Animals

Time For The Animals Even as a cloud of savagery, evidenced by the misfortunes of war, hangs over our world, humanity has lately begun to demonstrate an astonishing degreee of civility in at least one very important respect, that being the manner in which we treat our animals - specifically, the animals we raise for food. In just the last few months, unprecedented strides have been taken in this country to improve the welfare of pigs, cattle, chickens, and ducks who've been forced for many years to endure miserable and agonizing lives Time For The Animals. Granted, the bulk of these efforts still lies ahead of us, but first steps have, unequivocally, been taken - steps which only a short time ago wouldn't have been thought to be so quickly achieved. A Time for the Animals I guess it all began in August of last year when the foie gras ban was enacted in Chicago Time For The Animals. Who'd have thought, huh? While California's 2004 ban on production wouldn't actually go into effect until 2012, the Chicago law was designed to take effect almost immediately. Of course, it was ballyhooed, scoffed at, derided. Even the city's mayor called it the "silliest" law the city council had ever passed, but detractors notwithstanding, the statute was on the books. And in March of this year, we were shown that even a silly law could be enforced when the first citation was handed down, a guilty plea entered, and the fine paid. Like I said, who'd have thought? Then came Arizona's Proposition 204, designed to do away with caged imprisonment of pigs and veal calves and approved overwhelmingly by the state's voters. Though Florida had passed a similar law in 2002, it was the Arizona bill which grabbed our nation's attention, prompting forecasts of even more initiatives forthcoming in a number of other states - possibly as soon as 2008 Time For The Animals. The biggest and most recent gains, however, have come from the corporate community. Following in the footsteps of grocery retailers like Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe's, as well as Internet icons AOL and Google, ice cream manufacturer Ben and Jerry's announced in September of 2006 its intention to adopt a cage free policy for its entire product line. Then, in January of 2007, Burgerville, with a chain of popular restaurants in the Northwest, also officially turned its back on battery cage eggs. In late January, Smithfield, the nation's largest producer of pork, began [...]