So, on October 1st, Joe was overwhelmed in the JP court with some half dozen Harris County attorneys LINED up at the bench across from him. He agreed to give up over 1,000 animals, his home (in which he had substantial equity), essentially his business and his life; leaving him without the means to make his living. Remember this is a livestock case and they held the family dogs hostage to get this deal done apparently because they have some bizarre objection to selling chickens in their live state. I dunno, I grew up where we raised chickens (and horror of horrors, we raised them in chicken coups OUTSIDE), killed them at home, cooked them up for dinner so I guess I think this is better than having them cramped in tiny cages, fattened up artificially, stuffed with drugs to make them grow faster and fatter, then killed assembly line style. We've all seen those pictures but that's not who these Harris County thugs go after. They go after the small businessman who is raising chickens for sale at, gasp, a "flea market" because he's desperately trying to support his children in a really lousy economy.
Oh, but that's not enough for the County thugs. According to the on-line court records, they filed 2 criminal charges against Joe on October 7th; then dropped them on the 8th. Thinking maybe they decided enough was enough? No, they were merely playing their little torture routine. They re-filed the same charges again on October8th. The hearing is at 9 AM in the 11th Criminal District Court, 1201 Franklin, on the 10th floor.
Despite the Houston Chronicle's as usual one-sided portrayal of this story, I was heartened to see several who commented as I did on the unfairness of how Joe is being treated. You need only search the Chronicle's archives to see the sudden increase in the number of obituaries asking for memorial donations to the SPCA to see what's in it for the Houston SPCA who, while San Francisco's SPCA is having to cut staff and reduce hours due to the economic downturn, is advertising to hire a staff veterinarian and Accountant/Payroll Administrator. My goodness, donations must indeed be up, way up, probably from their, IMO, theft of Joe's property. They certainly are not wasting time getting staffed up so they can proceed with more of these seizures of our property, our animals, our livelihoods. We may suffer from the economy but the Houston SPCA has no intentions of not profiting, er, not increasing the wealth of non-profiting.
I'll have more to say on flea markets later. For now, I'd like to point out our lovely Texas FM roads. For those who don't know and haven't slowed down enough to read the signs, FM stands for Farm-to-Market Road. These roads were originally intended to make it easier for farmers to get their products to markets. You know, back when they were allowed and encouraged to do that, when we wanted fresh produce and meat, before we were deluded by advertisers that commercial farming alone is what we should all depend on because they swore they'd maintain the quality while saving us all money. How's that turning out for you? Me, not so great. I see quality steadily declining while prices just keep going up. Flea market is used as a derogatory term but it describes what is left of our direct from producer to end customer market system. Many of them in and around Houston are a cross between the traditional flea market and a farmers' market. It is critical that we protect these markets rather than be forced and coerced into not rearing and raising our own food, into not buying directly from the producer, into buying from the commercial marketeers who pay the least possible to producers and charge the maximum they can get away with to us.