Various Ways to Serve Food

Lately UC Davis has been in the news rather a lot, in conjunction with recent news stories involving students being sprayed with pepper spray.

Many watchers of cable TV news know what FOX News hosts clarified today: pepper spray is a form of food. Remember, if you're the sort of person who would willingly eat a pepper, you shouldn't complain when you're hit in the face by a burst of pepper spray. In essence, these students were just being given free snacks.

Sure, pepper spray might burn your eyes. But people eat peppers because they like the burning, right?

Unless some of those kids don't like spicy food. Then it was just assault.



When I was a kid, I used to watch a lot of Nick at Nite. One show in their rotation was Alfred Hitchcock Presents. One of AHP's most famous episodes was 'Lamb to the Slaughter', which I realize now was based on a Roald Dahl short story.

'Lamb to the Slaughter' is about a woman who kills her husband by cracking his skull with a frozen leg of lamb. She calls the police and reports that she came home to find her husband lying dead on the floor.

Detectives come by to inspect the crime scene. However, they remark to each other that the man's death will probably remain unsolved as long as they lack a murder weapon... as they eat the leg of lamb the woman has prepared for them.

Let's look at this plot from a modern, FOX News-informed sensibility. From our perspective, what's happened here is that the woman served her husband food in an unorthodox manner. His system couldn't take it, and he died. But remember, all the woman was doing was giving him a form of food. Just like getting hit with pepper spray.

Unless the man was a vegetarian. Then it was murder.