Archive for October, 2008
David James Elliott might have played debonair vegetarian Navy Commander Harmon Rabb on the popular TV series JAG, but now, PETA’s looking for the real deal. That’s why the group is calling up all privates, generals, sailors, admirals, pilots, and all other members of the U.S. Armed Forces to determine which man or woman will win PETA’s first-ever Sexiest Vegetarian Soldier contest. The contest is a tribute to all the men and women in uniform who are defending the country and animals at the same time.
The contest is open to all current and former military personnel who are at least 18 years of age. All that entrants have to do is fill out a short form
Why is going vegetarian a smart military maneuver? For one thing, vegetarians are, on average, fitter and trimmer than their meat-eating counterparts, so if soldiers want to be lean, mean fighting machines, the best thing that they can do is keep meat off their plates. Also, consumption of meat and other animal products has been conclusively linked to America’s leading killer diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and several types of cancer. And while even the strongest fighting force on Earth can’t solve all the world’s problems overnight, going vegetarian is the best way to help stop the violence and bloodshed inherent in the meat industry.
“Vegetarian soldiers, sailors, Air Force personnel, and marines earn their stripes for defending the abused every time they sit down to eat,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “After all, what could be sexier than someone with the passion to carry out the rigors of the military and the compassion to protect animals?”
- This morning, PETA fired off a letter to Center for Advanced Research & Technology (CART) Chief Operating Officer Susan Fisher and the teachers in the marketing and advertising department urging them to allow a PETA representative to visit the school. The group wants to educate students about the suffering of mother cows and their babies in the milk industry as well as the health risks that milk can pose to kids. PETA’s letter follows a promotional contest that the California Milk Processor Board is holding at CART and two other high schools. In this contest, classes act as marketing agencies to come up with the next ad for the board’s “Got Milk?” campaign. The winning class will receive a prize worth $2,000.
PETA points out that newborn male calves are traumatically torn from their mothers and confined to tiny, filthy crates before the calves are slaughtered for veal. PETA also explains that consumption of dairy products has been linked to allergies, ear infections, and juvenile onset diabetes in children as well as to leading killers—such as heart disease and some types of cancer—in adults.
“What’s next?” asks PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Inviting tobacco companies into schools to see who can come up with catchiest ad to get kids hooked on cigarettes? If kids knew what happens to dairy cows, calves, and their own bodies in the name of drinking milk, they’d spew.”
PETA has also written to Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif., and Orange High School in Orange, Calif. For more information, please visit DumpDairy.com.
PETA’s letter to CART Chief Operating Officer Susan Fisher follows.
October 27, 2008
Susan Fisher, Chief Operating Officer
Center for Advanced Research and Technology
Dear Ms. Fisher,
PETA has recently learned that the Center for Advanced Research and Technology has been chosen to create a new ad for the California Milk Processors Board. Your students are diligently working and functioning as an ad agency to create an ad that encourages their peers to drink milk, but we would like to request equal time so that we can educate them about the suffering that cows endure for dairy production and the health risks associated with drinking milk. Both are serious social issues that deserve an airing.
PETA’s experience is that many kids “have a cow” when shown how the dairy industry treats animals as inanimate “milk machines.” Most kids are kind, and they are usually horrified to learn that male calves born on dairy farms are traumatically taken away from their loving mothers–often winched away by a tractor and a chain around one leg–shortly after birth, and they are confined to crates so small that they cannot even turn around. After 14 weeks, sometimes spent in darkness, they are prodded down the slaughter ramp to be made into veal. Many babies stumble to their deaths because their legs are so swollen and sore from balancing on slippery, waste-covered slatted floors or concrete.
What makes matters worse for students is that drinking cow’s milk puts teens on the road to adult diseases linked to the consumption of meat and dairy, including heart disease, cancer, and strokes. Milk is also the number one source of allergies, and it is linked to ear infections in children, juvenile-onset diabetes, constipation, and obesity. In the last edition of his world-famous book, Baby and Child Care, Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote, “I no longer recommend dairy products. … The essential fats that are needed for brain development are found in vegetable oils. Milk is very low in these essential fats and high in the saturated fats that encourage artery blockage and weight problems as children grow.”
We would like to visit the Center for Advanced Research and Technology to share this information with your students and show them a short video. Obviously, a well-rounded education includes presenting different viewpoints and allowing students to make informed decisions. Please contact me so that we can set a date for our presentation, and contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Tracy Reiman
PETA loyalists were protesting against the killing of elephants using speeding trains. PETA considers this a cold blooded murder against an innocent animal.
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Activists of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) today demonstrated before the Rail Bhawan here to voice concern against the frequent killing of elephants due to speeding trains along the tracks in or skirting forest areas.
