11/17/24
August 08, 2007
A Duck's plea: leave our livers alone: Watch out, Scott Neidermeyer's in a fowl mood.
posted by tommytrump to culture at 08:09 PM - 19 comments
``As an Anaheim Duck, I hate to see real ducks tortured..." What. What's wrong with that? He's a f-n Anaheim duck who's sticking up for a Long Island duck's liver. The bastard takes pride in being associated with real ducks and he plays hockey. He also drives a prius... which means he's a duck liver lover.
posted by tselson at 11:22 PM on August 08, 2007
The Prius is a joke of a car. Should read up on the amount of toxic waste produced in it's manufacture. It's a car for people who want to look environmentally conscious without actually putting any effort in... First person to get Neidermeyer's liver and serve it with some wine gets a gold star. And this story has no place on Sportsfilter.
posted by Drood at 01:19 AM on August 09, 2007
SportsFilter: I'll have the foie gras, please.
posted by The_Black_Hand at 04:34 AM on August 09, 2007
This story made me hungry... and slightly incredulous that the US has become so squeamish and over-sensitive that parts of it are now banning the use of foie gras in restaurants. Is that enforced? I can see it now, as a cop is about to slap the cuffs on a drug dealer. "This must be your lucky day, punk," he mutters as he puts the cuffs back in his pocket without taking his steely gaze off the chef in the distance with the fat duck under his arm sneaking in the back door of the restaurant. A nation of such contradictions that will wage a war for no believable reason causing the wholesale slaughter of thousands of innocent people, but gets its knickers in a knot the minute Janet Jackson threatens to corrupt the innocent masses by revealing the sinful truth that women have nipples, or some animal anthropomorphiser from PETA points out that quite a lot of food comes from animals. Drood's right - this story (and especially this comment) has no place on Sportsfilter.
posted by JJ at 04:44 AM on August 09, 2007
He's also right about the Prius which, dust-to-dust, is having a more deleterious effect on the environment than the Hummer.
posted by JJ at 04:50 AM on August 09, 2007
Is that enforced? I can see it now, as a cop is about to slap the cuffs on a drug dealer. At present, establishments selling or serving foie gras in Chicago are subject to a fine. I don't believe that imprisonment is a penalty under any circumstances. And, while I'm sure certain parts of the U.S. have become squeamish and over-sensitive, don't assume that the foie gras ban has anything to do with any type of public sentiment. In Chicago, the foie gras ban was championed by one alderman who wanted to make a statement (and who was lobbied quite a bit by animal rights activists) and every other alderman chose to go along with it because (a) they love scratching one another's backs, and (b) who the hell is going to complain about a foie gras ban -- the one percent of the population who actually eat it or can afford it? With respect to the Prius (and believe me, I have no dog in this fight), the dust-to-dust study has been challenged as having some serious flaws.
posted by holden at 08:38 AM on August 09, 2007
And this story has no place on Sportsfilter. According to SpoFi guidelines, a good post is a)sports related. The person involved in this story is Scott Neidermeyer, the Conn Smythe Trophy winner in this season's Stanley Cup playoffs. So, the story qualifies on that point. b)newsworthy I linked the story from the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. I also found stories regarding this issue in the Orange County Register, The Edmonton Sun, and other papers. All mainstream newspapers. So, the story qualifies on that point. c)encourages discussion It seems to have done that. d)links should be about something new I think it's safe to say pate de foie gras hasn't been a prime topic of conversation at SpoFi before. e)an interesting commentary A major sports figure in the U.S.A. standing up and trying to do something that he considers socially responsible. Tell me again why this story doesn't belong on SportsFilter?
posted by tommybiden at 10:02 AM on August 09, 2007
Just to chime in a bit on the relevance of this (or similarly contested FPPs) here at Sportsfilter, to quote Dave Zirin, what this kind of thinking (that these discussions aren't sport-related) does is "disregards how the very passion we invest in sports can transform it from a kind of mindless escape into a site of resistance. It can become an arena where the ideas of our society are not only presented but also challenged" (What's My Name Fool? p. 21). So, to justify (from my perspective) why this kind of thing belongs on Sportsfilter ... because not all of us are only interested in the shallow tripe (or mindless escape) of home run record chases or pullin' collectible cards (that's not me dumping on those posts however). The debates about social responsibility are all over this site (from Vick's dogfighting charges through Prius cars and duck livers), and rightfully so!
