Readers respond to 'Reflections of a Mad Cowboy'

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By most accounts, the U.S. meat packing industry is only slightly better run than it was when Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle" in the 1920s. I love beef, but I haven't eaten anything but the organically raised version (including dairy) for nearly five years. The threat of BSE aside, do we really need all the trace antibiotics and hormones?

We could solve this whole problem by doing away with beef cattle altogether (or make it the "boutique" product) and returning to free ranging bison herds as our source of bovine protein. The profitless dry-land farms of the Great Plains are rapidly disappearing anyway. Bison don't need to be molly-coddled like their hybrid cousins, and they produce leaner meat.

You got any problem with that, you can meet me at the Dick's in Wallingford Tuesday, 9 p.m. I'll be the guy in the Smith's T-shirt and John Deere cap holding the bag with two Deluxes.

— Jeff Huffman, Brier

Your article, "Reflections of a Mad Cowboy: Be a Man, Eat that Burger," was unnecessarily aggressive and resembled a note written by a junior-high bully. It left me with one big question: How did this useless and poorly written "article" get past the editorial staff at The Seattle Times?

What I find most disconcerting is that you find it okay to print an article with such aggressive rage toward vegetarians. As a therapist, I find that highly irresponsible. Targeting one group of people based on their beliefs is commonly known as harassment.

— Anthippy Petras, Seattle

I found your article ("Reflections of a Mad Cowboy") in Jan 5th's morning Times really funny, and refreshingly honest and timely. It was as good, maybe even better than Dave Barry!

Many, many thanks for an article that is not full of the same old "Seattle stuffiness." I get soooo tired of the way this city takes itself so constantly seriously.

Your article was a great way to humorously cut through the fog and perhaps encourage folks to lighten up some on their Seattle-esque holier-than-thou attitudes.

— Blythe Knechtel, Seattle

If that column was supposed to be funny you failed. I am a meat-eater and love hamburgers, but the fact that the industry is willing to look the other way while animals too sick to stand are put into the food supply is disgusting. Really demonstrates the disregard big business has for the general population. But hey! Our Little Boy-President is keeping us safe. The Free Market is only good for us; gotta watch out for those rules and regulations from government that slow profits and gum up bidness. President Tinklepants is going to keep eating beef.

— Jim Curtin, Seattle

I thoroughly enjoyed your column in the Seattle Times. I live in Palmer, Ala., and read your piece online. It's nice to see a reporter from Seattle cut through the "mad cow [manure] " and tell it like it really is! If there were more people like you down there in Seattle, your fair city wouldn't be such an insufferable place to visit.

— Gary S. Jones, Palmer, Alaska

Just wanted to thank you for "Reflections of a Mad Cowboy" and let you know that it made my day. Thank you for injecting some humor into current events. Your take on the self-righteous individuals around us was hilarious and dead-on. I, too, have often looked at fake-meat vegetarian food items and wondered, "Why?" Thanks to you, whenever I look at a Pez, I will wonder if it's vegan and start to laugh.

I am also glad that you pointed out the irony of cows being switched from vegetarian to meat diets, which is how this whole "bovine terrorism" began.

As a moderate leather-wearing, dairy-drinking, soybean-eating, fish-and-poultry consumer who enjoys the occasional good steak, I find myself in a very odd position here in the Northwest, where people seem to enjoy their extremes. Even before the cows went mad, I tried to stay away from regular red-meat consumption; on the other hand, I refuse to order soy milk with my latte. I recycle religiously, but I would also be the first to sign any petition banning those *%@! water-conserving toilets (even if Tim Eyman instigated it).

Hope you get a good, safe, steak with real grill marks on it.

— Jenny Yim-Nordquist, Mill Creek

Will you please explain to me why I should have to open my newspaper and be actively insulted for being a vegetarian, a decision I made as a matter of moral conscience, as a result of the governmentally over-indulged meat industry screwing up?

You know who I want to shut their insufferable gobs? All the self-righteous jerks who mock me regularly for not eating meat. If you imagine self-righteousness is confined to those espousing their vegetarian views, I invite you to try making the choice for yourself for a couple of months and witness the kind of absurd and mean-spirited crap you'll have to put up with. If one more jackass shoves a burger in my face and says, "Mmm! Look at all that yummy, juicy meat! Yum!" I'm going to spit! Your article is in exactly this spirit, and I resent it in the extreme.

— Michael Mahoney, Seattle

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