Stephen & Claire Farnsworth/cc by 2.0

The National Pork Board, in an attempt to change the image of pork, is dropping its 25-year-old slogan, "Pork: The Other White Meat," for its new propaganda theme, "Pork: Be Inspired." The only thing this campaign is inspiring in me is my gag reflex.

So considering the way that the pig industry treats these gentle, intelligent animals, we thought we would come up with some more, shall we say, appropriate slogans for the board, and we want you to join in. Here are a few of ours to get you started. Post your slogans by commenting, and give the National Pork Board your best shot.

Pork: Inspiring Heart Disease

Pork: Be Infested

Pork: Be Disgusted

Pork: Put Down the Fork

Written by Michelle Sherrow

We recently told you about South Korean officials who buried more than 1 million pigs alive in an ill-conceived effort to control foot-and-mouth disease. PETA has recently obtained video footage of the killings, which shows workers as they toss live pigs on top of one another in a mass grave. Pigs are pushed out of trucks and into trenches, covered with dirt, and left to suffocate. Air pockets form in the soil, allowing some pigs to breathe, meaning that some may languish for days, injured and surrounded by dead pigs, before they die.

PETA has contacted several offices but has so far received no response. We need your help to keep more animals from being buried alive. Please visit our action alert page in order to e-mail the South Korean embassy in the U.S. and ask officials there to pressure the South Korean government to stop these cruel live burials immediately and institute more humane ways of dealing with foot-and-mouth disease.

And to help pigs right here at home whose fates often aren't much better, order a vegetarian/vegan starter kit today.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

A riveting new article in The Atlantic magazine blasts the notion that cruelty to animals is less cruel when it's disguised as "foodie-ism." "The Moral Crusade Against Foodies" examines why so many chefs and food writers abide by the misguided notion that the more suffering that goes into a meal, the better it tastes.

The article draws examples from some of the newest crop of foodie writings, which brag about everything from eating ortolan (endangered songbirds fattened in dark boxes) to crowding around to watch a pig be slaughtered and claiming that the experience was "solemn" and "reverent." I have a feeling that the pig begs to differ.

leunix/cc by 2.0

The article also quotes self-proclaimed foodaholics making oh-so-compassionate statements such as, "It's quite something to go bare-handed up an animal's [butt] … Its viscera came out with an easy tug; a small palmful of livery, bloody jewels that I tossed out into the yard." Sounds delicious, right?

Don't get me wrong: As any vegetarian or vegan can tell you, we love to eat. But food should not cause suffering, no matter how many different spice rubs can be invented for it.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Here's something that vegans and meat-eaters alike can agree on: Factory pig farms are bad for animals and the environment. After watching the documentary Pig Business, which shows the conditions in which factory-farmed pigs are raised, fashion designer and lifelong vegetarian Stella McCartney as well as actor Sienna Miller are asking people to stop eating factory-farmed pork and are calling for a European ban on factory pig farms. 
 

Miller states, "Before I started researching the subject, I never truly realized the appalling extent to which pigs—intelligent animals—were treated in certain parts of the world."

Pig Business, which debuted in 2009, shows pigs who are confined to filthy crates so small that the animals can't turn around or lie down comfortably. It also features several prominent environmental advocates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who speak out against the huge toll that factory farms take on the environment.

"This film gives us the information we need to have to make a change as a consumer, to show government and food manufacturers we deserve better," says Stella. "And so do the pigs giving their lives in such a barbaric way. If we stop the demand, they have to stop the cruelty and deceit."

Via Vegetarian Star

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Whether you believe in karma or payback, in 2010 we saw that for every action there is a reaction. We've rounded up the top six "Payback Is Hell" stories of 2010. It's safe to say that animals are just as tired of cruelty to animals as we are.

1. A bull decided that he no longer wanted to be ridiculed and repeatedly stabbed with banderillas for people's entertainment, so he charged the matador and told him, "Up yours." ¡Olé!
2. A truck driver learned that chomping on fried pork rinds while driving can lead to a sudden impact and a near-death experience when he choked and crashed his truck into a ditch.
3. After shooting and butchering a pig, a man was accidentally shot when his dog stepped on the man's own rifle.
4. Seven people who were running intoxicated in the path of raging bulls were trampled and injured in Pamplona.
5. When a giraffe and an elephant revolted against their imprisonment in zoos, one zookeeper was attacked and another man died.
6. After being taken from his ocean home as a baby and enduring years of frustration from being confined in a tiny tank, an orca, Tilikum, struck back and killed a trainer at SeaWorld.

