All the talk of PETA recently avoids the real issue that is important: animal cruelty. 

As a vegan, I don’t respect PETA’s radical statements and irresponsible advertising techniques, but I understand the reasons for concern. 

As a responsible society, we should be purchasing environmentally sustainable plant-based foods and cruelty-free foods without animal products. 

I’m not saying that everyone should become vegan instantaneously, but the animals you consume, regardless of how raised, are slaughtered for your taste buds when there are perfectly healthy alternatives. 

There is no difference between dogs, cows, chickens and pigs, and we should respect life in such a way that doesn’t involve cramming them into small spaces, killing them while they are still babies, and genetically modifying them so they can’t move.

Check out what our local stores and restaurants have to offer — you would be surprised by how many veggie-friendly places there are in Athens.

Ashley Braid

Senior, Richmond Hill

Nutrition science

Inaccurate article in PETA debate

Several points are not accurate in the responses to the “Is Meat Desirable” debate. The issue is not PETA; the debate’s purpose was to question meat production’s ethical standing in today’s society. Besides this, several “facts” in Ward Black’s column were incorrect.

The Humane Slaughter Act does not cover all processing facilities, and is also a very dated law that has not been touched since 1958 (so much for improvements in animal handling.)

Indoor systems do not protect animals nor do they create cleaner healthier environments. Animals are knee-deep in their own excrement, causing outbreaks of diseases and sores. Beyond this, the Audubon Society reports 70 percent of the grain grown in the U.S. is used by the meat industry. 

This means that if people worldwide switched to an almost purely vegetarian diet, 6.26 billion people would be supported, versus the 3.16 billion supported with animal products.

Michelle Hunsicker

Sophomore

 Warner Robins

Anthropology

Contact senators abut Patriot Act 

The Patriot Act is set to expire within months and is being promoted by the administration for renewal.

We should allow the Patriot act to perish. It is the worst infringement on our civil liberties currently, it gives way to an expansive police/surveillance state which actually creates black markets and crime.

What America needs to fight “terrorism” is the Constitution, an independent judiciary and strong juries. Individual jurors go a lot further in adjudicating justice than pre-emptive, subjective spy-ware used by a powerful and coercive executive branch.

The 4th Amendment has been assailed continuously by the aggressive thoughts of Big Brother and heavy government.  

Early Americans promoted “innocent until proven guilty;” now most Americans are indifferent about civic judicial systems and fall to shouts of “safety” and “prevention.”

Here’s to hoping y’all will call Saxby and Johnny, as I do, and instruct them to not re-authorize the “Patriot Act”

Carter Kessler

Senior, Eatonton

Economics

No need for abuse in political cartoon

I have absolutely no love for Sarah Palin. It would be a travesty if she were ever again elected to any political office in any jurisdiction in this country.  

However, I am appalled by the editorial cartoon showing her swinging Trig around by his hair. 

She does, I believe, exploit her children for her own political ends, but nothing I have ever heard about her suggests she abuses them.  

Couldn’t the cartoonist have made his point without showing a graphic picture of child physical abuse?

Ann Puckett

Professor of Law

Director of the Law Library 

University of Georgia 

Health insurance should be a right 

I find myself writing this letter confined to bed rest due to a recent spinal fracture, an outcome from a mostly exhilarating Friday evening of sledding (“card-boarding” might be more accurate terminology.)

Because of the financial, emotional and social stability of my home life, the only worry will be my physical recovery — as it should be.

Of course, others my age have been in similar situations, but made poor parental “choices.” Theirs could’ve involved a lack of a steady income, an absent father, a laid-off mother, or, well … no living parents at all.  

Apply a broken vertebra — or any predicament — to this situation: quandary becomes catastrophe.

Yet I, because of a fortunate background, am more deserving of economic stability and neurosurgery because my father can afford health insurance? Ludicrous.

So when I hear someone such as Stuart Kingsley protesting about some in the government believing that “we ‘should’ want universal health care,” I am, at the very least, disturbed by this obvious moral deficiency. 

We, as a society, seemingly cannot even consider maintaining the health of our citizens a top ethical priority. I’m beyond outraged.

Of course, maybe that’s the painkillers — that I’m able to afford — talking.

Alan Reese

Junior, Savannah

Music performance and Music theory