posted by Spitztengle at 11:43 AM on August 09, 2007
As an Anaheim Duck, I hate to see real ducks tortured... Guy wins The Cup and they still don't consider him a "real duck." What's a guy got to do? Spitzengle, was Zirin really actually talking about the is-or-is-not-a-sport argument? What was his context for the comment? It's a nice quote, but I'm not convinced that applies to the operation of this site, which has a more narrow focus than, say, the real world. Tommy, man, what a stretch to say that this post has "encouraged discussion." About the treatment of ducks? Yes. About Chicago city ordinances? Yes. About the environmental relevance of the Prius? Yes. But none of those are sports issues. The direction of this thread was fairly predictable since you did little to steer it toward a sports-related discussion other than throw out the name of an athlete. I am all for discussing sports in a cultural context, probably more than most, but this one isn't doing it for me. I vote kill. Disclaimer: I like foie gras.
posted by The Crafty Sousepaw at 12:53 PM on August 09, 2007
TCS, Zirin was writing about Chomsky's critique of sport (the kind of sport we talk about most here at SpoFi) as an instrument to instill passivity among the masses. Agreed, some of the discussions have veered away from direct sport relevance, but again, this is bound to happen. Even when it's about sport, it's never ALL about sport. I think the one productive aspect of this thread has been the discussion about the social conscience of pro athletes. While it's couched in a controversy over fatty duck livers, it's really about one athlete's decision to take a public stand on an issue. If this was about chicken livers, then I'd join the chorus and vote to kill the thread too, but there's just something about duck livers that makes this resonate with more than just me ;)
posted by Spitztengle at 01:18 PM on August 09, 2007
Nice to see a pro athlete take a potentially unpopular position to look out for animals. I HATE the idea of foie gras and Neidermeyer's just picked up another fan.
posted by vito90 at 01:56 PM on August 09, 2007
My girlfriend has just informed me that it is not foie gras that I like, but gravlax. I was a little surprised that duck liver could taste so much like fish, but I wrote it off to their seafood diet. Needless to say, my stance in favor of foie gras has weakened considerably. My stance on dating chefs, however, remains at "strongly recommend."
posted by The Crafty Sousepaw at 02:38 PM on August 09, 2007
Tell me again why this story doesn't belong on SportsFilter? Do you mean other than the fact it's a cut and paste job meant to inspire a vegans vs. PETA-haters scream fest and nothing else? Or can we include that in our reasons? Metafilter does these awful threads a couple times a month. I don't see why we have to just because an athlete chimes in. Chicago banned goose liver last summer.
posted by yerfatma at 07:25 PM on August 09, 2007
Tell me again why this story doesn't belong on SportsFilter? Do you mean other than the fact it's a cut and paste job meant to inspire a vegans vs. PETA-haters scream fest and nothing else? That may be your perception of what I intended, but that is about as far from what I intended as is possible. What I thought might happen is that a few members of SpoFi might think "Hey, an athlete with a social concience and a sense of responsibility", and try to examine something in their life where they might be able to make a difference. I think it's important to state that I am not a big fan of PETA and their methods. I apologize that there's no dogfighting or home run records involved in this story, but if those sorts of things are the only kinds of posts you enjoy reading, then ignore this one and go on to another thread that is more to your liking. Spitztengle, and vito90, I think you two both understood what I was trying to do with this thread. Thank you for your support. Well, I'm reading your posts as being supportive.
posted by tommybiden at 09:38 PM on August 09, 2007
I don't believe for a second that foie gras is inhumane, having actually witnessed first-hand how ducks are treated on a farm. They live a better life then I do.
posted by rocketman at 09:46 PM on August 09, 2007
Your life must be weird. Possibly quite painful.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 10:28 PM on August 09, 2007
Chicago banned goose liver last summer. How do the geese feel about this? Where are they storing their glycogen? Won't someone think of the geese?! Tommy - you seem to be taking this rather personally. If you wanted to raise some awareness or start a discussion then you should have posted something a bit more robust than a 189-word article that essentially says "Man who plays for a team called the ducks doesn't like people being mean to ducks" and nothing else. It doesn't say what more PETA want from Chicago in this regard, it doesn't tell me anything about the athlete other than that he's anti-foie gras and drives a crappy car (although I take your point, Holden and would agree that a fair degree of that dust-to-dust study was tripe). Make it a FPP worth the name and inspire the discussion you say you wanted - link other stories of athletes with a social conscience doing something altruistic and maybe that's where the discussion will go. Post this single (and frankly, piss weak) article and necessarily some of the subsequent discussion is going to involve someone asking WTF?
posted by JJ at 04:58 AM on August 10, 2007
I apologize that there's no dogfighting or home run records involved in this story Your apology vis a vis the absence of home run records, for my part, is accepted. Beyond that, if our only option is either dogfighting stories or seven-sentence nods to a press release from some athlete's PR team then that's the last straw. I'm going to Armchair GM. (crickets) I'm serious. I'm going. (crickets) Fine. (Door slam. And... scene.)
posted by The Crafty Sousepaw at 08:34 AM on August 10, 2007
other than the story being about a hockey player, how is this sports-related?