Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses.

It is dangerous to engage in even the most innocuous-seeming discourse with the FBI/ Homeland Security/ a local detective.

Anybody who witnesses the suffering of animals and has a glimmer of hope of reducing that suffering can't take the position that it's all or nothing. We have to be pragmatic. Screw the principle.

I hope SeaWorld is exploring how, like Ringling, it can get out of the wild animal business.

Being asked to support humane meat means being asked to support the suffering of animals in transport, to approve of treatment that causes them palpable fear, their bodies shaking and their eyes wide as saucers, as they are slung by their legs into crates that are slammed onto the back of a truck.

Animals aren't any better equipped to survive an emergency than humans are. Few people missed the fact that after Hurricane Katrina, people died because buses and emergency shelters wouldn't allow their animals.

It's interesting that one of the definitions of the word "human" is "sympathetic." More and more people are beginning to show that they understand why that is important.