Bruce Springsteen is a Vegetarian

Bruce Springsteen is 'mostly' vegetarian, and is in excellent health as he approaches his 63rd birthday.

Link: http://www.examiner.com/article/bruce-springsteen-turns-63-his-age-defying-diet-and-workout-secrets

PBS NewsHour: Shrimp Exporters in Thailand Exploiting Workers

It's a fact that the most dangerous, underpaid, and low-status jobs in the world are in food production - with an emphasis on danger for workers in producing animal products.  Here's an interesting story to check out if you still are eating shrimp.  The U.S., for example, imports 250,000 pounds of shrimp from Thailand a year.

Link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/july-dec12/thaishrimp_09-20.html

Lori Gruen, feminist, philosopher, and ethicist to speak about Animal Rights at UW-Madison TONIGHT (Fri. Sept. 14)

"In light of her most recent book, Ethics and Animals: An Introduction, Lori Gruen will be presenting at Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

Lori Gruen has been involved in animal issues as a writer, teacher, and activist for over 25 years. Her relationships with scholars thinking about animals, activists working to protect animals, and, perhaps most importantly, with many different animals, uniquely inform her perspective on how we need to rethink our engagement with other animals."

Link:  http://www.science.wisc.edu/events-forum-on-animal-research-ethics.htm

McDonalds to Open First All-Vegetarian Restaurant

The shop, which McDonalds says it is their first non-meat restaurant, will be opened in northern India.

Yuck.

Link:  http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2012/09/04/mcdonalds-to-open-veggie-only-restaurant-in-india/

Swine Flu Hits Wisconsin

Sadly, just as Republicans have attacked nearly every sector of our public health and safety infrastructure (including the political appointment of a Texan with no public health degree to run the Dept. of Health Services public health office) - Wisconsin now has swine flu.  Scale things back more, and I'm sure that the result will be more of these outbreaks.

Link:  http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/health_med_fit/state-swine-flu-cases-now-at-linked-to-pigs-at/article_974982b0-f2d4-11e1-964f-0019bb2963f4.html

Federal Judge in Kansas Quashes PETA Film Showing at State Fair

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and PETA have lost a free speech lawsuit demanding the ability to show slaughterhouse and factory farm conditions in a 15 minute film narrated by Sir Paul McCartney at the Kansas State Fair.

Kansas had argued that showing the footage would be akin to showing war footage or aborted babies.

Really?  I thought we considered animals to be different from humans.

Here is the film in its entirety - what is Kansas really trying to hide?


http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL2E8K49T820120904