Would You Like Those Eggs Free or Caged?

So...Sunday night/early morning I awoke to the fact that my stomach was at odds with me and wanted to have words so to say....I spent many an hour laying on the bathroom floor waiting for the next conversation if you will....it was very delightful and from what the doctor can tell I had some "bacterial infection". Lovely. So needless to say I have been home for the last two days...sleeping mostly...phenergan will do that to you...its really the wonder drug. I feel like a new person now and am ready to get back at it....but on my days off I caught up on some daytime t.v....well really only the second day...the first day was hard to do anything that caused me to have to focus...the moment things came into focus I collapsed out of exhaustion....anyway...back to the story...it reminded me of growing up when you missed school for being sick and you discovered that there were ALL these shows that came on DURING the day....my thought was always...Who gets to watch these....everyone is at school or work?!? This was before Tivo. But now that I have Tivo I do record Oprah in case something/someone comes on of interest that I would like to watch later. Well today I caught the "live" show and found myself with a perplexed face for most of the hour. Now granted Oprah can do this to me a lot...today was just a new territory. I'll explain.

As you know in the past two years or so it has become "hip" to be "green". You know "Green is the New Black"..."Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." We have all watched as Leonardo DiCaprio has led in the crusade with Mr. Gore to inform the masses of our need to be aware of Global Warming and the effects we have on our environment. We have watched as people like Julia Roberts have taught us how to make our own baby food and our very own compost bin. They have given us practical ways or tips to make daily changes in our life and I have to say that I have done this in a very small way. I buy the Seventh Generation products, Method(confession: I really just like the smell of this product...it just helps that its good for us too), the energy-saving light bulbs(even though mine didn't last a year...when promised 7), I turn out lights, I set up a recycling system at work and had to enforce it so many times that they began to think I was getting paid by some recycling lunatics...I try to do my small little part. There are things that I haven't given up and honestly don't know that I will...painting the walls with "special" paint, not using hair dye(call me vain.)...etc.etc.etc. Well as you know Oprah likes to talk about all these issues and today was a special one. Animals. Now I feel I need to make a statement before going any further in this convo. I love animals. I think they are precious. I had a dog growing up...his name was pepper and he was white. I think the relationship between people and their pets can be very close, special and rewarding. I do not want to belittle that in this conversation. I'm not much of a cat person....but hey...I know people who are and I say to each his own. But today brought a whole new level of loving animals that I don't know I can jump on board with. It seems that(and I can't remember his name so for clarity sake well call him Mr. ILoveAnimalsAlot) feels as though animals whose soul purpose for being on this earth are to create food...be it pig, chicken, etc...should live in an environment that is roomy and gives them the "freedom" to be what they were created to be. If you don't have the education of caged animals like I didn't...they are animals that are kept in...yep you guessed it...cages...for most of their life...they are fed and are given water...and they basically are producing the food we need 'round the clock. Now you might be saying oh my goodness, the poor little things... why wouldn't we just choose them to be "free" but Mrs. ILoveAnimalsTooButSeeItFromADifferentSide said....Americans eat 75 billion eggs a year and it is impossible to make that many eggs if we allowed the chickens to roam free. That if we pass this bill they are trying to pass we would have to start getting eggs from other countries...possibly China or Mexico. That a lot of the "caged" farmers would go out of business...now I don't know the truth in that...but that is what she said. The animals show no signs of mistreatment or a need to be out in the open sky. One farmer of caged pigs said it best when Lisa Ling asked him, "Do you think they are happy?", he said, "Well they are getting food, water and a place to sleep...to my knowledge that's all a pig needs, I guess I don't know what else would make them happy." I thought have we digressed this much....that we are asking if our pigs are happy!? I would absolutely love to live in a world where pigs lived like "Babe" did. But if we will remember he was a cartoon. Homeward Bound was very cute and touching...but reality? Mr. ILAAL said, " Are we so uncharitable that we cannot let these animals, that make the ultimate sacrifice for us(wow), move around a little bit?". What do you think...do you think it wrong that I was not moved to protesting caged chickens...or writing my congressman...I think we are wasting our time when we are thinking about whether or not a pig is happy and not those(humans) living amongst us...