Entries associated with the tag "Rolling Stone":

This Saturday, Food Network freakazoid Paula Deen is doing a cooking demo at the Chicago Theatre, and labor organizers are gearing up a protest in support of 5,500 Smithfield Foods workers in Tar Heel, North Carolina, who complain of brutal and dangerous working conditions and crappy wages. Deen is the celebrity face of Smithfield, the world's largest hog processor, which in addition to its shabby treatment of workers, abuses its animals and the environment, as detailed in this horrifying Rolling Stone expose from last December.

So if you aren't down with unfair labor practices, miserably raised factory pork, or giant spewing fountains of pig shit, maybe you want to show up outside the theater Saturday at 9:30 AM and tell Paula what you think.

For more info, contact Will Tanzman at 773-728-8400, ext. 16.

Seriously stomach-turning article in a recent Rolling Stone on the reeking hell that is industrial pig farming--specifically the toxic sewage dumps that are the byproducts of that savory Smithfield ham you may have enjoyed over the holidays. 

The effects of factory farming on the surrounding environment--and the people unfortunate enough to live anywhere nearby--are well documented by now (and that's not even getting into what the whole experience is like for the pig). But this piece, by Jeff Tietz, lays it all out in one revolting package.

Representative quote:

"Looking down from the plane, we watch as several of Smithfield's farmers spray their hog shit straight up into the air as a fine mist: It looks like a public fountain. Lofted and atomized, the shit is blown clear of the company's property. People who breathe the shit-infused air suffer from bronchitis, asthma, heart palpitations, headaches, diarrhea, nosebleeds and brain damage. In 1995, a woman downwind from a corporate hog farm in Olivia, Minnesota, called a poison-control center and described her symptoms. 'Ma'am,' the poison-control officer told her, 'the only symptoms of hydrogen-sulfide poisoning you're not experiencing are seizures, convulsions and death. Leave the area immediately.' When you fly over eastern North Carolina, you realize that virtually everyone in this part of the state lives close to a lagoon."

(Snagged from Michael Ruhlman's blog. I should maybe read Rolling Stone more often.)