Our national media have had a field day reporting on allegations that Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick ran a brutal dog fighting operation and personally slaughtered eight dogs. Yet, no one ever reports on the brutal slaughter every hour of every day of every year of a million cows, pigs, and other innocent, sentient animals who are just as deserving of our respect and compassion as Vick's dogs.

There is no life before death for these animals. In today's factory farms, cows' babies are torn from their mothers at birth and chained by the neck for 16 weeks in tiny wood crates to produce veal. Breeding sows are impregnated artificially and confined in similarly tight metal cages. As many as seven laying hens are stuffed for months in a metal cage the size of a folded newspaper.

Following this unconscionable abuse, the animals are trucked for hours without food or water and exposed to extreme cold or heat. Many never make it. At the slaughterhouse, they are frequently dismembered, skinned, scalded, or drowned while fully conscious.

Every dollar we spend for meat or dairy products at the checkout counter is our direct subsidy for animal cruelty. Let's remember our own responsibility whenever we get upset over the latest report on Michael Vick's cruel treatment of his dogs.

Ari Holten

Auburn