You never know how people are going to react when they buck the trends of what is considered normal. Lately it seems like those boundaries are being pushed no matter where you are in this twisted world. A couple have caught my attention lately and I thought I would share them with you.
Here locally we have a little brouhaha cooking up in the City of Rosemead. It started as a group of neighbors complaining about the stench coming from a local slaughterhouse and has now blossomed into a full blown religious lawsuit.
It should never have gotten this far, but now that the Chinese American Live Poultry Vikon Inc., or CAL Poultry for short, is coming up on its city imposed closing, they are grasping at straws. In particular, the religious straw, in order to keep its doors open. So let the litigious sucking begin.
The two owners of CAL Poultry and one of their customers are suing the City claiming religious persecution against the Buddhist religion. Apparently Buddhists rely heavily on freshly slaughtered chickens as part of their religious practice and CAL poultry is the closest one for folks here in the San Gabriel Valley.
I'm no vegetarian nor a chicken rights activist, but I am a staunch anti stink activist and if I lived anywhere near to CAL Poultry I wouldn't care what they were doing there, I would want it gone.
In a true display as to how clueless city governments can be the story goes like this: Cal Poultry opened in January 1991. Rosemead's city council passed an ordinance prohibiting poultry slaughter within the city limits in May of 1991. For some mysterious reason the city allowed CAL poultry to keep operating.
CAL Poultry remained open and allowed to smell up the area until the complaints reached a fevered pitch in 2010. That's when the current Rosemead City Council jumped into action. They ordered ALL poultry slaughterhouses in Rosemead to pack their cleavers and get out of Dodge, well Rosemead. They were given until May 13th 2012. To nobody's surprise CAL Poultry was the only one left after 19 years and I think felt a little singled out.
So, as Rosemead's City Attorney was quoted as saying "the City wasn't surprised" when CAL Poultry filed their lawsuit on March 21st. So due to the bizarre inaction of all the previous city councils of Rosemead the weirdness has begun anew instead of just ending. Trust me kids, I couldn't make this up if I tried.
So chicken killers suing a local city on behalf of the Buddhist religion is not weird enough for you? Then let's turn our attention to the world of beauty pageants shall we?
The pageant in question is Miss Canada and the contestant is finalist Jenna Talackova . Over the course of the last couple of weeks we have seen Miss Talackova go from being a contestant, to being ousted as a contestant, to being reinstated as a contestant. She has been one busy girl.
The reason for these changes is because Jenna was born a male. There is nothing wrong with that. Some of the best people I know were born male. Most stay that way, but who am I to deny anyone the right to follow their dreams?
The major bone of contention here was how Jenna listed her gender on her application. She described herself as female which is how she had viewed herself since the age of 4. The term that everyone has attached to her since this dust up began is transgender.
Being the enlightened forward thinking individual that I am, or at least that I think I am, I thought I knew what that meant. Once I did a little research I found the transgender/transsexual waters to be muddied at best. There are numerous descriptions that Jenna could have used and transgender works as good as any of them. Let's just say, for brevity's sake, that Jenna has had all the necessary procedures to qualify her as a her.
So more power to her. Not only do I admire her for making a decision and sticking to it, the results are amazing. She looks absolutely stunning and is a real head turner.
She actually looks just like the type of woman Donald Trump might hook up with or marry, but I don't think that will be happening any time soon. You see the comb over king is the one that owns the Miss Canada pageant, as well as the Miss Universe pageant and was the first voice we heard on TMZ saying Jenna was not the type of gal the pageant wanted. As far as he was concerned, she was out.
That was until Jenna solicited the help of, or was it solicited by, attorney and professional self promoter Gloria Alred. All of a sudden Donny and Miss Canada changed their tune and Jenna was back in the contest. Gloria seems to have that effect on people.
Even though I know she won't, I really hope Jenna makes it to Miss Universe. I never watch the show, but I would if she was in the mix and I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one. I'm betting, along with Donny & Gloria, if Miss Canada is televised it will have its highest ratings ever.
Gee I wonder if Gloria knows about CAL Poultry yet? I'm sure that's a case that she can sink her teeth in to.
Bill Dunn has been a published opinion columnist for 14 years. Any comments can be sent to either our exalted editor at tmiller@beaconmedianews.com or to Bill directly at dunnsinferno@casegod.com You can also find Bill on Facebook at : www.facebook.com/WhenAllisSaidandDunn
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