Flinging franks?!

Eating or flinging, which is worse?

So last night, I was on the couch watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon eating some organic grapes.  I love the show, but I hate when people fling hot dogs.  Don’t you hate when people think it’s entertaining to fling hot dogs?  There were three world leaders with their faces blown up to the size of Montana on wooden boards or whatever….then for each ones mouth there was a big hole and each contestant had to see how many beef franks they could throw into the mouth in 15 seconds.  The contestants were playing for some kind of prize (which turned out to be a hot dog roaster, how sarcastically wonderful) Jimmy counted down to the start and then all these hot dogs were flying everywhere, some like plain ol’ rubber rebounding off the foreheads, cheeks and noses of these leaders.  Annoyed, I almost started choking on my grapes in disgust. Well the contestant in the middle tossed in 3 dogs and won the roaster.  The other two won a “consolation” prize–a pack of “all beef” hot dogs.  Wonderful.  (BTW, I got dared to eat a veggie dog once–I hate hot dogs–and it tasted waaayy too much like a meat hot dog, in case you ever want to give it a try cuz you like that sorta thing; Smart dogs are the ones I tried.)

I’m so sad about this for several reasons.  First of all, I realize there are people that eat meat.  I may not agree with it, but there are plenty of things that I do that I’m sure others don’t agree with (being a vegan for example).  Of course I wish that the whole world would stop eating animals–what vegan wouldn’t want that?  But the reality is that people do eat it.  Not that I agree with it, but seriously, if you are gonna kill animals for food, at least eat them, don’t fling them!  This then becomes a complete waste, almost mocking the animals death itself.  I know I’m getting pretty bent on personal politics here, but too bad.  It’s already bad enough how animals are killed for food in and of itself.  But it’s examples like the weeny-flinging madness that I saw last night that makes me realize how the animals died in vain for that….just to have random parts of themselves encased in an intestinal lining and whipped across a stage, only to fall to the floor and roll in the dust behind the curtain.  For any animal, human or non-human, what a sad fate.

In the end, death is death.  Dying to become a dinner at the merciless control of another is no way to go.  I personally hope I go peacefully in my sleep, as I’m sure many of us do–we never want to imagine a drawn out, painful death like cancer, in which we sometimes, unfortunately eventually succumb to the relentless inevitable destruction.  I can’t help but notice pointless exploitation of animals now in life because I wouldn’t want to be that cow, chicken, pig or anybody else that this world decides to eat for dinner.  Even the flinging of franks late at night on TV doesn’t make it funny…when I stop and really think about it, it’s the farthest thing from funny.  But what makes me more sad, is the fact that we are so smart and have incredible potential to be responsible for those that need us most.  People have the power to stop the abuse.  People have the power to stop eating animals and turn away from torture.  Why don’t they stop?