Vegetarianism: We are animals, slaughterhouse webcams, and Morrissey

My weekly series on vegetarianism is winding down. I'm exhausting the ideas and reasons I have for being a vegetarian that I haven't seen written elsewhere. Next week I'll write about eating people and what circumstances would lead me to start eating animals again. In the meantime, here are some other articles and links.

1. Laphams Quarterly: One of Us. A good article for Christians and the religious. This article takes"humans are animals" to new levels with religious tie-ins further into the article.

In the New Testament... there’s that exquisite verse, one of the most beautiful in the Bible, the one that says if God cares deeply about sparrows, don’t you think He cares about you? One is so accustomed to dwelling on the second, human, half of the equation, the comforting part, but when you put your hand over that and consider only the first, it’s a little startling: God cares deeply about the sparrows. Not just that, He cares about them individually...

2. NY Times: Open the Slaughterhouses. New laws might make it illegal for people to investigate slaughterhouses by posing as workers. This editorial suggests transparency.

Opponents might compare this proposal to bills that require women to view images of their fetuses before having an abortion. The resemblance is misleading. Those laws intrude on intimate, difficult decisions involving a constitutional right. In contrast, open-slaughterhouse laws would not force anyone to look at anything. They would just increase our resources for thinking and arguing. A teenager debating her parents at the dinner table, or a parishioner discussing the ethics of eating meat with fellow church members, would be able to pull out a cellphone or laptop to support his or her arguments.

3. Morrissey Quotes on animal activism

(Eating meat) is really on the same moral level as child abuse. It’s the same thing. Animals are like children, they look to us for protection. We should protect them. I really feel quite smug about mad cow disease and foot and mouth and so forth, and I just think ‘Well, what do you expect? People have been saying it for years.

4. Not necessarily about vegetarianism, but my wife (who is a vegan) is in the first stages of health coaching. See her page here. Interesting fact, BetterYou.com is for sale starting at $9,500. My wife bought BetterYouHealthCoaching.com for... (drumroll)... $1.