So I was watching "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe on Discovery channel. As much as I appreciate the existence of people willing to do those crazy jobs, I haven't the slightest idea why they do them. There was one guy whose job was to go shoulder-deep into cows' anuses to check if they're pregnant by feeling the uterine wall.

Jesus. I hope that guy makes a lot of money. But by the looks of his ranch on the show, he doesn't.

And Jesus again. Isn't it enough that they're only alive to feed our over-appeased appetites? Must we arm-sodomize them too? Honestly, I'd be a lot more OK with the meat industry if only it'd give the animals a reasonable quality of life. And this, people, COULD be done at our expense, namely, with slightly higher meat prices.

Interestingly, a high percentage of the most disgusting jobs highlighted on the Discovery show are right out of various meat industry sectors, insluding cattle and pig farms, slaughterhouses, processing facilities, and northern fisheries.

One of the marks of a highly civil society, I think, is one in which people who do those awful jobs make good money. We complain in Canada that unionized garbage men make 20 bucks an hour, but in all truth that's probably the only way to fill the positions. But even if it isn't, I think that's a fair wage.

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