A Post in the Key of Random

• In the lastest East Village Mamele column in the Forward, Marjorie Ingall talks about many important issues related to keeping kosher. Amusingly, she starts off, "I’m having a crisis of conscience about kashrut. (For some reason I want to write 'krisis of konscience about kashrut,' because it sounds vaguely like a hardcore band that would play headbanging songs about kale. But I suppose fans would want to call them by their initials, and that would really not be kool.)" Check it out.
• The Israeli Web site PetKaput.com features a rather gruesome animated video showing an animal skinning humans that's a takeoff of Chinese fur farmers' skinning of animals. Read more about it on The PETA Files.
• In May, the Jewish Exponent ran an article about Farm Sanctuary founder Gene Baur. Says Baur, "Farmers have lost their connection with the earth and small farmers, forced to get big or get out -- a mantra that began in the 1950s in the U.S. -- have been pushed out by corporate factory farming that is profitable in the short term, but harmful in the long term."
• I have a letter to the editor about the AgriProcessors scandal in this week's issue of the Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh:

It was gratifying to read that Giant Eagle has stopped selling Agriprocessors meat in the wake of a scandal that has revealed unethical labor practices. The world’s largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse has also come into the spotlight in recent years for environmental degradation and tsa’ar ba’alei chayim (unnecessary animal suffering), including ripping the tracheas out of the throats of still-conscious cows.

Giant Eagle has stopped selling Agriprocessors meat, and the Conservative movement has called on Jews to evaluate whether they want to support the corrupt business practices of Agriprocessors. Kosher consumers should take things one step further and decide if they really want to support the meat industry, which is inherently exploitative of animals. The cruel factory farms are the same in the kosher meat industry as for animals killed for non-kosher meat, and mass industrialized animal agriculture does not prioritize individual animals’ welfare.