Stupid religious rituals

Now, I know I'm skating on thin ice here. In These Great Times of so much religious sensitivity an Infidal such as myself is usually better off staying in hiding and not be seen or heard giving the Bronx cheer to any one of the fine religious traditions that infect...er...inform our modern world.

And let me first say, that I'm all for religious practices that don't hurt anyone or anything (particularly if it involves the ingesting of peyote or ganga), but this kind of thing serves no purpose in modern society, is cruel beyond belief, and should not be permitted -- let alone encouraged through oversight that would make Upton Sinclair gag -- by the federal government.

An internal report from the Agriculture Department has found that one of the nation's leading kosher slaughterhouses violated animal cruelty laws and that government inspectors not only failed to stop the inhumane practices but also took improper gifts of meat from plant managers.

Also, some of the plant's 10 inspectors made faulty inspections of carcasses, failed to correct unsanitary conditions and were seen sleeping and playing computer games on the job, said the report, by the agency's inspector general. It was provided to The New York Times by the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Conditions at the plant — AgriProcessors Inc. of Postville, Iowa — created a controversy in late 2004, when PETA released a videotape taken clandestinely inside. It showed that after steers were cut by a ritual slaughterer, other workers pulled out the animals' tracheas with a hook to speed bleeding. In the tape, animals were shown staggering around the killing pen with their windpipes dangling out, slamming their heads against walls and soundlessly trying to bellow. One animal took three minutes to stop moving.

The scenes caused a furor among Jewish organizations around the world. Some accused PETA of promoting anti-Semitic libels that kosher slaughter is torture. But others were angry with AgriProcessors for violating the spirit of religious laws requiring that animals be killed without suffering.

[...]

Under Jewish law, an animal cannot be considered kosher if it is stunned before it is killed. The Humane Slaughter Act of 1978 requires stunning in all American slaughterhouses, but has an exception for religious slaughter, as long as the animal's neck is cut swiftly and no "carcass dressing" is done before the animal is insensible.

But at AgriProcessors, a second worker would step in after the first cut by the shochet, or ritual slaughterer. He would use a knife to open the animal's neck further and reach in with a hook to pull out the trachea and esophagus, with the carotid arteries attached. This was done to speed bleeding; kosher meat must contain as little blood as possible.

The 15-page report contains summaries of interviews with inspectors and supervisors then or formerly at the plant. All names were whited out, but it is clear that some inspectors thought they were not supposed to interfere with ritual slaughter and usually did not even watch the "kill box." Visiting supervisors also raised no objections to the killing.

But the report also says a district supervisor concluded after the PETA tape was released that the trachea-pulling "should not occur while an animal is conscious or sensory."

Mike Thomas, a spokesman for AgriProcessors, said the practice was immediately discontinued and the shochet was given a stun gun for any animal conscious after the first cut. Meat from that animal would be sold as nonkosher. Mr. Thomas said the shochets never used the stun gun in the first four months they had it, when he was checking regularly.

The report also describes multiple incidents in which plant employees gave inspectors packages of chicken wings, steaks, turkey, sausage or beef bacon. Although it was sometimes delivered with the words "Here's your sample, Doc," as if it were for laboratory tests, the inspectors sometimes cooked and ate it on the spot.

While the report describes accepting such gifts as "misconduct" and "very serious," investigators concluded that no bribery was involved, a department spokesman said.

Perhaps I'm in the wrong here. Perhaps it's not the ritual that's the problem. But I see a fundamental contradiction between "ritual slaughter" and a modern meatpacking factory. There is simply no way a ritual like that can be conducted humanely in a factory setting. And when you add to the mix the Bush administration's complete abdication of oversight of any of their friends in industry, someone or something is going to suffer. Badly.