To the Editor:
Susan Gibbs did a terrific job of explaining just why foie gras production cannot be tolerated in a civilized society (Fowl Feast, February 2005).

As Gibbs outlined, ducks raised for foie gras are force-fed by having a long metal tube rammed down their throats. Their livers swell to be about 10 times healthy size, which leads to hepatic lipidosis, a type of liver disease. If eating a bile-secreting organ is not gross on its own, foie gras is truly sick.

California got the ball rolling in the U.S. by declaring that foie gras production is so unacceptable that it should be illegal. Similar legislation has been introduced in New York. As we are the only other state in the country where foie gras is produced, we as New Yorkers must work together to ban gourmet cruelty.

Now that foie gras production has been banned in California and more than a dozen nations, Hudson Valley Foie Gras is an embarrassment for the state.

—Michael Croland, Melville, NY

To the Editor:
This month's Chronogram cover has made the rounds in my life, in many a meaningful moment. I read it to my brother as he fed the ego wolf, to my father as he fed the truth wolf, and my mother, as she fed both the compassion and guilt wolf out of the same bowl.

Tonight, I sent it to a friend, at her request. I had read it to her as we were feeding the joy wolf together.  It helped make us all more conscious, at least for a moment, of how we chose our state. We all know which side we are on, yet we still forget our power.

—Lara Edwards, Germantown, NY