Occupation: Gay: The dangers of chickens and cows and people

Yikes! This video was part of a special by Jamie Oliver exposing the practices of the chicken industry and has put me off chicken. I will never buy eggs that aren't free range again. Before watching this show I didn't even know what free-range meant or why it was beneficial. Consumers have an option:

#1- To get the cheapest possible eggs, "farmers" put chickens four to a pen, these chickens do not have the ability to stand and frequently have the bone on their leg exposed by rubbing against the cage. They lay there for a year, then are decapitated, plucked and put in a vice, where everything that comes out (bone, skin, meat, everything) is turned into chicken fingers and chicken wieners. Disgusting.

#2- Free range chickens are kept in a pen and free to lay eggs whenever they want. For a few cents more an egg, they get exercise, interaction with other chickens and to play (they like brightly coloured objects, like a red soccer ball).

These animals are not machines and we can't continue treating them like this. Let the chickens stand up! Whenever I do have the ability to eat chicken again, free-range is it. No Swiss Chalet, no KFC, demand change!

So I've been eating a lot of beef and tuna, a video surfaced the other day causing officials to recall 143 million pounds of beef. I don't plan on posting the video as it's too much to watch but you can click it if you want. It appears cattle can't be killed for food unless they can stand so the video shows workers torturing the cows into standing and running over their legs and face with a forklift.

I can understand the mentality, when discussing the chicken problem today no one was really interested, and I can understand the thinking "We're going to eat it anyway" but really how can we condone this to save a few cents?

An interesting side effect of this video was the comments, which have all been removed, saying things like "This is what happens when you hire illegal immigrant workers". And I'll admit, I was thinking a version of the same thing. Is it that you don't want to believe someone like you could do this? None of the workers immigration status were called into question.

I've had a couple experiences lately with my own prejudice I wanted to share. I was at the archives sitting around talking with a few gay men and one of them, a guy about 50, said he picked up a young guy at the gym. Others started probing "What did he look like?" and I was kind of curious. This guy isn't bad looking but he's not Zac Efron, so what did the younger guy have wrong with him? So the fellow says "He was Guinease...." and I was like "Oh, that's why." In my mind that was what was wrong with him, he wasn't white, and therefore the mystery had been solved. This thought process disturbed me and has stuck with me.

I was talking to a coworker today, telling her this story, and she suggested maybe it was because of my personal preference, that I wasn't attracted to non-whites. But is this ok? On a dating profile, could I put "white only" and not risk sounding like Hitler? Or could I expand it, to include whites and acceptable races like Black and Spanish? The whole idea makes my head explode. She asked if I would date an Asian raised in Canada, and I thought of one I know and said no, we could date but it wouldn't go anywhere. The differences would be too great. What happens when he takes me home to meet his parents and they're all sitting on the floor eating rice with chopsticks and his mom has chopsticks in her hair and they bow to greet me. Won't I feel different?