What's the world coming to? First, a video of downer cows being abused made it into the mainstream media. And yesterday, Oprah ran a show titled “Everyday People Living on the Edge,” which included a segment on freegans. (It also featured stripping soccer moms, but that's another story.) Lisa Ling went on some dumpster dives, and the question was posed: “How far would you go?”

It's great that Oprah watchers everywhere now know what it means to be freegan, and one can hope it will have an impact on their consumeristic ways. How much of an impact, of course, is unclear, since Oprah still airs entire shows in which she does nothing but give stuff away.

So maybe the guilt is getting to her. Or maybe she's just ready to jump on the reality-TV bandwagon. Because on Friday, there's Oprah's Big Give Kickoff Party, a sneak peek at her new reality show, in which families compete to raise and give away money in order to better other people's lives. (Oprah's Big Give premieres on Sunday.) But I wonder, will the meal chef and judge Jamie Oliver prepares for the preview consist of freegan goodies?

Anyway, if you know of a deserving cause and have thought of a creative way to raise money for it, submit your idea here, or better yet, post a video with the details.

Chicago Soydairy, of the superdelicious Temptation Vegan Ice Cream fame, now makes cheese and, get this, it actually melts! I mean it really melts-- check out this side by side test of it against Follow Your Heart cheese. Teese Vegan Cheese is currently available in mozzarella flavor and they're working on more varieties. Chi-town locals can enjoy it at The Chicago Diner and at the Halstead Street Whole Foods pizza counter. Sadly regular folks can't buy Teese at supermarkets, but they can harass their local restaurants to stock up on the stuff.

The Park Slope Food Coop is now carrying Williamsburg based Dr. Cow brand raw, organic cashew cheeses in cream cheese style and aged style. Has anyone tried this yet?

L.A. based vegan squeeze cheeze company Play Food finally has its goods back on the market following a nasty custody battle between its founders, former child star Taran Noah Smith (a.k.a. Mark from Home Improvement), and his ex-wife, raw chef/cougar Heidi Van Pelt.

Speaking of celebrities, Natalie Portman bakes her own vegan cupcakes (unlike Joaquin Phoenix who had Isa make his prop "egg" rolls) on the set of Brothers whilst (allegedly) wearing cashmere!? This has got to be a mistake! NaPo wouldn't dare go there, especially when she is set to star in the unfortunately titled Bollywood romance, Kosher Vegetarian and is hawking her own line of upscale, handmade vegan shoes, which are now available though the Soho-based Te Casan, NYC's largest women's luxury shoe boutique.

Vegetarian rocker Chrissie Hynde is combing Columbus, OH to find a second location for her restaurant, VegiTerranean, which opened in Akron last year.

Last month, art teacher Dave Warwak was fired from Fox River Grove Middle School in Illinois. A vegan since January, he was either just giving the kids some honest info about his beliefs, or else fanatically attempting to convert them to his cause.

Warwak himself says that teaching kids to appreciate life is part of teaching them to appreciate art. Hmmm, okay. He also incorporated animal rights themes into art assignments, which, given the weird shit my high school art teacher came up with, doesn't seem too out of line. (Although someone may want to point out that the Peeps used in his animal cruelty display aren't vegan). It is, after all, a teacher's job to get kids to think.

But he probably didn't win many to his side by asking the students to keep his proselytizing from their parents, accusing the school district of child endangerment for serving milk, and threatening not to return to work unless they eliminated animal products from the school menu. There's a way to win friends and influence people, Mr. Warwak, and that's not it.

• The New York Times reports from the trenches on cock fighting in Louisiana, and how the legislature is (supposedly) taking steps to curb it.
• The Chicago Tribune and their hefty magazine piece on animal advocacy.
• The Philadelphia Daily News supports councilman Jack Kelley's bill to ban foie gras in the city.
• And speaking of media (whores), Heather Mills is spreading the good word at London's Incredible Veggie Show later this month.

Chicago's ban on the sale of foie gras, passed last August, has been widely flouted, ridiculed, and denounced, and is (by the Health Department's own admission) under-enforced. But it finally resulted in its first fine.

Doug Sohn, proprieter of Hot Doug’s Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium, pled guilty to selling foie gras and will pay the minimum fine of $250. Sohn has been a loud opponent of the law. As he put it after his February citation, "I was poking the grizzly bear, and it snapped my head off." (If only that were literally true!)

Although this is a victory on paper, the fine is hardly a punishment for Sohn, who has received far more than $250 worth of press in relation the bust. As Tim Hadac, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Public Health, said: "He has cashed in, in terms of publicity, make no mistake."

