Author Topic: PseudoPod 570: The Jamcoi  (Read 6663 times)

Bdoomed

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on: November 27, 2017, 03:29:53 AM
PseudoPod 570: The Jamcoi

by J.M. McDermott
Narrated by Setsu Uzume

The Jamcoi was first published in Disintegration Visions in 2012 and was reprinted by Apex on their website on November 26, 2014.




Listen to this week's PseudoPod.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


FictionPhial

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Reply #1 on: November 27, 2017, 02:10:13 PM
PseudoPod 570: The Jamcoi

by J.M. McDermott
Narrated by Setsu Uzume

The Jamcoi was first published in Disintegration Visions in 2012 and was reprinted by Apex on their website on November 26, 2014.




Listen to this week's PseudoPod.


Oh this was horrible. In a thought-provoking way. I loved the fact that no one ever even suggests not eating the stuff.


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adrianh

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Reply #2 on: November 27, 2017, 02:19:22 PM
Damn. Fine. Story.



harrietpodder

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Reply #3 on: November 27, 2017, 04:41:10 PM
Oh geez. Really should have been subtitled the case for vegetarianism. Makes me think of what we do to lobsters, and also how fat we get chickens and turkeys just because people really like to eat the breast meat.



johnfmayer

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Reply #4 on: November 28, 2017, 09:45:34 AM
THIS time it knows … and feels … what is being done to it? No, EVERY time it—they—know and feel what is being done to them. Whether you raise them yourself and slaughter them or turn them over to the tender mercies of the slaughterhouse, you are participating in pain and terror that you can't begin to imagine. Some assembly line deaths go a little easier than others, but none are without fear and pain. Videos show us the cow resisting continuing along the chute because she can hear or smell the carnage within. But her resistance is soon overcome. Some animals are not slain by the bolt but only stunned, coming to on the disassembly line to fight and struggle and, often, cause grievous wounds to the workers. Many chickens are only stunned, not killed, by the electric shock along their assembly lines and, instead, drown to death in scalding water. Live baby roosters are fed into macerators, a wood chipper sort of device. Castrations, tail docking and ear trimming or tagging and so on are done without anæsthetic. And on and on. But you probably know all about that and laugh it off.

Some cruelties are every bit the equal of those described in this compelling story. In Korea, for example, dogs are raised as pets and then, on holiday, taken into the country for the family picnic and hung slowly, one foot touching the ground so that the agony lasts a long while, before being killed and roasted. The prolonged suffering is, as the story suggests, thought to make the meat more tender. I was raised on a small farm and our animals suffered when being slaughtered, but nothing like the one time my father decided to have one killed professionally, I suspect because he thought a pro could eliminate the suffering altogether. His misconception was soon corrected; I watched with him—at first, till he sent me into the farmhouse—while the abattoir owner began to section the hog while it yet squealed in agony, bleeding out through its gashed throat as it hung from a sort of crucifix. The goal was to keep the heart pumping as long as possible to make the meat whiter. It was many years before i became a vegan, but that destiny might have begun there in that abattoir.

Yes, as FictionPhial notes, it is remarkable that no one ever considers "not eating the stuff." Including some, I gather, who have read this story. But I think that is the lesson the author intends.



FictionPhial

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Reply #5 on: November 28, 2017, 04:35:49 PM
What I meant was that it would’ve been tempting to write a vegan character into the story to tell us all this. And that would’ve made the story much weaker. It’s very clever writing to shine a light on an issue without ever explicitly mentioning the other side.


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Michael W. Cho

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Reply #6 on: December 01, 2017, 05:52:26 AM
Strong story, so awful and uncomfortable to listen to. I hope it goes out into the world...



Scuba Man

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Reply #7 on: December 01, 2017, 05:18:33 PM
Strong story, so awful and uncomfortable to listen to. I hope it goes out into the world...

Damn, I had to obey the warning label. "Strong meat" indeed.  :o :o :o :o I'll have to try listening it again next time, while petting my three house-panthers AND with my lady love at my side.

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Kaddock

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Reply #8 on: December 05, 2017, 08:07:47 PM
 :-\ 

That was not fun to listen to. Kind of made me want to be a vegetarian again.



cwthree

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Reply #9 on: December 08, 2017, 07:53:59 PM
I like meat, and I understand that someone had to slaughter every animal I've ever eaten. I've been present for the euthanasia of numerous pets. I've dispatched rodents and birds that my dog caught but failed to kill. I understand that having animals in our lives means being involved with their deaths.

This was easily the most disturbing story I've heard on Pseudopod to date.

It's not disturbing because an animal dies for someone's meal. That's natural for many species, including higher primates such as chimpanzees and humans. It's disturbing because this meal depends on the bird's prolonged suffering, and the depraved indifference required to procure it. Slaughtering a turkey with a killing cone and a knife is a necessary evil (perhaps not even evil, compared to the way wild animals kill each other), but this story asks us to contemplate a world in which a bird is engineered to suffer, and to withstand suffering, in order to maximize the pain it can bear.



Scuba Man

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Reply #10 on: December 11, 2017, 07:46:22 PM
I like meat, and I understand that someone had to slaughter every animal I've ever eaten. I've been present for the euthanasia of numerous pets. I've dispatched rodents and birds that my dog caught but failed to kill. I understand that having animals in our lives means being involved with their deaths.

This was easily the most disturbing story I've heard on Pseudopod to date.

It's not disturbing because an animal dies for someone's meal. That's natural for many species, including higher primates such as chimpanzees and humans. It's disturbing because this meal depends on the bird's prolonged suffering, and the depraved indifference required to procure it. Slaughtering a turkey with a killing cone and a knife is a necessary evil (perhaps not even evil, compared to the way wild animals kill each other), but this story asks us to contemplate a world in which a bird is engineered to suffer, and to withstand suffering, in order to maximize the pain it can bear.
Your comment resonated with me. I reminded me of 2 items...that bizarre passage in Douglas Adam's Restaurant At The End Of The Universe (i.e., beef that walks right up to me at the table and showcases its best parts)... and ethical animal husbandry championed by Temple Grandin -- https://www.ted.com/speakers/temple_grandin

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Katzentatzen

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Reply #11 on: December 14, 2017, 03:27:25 AM
I regularly consume horror that would be triggering for others, but I can't abide when it contains cruelty to animals. I almost had to turn this one off, and that's never happened to me with a horror podcast. The details were excruciating, but what was worse was that for the husband and his family it was normal and standard, and the realization that what we do to animals in the real world isn't any better. I almost want to turn to A A Peterson's "Gehenna" for comfort.

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Scuba Man

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Reply #12 on: December 18, 2017, 02:18:47 PM
:-\ 

That was not fun to listen to. Kind of made me want to be a vegetarian again.
...after my listening attempt, we pulled out a great recipe from the Moose-wood Cookbook... or was it the Enchanted Broccoli Forest?

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harrietpodder

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Reply #13 on: February 20, 2018, 09:39:22 PM
No, I didn't know about the other slaughters Johnfmayer. thanks? for sharing.



Moritz

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Reply #14 on: May 15, 2018, 11:30:18 AM
I actually found the story funny.

A difficult relationship, the over the top suffering of the animal - it was more like a satire. The cruelty to the Jamcoi was terrible, but not much worse than what we already do. I'm almost vegetarian these days anyways.



Whaletale

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Reply #15 on: June 21, 2018, 08:03:13 PM
This was such a brilliant and well crafted story. I loved this story and I can't wait to share it with some other people. Maybe a nice holiday listening session?

Thanks for bringing us another excellent story, Pseudopod!