Guest guest Posted February 15, 2005 Report Share Posted February 15, 2005 Ross Cannon <ross.cann wrote: ABC's " Boston Legal " spells out dangers of Mad Cow Disease and govt complicity 02/13/05 David Kelly has done it again! The producer's earlier hit show, The Practice, won a Genesis Award for an 11/17/02 episode that included graphic slaughterhouse and vivisection footage showing American primetime TV viewers that horrendous cruelty to animals is part of the American way of life. Last night, Sunday February 13, 2005, an episode of Kelly's new series " Boston Legal " spelled out government complicity in a cover-up surrounding the danger of Mad Cow Disease. In a back-handed manner it implied that those who will not speak out against the meat industry are " Nansy-Pansies, " in fear of being labeled as such. I will summarize the plot, below, including transcripts of the relevant dialogue. Please thank Boston Legal for bringing the matter to the attention of the people, as only a hit TV show can do. Comments should be sent to ABC's Audience Relations Department at netaudr@a... Be sure to make it clear, in your subject line, that your comment pertains to " Boston Legal. " I expect that David Kelly and ABC will get plenty of flak from the meat industry for this episode (in which, ironically, we are reminded what happened to Oprah). It would be such a shame if that were not balanced with an outpouring of appreciation from viewers. I send a huge thank you to Judith Fish, Teresa D'Amico, and MargaretATsunflower.com, who live east of me, caught the show before it aired in Los Angeles, knew that word of it wasn't circulating on the major animal protection email lists, and made sure I knew to watch and tape it so we could all be filled in. --------- The plot opens as lawyers Shirley Schmidt (played by Candice Bergen) and Denny Crane (played by William Shatner) watch, with a new client, a tape of a news report. NEWS ANNOUNCER: And in an unprecedented if not bizarre move, the selectmen of Summersport Massachusetts, a small South Shore town, population 18,000, voted six to two yesterday, to ban red meat. As of midnight, it is now illegal to serve or sell beef within the township, Mayor George Boswitch calling the law a health and safety regulation. CLIENT: Health and Safety! SCHMIDT: Did they not call a town meeting to discuss this? CLIENT: They did, but nobody took it that seriously. And the mayor controls the selectmen, and this is exactly the sort of publicity he is hoping to buy. In the meantime, my steakhouse is out of business. CRANE: How can you ban red meat? CLIENT: Well they got a whole campaign to go with it. They plan to promote Summersport as the seafood capitol of the world. CRANE: We're carnivores! When the pilgrims landed, the first thing they did was eat a few Indians. Schmidt says they will get a " TRO. " She will mark up a motion and get the owners of the other affected restaurants to join them. --- COURTROOM SCENE SCHMIDT: You cannot just ban read meat. DOCTOR: Any municipality can pass reasonable health regulations. SCHMIDT: Let's just pause on that word " reasonable. " DOCTOR: Many towns are dry, forbidding the sale of alcohol. SCHMIDT: There is an enormous difference between the sale of. JUDGE: Hold on one second Ms Schmidt. In my courtroom we allow counsel to finish their thoughts. We do not... SCHMIDT: If I could interrupt. The author of this preposterous legislation happens to be both politically ambitious and a glutton for publicity, which, this new law, funny thing, happens to be generating. MAYOR'S LAWYER: Red meat poses legitimate health concerns. SCHMIDT: So do overzealous elected officials; we don't just ban them. If only we could. JUDGE: Now I shall do the interrupting. If nothing else I pride myself on being a conscientious fact finder. CRANE: Oh Brother JUDGE: Mr. Crane, did you say something? CRAIN: It's a stupid law, overturn it - be a man. SCHMIDT: Mr. Crane was trying to be helpful. Apparently he did not succeed. JUDGE TO MAYOR'S LAWYER: What is the specific reason for your client banning the sale of red meat? MAYOR'S LAWYER: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. JUDGE: Mad Cow Disease. MAYOR'S LAWYER: We're fearful of an outbreak. JUDGE: In Summersport? MAYOR'S LAWYER: Everywhere. SCHMIDT: That's ridiculous. JUDGE: Very well, we shall hold an evidentiary hearing. The first person I shall hear from is the mayor. Then Ms Schmidt, if you so desire, I shall listen to your client. Until then, we are adjourned. CRANE (somewhat under his breath, but audible to the judge): Put on a dress. JUDGE: Two O'clock! SCHMIDT TO CRANE: What are you doing?? CRANE: I know this judge. I know