As the title suggests, this post is not about food, despite this being a food blog.  I can’t help myself.  I am in ABSOLUTE SHOCK that our next President is African American.  Shocked in a good way, that is.  Wow!

Here in California, we had some other things going on that I’ve been keeping my eye on.  The first is Prop 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act.  While I don’t have strong feelings on this one way or the other, I was really hoping that it wouldn’t pass.  I was all for it at first, but the more I read about it, the more I have problems with it.

The law states that a farmer cannot tether or confine an animal for all or the majority of a day– that’s it.  The law covers any pig during pregnancy, egg-laying hen, or calf raised for veal.  Correct me if I’m wrong (and I may be, I don’t know), but do we really have a pork industry here in California?  By industry, I mean factory farm.  I don’t think we do, so the part that protects the pigs doesn’t really apply and, if it did, it only protects pregnant sows.  We do have the egg farms here and, because we have dairy farms and cows don’t spontaneously lactate, we have the veal industry.  So, egg-laying hens will now be able to spread both wings fully, without touching the cage or another hen.  And a veal calf will still be allowed to be tethered, but not for all or the majority of the day.  A person who violates will be fined $1,000 or put in jail for 180 days.  Great!  What a victory for animal rights.

My problems with this law are that it doesn’t protect any food animal during transport or during slaughter and that it will only slightly protect a select few of the billions of animals killed for food every year.  Hens will still have their beaks cut off.  Calves will still be separated from their mothers, and will still be castrated without anesthesia.  Wait– the biggest problem:  it won’t become effective until January 1, 2015!  Hello, we’re just going into 2009.  Read the law for yourself– it’s only 3 pages long.  It’s probably not as great as you were lead to believe it was.  Didn’t the Yes on Prop 2 commercials make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?!

Yes, it gets people thinking about where their food comes from and how the animals are treated, but now a person may feel less guilty about eating meat because Prop 2 has passed.  If you care enough about animals to have voted yes, I hope you realize that you can do more for the animals by (1) NOT EATING THEM and (2) by not consuming anything that they produce.  It’s really not that hard.

Now, let’s move on to Props 4 and 8, which are pretty even at this point, but 8 looks like it will pass while 4 looks like it will not.  Prop 8 will change the state Constitution to ban same sex marriages.  Prop 4 will require parental notification and a waiting period for any minor who wishes to terminate a pregnancy.  I voted NO on both for the same reasoning:  why do I need to be involved in someone else’s decision making?  The answer is that I don’t.  It’s not my business what people want to do with their lives; their decision to marry or have an abortion have no effect on me whatsoever.  I just don’t understand people’s obsession with interfering in other peoples’ lives and why, in the case of 8, they would want to write discrimination into our state’s Constitution.  I suppose they also think that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.  It’s absurd and I can’t believe that 8 is actually passing!

That’s it on this, I promise.  Food to come later.

Comments and discussion are welcome, by the way.