@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 08/20/99 -- Vol. 18, No. 8
Table of Contents
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper. All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
My friends, I have come to you today to warn you of the threat of sausaging in our country. It is the purpose of this notice to call your you attention to the threats to our standard of living. One must be ever vigilant to protect the life style that we all enjoy from insidious forces that are creating the future that you and I will have to live with. In this effort I would like to call your attention to the terrible threat I call THE SAUSAGING OF AMERICA.
Now what exactly is sausaging? Well, we deal with a lot of different products and materials in America. And materials are taken from nature. But frequently things that are taken from nature do not come in convenient shapes and sizes. And you live with that in most cultures. A potato or a cow is what it is and you live with its shape. But not everybody feels they can leave well enough alone and we end up with the practice of sausaging. "Sausaging" is the practice of grinding something up and reforming it so that it will be more convenient to manage, but one that Providence may have never intended. And by going against the will of Providence, we suffer the consequences. Frequently this is accompanied with a loss of quality and even adulteration. The primary example of sausaging is, of course, sausage. The original sausages were lengths of animal intestine knotted at one end, filled with ground meat, and then knotted at the other end. It is compressed down and spices are added so that it is like a piece of spiced meat, but it really is made up mostly of formed ground meat. It just is not quite the same quality as the original meat and is probably a little cheaper. But the same principle applies to other things also.
Why is Salisbury Steak cheaper than Sirloin Steak? Well a Sirloin Steak is continuous in the mathematical sense. Two points that are close together on a Sirloin Steak were close together on the original steer. Two points that are close together on a Salisbury Steak may not have even come from the same animal. They may not have come from the same species. One might be a piece of meat and the other might be garlic. Whatever happened to what God has brought together let no man (or woman) cast asunder?
I supposed sausaged product is more versatile for the person making it. But this is anathema. In theory you could have a Salisbury Steak 60 feet long and 40 feet wide. A Sirloin Steak 60 feet long and 40 feet wide would require the steer to undergo atomic mutation. That should tell you something.
While we are looking at the science fictional aspects of sausagism Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth wrote in THE SPACE MERCHANTS about "Chicken Little," a process to make square yards of chicken meat. We can do that today with sausaging. But is humanity really ready for pieces of meat that big or are we really biting off more than we can chew?
More on this biting issue next week. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the
constant popularity of dogs.
-- Aldous Huxley