Concerning your article "Double H farmers busted for selling pork" [Government News, October 2, 2007], the arrest of Richard Bean and Jean Rinaldi has nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with culture and politics.
The question all consumers should be asking is this: Why is it legal for corporate factory farms to sell meat from livestock that have been fed arsenic as an appetite stimulant, the remains of other animals, urea from natural gas, chicken feathers, hormones and daily doses of antibiotics to keep the animals from dying from their sick surroundings? This factory farmed meat, where animals are packed together by the tens of thousands in disease-ridden environments, is given the stamp of approval by the USDA to appease their powerful corporate clients. Double H’s pigs, by contrast, live their lives roaming outside in fresh air, they are given natural, locally produced grains, and are processed by Richard himself, a life-long butcher.
We are fooled by the "assurance" of a USDA inspector when the meat itself is unhealthy to eat in the first place. E. coli contamination and Mad Cow disease are the result of intensive, confined cattle practices and no USDA inspection could prevent that. It’s time to change the laws. If I want to buy healthy pork from Double H and not from a corporate farm’s mistreated, unhealthy, factory pigs, that should be my right.
Elizabeth VanDeventer
Nelson County
Goddessless
Please bring back The Advice Goddess (Amy Alkon)! She was the main reason I got the C-VILLE Weekly. I know there is a sex column to take her place, but the C-VILLE Weekly becomes more ordinary without her. She was your shining star. She did deal tangentially with sex in her column, and she wrote so entertainingly. Perhaps you could bump something else off and keep your new sex column and The Advice Goddess. She was unmissable; I’d live for her column every week. Without her, I’d still get the C-VILLE Weekly, but if I didn’t pick it up in any given week, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. I enjoy the C-VILLE Weekly, but dropping The Advice Goddess is like dropping a Dear Abby with originality and pizazz. She was your main draw.
Margaret Shank
Charlottesville