411 Comments
User's avatar
mr_snarky's avatar

Welcome to Oklahoma!

We're so scared of business our rivers literally smell like chickenshit!

Expand full comment
MTE_NYC's avatar

OK Guv full of shit.

Expand full comment
Manic Pixel Dream Girl's avatar

You know, there’s probably a perfect phrase to call the OK Governor here that would succinctly and aptly capture his moral cowardice as well as his betrayal of the people of his state … 🤔

Expand full comment
John Thorstensen's avatar

Would this be a dietary suggestion?

Expand full comment
Wookiee Monster's avatar

Fun fact: Congress originally passed laws like The Clean Water Act because lawsuits weren’t actually motivating corporations to stop polluting our rivers. These federal laws were meant to take proactive measures to limit pollution. And they were successful!

Except Republicans have spent the past fifty years undermining those laws. And now we have a Supreme Court poised to gut the very idea that the EPA can protect the environment.

We’re fucked.

Expand full comment
beb's avatar

What is sad about of political system is that a $10,000 campaign contribution can result in s ,mullion dollar relief in regulatory relief. Meanwhile the millions of people who voted for him suffer because Tyson can't be bothered to spend a bit of their massive profits on wastewater management.

Expand full comment
Dudley Didwrong's avatar

I'm late to the party, as usual, and this has probably been referred to "upstream," but in case, it might be useful to play The Fugs wonderful "Wide, Wide River" for the Oklahoma gov whose name fortuitously rhymes with shit. https://youtu.be/svPDzNO6GQk

Expand full comment
Mark Linimon's avatar

A long, long, time ago when I was a college radio DJ I cued this one up ny mistake. Three seconds in and ... ya might as well let it track.

Expand full comment
Dudley Didwrong's avatar

I was well out of college and first phase of grad school but listened religiously to WBOR out of Bowdoin College. I think I first heard it there. I still enjoy the Fugs.

Expand full comment
JCfromNC's avatar

Wait, Robyn is a guest poster now? When did this happen?

Expand full comment
Dudley Didwrong's avatar

Thank you for posting that. I really appreciate Heilung. I'd love to see them in person but it won't happen.

Expand full comment
Doctor Kiddo's avatar

Composted chicken manure (takes only about 6 weeks) is a valuable and marketable product. While I understand that a stupid Republican, like Gov Stitt, thinks just dumping it in the river makes perfect sense, there are actually viable alternatives for soulless corporations dedicated to profiting from the suffering and death of sentient beings. If your business model is based on using every possible molecule of the helpless animal, raised in horrifying, cruel (but cheap) conditions, for profit why not compost and sell chicken manure? Even slaughterhouse CFOs (not renowned for being enlightened, humane thinkers) figured out they can sell all the tons of leftover bones to sugar refiners, who convert regular, raw sugar, to gleaming white sugar by filtering it through bone char. Dumping chicken manure in the river is like setting money on fire.

Plant based diets are one way to fight back against corporate animal cruelty and climate destruction. Reducing your support for corporate animal cruelty just once a week is a step in the right direction. You don't have to be a Level 5 vegan (guilty - sorry, not sorry) to make a difference.

Expand full comment
beb's avatar

I wonder if the waste problem is chicken poop or the blood, guts etc from processing the chicken into meat packages. The poop is a known product, the entails are less so.

Expand full comment
jte's avatar

I thought the exact same thing when I read the article -- you mean they aren't composting it and selling it as organic (or natural) fertilizer? Chicken compost is *really* good fertilizer.

Expand full comment
Chuck Dickens's avatar

It’s a good way to feel better too!

Expand full comment
Katherine Harris's avatar

I remember watching a documentary about tort lawsuits (I think it was titled “Hot Coffee”?) where in the latter half of the movie, a family had been supporting a pro-tort-reform candidate. The candidate was elected, the reform happened, and the family shortly thereafter suffered some kind of injury for which they tried to sue. And wouldn’t you know it, the very tort reform their supported candidate had implemented was the reform that prevented their lawsuit from going forward. I was torn between pity and exasperation as one parent explained that sure, they’d voted for that leopard, but how were they supposed to know it would eat their faces?

Expand full comment
Nemo's avatar

Gov. Shitt is simply responding to Steve Bannon's Great Commission: He's flooding the zone with shitt.

Expand full comment
fair_n_hite_451's avatar

Surely he'll be know as Governor Shitt now, right?

Expand full comment
Cakes We Like's avatar

I've just realised that thus month is the Green Day gig. I guess I'd best get July's baking blog written up sooner rather than later.

Expand full comment
marydn's avatar

I think a better place for Tyson to dump their chicken shit would be on the gov's lawn but what do I know?

Expand full comment
Zap's avatar

I'd prefer his plate.

Expand full comment
UnDrewsual's avatar

Now THIS is a story the Dems should be flooding the airwaves with in Oklahoma come the gubernatorial race. Flood it like the gov floods their water with literal chicken shit

Expand full comment
jte's avatar

Nice thought, but for 90% of Oklahoma voters, chicken shit in their water < Gunz!! Save the feetuses! And did we mention gunz? Gunz and Jeezus!

I don't think the governor is sweating this decision one bit.

Expand full comment
UnDrewsual's avatar

It's all in how you frame it. The "outdoorsmen" types will not like the idea of not being able to fish because the fish are all dead. And they already freak out about "them" putting "stuff" in their drinking water. Here, they can tell them that the companies are dumping literal shit into their drinking water.

Expand full comment
Zyxomma's avatar

Ta, Robyn. My dead roommate's former business partner was fond of saying, in his grumbly bass voice, "I know the difference between chicken shit and chicken salad." One day I answered him, "But do you know the difference between chicken salad and pigeon salad?" He had no answer.

Expand full comment
Bitter Scribe's avatar

Less white meat in pigeon salad, I'm guessing.

Expand full comment