Written by PETA
It's a hazy day here on the Right Coast. As I watch leaves fall and steam rise from my soy mocha, the mood is set for a lazy (yet highly skilled) meander through gossip rags for fun stuff. Here are my faves:
Thanks for stopping by! Catch you next time, and don't forget to hug all your vegetarian friends.
Written by Missy Lane
Now that the Olympics are over, it's impossible to turn on the TV or open the newspaper without seeing something about the Democratic National Convention. What's going to happen, what's going to be said, who's going to be there …
Well, we'll tell you who's there—the PETA pigs, that's who!
Our pigs don't have anything to say about any of the candidates, of course—they're tackling a global issue: meat!
The pigs—who are circling around the convention center and picking up passengers in their cherry red convertible—are calling for a federal excise tax on meat. (Look out for them next week as they cruise around the Republican National Convention!) Why? Well, there's a "sin" tax on cigarettes, alcohol, and gasoline. Why shouldn't there be one on meat, which is bad for both your health and the environment?
Our Senior VP Dan Mathews (who, as we know, is fond of wearing costumes) is among the protesters. He sums up the reason our pigs are calling for a 10-cents-per-pound tax: "The impact of the meat trade is as devastating to our health as the tobacco and alcohol industries put together—and even more so to the environment. Slapping a tax on meat would save countless lives—and not just those of animals."
Check out our pigs below—and if you're concerned about the health and environmental consequences of eating meat, check out GoVeg.com for a free copy of PETA's "Vegetarian Starter Kit"!
Written by Amanda Schinke
OK, ever since we mentioned our proposal to take over a SeaWorld and turn it into a virtual-reality marine-mammal theme park, some people have been a bit, well, skeptical.
Obviously, these folks aren't familiar with PETA and our unique blend of determination and outside-the-box thinking. Long story short: Never say "never" to PETA people (and that includes our wonderful members and supporters).
Anyone who doubts that we are serious—and, really, we're a little hurt, Sea World PR man—might want to check out a new animal-friendly show touring the U.S. called "Walking With Dinosaurs." It features enormous "live" dinosaurs roaring and stomping around the arena, chasing each other, foraging, and protecting their young. Imagine a life-size T. rex towering over you. Using animatronics, lighting, and sound effects, the show is thrilling family-packed audiences.
Unlike the animals currently trapped at SeaWorld, these robotic Barneys voluntarily put on an amazing 90-minute show. Machines don't get bored and anxious between performances or miss their "natural" environment, but marine mammals—who would naturally swim hundreds of miles per day, eat a diverse diet, and form complex relationships—spend their lives swimming in listless, lonely circles.
If they can already do all that with fake dinosaurs, then our SeaWorld overhaul should be a piece of cake (or maybe a cupcake), right? Like one of those aquarium screensavers—and if you're jonesing for an aquarium, that's the way to go—taken to the extreme. It's win-win: The animals are free to do their thing, and you don't go home smelling like chlorine.
Written by Jeff Mackey
People of all different backgrounds, ethnicities, races, and religions have discovered that vegetarian food tastes delicious and is good for our bodies, the environment, animals, and … yes, our souls!
Take South Los Angeles, for instance—not exactly the veggie mecca of the world. But this inner-city community heavily populated by African-Americans has seen a rise in the number of black-owned and -operated vegetarian restaurants. Owners say that the threat of obesity and other diet-linked health ailments is motivating local black residents to search for healthy options and alternatives to animal products. Restaurants like Vegan Village Café, Stuff I Eat, and Rahel's are catering to the growing interest in plant-based food.
It still might be a while before vegetarianism takes over the world, but the addition of so many new vegetarian restaurants is definitely helping! And stars like Russell Simmons, Erykah Badu, and PETA's "Sexiest Vegetarian" winner Kevin Eubanks are urging African-Americans and everyone else to choose a cruelty-free, healthy meal that won't harm the body or any other living creature.
In fact, many African-American celebrities have recently teamed up with PETA to combat the fast-food industry's attack on African-Americans. Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker, basketball legend John Salley, civil rights leader The Rev. Al Sharpton, and many more are part of this important movement. Check it out here, and watch John Salley's vegetarian testimonial below:
Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky
I'm having a hard time typing this with a straight face, but scientists at the University of Vienna have recently released a study claiming that, in the words of a news article, "living with humans has taught dogs morals." Apparently, the researchers attribute dogs' sense of "fairness" to their contact with humans.
Are they drinking from their lab-bench pipettes again? I mean, don't you always think of dogs as exemplifying the finest attributes we look for in humans? Loyalty, love, and—of course—fairness … aren't these qualities we can all learn from dogs? With all the human injustices—the wars, rapes, pillaging, cutting other people off in traffic, etc.—it seems a bit grandiose to claim that dogs learned their sense of fairness from us.
