Cows have rights too

Mike Lauterbach

I'm not usually the first one to stand up for the rights of animals. I tend to identify more with People Eating Tasty Animals than with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Recent events, however, have me thinking twice.

Like many other unfortunate souls, my special Valentine's dinner was the steak dinner served by our very own Garvey Commons. I took my ticket, got in line, collected my portion of steak and mashed potatoes and sat down to enjoy my comestibles. I felt a little better � this school cared about me enough to give me a decent meal before I went out to drown my sorrows at a bar or a friend's place off-campus.

But then I cut into the steak, and my plate started to look like the floor toward the end of "Dead Alive." The outside eighth of an inch had been cooked until it was hard, but the inside was still mooing.

The other men at my table had the same problem. They voiced health concerns. Undercooked meat has been linked to all kinds of ailments. All I could think of, though, was that poor cow.

Lately, things had not been going the cow's way anyway � it had just been slaughtered and its flesh sold to underclassmen. But this was just too much, a giant, heavy straw guaranteed to shatter the camel's back. I could see him looking over our shoulders, shaking his long head as we set his flesh on the conveyor belt uneaten. His life had been wasted. And for what? For Garvey Commons to add Valentine's insult to injury.

To their credit, the fine folks at Garvey offered to make us new steaks when we complained. They blamed the waste of a cow's life on a malfunctioning grill. I suspect the grill forgot to thaw the steaks before putting them on, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose these things happen. But how many cows' lives must be wasted before we take action?

It's time we give these animals some rights, and who better to do it than the students' voice on campus, the student government. Let's draft a bill of animal rights on this campus, starting with the right to be cooked fairly, evenly and at least medium rare. Injustices to animals happen all over the world, but they don't have to happen here.

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Mike Lauterbach can be reached at: [email protected]

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