It's a great day when the American Public Media radio show Marketplace diverts its gaze from the stock market to notice things like the food crisis—and an even better day when it invites Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer to talk about something other than whether the Machiavellians among us should invest in corn futures.

Earlier this week, the man who is considered by many to be the father of the modern-day animal liberation movement (and author of Animal Liberation) argued that the solution to the food crisis is as close as our dinner plates. Giving props to PETA's in vitro meat contest, Singer pointed out that environmental realities would force a change in the wasteful and inefficient meat-centered diet, whether we like it or not.

Listen to or read Singer's commentary here.

Posted by Grace Freidan

Don't ask me what I was doing nerding around at Wordsmith.org this morning, but this particular Internet detour turned out to be felicitous and surprisingly, um, appurtenant.

Turns out that today's Word of the Day is "Speciesism," which the good folks at Wordsmith have defined for us as "The assumption of superiority of humans over other animal species, especially to justify their exploitation."

There’s also a nice story in there by Charles Darwin’s biographer, James Moore, who quotes Darwin as follows: “To say man is the pinnacle of creation and all things were created for him ... Darwin says that is the same arrogance we see in the slave master.”

Anyway, there you have it. “Speciesism” = today’s word of the day. A small step, in the scheme of things, but a step nonetheless. There’s also a book on the subject, which I can highly recommend for anyone who wants to pursue this topic further.