Consider this news story from Argentina: A 14-year-old girl abandoned her newborn baby outdoors, in winter, in the middle of the night. When the baby was found, she was being kept safe and warm—not by the human being who left her to die or by any other human but by a dog.
The dog, China, was keeping the baby girl safe among her own puppies and, perhaps seeing that she was weirdly hairless, had even covered her with a rag! Authorities theorize that China found the baby outdoors and carried her back inside. If not for China, the baby would have died unprotected against the cold outside.
So let me get this straight—who should learn from whom here?
Last month, PETA broke the news about barbaric U.S. Army trauma training exercises that were being conducted at a base camp in Hawaii, in which pigs were shot with high-powered rifles. Local Army officials there are standing by their false claims that these exercises are necessary to provide soldiers with the skill to treat trauma victims on the battlefield, even though it seems to us these exercises broke Army regulations by not using available alternatives to the primitive use of animals.
I guess we can sleep well knowing that if a soldier loses his tail during a raid, some well-trained fellow soldiers, thanks to this training, may be able to reattach the necessary posterior appendage.
Given the U.S. Army's apparent outright disregard for their own regulations and the treatment of these animals, PETA is now asking commanding officers at bases in Hawaii and Texas—where a more recent training exercise included breaking and amputating the legs of nearly 1,000 goats with tree trimmers—for a court martial over the shooting, mutilating, and killing of animals during these old-fashioned training exercises.
According to the Army's own regulations, the Army is required to use alternatives to animals in training exercises when scientifically valid and comparable alternatives exist. And they do! The animal exercise should have been replaced with validated, state-of-the-art simulators, such as the Department of Defense's own Combat Trauma Patient Simulator, which more realistically simulates battlefield conditions and, consequently, is considered superior to outdated animal methods. Other viable alternatives include Dr. Emad Aboud's "living" cadaver perfusion model, Simulab Corporation's TraumaMan system, and establishing military level one trauma centers in nearby communities in order to have trainees work with the community to take care of their city's population.
Kathy Guillermo, director of PETA's Laboratory Investigations Department, says, "The Army has regulations in place specifically to prevent this kind of cruelty to animals, but the oversight committee apparently chose to ignore them. Our soldiers deserve to be trained using the most advanced technology available—that means using human simulators."
The U.S. Army does not train soldiers to race into battle zones to retrieve injured pigs, goats, or dogs. That would be great, but let's face it: It's not the government's main agenda. Time, money, and resources could be far better spent.
We all know exactly how disastrous racing can be for the horses who are whipped and drugged for entertainment. Well, the scandal doesn't stop at the Kentucky Derby—it goes all the way up to the Olympics.
That's right—four horses forced to compete in the Olympics have tested positive, and have subsequently been banned, for the drug capsaicin. Capsaicin is banned because, in the words of one article, "it is derived from the chilli pepper and is used for either medication, as a pain-killer, or for its hypersensitizing properties. In both cases a horse might jump better as a result of its use." Of course, when you mask pain and overuse a limb, the repercussions can be bone-shatteringly bad.
The four horses banned were competing in team show jumping. Their riders have also been banned from participating in individual events—and if more horses are found to have been drugged, the Olympic medals may be shifted around. Of course, this wouldn't be the first Olympics where horse-dopers have been stripped of their medals—Germany lost the gold in Athens for the same crime.
People will be shocked to hear of this scandal—and for good reason. If horses are subjected to this kind of mistreatment at the highest level of the "sport," maybe "sport" isn't the right place for these beautiful, sensitive animals. Horses should not be drugged up and run into the ground by greedy people for money or for medals, even if it means abusing animals whose athleticism wins the gold. Oh, and did you see any of the close-ups, with the horses' heads being yanked all the way to their chests and up again, their eyes almost popping out of their heads as they were jerked around? Nice.
News from Germany this week, where Gana, a gorilla in the Muenster Zoo, has been raising her baby boy, Claudio. This past weekend, Claudio suddenly died, possibly from a heart defect.
Heartbroken, Gana kept carrying her dead baby on her back as she had when he was alive, looking back again and again in the hope of finding him recovered. She held her child up, desperately searching for signs of movement in his limp body, and sat cradling him.
Zoo visitors were visibly moved and many cried upon seeing Gana's grief. But no one who has been paying attention to animals should be surprised by the depth of emotion that Gana showed in her mourning. Animals feel pain, fear, anger, love, and grief. Mother cows bellow for their calves, who are taken away so that humans can drink the milk that they make solely to nourish their babies. Dogs, beavers, and monkeys take pity on orphaned animals and adopt them as their own. Animals—from pigs to porpoises—show concern for humans, too, by going to great lengths to rescue us from peril.
Yet people often look away from this glaring evidence of sentience. By convincing themselves that animals don't feel deeply—that they're "not like us"—humans have justified inflicting all kinds of horrors on animals. But if people torturing primates in laboratories or slaughtering gorillas in the Congo could look into Gana's shattered heart, they might wake up to the true cost of their actions.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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