Tofu Kills

I love these yo-yos with the frizzy hair, granola-flecked beards and wire-rimmed glasses who like to "get back to nature." They think it means sitting around on a communal farm with a little fawn in your lap, eating organic tofu, listening to Yanni and sighing dreamily while watching your female mate (with the fuzzy underarms and tie-dyed Mu-Mu) petting a Manatee ( which taste like pork, BTW).

Jab a harpoon in that Manatee, bash the fawn’s skull to bone splinters with the nearest stick, then rip into them with your canines (that’s what they’re for, upper and lower). Then swallow him raw.

Now THAT, my friends, is man, (homo sapiens ) REALLY "getting back to nature," and especially, his nature. Notice, I’m not saying to actually do those things now. I’m just saying that to be true to your professed goal of "getting back to nature" that would be a place to start – if facts count.

Of course, with pinks and greens, they don’t. Their godparents, the outright Reds, love to rewrite history. They don’t like what it says about us. They turn the whole thing on it’s head. The pinks and greens simply cut and paste the cutesy and sentimental parts they like, creating a montage of utter idiocy, something to provoke smiles and applause on Oprah or Rosie, which is to say: utter, undiluted bunk.

Unlike any herbivore’s, our stomach secretes hydrochloric acid. That acid means our stomach breaks down Bambi in no time – much faster than any tofu, which is as unnatural a food for homo sapiens as granola. Our digestive track is more akin to a Leopard or Wolf’s than to Gorilla’s. Live with it.

But this upsets greenies. They turn away from facts, sniffling, with lips quivering, like my wife and daughter watching an "abused" woman on Oprah or Sally Jessie. Then they lie and cover up. They write books bulging with bilge about our "vegetarian past."

Complete hogwash, at least in the last 2,500,000 years. Had we kept eating alfalfa sprouts and bamboo shoots we’d be gorillas today. Instead we started hunting.

"The distinctive human brain evolved in consequence of predatory co-operative hunting." That’s Chicago University anthropologist W. S. Laughlin.

"Fifty percent of the fatty acids that make up our central nervous system are only available in meat." That’s not the Beef Council or The Texas Cattleman’s Association. That’s Britain’s Nuffield Institute of Comparative medicine. Our brains ballooned when we started hunting.

Now it’s reversing. I’m not kidding. Anthropologists say our brain and skeletal size has actually shrunk since the agricultural revolution, since we shifted from a primarily carnivorous to primarily herbivorous diet (most of us, that is).

The human brain has shrunk by 8 per cent in the last 10,000 years. As a general rule carnivorous animals have much larger brains (for their size) than stupid herbivores. Makes sense. We had to figure out how to catch them and whack 'em. This applies even within animal families. Chimps are smarter than Gorillas, because chimps hunt and eat more red meat than the ugly, stupid Gorilla. We keep listening to the greenies and we’ll turn into cows or sheep. Which is, of course, what they want.

If you don’t like these facts, fine. Don’t hunt, don’t eat meat. Who’s forcing you to? It’s not us hunters or carnivores dictating a lifestyle to you greenies; we don’t give a flip what you eat. It’s you nagging us to death.

On Politically Incorrect last time I was surrounded by Tofu-eaters. The lynch mob Bill Maher always gathers against right-wingers ain’t the half of it. It’s the studio audience that lends the Roman Coliseum aspect to the thing. Adolf Eichmann had more sympathy from the audience at his trial than I ever had from the audience on Politically Incorrect.

But that’s fine. I know that going in. I’ve heard some crybabies whining about it. Then don’t go, I say. As for me, I love it. I always had a ball out there, three times last year. Here’s a young southern California crowd. You hear clichés about these Hollywood types. Meet them in person, actually see their goofy smiles, their vacant stares, actually listen to the twaddle that issues from their mouths – it’s unreal. I’m glad I saw it in person, otherwise I’d never believe such creatures existed.

This yokel from flyover America had to break some hideous news to these West Coast geniuses: where tofu came from. Yes kiddies it comes from soybeans. And who knows where soybeans come from?... "You there, little Tommy (MTV Comedian Tom Green actually, who sat across from me) Can you tell the class where soybeans come from?"

"Well, that’s true little Tommy but prior to that.....okay I’ll tell you: they clear-cut old growth hardwoods (the very trees you people find most huggable) in the Mississippi Delta, crushing thousands of cute little squirrels and bunny rabbits (the very little nose-twitching cuties you see in PETA posters) in the process, and destroying their habitat forever.

