demagogue on 6/3/2012 at 06:57
Babies are precisely one of the main target groups for banning the cheese. (The argument is stronger for unpasteurized milk, but I don't know if that's as traditionally valued.)
Cars shouldn't be banned. But yes, child seats are required by law in the US at least for exactly that logic, like your question asks.
Edit: I'm agreeing with you that babies can't choose things and adults can. Things restricted to only adults can be more dangerous, booze & cigars, and there's a lot of foods that don't make it to market because they're unsafe for babies, although perfectly safe for adults. Again, I don't know how many are traditional per se though. That's the whole point; some foods get an exemption just because of tradition, but take away the tradition and they're an easy case for banning or heavy restrictions. Unpasteurized cheese is definitely one thing heavily regulated in the US because its riskiness to vulnerable groups like babies.
Edit2: Also I'm just trying to get to whether people care about the actual risk factor here, or because they've never seen a circumcision before and the first time they hear about it, it sounds horrifying. If it's about the risk to babies (as it should be), French cheese should go too. If it's about the foreign horror, the mohel practice is gone of course, but French cheese, whoa whoa whoa slow down: that's our culture, so if babies die ((
http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516.htm) and they do: "the bacteria in raw milk can be especially dangerous to pregnant women, children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems."), it's worth it for our culture, but not for theirs. My point is I think this should be scientific question, not a cultural one, and both should go.
Edit3: I'll grant, like I said in my 1st post, that it's of course a better thing when there's a choice and it's labeled between the safe & unsafe, like some cheese, as opposed to some practice like circumcision where the unsafe part is mandatory and it's only for babies, which of course makes it even worse. But in the US, there's still heavy restriction of unpast. stuff because the gov't reasons some parents won't know not to feed their child the unsafe stuff, so even having the choice might not be enough. But I had to use some analogy to get at the difference between scientific aversion & cultural aversion. I would have picked a better analogy if I could. It's still a situation that comes up a lot (where the scientific aversion & cultural aversion gets conflated. Happens quite a bit in practice, but sometimes it's not so transparent.)
DDL on 6/3/2012 at 09:07
Also, cheese, and the eating thereof, is incredibly common.
Slicing bits off baby penises and then licking the ends? Not so much. (also holy SHIT did I actually just type that sentence? *shudders*)
Also, unpasteurised cheese is tasty tasty stuff. I've not personally tried injured baby penis, but I can't imagine it's considered a 'delicacy' anywhere.
Also, one is a food, the other is an entirely pointless practice (circumcision itself turns out actually to reduce HIV transmission. Licking circumcision wounds? Not so much).
Other than the fact that both can lead to injury/death of babies, they're not really comparable things in any respect, is what I'm saying.
So, for feeding of unpasteurised cheese to babies/pregnant women, maybe have a health warning, much in the same way as we already do for raw eggs. Job done. You're using the wrong metric for risk, basically.
Kolya on 6/3/2012 at 09:27
Quote Posted by demagogue
Also I'm just trying to get to whether people care about the actual risk factor here, or because they've never seen a circumcision before and the first time they hear about it, it sounds horrifying.
It still sounds horrifying. It's an ancient tradition to keep up hygiene, just like the bloodsucking afterwards. None of this is actually necessary nowadays.
Briareos H on 6/3/2012 at 10:32
The only thing I'll take home from this thread is that demagogue's baby sister was probably murdered by raw milk cheese.
Seriously, where does this terror come from? Any scientific evidence that the modern raw milk cheese industry is a health danger?
Nicker on 6/3/2012 at 10:34
Quote Posted by Kuuso
I am not sure, if my initial misreading, Cocksucking Vampire Rabbits, was better than the actual title. Both are entertaining thoughts at least.
Inline Image:
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173387199l/281235.jpgI know the circumcision debate is a fractious as gun control, abortion, evolution and the open/closed sandwich question, but this story isn't about the generalised barbarity of the practice (or about raw milk products) but rather the
negligent performance of a religious ritual causing death. Considering the trail of bodies and sick kids this rabbi has left in his wake, why wasn't he prosecuted in 2004 and where are the cops now?
Thirith on 6/3/2012 at 10:38
... from the makers of True Blood, Deadwood and Night of the Lepus.
demagogue on 6/3/2012 at 12:36
Haha, no, no killer raw cheese monsters yet. My point wasn't about the cheese, but something about getting people to see culture leaking into their risk perception. But I'm not going to defend this practice, and I have a little cheese au naturale every now and again. I was just trying to frame what's interesting to note in a different way, then trying to at least explain it when it got questioned. No big deal though. There's better cases to use than this one for that point.
Muzman on 6/3/2012 at 17:27
Orthodox Jewry is chock full of crazy though. I can even cop to circumcision as something people can do if they want to, when it's appropriately brought into the present. I think it's a waste of time and energy and no fun for the kid. But do it properly and I can't really say ban it.
But no these guys have to do it like it says in the Torah, for no better reason than it says so in the torah (might not even be in the torah, but you know what I mean). And then the tzitzes, the hats, the no mixing of different fabrics, the endless mitzvahs. Oy vey, indeed. (seriously, (
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/281/my-big-break?act=3) listen to this crap)
We've had some interesting discussions about that sort of thing around here back in the day. The crux of it is that we secularist types don't get what faith and observance is. That the book says do it so you should and that is what submission and humility etc is all about. Which is probably a fair statement. I don't understand that at all (even when I did it). What I don't know is what room there is for reason and progress in there if that sort of observance is primary to any connection with any supposed god. It seems arguably impossible to me, especially since the practices happily line up with stuff from 3000 years ago the task has only gotten harder with the passage of time. Which no doubt is also part of the challenge.
It might be hard to draw the line on hygene grounds. Somehow it gets easier to point at the series of traditions it is a part of and why it exists and say "That crazy, people", judgemental though it is.
Scots Taffer on 6/3/2012 at 23:17
best thread of 2012
Tocky on 8/3/2012 at 05:09
If I'm going to get my kid a blowjob I think I'll stick to crack whores. Apparently rabbis have more diseased mouths. Plus I want to see the part in the Torah where it says yea and God spake to the holy cocksuckers that bloody baby penis was good. Really? It says that in writing and people accept it? Not one person stood up and said you idiots are out of your cocksucking minds and maybe that's not Gods voice but some creepy old dude behind a rock because that is flat out jibbering batshit insane? No hey buddy you have a baby penis in your mouth? Nobody questioned the first baby blowjob? Nobody?
Exactly how fucked in the head do you have to be to go along with that? Never, not once, as drunk or stoned or pushed past all boundries of reason by powerful halucinagens have I ever thought sucking a babys penis was a good idea. Religion is the worst drug there is and this is proof positive. Even if there were a god who personally came down from heaven and told me to suck a bloody baby dick I would have to tell him to go suck the shit from between his ears before he came back with his crazy. Really, fuck you God, you crazy old fuck, get the hell out of here and go smite the monkey to baby porn you sick bastard. And I just cannot respect anyone who would go along with such a looney idea even with the threat of hell hanging over them. Where is your brain OR backbone? Pussy rabbis, baby dicks are for kids.
