Word: pig
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Henrietta is a nice pig. A learned pig. A pink pig with dreams of rising in the ranks to work for social justice all across the land...
...recognizing the animal it comes from has long been a part of Anglo-Saxon culture, a part that one pitiful little endpaper like this could hardly hope to explode. Consider the fact that the meats in the English language have different names from the animals they come from (pig, pork; deer, venison; cow, beef) because the Norman rulers in England were the ones who got to enjoy meat while the poor peasants could only herd the animals, or at best raise them for dairy products. But that doesn't excuse baseless assumptions. It's always good to analyze the source...
...partly a function of national origin. For any of you who've had the pleasure of tasting Singaporean food, you'll recognize that it's a food borne of a culture that does not waste, where some of the greatest culinary pleasures, such as kway chap (flat noodles with pig's stomach and intestines) and fish-head curry (self-explanatory), come from scraps. I am struck by the American aversion to eating internal organs or to dishes which too closely resemble the animal that bore them. It sometimes strikes me as disguised snobbery. Land of plenty, no need...
...consider sausages. Whenever I declare my love for the humble frankfurter, I invariably confront an inquisition: "Do you know what parts of the animal it comes from?" someone asks. Well, not really, but I'm guessing it's any part of the pig or cow that wasn't processed into other forms of meat. And so? If I like the taste, and the meat meets food-safety standards, should I be worried...
...reasons: manliness, according to Tom Wolfe, developed from the "culture of the warrior." The qualities of ferocity, tenacity and foolish pride that served mercenary men in days of the very yore still run thick, if unacknowledged, in male veins. Women can fight, sure, but they will never be as pig-headed as men. They will never sport the male ego. They will never be as obnoxious--presumably Wolfe believes women will indeed ask for directions--and they will never embody the same kind of honor that, in Wolfe's example, gave James Stockdale (the admiral who was humiliated as Ross...