|
Thanks from Behind the Bars—A Jail Mail Excerpt
Due to the overwhelming amount of support I have received from newfound
friends around the world, I am, for the time being, severely limited by
time and finances from personally responding to everyone individually.
I have received letters from well over 300 different people in the first
month of incarceration, and from many of you, multiple missives. This outpouring
of support has been a lifesaver and has served as my crutch when feeling
emotionally or mentally strained. Thank you!
All in all I’m doing okay and this is in no small part due to your constant
letters. I also appreciate how many of you have taken to supporting my family,
especially my doggies. Words cannot begin to describe how grateful I am for everything
you’ve all done, and trust me, I am keeping a list of everyone who’s
been a friend so I can send you an invitation to my early-release party hopefully
coming soon!
Kevin Kjonaas
SHAC7
Standing Up For Cage-Free
Last issue’s article, [“Truthiness is Stranger Than Fiction: The
Hidden Cost of Selling the Public on ‘Cage-Free’ Eggs” by James
LaVeck, February 2007], criticizing the effort to ban battery cages argued that
it’s an overstatement to call most cage-free eggs “cruelty-free,” a
position with which I agree. That said, it is also misleading to imply that birds
aren’t immensely better off out of cages than confined in them.
We shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, which is what
we do when we oppose efforts to ban the most egregious factory farming cruelties.
Lamenting the anti-battery cage campaign, the president of the United Egg
Producers declared that, “It is imperative that animal agriculture look beyond 2007
and recognize we are at war.” Even more, the egg industry’s spokesperson
described HSUS’s anti-battery cage campaign as the “biggest problem
facing the industry.”
Because of this campaign, factory farming interests see themselves “at
war” with us. I agree with the conclusion of LaVeck’s article
that each of us will be guided by our own conscience as to where we stand.
I want
an end to farm animal cruelty as much as anyone, but I am also not willing
to allow millions of animals who we all know with certainty will be used
in the
next few years to endure worse cruelty than they have to.
Paul Shapiro
The Humane Society of the United States
| |
|
|
| © STEALTH TECHNOLOGIES INC. |
|
|
