NY TIMES CRITIC - No Fun Steakhouse in NYC - and where's a good CONCENTRATION CAMP?

Not enough bloodlust in fun city?

The New York Times food critic (who apparently uses a crotchety old Muppet man for an avatar so that restaurants won't identify him when he sits down) gave ZERO stars to a famous murder-for-fun place. Er, steakhouse.

In another century, when blacks didn't have their Civil Rights and gays couldn't marry and women couldn't sue for sexual abuse at the workplace, STEAK HOUSES were very popular.

What could be better for some obnoxious blubber-lipped accountant, or a group of sleazy hedge fund weasels, or guffawing loudmouth bankers or sports personalities, than to go to a STEAK HOUSE?

"THICK, MEDIUM RARE, smothered in onions and mushrooms...and POTATOES. No string beans! And let's start with BEER!"

Top it off with a stinking cigar afterwards.

Somehow, this is not everybody's idea of a good time anymore. Having a heart attack and a stroke reduces your ability to throw your weight around at the office.

Just as the Nuremburg Trials and documentary footage of concentration camps took some of the joy out of "The Final Solution," it seems that common sense and a few photos have led people to understand the brutality and stupidity that is involved with putting a steak on your plate.

Cows, sheep and pigs are not very different from cats, dogs and horses. They are intelligent. They can be loyal. They can feel pain.

If you wouldn't kill your cat and have it for dinner, why do that to a rabbit or a lamb?

Why not do it to your next door neighbor? Or as Michael Flanders pointed out (in "The Reluctant Cannibal") if we aren't supposed to eat people, why are we made out of meat?

The bottom line is we should do what we can. Most people don't want to look at PETA's horror pictures. They don't want to read Rolling Stone when the article is about pig shit leaking into and polluting lakes near hog farms. They usually prefer their meat to NOT look like where it came from. Better that it be a burger instead.

No, I do NOT walk around in plastic shoes. But I don't eat meat. It took a while. Same for Paul McCartney who sat on his farm eating some lamb. He looked out at his flock of sheep and realized, "I'm eating somebody's shoulder."

We mourn a lot of traditions, and we fret that we are losing some good old customs. We can do without steak houses. Just like we can do without concentration camps.