Chicago Soydairy, makers of Temptation vegan ice cream, have issued an urgently worded alert that they will lose their shelf space in Midwestern Whole Foods stores if you don't go buy/complain somewhat immediately. It's especially sad that they would lose such a big contract on their home turf.

If you live near a midwestern Whole Foods Market, pints are priced at a closeout price of $2.37 (which I guess is cheap for Whole Foods, but a lot more than I pay for my weekly dose of Peach Cobbler), so go buy it all up fast to make them realize how much you love the stuff.

Vegan ice-cream fans everywhere can call the Midwest Regional Whole Foods office at (773) 755-1500. Even if you don't like to shop at Whole Foods, getting carried by them can be a make-or-break deal for independent vegan food companies. And the more vegan ice cream carried by mainstream outlets like Whole Foods, the more happy vegans, and the more new vegans.

Chicago Alderman Arenda Troutman has been all over her hometown scandal sheets this month on charges of bribery and illegal possession of a firearm and "a powdery substance that is possibly a drug item." Troutman is a vegetarian, and she claims the powder, which was seized by the FBI, is psyllium husk, "a powdery substance that is used when you are doing a cleanse, a detox cleanse." And then the money quote: "I am a vegetarian ... We do seasonal cleansing."

We may never know what mitigating words were replaced by that ellipses, but let's get this on the record: "seasonal cleansing" (ew!) has as much to do with money laundering and serving on City Council as it does with vegetarianism. That is, nothing at all. Her lawyer goes on to equivocate vegetarianism with squeaky-clean living: "She is a health freak. She hasn't eaten meat in years; she's a vegetarian. Arenda Troutman does not do drugs." But we know plenty of vegetarians who have associated with powdery substances that are more than possibly drug items.

Despite foie gras’ being banned for the last five months, some restaurants in Chicago are still serving the stuff, and nothing’s being done about it. A Chicago health department spokesman summed the situation up thusly: “Our mission is to protect human health and not the health of geese and ducks.”

In some eateries, all you have to do is ask for the “special lobster dish.” Other restaurants are simply giving foie gras away for free, like bread and water, since the ordinance bans only its sale.

Hopefully the New York City effort will fare better, though admittedly, it’s not off to a good start, with speaker Christine Quinn coming out against a ban. Nonetheless, the New York City Say No to Foie Gras Campaign is holding its next planning meeting on Thurs., Jan. 18, at 7pm at Jivimukti Yoga Center Cafe, 841 Broadway, second floor, bet. 13th and 14th streets. To find out how you can help, attend the meeting on Thursday or contact Wendy Berner, campaign organizer, at 646-369-6212 or nyc@nofoiegras.org.

Apparently, the torture and killing of animals for a delicacy is okay while acting as the “food police” is not.

In more of the ridiculous uproar against the foie gras ban, chef Anthony Bourdain says that to “ask chefs to cook without that is to ask a painter to not use the color blue.” This in response to the proposed ban on the distribution and sale of foie gras in New Jersey by legislator and vegetarian Michael J. Panter.

Bourdain claims that properly farmed foie gras ducks “live a good, natural life—even a pampered one—compared with the horrifying and vastly more widespread practice of raising battery chickens.” Who knew that the cruelty involved in keeping hens in battery cages was common knowledge? I guess that’s only when it can be used to detract attention from whatever other issue is at hand. In any case, Gene Bauston responds to the ridiculous claims that these animals are living in the lap of luxury.

In a dose of sanity, the Columbus, Ohio, restaurant Bexley Monk has willingly taken foie gras off its menu. Kudos to them! Let’s hope more restaurants follow BM’s example.

The problem is that people like Bourdain can’t see that this is about outlawing cruelty, not cuisine. The whole “food police” issue was aptly summed up, in my opinion, by one West Village restaurant owner in response to the proposed ban on trans fats in New York: “They’re taking away our right to be stupid, which is our primary American right.”

Unfortunately, that sounds about right.

I don’t know what’s more unsettling: the fact that some Chicago restaurants that had never offered it before decided to serve foie gras in protest of the ban or that nothing was done about it (in one restaurant, an entire table of police officers merely watched as foie gras was served around them).

The news that Chicago had banned the sale of foie gras was music to animal lovers’ ears. But the law serves no purpose if it’s not enforced.

Here’s hoping Chicago starts punishing offenders and lives up to its promise to keep foie gras out of its restaurants.