[UA] TABOO

[Timothy Ferguson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu [mailto:ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu]On

> ME: What if I was, though?  What if I was locked in and starving,
> and could
> only draw sustenance from some sort of meat product?
>
> HER: Well, I guess it'd be okay, but you'd have to do penance or
> something.

Actually you are specifically forbidden from fasting in such a way as it
causes you incapacitation - which isn't as good as the Muslim rule, but
there you go.  You are allowed to eat meat on a Friday if:

The Pope tells you this week has two Thursdays (one of them did this once,
because some people threw a feast for him at the end of a long journey but
he arrived a bit late and needed the extra time.)

The Pope tells you that what you are eating isn't meat.  For example,
canonically, penguins are considered to be fish rather than fowl for the
purposes of fasting.

In Islam, if you fast when its not sensible to do so, you are sinning in a
lesser degree.  Then again all sorts of lesser stupidity is sinning in a
lesser degree for Muslims.  Eating onions is sinning, for example, because
your breath is stinky afterward and unpleasant for other people, and
surprisingly for a religion often misconstrued as being dedicated to
religious war, being impolite to people is sinful.

> ME: Okay.  What if that meat was human, then?
>
> HER: Ewww!

Although I'm tempted to say "not allowed", I'd hesitate long enough to say
that there's no law that springs to mind immediately, much as there's no law
that says urinating at height onto the Pope as he passes in the street is
forbidden.

> ME: Hey, it's Good Friday!  Christ dies for my sins; you die for my
> lunch.  I see a certain symmetry in that.
>
> HER: You mean that you'd _actually_ eat a person?
>
> ME: Well, maybe not a whole one.  And it depends on the circumstances.
>
> HER: Like what?
>
> ME: Is there anything else in the fridge?
>
> HER: No.
>
> ME: Not even a marinade?

See, now I'd like to know if for you this calls for a white or a red?  I
suppose it varies by dish.  A sort of stew would be red, of course, but if
had some light marinade and skewered shashlik, perhaps with some onion,
capsicum and pineapple chunks, does that move it into the white class for
you, or would you settle for a rosé (a blush, for our American colleagues).

> HER: Ewww!

If she's a Catholic, the host is really, really and utterly truly human
flesh.  It even has blood in it.  In the middle ages, for a while, they
didn't give the wine to the parishioners, only the priest drank it, but that
was OK, because the body has the blood within it.

Some modern Anglicans use this as a way of getting around congregations
which dispute a female minister, too.  They have a guy tap in the bread, and
the woman does the wine.  Even if she's not meant to be doing the wine, the
sacrament is valid in the single article.

> A couple of hours later, we stumbled across a place that sold cheap
> oysters.  As she and her boyfriend settled down to polish off a plate, I
> excused myself to go outside for a cigarette.
>
> HER: Don't you like oysters?
>
> ME: No, I can't stand them; they make my stomach turn.  You won't eat
> people, I won't eat oysters -- and at least I wouldn't eat people _alive_.

Did she torture them to death with lemon juice first?  Sorry to cut about
your story in reply, btw.


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