I’ll admit it. I’ve anthropomorphized a time or two. In any creative profession, it’s an easy fix to ascribe a like mind to an object or creature. It helps make old stories new again or create a more compelling interpersonal narrative where one doesn’t naturally exist (see: Cars, WALL-E, Toy Story, the entire Looney Toons catalogue, the Disney empire, Babe, Charlotte’s Web, California Cheese marketing, Chick-fil-a’s long-running gag and the Honda Fit commercials).

You can see from the list, anthropomorphizing can be helpful. It can be fun. It can be useful.

Most of the things on that list I like, remember and enjoy, save the Disney catalogue. With a younger sister, I watched a crooning Caribbean crab serenade two young lovers one too many times.

But there are a few places where anthropomorphizing shouldn’t be taken lightly. Like the animal welfare debate. For every happy cow, there’s a very unhappy cow nipping at your heels in the Google results.

You see, people are very clever, but our brains are even more clever.

I once took a seminar on Philosophy of the Mind, and we spend a good chunk of time discussing Theory of Mind. Basically, it’s our ability to, by attributing our own self-understanding to another, figure out what he or she may be thinking, what he or she intends to do or what underlying motives the subject may possess. It’s the mechanism that helps you anticipate and respond to questions in a meeting before they’re even asked. It’s what helps us offer helpful advice to a fellow sojourner. It’s the reason you talk to your dog like a baby. It’s the mechanism that allows us to function as a society without coming across as total dullards or feeling as if we have to constantly explain ourselves.

Theory of Mind makes the world work. It’s also what makes it so easy for groups like HSUS to solicit enormous amounts of money with heartstring-tugging ads and so difficult to sell a story of animal care based on sound science. Being a science buff myself, I kinda hate those odds.

By the way, if you’re interested in reading it, you can download the CAST paper from that last link for free. It’s a good read if you’re the type of person who gives a damn about the conclusions of logical, critical minds who study these issues day in and day out.

So maybe it’s a good thing we have a heifer from Wagner farm in North Dakota tweeting her story, following in the footsteps of the first four-legged Twitter star, Sockington.

After all, it should be a hell of a lot easier for good-hearted producers and veterinarians, who spend time around them every day, to write a better story about our anthropomorphized animals than the people with all the bucks but none of the science or experience on their side.

So here’s a call to arms. For all the folks out there with the ability to do so, give a tweet on behalf of your favorite sow, hen, heifer or steer. People want to know what they’re eating, but you have to reach them in a way they’re compelled to pay attention to. All the science in the world doesn’t go half as far as a great narrative that exploits the built-in mechanisms of the brain.

Cheers,

jae

The average Fourth of July celebration usually includes a few key ingredients – grilling, cold beer, good friends and a helping of colorful explosions.

But a truly great celebration, like a truly great dry rub, is all about those lesser known ingredients. In the case of our Fun Fourth, we’re talking slow-smoked pork shoulder, a roll of four thousand firecrackers, an air rifle and few very serious law enforcement officers, among other things.

I should say, I really wanted to do this post as a play-by-play on the Fourth, but I was way, way too dirty to even think about touching my phone. Honestly, I looked like I slept in garbage.

Here’s how the weekend went down:

July 3:
We arrived at Robbie and Jenny’s place in Union, MO around 2:00 on Friday. After eating everything we could lay our hands on (we didn’t stop the entire way), it was time to head out for supplies. I stuck around the house to keep an eye on Max (Robbie and Jenny’s five year old) and watch Real Genius, Val Kilmer’s second film after Top Secret. I’ll watch anything that delivers retribution by way of popcorn.

Brooke, Jenny and Kendra came back with food and drink. Robbie came back with a sweet-ass Daisy 8800 high-velocity air rifle. We immediately retired to the back porch to shoot cans and bottles. After about two hours of decent marksmanship I hear:

Police officer leaning over the roof of his car, his handgun trained on Robbie: Drop the fucking gun, man!
Robbie, both hands up: Whoa, it’s just a BB gun!
Police officer, not budging: I don’t fucking care. Drop. The. Gun. Now!

After letting the officer inspect the weapon and being asked a lot of questions about our (lack of) criminal histories, the officer informed us, it’s not okay to fire any kind of gun within the city limits, especially when it looks like a .22 rifle to passers by. Lesson learned. I also learned I can deal with a loaded gun pointed at me without peeing my pants. This skill will absolutely come in handy again.

The rest of the evening was less eventful. Max decided to impersonate a very unfortunate pirate.

Captain Max, world's unluckiest pirate

July 4:
“Jacob, it’s 8:30. Gotta go start the smoker.”

Zombied my way downstairs to start the smoker. Here are the ingredients for a good day:

One tried and true smoker

One awesome nine pound pork butt

Quality all hardwood lump charcoal

Also, you’re going to need about nine to twelve hours, a few pounds of hickory chunks, a steel will and enough cold beer to see you through the day.

After about six hours, your conquest is going to look like this:

Oh, you smoky temptress!

Do not give in! You’ve got to wait for perfection.

When a pork shoulder is ready, the bone will slip out effortlessly and it’ll be completely clean. It’s going to take how long it takes, and that’s usually about an hour to an hour and a half per pound. For at least six hours, you’re going to want to keep that heat right at 225 degrees and consistently add hickory chunks to the smoker. The first six or seven hours are when you’re going to get the most smoke penetration. After that, wrap that bad boy in aluminum foil and take the temperature to 350 for the remainder. Sneaky secret – you can actually do this portion in the oven if you’re sick of babysitting the smoker. As far as I’ve experienced, it doesn’t have an appreciable effect on the end product.

Well, that’s how it’s done. I wish I’d taken a picture of the end product, but we got on it pretty quickly. Looked something like this:

Cheers,

jae