Letter to Time re Aug 2 "report"

Time's piece by Jeninne Lee-St.John on urban animal raising --- the "Gee Whiz" factor was prevalent, along with ditzi excitement about what MUST be a new trend spotted first by your magazine. Encouraging urban dwellers to raise and kill chickens, rabbits, goats and other animals in their apartments smacks of a kind of idiocy and noxious atavism. So their children can learn about real life? Take them on field trips or show films about slaughter houses. Raising chickens tied with diapers among the Ralph Lauren designer furniture illustrates a skewed mentality turning desperately toward a pathological simulacrum of "natural life." If they want to connect to what remains of the "natural world" there are other pathways. The reality of food-animal "life" and death in the American world is a short poop-filled total imprisonment with torture (cutting off bills and toes etc) ending in a horrible fear-filled death. It adds another layer to the horror for the urban trend-afflicted to "domesticate" the process in apartments.