Listener Letters: Lima Beans vs. Butter Beans, and the Miracle of Birth
SEPTEMBER 8, 2007 Listen to this Story
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We hear from listeners about the stories Weekend America has aired, from lima beans to the miracle of birth, listeners sound off.
Listeners Wrote:
Never have I been more outraged than with the report that a state fair was featuring animals giving birth in a colliseum atmosphere, with hundreds of lookers-on. But when the story went on to broadcast the chaotic noise in a large building filled with people and to say that a pig in labor was in a plexiglass tub and was "biting the bars," I had to turn off the radio.
Pigs especially are intelligent, sensitive animals with the same needs as a human giving birth: comfortable surroundings, solitude, subdued lighting, and freedom of movement. Whoever designed such an unthinkable experience for a defenseless animal has no compassion for the living. Giving birth is difficult and painful. In addition to that, this pig got to undergo the experience in an atmosphere of noise and chaos under the stare of hundreds of moving, leering people. She spent the day in fright and constraint. No wonder she was biting the bars! It's enough to drive a sensitive creature insane. And this, just to provide amusement in the guise of education, when they could just as well be educated by photos or video.
Please rethink this next year. Have a nature photographer film the birth, unseen from behind a glass wall in one end of the animal's stall. Animals deserve peace during their miracle of birth.
Sherry Stafford
Raleigh, N.C.
[Senator Larry Craig's] arrest was NOT a waste of police time. The very reason the sting was under way was because there had been a long string of complaints of offensive acts taking place in Minneapolis airport restrooms. The traveling public have a right to sanitary restroom facilities without being confronted by sexual activity being conducted in a public lavatory.
Jim Long
Portland, Ore.
I love butter beans and I love limas. But the same they are not. Our butter beans are creamy yellow and, well, buttery! Limas are pale green and delicious too, but in a slightly sharper way. My Food Companion says you are right, but this Tennessean knows better.
Carolyn Towles
Winter Springs, Fla.
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- Music Bridge:
- Hi-Fi Gets A Pounding Pt. 3
- Artist: Dub Syndicate
- CD: The Pounding System (On U Sound)
Comments
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From huntington, IN, 01/16/2010
We love butter beans. I agree with Carolyn Towles, that butter beans are
very different than lima beans.
Does anyone know where we can find seed
for the old fashioned butter beans.
Wanda Dreyer
Huntington, In.
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