where his buttons are. SCHMIDT: Research shows, Denny, it is not wise to antagonize the people whose favor you are trying to court! PRESS GATHER OUTSIDE THE COURTROOM. (In this scene, the impression is furthered that while Crane is brilliant, he is not " all there. " ) MAYOR TO PRESS: Sometimes a mayor has to do what is right even if it isn't popular. Red meat presents risks, which I, as the guardian of my constituency, am unwilling to assume. SCHMIDT TO PRESS: The legislation is capricious on its face - that will be our only comment. CRANE TO PRESS: Pop goes the weasel. Denny Crane. Who's your Daddy? Pop goes the weasel. IN THE COURTROOM: MAYOR: Simply put, I don't think we can guarantee the safety of beef. For starters, we just lifted the ban on Canadian cattle, where Mad Cow Disease was just found, again! MAYOR'S LAWYER: The percentage of Mad Cow in Canada is statistically. MAYOR: But why take chances? Consider this disease. It's incurable. It rots the brain. It is invariably fatal and it's a painful death. MAYOR'S LAWYER: But our government has assured us there is absolutely no danger in this. MAYOR: Our government is pro beef. Are you kidding? In the last five years the agriculture business has donated 140 million dollars to congressional and presidential candidates. Fast food chains, the Cattleman's Beef Association, you name it, they've all given big bucks. MAYOR'S LAWYER: But the Department of Agriculture says... MAYOR: Oh please! The USDA's in the meat industry's back pocket. JUDGE: What evidence do you have of that? MAYOR: You want evidence? How bout, the last secretary of Agriculture appointed meat industry advocates to top jobs at the USDA? How bout, the secretary's former chief of staff used to be the chief lobbyist for the National Cattleman's Beef Association? The USDA has been bought. MAYOR'S LAWYER: Pretty strong words Ms Boswitch. Oprah got sued for saying less. MAYOR: Well, what does that tell you? The meat industry gets to sue a talk-show host for putting down a hamburger. Free speech doesn't apply when it comes to beef? JUDGE: Well certainly the USDA has an interest in making meat safe? MAYOR: But they have a double-mandate, your honor. And while one may be to keep beef safe, the other, the bigger one is to promote the sale of American meat. You think there is a real interest in this country in routing out Mad Cow Disease? It's don't ask, don't tell. SCHMIDT: Objection. MAYOR: This past April a cow stumbled and fell in Texas. The vets suspected a central nervous system disorder. That animal should have been tested. It wasn't. It was quickly slaughtered and put into pig feed. Why? Because God forbid we discover Mad Cow Disease, it would cost billions and billions of dollars. Well I'm not gonna wait. If that gets me sued, so be it. SCHMIDT: How many people in this country have been afflicted with the human strain of Mad Cow Disease? MAYOR: I don't plan. SCHMIDT: to wait, Yes, we know. How many? MAYOR: We don't know. SCHMIDT: There have been no confirmed cases. MAYOR: According to some scientists many people we think have Alzheimer's could, in fact, be sick from Mad Cow. SCHMIDT: Are you a scientist sir? MAYOR: No. SCHMIDT: Before you became mayor, what was your occupation? MAYOR: I owned auto-dealerships. SCHMIDT: You were a car salesman. Given that three million people are killed or injured on our roads every year do you also plan to ban automobiles? MAYOR: No. SCHMIDT: What about salmonella? Any plan to criminalize chickens? MAYOR: People don't die from chickens. SCHMIDT: What about mercury in fish? MAYOR: It's a concern MAYOR: But again, I made a judgment as mayor, and the selectmen concurred that the dangers of beef... SCHMIDT: Have you any personal ambitions beyond being mayor of Summersport? MAYOR: I'm not trying to get headlines if that is what you are saying. SCHMIDT: I didn't say that, but funny you did. SCHMIDT mutters to Crane: You got anything? CRANE STANDS: You would agree, Mr. Mayor, by and large, that vegetarians are communists? MAYOR: I certainly would not. CRANE: We're at war Mr. Boswitch. Think we can win that war if we suddenly say to our soldiers 'no more meat'? Think a nation of fish-eaters can protect the world, you wimp? SCHMIDT to Crane: What the hell are you doing? CRANE: Don't bother with the mayor Shirley, in this case, its all about the judge. ---- NEXT COURT APPEARANCE. DOCTOR ON STAND DOCTOR: Personally I would never eat meat. MAYOR'S LAWYER: Why doctor? DOCTOR: We don't have the means to keep track of what cattle are being fed. Nor are we adequately testing them, in my opinion. SCHMIDT: Your honor, I object to paranoia being offered as evidence. DOCTOR: I am sorry, but