T A B L E+T A L K Oprah vs. the beef industry. Whose side are you on? Join the debate in Politics D A I L Y+Q U O T E Unemployed Parisians have priorities right R E C E N T L Y The odd couple By Richard Rodriguez Castro and the pope have more in common than the West thinks (01/19/98) The end By Jonathan Broder Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Clinton will likely sink the Middle East peace process altogether (01/16/98) The worst show on earth By Ros Davidson Ted Kaczynski should be in a mental hospital. Instead, he's about to become the star in a grotesque courtroom circus (01/15/98) Dream girls By Jonathan Broder Why we watch figure skaters go through puberty on national television (01/14/98) The man behind Paula Jones By Jonathan Broder The head of the Rutherford Institute says he's not political. An examination of his record suggests otherwise (01/13/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		Where's the beef? PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Some ranchers don't take kindly to those who would threaten their gravy train. Jacobs, who has repeatedly criticized government handouts to ranchers, has endured a number of threatening acts from anonymous sources. On two occasions, the lug nuts on his van's tires were loosened, causing him to lose control at high speeds while his children were in the vehicle. After his dog Mishka went missing, Jacobs found the animal's skinned body by the side of the road near his house. Across the Western United States, federal employees have received warnings to stay off government land where ranchers graze illegally. "There are some places we won't go into anymore," says one Nevada Bureau of Land Management official. With Oprah Winfrey, the chosen cudgel is the so-called food disparagement" law, currently on the books in various forms in Texas and 12 other states. The laws grew out of the disputed Alar chemical scare around apples in the late 1980s. The laws' supporters claim that they are needed to protect against baseless, wrong or unjustified claims about food dangers that threaten the livelihood of ranchers and farmers. Initially, Texas cattlemen, outraged at Winfrey, tried to get the state to press charges (and pay all the legal costs). But the attempt failed when state Attorney General Dan Morales refused to file suit, telling the cattlemen Texas would not foot the bill for what looked like a ridiculously weak case, and advising the cattlemen to drop it. Under the state's food disparagement law, prosecutors must prove that the defendant knowingly presented untruths. While Lyman's fears may not ultimately come to pass, nothing he said could be shown to be untrue. Lyman never claimed that mad cow disease would definitely kill Americans; rather he asserted that there were risks from cattle-to-cattle feeding, which is true. The basis for suing Winfrey was even shakier, since all she did was interview Lyman, reveal her disgust with rendering practices and, like millions of other Americans, decide to swear off hamburgers. But Paul Engler, a millionaire feedlot owner, insisted on pursuing the case and filed a $12 million suit in rural Amarillo. Why there, and not a major Texas city like Dallas, Austin or Houston? Perhaps because Amarillo is in the heart of cattle country, making it somewhat easier to find a jury that sees eye-to-eye with the ranchers. So far, the ranchers' attorneys have been quite effective in keeping the details of the trial from becoming public. At the behest of rancher attorneys, U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson has issued a gag order on both parties. Last Friday, they filed a motion alleging that Winfrey had breached the order. The supposed infraction: Her office had sent a local Amarillo newspaper two publicity photographs in response to the paper's request. Despite the absurdity of their case, the ranchers' chances with a local jury should not be underestimated. A victory in Amarillo would give farmers and ranchers all over the country a green light to file similar suits against pesky journalists and whistle-blowers raising questions about the safety of the nation's food supply. Besides, even if the Texas ranchers fail this time, so long as such "food disparagement" laws exist, there's always a next time. SALON | Jan. 20, 1998 Erik Marcus' last piece for Salon was on the slaughter of the Hong Kong chickens.