Opinion Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us . Editorial What's Kosher? A griprocessors has become a dirty word in some parts of the Jewish community and caused a deafening silence elsewhere. The Iowa slaughterhouse has earned dismal marks from different quarters in recent years while producing up to 60 percent of all kosher meat in the United States. That near-monopoly may be part of the reason that the Orthodox Union (OU) and other Orthodox agencies dependent on kosher meat have been either silent or protective of the Iowa slaughterhouse in recent months. What other choice do they and kosher consumers have? Agriprocessors' owners, the Rubashkin family of Brooklyn, N.Y., purchased the closed slaughterhouse in northeastern Iowa in 1988. In 2000, University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom documented some of the issues confront- ing Agriprocessors in his aptly titled Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America. While Bloom discussed the divi- sion between the Lubavitch community running the plant and the native Iowans who lived and worked in Postville, federal and state authorities found serious health, legal and ethical issues. Over the last 10 years, Agriprocessors has paid fines of nearly $700,000 for health and safety violations. It was the subject of an undercover investigation last year by the hardline People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which accused the company of inhumane slaughter practices. Several rabbinic inves- tigations followed. On May 12, Iowa and federal agen- cies conducted the largest immigration raid in U.S. history, arresting 389 of Agriprocessor's 800 Postville workers as illegal aliens. More than 300 of those arrested have pled guilty and will be deported after serving five months in jail. Since mid-May, Agriprocessors' produc- tion has been spotty. An Iowa firm that was hired to supply temporary laborers pulled its 150 employees out of the plant after 10 days, citing unsafe working condi- tions. The result: Nationwide shortages of kosher meat have occurred and prices — already pressured by rising fuel costs — have begun to climb. Last week, the Des Moines Register reported that Agriprocessors paid $1.4 million last year to settle a case alleging that it had fraudulently hidden another company's assets. That company filed for bankruptcy in 2003, shortly after its Dry Bones AFTER CHINA HAS TRANSFORMED ITSELF INTO A PROSPEROUS STATE THE FUTURE? WILL MIDDLE CLASS CHINESE FAMILIES GO OUT TO PINE ON SUNDAYS Brooklyn warehouse was destroyed in an arson fire. Also last week, fed- eral agents arrested two supervisors at the Postville plant, charg- AT QUAINT AMERICAN ing that they helped RESTAURANTS WHERE the illegal immigrants DADS WILL SHOW OFF obtain fake docu- THEIR SKILLS ments. It is the first charges brought against anyone other than unskilled labor- ers since the May 12 raid and is the first substantiation of the workers' charges of c intimidation, harass- ment and sexual www.DryBonesBlog.com favors. Throughout this general manager and start a national litany, the OU and other Orthodox groups advertising campaign that claims they have either defended Agriprocessors or aren't as bad as the record shows. been silent. Loshen hara — spreading Shouldn't we expect more from the evil gossip — is a terrible sin, but so is country's largest producer of kosher meat? deliberately placing the health and trust And shouldn't we expect more from our of kosher consumers at risk. In response, all that Agriprocessors has done is remove supervising agencies, be they rabbis or public inspectors? ❑ Sholom Rubashkin, the owner's son, as e• Reality Check Garbage News W hen the first 24-hour cable news channel came on the air, my boss at the Detroit News, executive editor Lionel Linder, was ecstatic. A self-described "news junkie he was transfixed by the constant flow of information into his office. Linder was a brilliant newspaperman who died much too soon in a car accident. But I'm afraid he was wrong about the benefits of cable news. In fact, it has dis- torted the news values that he and I grew up with; and the junk it propagates is a big reason why the media has sunk so low in public trust. Cable news has all that airtime to fill so trivial events are magnified beyond any relationship to their actual importance. Crime, celebrities and car chases go prime time. Bad news is made to seem much worse than it is because of endless repetition and navel-gazing analysis. More than that, opinion trumps report- ing. People with no particular expertise or A30 July 17 • 2008 JI4 perspective, aside from the fact that they make themselves avail- able for interviews, spout off on everything under the sun. If they happen to be wrong, or even ridiculous, so what. What they said will be forgotten by the time the next news cycle rolls around and, meanwhile, the time has been adequately filled. That's why the loss of Tim Russert was felt so acutely. He was always a reporter, a masterful inter- viewer who knew how to ask tough ques- tions that could not be dodged. When he gave an opinion, there .was hard informa- tion to back it up. In his place, there is a collection of blowhards and "commentators" who couldn't report a story if one ran up and bit them on the kneecap. But they know how to speak in a snarl. If that's what jour- nalism has become, you can keep it. This is one reason why political divi- sions have become so bilious. There is more garbage that washes up and cable news slobbers over all of it with glee. It is also why I am apprehensive about coverage of the upcoming presidential election. Elections are divisive by nature. We are asked to vote one way or the other. It is not multiple choice. When a weakness is discerned, an opponent bores in and things can get nasty. That's how democracy has worked ever since the Era of Good Feelings ended in the 1820s. But it is impossible to try and speak honestly about race in this country. Just ask Geraldine Ferraro and Bill Clinton. Given the current news media orientation, it is likely, if not probable, that any critical examination of Sen. Barack Obama's ideas, associates or background will be waved off as racism. My hope is that the campaign will pres- ent us with a choice between two compet- ing visions and people will cast their ballots on that basis. Some, assuredly, will not. They are determined to make it about race. Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley wrote recently, "anyone who thinks that this election is about anything other than, first and foremost, race, is liv- ing about 20 years ahead of the rest of America. Everyone else knows what time it is:' An angry electorate, in the midst of a flagging economy and an unpopular war, may well choose Obama's emotional appeal. That's the way the numbers are running now But if his opponents, or his support- ers, insist on making the election "first and foremost" about race, he will lose. The media pack then will inevitably conclude it was because the United States is an irredeemably racist country. And that would be the most damaging outcome for everyone. ❑ George Cantor's e-mail address is gcantor614@aol.com .