it is absolutely reckless for a government to be telling us we are safe when the scientific community can't necessarily detect all the ways this disease can be contracted or transmitted. JUDGE: But let's look at statistics. Nobody in this country seems to be getting sick from mad cows. DOCTOR: Judge, we just can't know that. The disease may have an incubation period of up to forty years. You may be infected right now. JUDGE: My point is, nobody, now, seems to be demonstrating symptoms. DOCTOR: We don't know that for sure either. The human strain of the mad cow disease is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. We call it CJD. But you can also get CJD sporadically, with no link to infected meat. And some of the people we have diagnosed with Alzheimer's might, in fact, have CJD. We don't know how many cases there really are. You cannot tell me the government has all this figured out. SCHMIDT: And the government just covers this up? DOCTOR: Well, its probably not so much a cover-up. It's just we're not terribly motivated to discover the problem. The economic consequences would be too severe. SCHMIDT: Economic consequences. The beef industry would risk an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease. That wouldn't bankrupt them overnight? DOCTOR: The beef industry can't always tell when a cow is sick. And they're desperate to believe that isolated cases are isolated cases. SCHMIDT: And the Department of Agriculture just plays along? DOCTOR: The month after that sick cow was found in Washington State, Mad Cow testing dropped almost fifty percent. That's outrageous. SCHMIDT: It eventually went up. DOCTOR: Look. They tried to track the herd where that Washington cow came from. They couldn't find 53 of the 80 cows. They since admitted their cattle track back system isn't up and running, and it would have to be done on a voluntary basis. Voluntary. Please. What meatpacking plant wants the distinction of having a mad cow? Which is why I order the fish. SCHMIDT MUTTERS TO CRANE: Denny, I am getting my ass kicked here. CRANE: I can see that. SCHMIDT: Any suggestions? CRANE STANDS: How old are you sir? DOCTOR: Forty-six. CRANE: I am 72 and I can mop the floor with you. You know why? I eat meat! Makes me strong, builds my immune system, fights off a whole bunch of other diseases I might have had if I weren't so strong. Red meat saves lives maybe. Ever think about that? DOCTOR: I am sorry, but there is no real evidence to support that opinion. CRANE: Um, any hard evidence to support yours? DOCTOR: Hard evidence, no. But I don't think we really want to wait for that evidence to come rushing in. ------------------- Schmidt and Crane are talking to their client. CLIENT: We are going to lose? SCHMIDT: It hasn't gone well. Surely you've noticed. Client: My grandfather started the steak house. I just can't believe it. SCHMIDT: Look, it isn't over yet, we still have summations, but. (Crane pulls Schmidt aside.) CRANE TO SCHMIDT: I will tell you this one more time. Play the judge. The man lives with his mother. He wears lifts. The buzzword is Nansy-Pansy. SCHMIDT: I beg your pardon? CRANE: Nansy-Pansy. He doesn't want to fall on that side of the fence! It is even worse than Namby-Pamby. SCHMIDT: What are you talking about! CRANE: Trust me Shirley, for once, can you do that? SCHMIDT: Nansy-Pansy. (Interestingly, the parallel plot in the same episode, dealing with a bar-room brawl, focused on issues of proving masculinity.) ----------- SCHMIDT CALLS AN ASSISTANT IN. SCHMIDT: You worked on that meatpacking case last year didn't you? ASSISTANT: Yes. SCHMIDT: What do you know about that cow in Washington State? I am about to suffer an embarrassing defeat in court. I need to show that what happened in Washington was an isolated. ASSISTANT: Don't go near the Washington case. It is possible it wasn't even a downer cow. SCHMIDT: What do you mean a downer cow? ASSISTANT: Basically it means the cow fell down. We're told that the mad cows are easy to spot because they stumble and fall. We're told that this cow fell. But eyewitnesses in Washington say the cow was walking and was tested only as a fluke. SCHMIDT: Which means. ASSISTANT: While we are being told that the sick cows show easily detectable symptoms.. SCHMIDT: They sometimes don't, and therefore go undetected. ASSISTANT: Stay away from the Washington case. Schmidt tells another lawyer she is tempted to employ Denny's strategy: " Nansy-Pansy. " -------- COURTROOM SUMMATIONS: SCHMIDT: We had an expression in this country years ago called " Where's the beef. " Translation: " Where's the substance? " Your honor, do you know anybody who has been victimized by mad cow