, outside of the Amish community. 

Give me three legitimate reasons other than “They’re pretty”.  Seriously, try.

One line summary: There is no real reason to keep horses around, unless you’re amish, and you aren’t.

 

 

 

THE REST OF THE THOUGHTS              10.31.05