"On NO!" Little Tommy was crushed. "Does that really happen, Mommy!" He turned to Bill, who smirked. Get your nature lessons from bumper stickers in Starbuck’s parking lots, and sure, this stuff seems shocking.

I exaggerate just a little here. Actually Tom Green was pretty sensible. He didn’t bash me on the head repeatedly like Florence Henderson (who sat next to me) shrieking.

"SHUT UP! HUMBERTO!...SHUT UP! CALM DOWN FOR HEAVENS SAKE!!" while pounding the back of my neck with her clenched fists.

Alas, Mrs Brady (a " lovely lady" indeed. And a truly charming one) turned out to be the closest thing to an ally I had on the show. My mom and sisters and wife all flipped when I came back with her autograph for them. "Love and kisses! Carol Brady." With a nice little drawn heart. "Oh How SWEEEEET!" they chirped.

My teen-aged sons and daughter freaked when I came back with Tom Green’s autograph for them. "Dad we LOVE Tom Green! Why were you so mean to him!"

Nice, hunh? Not enough that the entire panel and studio audience wanted my head. They were rooting against me in my own living room! I love it out there. Turns out neither Tom nor Mrs Brady were vegetarians. Indeed Green boasted about his lust for Big Macs. But he dislikes hunters. He hires a hit on his meat. I make my own hits, thank you, like Mikey Corleone in that restaurant.

"Mad Cowboy" Howard Lyman (who got Oprah to make her famous crack about not eating another hamburger) a hard-core vegan, sat next to Tom Green. He called me an illiterate and a dope-fiend. That’s the only way I could believe that meat was good for me. Howard doesn’t wear leather, only cotton. He’s all proud of his "non-violent" lifestyle.

He was a rancher, for heavens sake. Doesn’t he know where cotton comes from? It’s planted much the same way as soybean. If these people could see the mass beheadings, dismemberments and mutilations of cute furry creatures – the ghastly carnage under those plows, combines and bulldozers.... Hell, Joni Mitchell would write a song advocating paving paradise with Parking lots rather than growing Tofu. Hell, Chrissie Hynde would write one advocating strip malls rather than cotton fields.

Like I told them out in La-La land: "I used to hunt a little stretch of old hardwoods in central Louisiana. Then the land was cleared for soybean and cotton production. Those bulldozers and plows clearing the way for your Tofu and tie-dyed t-shirts killed more animals in two weeks than I whacked out in ten years with shotgun, rifle and bow. Put that in your PETA pipe and smoke it.

And oh....you Tofu-eaters? Please don’t sick the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on me just yet. I only heard that Manatees taste like pork – heard it from my Cuban country cousin. Manatees were common in Cuba. My cousin’s state food rations were pretty meager. Hope you understand.

Now he lives in south Florida, owns a repair shop. The guy can fix anything, had his 57 chevy running in Cuba till he hopped on that raft just ahead of Castro’s Gestapo. Remember Tony Montana? "I kill Communists for free, for money I really carve 'em up." (Is that a scream! Oliver Stone thought he was insulting us with that movie!)Well, my cousin Antonio really carved a few up – but for free. He couldn’t help it. He’s not a party member so he couldn’t own a gun over there. What the hell was he supposed to use on the bastards who confiscated his farm and executed his brothers in cold blood?

Fortunately I’d sent him a hunting knife. He put it to superb use. Then he jumped on that raft. After ten years and he’s getting the hang of life here, don’t worry. But there’s always a few slip-ups. Recently I grabbed Antonio in a bone bruising chokehold. "Toni! Put it down, Carajo!" I grunted. "DOWN CHICO! No more of that crap!"

We were boating on the Crystal River and his mouth started watering at the creatures lumbering through the water all around us. He grabbed my speargun and was going over the side when I seized him by the neck. "Come on, CHICO! Behave! You’re an American now! People are watching! You want 'em to think Pete Brimelow’s right about us?!"

Humberto Fontova [send him mail] holds an M.A. in History from Tulane University. He’s the author of Helldiver’s Rodeo described as "Highly entertaining!" by Publisher’s Weekly, as "Terrific!" by Salon.com, and as "Just what the doctor ordered!" by Ted Nugent.