Except for spotting weights as the work-out buddy of Cristiano Ronaldo (where he’d really open up while he lifted), I can’t think of a better way to spend a lunch hour than accompanying Joan Jett around Union Square as she approached strangers with PETA vegetarian starter kits.

The kits can be found in newsstands all around New York City.

Joan’s story can only be told in pictures, all licensed Creative Commons (with attribution):

Meet Joan.  Joan’s a rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer and actress.  Kristen Stewart just played her in a highly-acclaimed movie about her life.  No, she’s not 32, she’s 51, if you can believe that shit.  Joan looks good.  She has been a vegetarian for 20 years.

Joan has vegetarian beginner’s kits.  She wants to give one to you.

To me?

Yes you, Hat.  Joan asks, “Do you care about animals and your health?”  Joan asks if he would like one of her kits.  Hat gladly takes one and talks vegetarianism with Joan.

Now everyone is happy.  Joan is happy.  Hat is happy.  But Joan does not yet see those women with strollers over her shoulder.

Excuse me miss, but do you like animals?  Is that your blond baby?  Is he a vegetarian?  Let me tell you about the health benefits of vegetarianism for women.

Look at these beginner’s kits and don’t worry about the girl’s shirt behind you; it doesn’t mean that she eats cats.  Did you know that the  turkeys you buy at the grocery store can’t have sex?

Thank you Mrs. Joan, we will share these kits with our Mrs.

Hello Head of Hair, do you care about animals and your health?

Yes, yes I do care about animals and health.  Let me take a look at one of those beginner kits you have there.

Thank you for caring about animals, Head of Hair, it was nice to meet you.  But wait…

…who is caught in Joan’s eye?

Why it’s another person who cares about the tortured lives, environmental degradation and unnatural diets of factory farm animals.

Joan rocks.  And so does PETA.

Click here to see more of these Creative Commons photos of Joan Jett at Flickr.

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The swine flu that is now an epidemic in the United States is likely traced back to a farm in North Carolina, and its first appearance in Mexico occurred near farms owned by Smithfield Foods.   We inject dairy cows with so many hormones that women who drink regular milk are three times more likely to have twins than women who drink organic.  The pollution from factory meat growing farms accounts for a fifth of greenhouse gases; that’s more than cars.

All of this occurs while 96% of Americans believe animals deserve some legal protection from harm.  We like animals.  It doesn’t matter our politics nor our backgrounds, we all agree that animals shouldn’t suffer.

These two ideas, the need to fix and protect the environment and the desire to not have animals suffer, was the common ground that Jonathan Safran Foer sought in his new book Eating Animals.  Tonight at the Union Square Barnes & Noble he read from it, discussed those statistics above and took questions.  His desire, he said, was to highlight the consensus we have on the environment and animal suffering to find ways to make better choices.

Foer has received a good deal of media attention for re-writing Fast Food Nation and Making Kind Choices, but that’s not a criticism.  It’s Foer’s own take, and every new voice that reaches new minds gets more of society thinking about what we are doing with factory farm meat growing.

We don’t think about its effects on our health, and we don’t think about how it’s hurting our environment.  Add Foer to the growing chorus of people who say: when will the mainstream media report this issue?

The images on this post are licensed Creative Commons 3.0 attribution; re-use is permitted but please link back to this post with credit.