You all have heard me tell the story of the Catholic priest and rabbi who accidentally sat at lunch during a large ecumenical conference. At one point in their conversation, the priest asked the rabbi about the Jewish dietary laws, and then asked specifically whether he had ever eaten a ham and cheese sandwich … which violates two laws: eating pork and eating meat with dairy at the same meal. The rabbi kind of cowered a bit but nodded that he had.
Feeling a bit justified to return the question he asked the priest about the celibacy requirements of priesthood and then specifically whether he had broken that. As the priest cowered in embarrassment the rabbi tried to soften the mood by saying: “well it sure beats a ham and cheese sandwich!”
A recent Wall Street Journal provides one more reason to avoid pork but does so by shifting the meaning that most of us know in politics. Here is the link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chuck-schumer-artificial-intelligence-subsidies-todd-young-mike-rounds-china-d2768c8f?st=6qpk02vots2r79v&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Here is the definition of that kind of pork from Wikipedia:
Pork barrel, or simply pork, is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to direct spending to a representative’s district. Typically, “pork” involves national funding for government programs whose economic or service benefits are concentrated in a particular area but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers. Public works projects, certain national defense spending projects, and agricultural subsidies are the most commonly cited examples.
This kind of pork should be shunned by all of us. It is wasteful, deceitful, and irresponsible. Yet, we all know it is happening. Every time we hear of some noble cause and a politician asking for money to pay for it, sceptics immediately search for and find huge amounts of pork behind the veneer of good intents.
We also know how it got there … whenever someone comes up with a great program idea, their opponents use this to pad it with pork in exchange for their votes.
Seems all of us paying for their sinful ways should be banning pork … right? Nope. We are all so lazy we fail to search for it and then we shrug our shoulders and admit it kind of tastes good. That reminds me of our church’s event called Pastor’s Pancakes where our Sunday School class served pancakes and bacon to over 600 that morning.
As we were winding down together after the event and having cleaned everything up, a class member who knew I was Jewish asked me whether serving bacon to everyone had made me uncomfortable. I thought for a second and responded: “Not half as much as not charging for it!”