Written by Mirisa Roy

The U.S. banned "finning"—a practice in which fishers cut the fins off sharks and dump the still-living animals overboard to die a slow, agonizing death—back in 2000, but the ban only extended to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Now, a decade later, the Senate has finally voted to extend the ban to the Pacific. 

Disappointingly, the bill does not ban the sale of shark fins in the U.S., which means that restaurants can still sell the deadly "delicacy" and thereby continue to fund the mutilation of sharks in less protected waters.

The bill now heads to the House, which has already passed similar legislation. Keep your fingers crossed that these "lame ducks" will rally to the rescue of maimed sharks in the waning days of their last session.

If pigs had fins, would the Senate throw them a lifeline too?

Written by Alisa Mullins

You guys are so awesome, and here's why: After PETA asked everyone to urge officials at the University of Michigan (UM) to stop tormenting live cats and pigs in cruel and deadly survival flight training exercises (which are completely unnecessary considering that UM already uses superior human-patient simulators to teach the same skills in other classes), you came through.

And how! So many people have been contacting the university that callers to the office of UM President Mary Sue Coleman are greeted with this message:

On behalf of the animals who are still suffering in laboratories, thank you. Keep up the great work—and keep those calls coming!

Written by Jeff Mackey

This just in from an alert PETA member: Gerber is selling baby food made out of veal. For some reason, this struck us at the PETA Files as especially spit-up-inducing. Feeding babies to babies just seems sort of … I don't know, cannibalistic? Want some puréed fava beans with that, Junior?

Would you feed me to your baby?

But then we started thinking: Veal is one of those foods that even many carnivores shy away from because of the horrors that are now widely known to be involved in its production—horrors such as tearing babies away from their mothers and locking them in up boxes for a few months before prodding them on wobbly, atrophied legs to slaughter. But the truth is that most animals who are killed for food are still babies when they are strung up on the slaughter line.

Because of "modern" innovations such as feeding animals growth-promoting drugs and selectively breeding them so that they'll grow fatter faster, pigs and turkeys are on average just 6 months old when they are killed, and chickens are just 7 weeks old. By comparison, steers who are raised for beef are old-timers when they are killed at between 1 and 2 years of age.

It's enough to make strained carrots sound downright … grown-up.

There's been some online chatter that the Veal and Veal Gravy baby food has been discontinued, but it's still listed on Gerber's website. Have you seen this "baby cruelty in a jar" at your local market?

Written by Alisa Mullins

Animal abusers take note: your misdeeds may come to light even through the ashes. A Manitoba couple who owned a hog barn that burned in a "suspicious" fire in June—just days after investigators discovered hundreds of dead and dying animals at the facility—has been charged with 23 counts of cruelty to animals. Martin and Dolores Grenier stand accused of failing to provide the pigs with adequate food, water, and veterinary care; confining them to a space without enough ventilation; leaving breaks in the slatted floor big enough for hogs to fall through and drown or get trapped below; and directly harming 10 of the animals.

The chief veterinary officer on the investigation calls this case "unusual," but if he'd spent a little time watching the videos on PETA TV, he'd know that suffering and abuse of pigs and other animals are the rule, not the exception, on factory farms. And the best way to make sure that you're not funding those who cause misery for animals is to stop eating animals.

ripperda/CC by 2.0

Written by Jeff Mackey

This month marks the 15^th anniversary of Seaboard Foods in the Guymon, Oklahoma, area. Seaboard operates a pig factory farm where a PETA investigator documented that pigs were routinely kicked, beaten, and slammed against concrete floors. As a result of PETA's investigation, a Seaboard manager pleaded guilty to three counts of felony cruelty to animals. But instead of running the bums out of town, Guymon is—wait for it—throwing Seaboard Foods a big birthday bash. Cake, candles, and … cruelty?

Undercover Footage from Seaboard Farms, Narrated by Rue McClanahan

PETA has a better idea. Instead of honoring pig abusers, Guymon should throw a party for the pigs. We have written to the mayor and suggested that he declare Saturday, October 23, "Pig Empathy Day"—and we've offered to send a contingent of Lettuce Ladies armed with vegan barbecue riblets and faux ham sandwiches to help get the party started. Sounds like hog heaven …

Written by Alisa Mullins