In response to Jen Hirt’s column of Oct. 1, I would like to commend her on writing an article which was published despite an argument completely devoid of relevant facts, defensible opinions or even remote means to persuade her audience of her vague objective.

Indeed, she alludes to things which have nothing to do with her argument and insults the vast majority of her readers.

The first half of Ms. Hirt’s column consists of attacking the consumption of meat on Independence Day and saying how the corn used to feed these cattle could better have been used to feed Ethiopians.

Had those 56.6 million pounds of cattle not been fed, we would have had 56.6 million pounds of cattle on our hands, dead of starvation.

The point is that they are animals and they do need to eat, regardless of whether we intend to eat them.

Also, if America were to give the corn to Ethiopia, who would pay for it? The Ethiopians surely couldn’t pay for it, and many farmers have enough trouble making ends meet that I doubt they would donate the corn on principle.

She then tosses in offhand comments calling meat-eaters fools (insulting the majority of her audience), attacking religion (which has nothing to do with her argument) and saying that she eats fish (which establishes her as a hypocrite).

Ms. Hirt says that uric acid from dead animals is not filtered anymore by an animal’s kidneys after their heart stops beating and implies that the acid gets into the meat.

The only way this would be possible would be if urine coursed through the animal’s tissues regularly, which is completely absurd. And, to top that off, she attacks irradiation, a method to purify meat, as “controversial”.

“Controversial” doesn’t necessarily mean that something is bad. New drugs to treat diseases are often controversial, and they’re certainly not bad. Legislation to stiffen penalties for drunk driving is often controversial, and it’s certainly not bad either.

Irradiation is a particular target for people to attack since anything having to do with “radiation” or “nuclear” is automatically accepted by the general public as bad.

And then, as a last cheap shot at her audience, she blames Mad Cow Disease on meateaters.

She completely misses the fact that, even did we not eat meat, cows would still exist in the world, and thus Mad Cow Disease could still exist since humans eating meat have nothing to do with Mad Cow Disease.

Ms. Hirt missed the boat on that one.

So what is Ms. Hirt’s point? It’s obviously not defense of animal rights or a protest of animal treatment; she doesn’t even mention that.

It probably isn’t to convince her readers to eat vegetarian for the sake of nutrition, since she barely mentions nutrition in the article except where she talks about the hamburger she ate when she was young possibly giving her cancer later in life.

By process of elimination, her main argument against eating meat must be that, to quote her, “it tastes like rot”.

And one last piece of advice for Ms. Hirt: insulting your audience is no substitute for facts and intelligent commentary to convince people of your viewpoint.

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Michael Falk

Sophomore

Meteorology