'Cost-saver' in industrial livestock agriculture may usually be taken to mean 'moral shortcut.'

The truth is that at the White House and in Congress, you are as likely to find sympathy for animal issues among Republicans as among Democrats.

I have no doubt that President George W. Bush - a man, in my experience, of extremely kind and generous instincts, and back in Austin even a rescuer of stray animals - would be appalled by the conditions of a typical American factory farm or packing plant.

Factory farming, like comparable evils throughout history, depends for its existence upon concealment. It depends on people either not noticing or willfully averting their gaze.

In the summer or fall of 1974, I read some books about factory farming, and decided that I wanted no part of it.

I did attend Catholic schools up to the ninth grade, and I admire much in the Catholic Church.