a couple of nights ago I saw ' Earthlings, ' narrated by uber vegan Joaquin Phoenix, a documentary about factory farms, slaughterhouses and general animal mistreatment.

Ok, so, I have to say I'm a bit of a cynic about agenda films. Never swallow anything whole. Especially anything that involves PETA, which is notorious for throwing logic out of the window concerning the relationship between people & animals. (No pets at all, even seeing eye dogs, par example)

Howeva..
This was a pretty straightfoward attempt to give the wider world a glimpse into exactly what you're buying into when you pick up that pound of ground beef at the supermarket. Or bacon. Or eyedrops, band-aids, and tampons.

There's several other sections concerning overpopulation of dogs/cats, bullfighting, and to be honest I haven't seen the last 20 mins because I can only watch it in small doses.

I don't want to urge people to watch it, because, frankly, I do have misgivings that it was endorsed by PETA and after awhile it's so upsetting and gruesome you start to feel like a sicko for watching.

But it's influenced me to make the decsion to stop eating meat. I don't believe eating meat is wrong per se, but the until the conditions these animals live in improves, I'm just not up for it. Maybe some organic free range chicken, but that's it.

It's availiable on youtube in 10 minute sections, just search for earthlings and you'll see it arranged into parts. The titles are in spanish and there's spanish subtitiles.

I wish there was some other organization other than PETA that I could get involved in because I will join it, donate time and money, whatever.