disease, know anybody who knows anybody, know anybody who knows anybody who knows anybody? There is simply not a shred of evidence to suggest that a single person in this country has ever become ill from a mad cow. But, " Why wait? " That's the mayor's jingle. Why wait? Because this man and others like him have sacrificed their lives and their livelihoods building their restaurants. Maybe as a courtesy we could wait for a scintilla of evidence before arbitrarily destroying their businesses. The fact is the USDA has done an exemplary job conducting tests, establishing safe-guards to prevent the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, which is probably why it hasn't broken out. What, we could give into our fear and panic, baseless panic, but that would make us.(long pause, she looks at Crane then continues ) a nation of Nansy-Pansies. I don't know about you but I don't want to be a Nansy-Pansy. MAYOR'S LAWYER: Towns make rules all the time. Lots of them. Zone fast food restaurants out of business. Through permits, they can control how you build your house. Some towns ban alcohol, cigarettes. Others have curfews. We do all kinds of things. The only legal requirement is that the laws are reasonable. It is not unreasonable to fear an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease. We have had a case in Washington State. Another last month in Canada - we just lifted the ban on Canadian beef! The incubation period for this disease could be decades. We have no guarantee that we are not already infected. It is simply reckless for the government to be injecting certainty when the scientific community cannot. And forget Mad Cow. We already know that eating beef can cause high cholesterol, heart disease, it increases the risk of colon cancer. There is listeria and e-coli, which has already killed people. Dioxin, the poison that almost killed the Ukrainian president --that stuff is on our grazing grass. Scienti sts say the average American has about ten units of Dioxin in their blood fat, simply from eating animal fat. There are all kinds of reasonable justifications for a mayor to try to reduce red meat from the diet of his citizenry. And let me remind you, there is nothing, nothing in the constitution, that guarantees anybody the right to sell a hamburger. We see the judge look over at Crane, and Crane mouths to him the words, " Nansy-Pansy " and then shakes his head. COURTROOM LATER, ALL SEATED JUDGE: I did some research on my own. As you know I pride myself on being a conscientious fact finder. Crane and the judge exchange looks, and Crane waves his index finger and mouths " No Nansy-Pansy. " JUDGE CONTINUES: Mad Cow Disease is here. And for all the guarantees supplied by the government, the scientific community doesn't back them up. We all have the right to be concerned. The government agencies in place to protect us seem to be controlled by the industries we need protection from. This Mad Cow Disease started out in Europe and worked its way over here. And it is true, the scientists are at odds with our government. But as a tryer of fact, a judge must rely on facts and there is no evidence of an epidemic. If a judge was to allow himself to be governed by fear alone then it is true, and I agree, it would make him a.a. (exchanges glances with Crane) Nansy-Pansy. This judge is anything but! I find the law banning the sale of red meat to be premature if not capricious and it is herby overturned. End with some flirtatious banter between Crane and Schmidt. Later, at night, Crane is having a drink and a cigar with another lawyer, Alan Shore (played by James Spader), who had also just won a case. Here is the part of their conversation relevant to the Mad Cow Disease: SHORE: I hear you won. Everything OK? CRANE: I don't have Alzheimer's. I have Mad Cow Disease. SHORE: Well it's nice to finally know. If you read the summary above and were delighted, as I was, please do not move on to your next email, or forward this alert to anybody else, without first sending a quick note of appreciation to ABC's audience relations department at: netaudr@a... Boston Legal and ABC deserve many thanks for taking the stand for which Oprah got slammed. Yours and the animals', Karen Dawn 0o0oo0o00o0o0o0oo00oo0o0o0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 It's not that there is a problem with the system, the system is the problem! Let's have Faith in ourselves, not in gods, ideologies, leaders or programs. " A civilized society exhibits five crucial characteristics: peace, art, beauty, truth, and adventure. Without adventure, civilization is in full decay. " British Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.