Namely, the question is, okay, so how is hog waste worse than, well, any other kind of waste.
Having been on the chicken farm owned by an uncle of mine, I can tell you that most farm animals indeed don't smell particularly minty-fresh. Let's face it, feces isn't the most appealing thing in the world, regardless of which particular animal it's coming from. I mean, it's all crap to me.
But, despite this, festering pools of hog waste (which are, of course, the only kind) are a menace above and beyond merely being the most damn unpleasant thing you can possibly comprehend in the waste department.
What makes hog waste such a vastly evil thing is the fact that it's so foul that the land for miles in any direction becomes suffused with it's grim and terrible odor. Now, you may think you have it bad when you happen to have the wind blowing your way from that paper mill up the road, but let me tell you, that ain't nothin' compared to hog waste. It's enough to make the surrounding terrain well-nigh uninhabitable.
Secondly, it's just sort of allowed to lie around in these giant, festering pools. You may think I'm joking on this one - I'm not. It really does just sort of lie around in giant, festering pools. This is, environmentally speaking, not a particularly good thing. First, because it's from these that the gastly odor rises, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even as the stuff seeps into the groundwater. One of the stark terrors people in North Carolina realized during the recent flooding was when rising water levels over-flowed these pools and spread their festering goodness all around. One scientist, however, was quoted as saying, well, they're not any more of an environmental hazard than before, it's just that now everyone gets to share and enjoy.
On a related note, there's a rather nasty little micro-organism that's taken up residence in some N.C. (and presumably elsewhere, but I don't pay attention to those other states, mainly because I don't visit them) waterways, that's not certainly encouraged by all that hog waste seeping into the rivers, but, really, it's sure not helping. I'll have to go dig up the Popular Science that described it (I'm at work as I write this, see) but it's a nasty little bugger. Something about literally consuming the living flesh of things it gets on. I'll have more info tomorrow. Unless I forget.
Lastly, hog farmers are a bunch of pricks. Now, let's think about this for a moment. You've got an animal that produces feces so foul that it pollutes the land around and makes anyone living near where you set up shop completely and utterly miserable. So, what do you do? Well, naturally, you gather up all that crap and put it in big pools so it can get REALLY foul, all while beating off any regulatory attempts with sticks. These are the people who refuse county health inspectors entry to their property, have to be dragged kicking and screaming into any citizens meetings on the issue, and who fight legal measures with a vicious resolution that makes the tobacco industry look like a bunch of pansies. I won't say they're ALL a bunch of twonks, but most of them are. Remember the early days of the big can of whup-ass that was opened on the tobacco industry? The whole "No, nicotine's not addictive. People just smoke for the taste. Cancer? Hah! I scoff openly!" business? Compare and contrast with "Well, it's not THAT bad, hog waste. We're pretty sure it's not DIRECTLY causing our rivers to become festering holes full of deadly microbial scum. No, you can't test it. Get away from here with those scientists!".
This is without even having to get into the whole animal rights deal. (Pigs being much smarter than most other livestock.) I don't even need to push that button.
So, in summation: reasons why hog farms go above and beyond the call of duty as far as unpleasantness is concerned.
Now, granted, some of this is a bit dated. Possibly. Given that I don't, you know, actually live in North Carolina any more. But it would demand too much faith in humanity to believe that anything drastic has changed. I mean, last time I was there, people were just starting to grasp the concept that, hey, maybe these hog farmers shouldn't be allowed to set up just anywhere they damn well please.
I know they still had festering pools, though, as this was specifically mentioned in the flood news. So, really, how much change can there have been?
So that's why.
In our enlightened and technological society, there's what we, for lack of a better term, must consider to be "acceptable losses". I mean, we all know that all that exhaust going into the air can't be good, but you don't see very many of us giving up our cars, and saying "hey, raise taxes so we can have more public transportation". When you get down to it, most meat (except fish, which are idiots) production involves raising a trusting, complacent (although often surly, in the case of chickens) animal, nurturing it to health over a period of months or years, and then leading it off an having it quietly killed. Yet we accept this, because, hey, we're omnivores. Omnivores, damn your vegetarian eyes! Our ancestors didn't spend all that time and effort developing complex digestive systems so you could go back to grazing on dandelions! (I'm just kidding of course. I like salads as much as the next person.) We accept a modest level of pollution to get the things we like, just as we accept a (generally) modest level of work to have money to get things. It's one of the prices we pay to have an enlightened and technological society. However, there does come a point (often called the "point of diminishing returns" or, for the simple, the "okay, that's just not worth it point") when the cost to environment or what have you simply isn't justified by the enjoyment you get out of it. It's like having to work an eighty hour week for the rest of your life. Sure, you'll earn money like a bear, but you'll also die of over-work. Pork isn't that good. It's not worth turning major portions of landscape into disease-ridden festering masses of organically polluted crap, anyway.
On the other hand, of course, you can see why people fight it. It's not like North Carolina has a lot of industry left. I mean, what are the big things? King Cotton, Tobacco, Pigs... Well, let's kill those last two. Ooops! What do you mean, the state economy is whimpering in pain?
Life just sucks that way, sometimes.
Moving right along...
In other news, a British politician is apparently suggesting the use of a system, which would of course be mandatory in every car, to enforce driving at the relevant speed limit in any given area.
No, really, stop laughing, I'm serious. We all know the technical problems with this would be mind-boggling, and the screw-ups would probably get people killed, but has that ever stopped a politician?
Poor damn Brits. No more House of Lords to take controvertial stands against liberty-crushing measures like this. Oh, well. At least we still live in a country where politicians who tried to suggest this would be lynched. America. Love it or, uh, I dunno, move to Canada or something.
Lastly, Costume Boy, Tallahassee's own super-hero, has apparently been driven mad by the stress of the job, as he was recently seen jogging down the street dressed as a roll of Life Savers candy.
Super-villainous plots may or may not be involved. Someone might have left the Orbital Mind Control Laser un-locked again...
Tomorrow: Flesh-eating Bacteria from Beyond the Stars.
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