PETA activists during their protest also enacted an accident in which ‘Bholu’, an elephant is fatally knocked down by a ”locomotive”. It was to highlight the pain of elephants being routinely killed by speeding trains in the forest areas, particularly in Assam and West Bengal.
Activists alleged that the Indian Railways has been the reason for the death of several Bholus in real life and the government should ensure preventive steps to protect the wild elephants.
“Today, we demonstrated outside the Railway Ministry to show them how an elephant dies when it meets with a train accident.
Of late, a lot many of the elephants have died due to train accidents. And, time and again, we have been informing the Railway Ministry about these incidents but nothing has been done so far. So, today, we are here to demonstrate and show the ministry how it feels and they should do something quickly,” said Sachin Bhangera, PETA activist.
Elephant herds are known for traveling long distances in search of food. The matriarch leading the herd follows traditional routes, which might have been in use for centuries.
But the movement of trains on railway tracks in the protected areas around the country, over the years, is causing death of these pachyderms”
This is a must watch video, this video is so true, its wrong to test on animals,they have feelings too, they feel pain like us,they suffer like us,they do everything like us, but it pissed me off how i think humans are just in love with self destruction cause we are killing everything just for our sake,do we care for anything else,no,we just wanna live,so do they,and sum just dont give a fuck, you? no stop thinking about urself and think about others once, OK? Everyone who thinks this is all right, just think how you would feel if they were testing on you. I support peta and the idea of being a vegan. I’m not saying humans are equal to animals, i’m saying they deserve equal consideration. Why all this when better methods exist. We need an ethical standard. Scientists have unlimited power every animal.
for whoever thinks that animal testing is justified, just LISTEN:
we who support PETA and are against animal testing DONT think its right for us to die of diseases, we also dont value animals over humans. WE THINK WERE ALL EQUAL. so for OUR species to use other species to torture, to electrocute, to poison other species, for OUR sake is NOT RIGHT. WE think we are so smart because we have all this technology.
Some facts:
Heart Bypass surgery was post-poned for years because it did’t work on animals. The drug Thalidomide was used to treat morning sickness but caused horrible side effects. It worked on animals. Eraldin which worked on animals caused blindness on humans. Opren was for arthritis but caused liver damage. Other drugs that worked on animals but went wrong with humans are Clindamycen, Clioqinol, Encainide, Flosint, Halcion, Manoplax, Suprofen, and much more.
Other methods exist. Research is done at a cellular level. Cultured cells and tissue is much more promising because it uses Human DNA. Epidemiology and clinical studies are other methods. Also If a guinea pig may be sacrificed for the sake of the very little that can be learnt from it, shall not a man be sacrificed for the sake of the great deal that can be learnt from him? Think about it would you feel safe if you were the first person given a drug that was only proven safe on mice?
Its called epidemiology, safely observing patients with those illnesses.
You have the wrong body. Animals are biologicaly unique. And wrong they are not tested on human cells. They do it on animals primarly because researchers recieve more money in grants. But where is the justifcation where hundreds of millions of animals die every year in labs. Would you test on humans and why not? Why aren’t they equal? It is wrong to do a certain harm that an uncertain good may result.
Again most the land we use is to raise animals for food. A vegetarian diet is better us of our resources, land, and importantly grain. We can feed ten times more people with out using more land.
Last but not the least a word from Mark Twain:
“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn’t…The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enemity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enemity without looking further.” -Mark Twain
Mother jones has an interview with our founder its very interesting to see her insights. Read the interview below:
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This is a Mother Jones podcast. Ingrid Newkirk is the president and co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA], the world’s largest animal rights organization. The English-born Newkirk has shepherded PETA for two decades, penning multiple books and promoting the organization with controversial publicity campaigns featuring naked models. Mother Jones editor Jen Phillips talks with Newkirk about her newest book, and about the feminists who have a beef with PETA’s ads.
Mother Jones: Thank you so much for taking time out to speak with Mother Jones.
Ingrid Newkirk: It’s my pleasure.
MJ: So we’re going to be talking about your book, One Can Make a Difference, and you have dozens of essays from people from all different walks of life. How did you go about gathering these?
IN: Well, it was a wealth of choices, may I say that. I started out about a year ago thinking that I would put together a book that contained stories—because I hear so many—of people who have set out to help animals in one way or the other. So I started compiling those essays and I began running into so many inspiring people that I began to expand upon it and so now it’s people who have helped in absolutely any way. They might have cleaned up, in one case, the path going up to Everest which is littered with trash and all sorts of hazardous waste. Or somebody who invented a medical device, but they’re all kind people who have really made something of their lives. At PETA we’ve always made the point that the most important thing you can do in life is to be kind. And so all these people are kind in one way or the other.
MJ: What are you hoping readers will take away from this book, or what are you hoping it will prompt them to do in their daily lives?
IN: I start the book with, I have a little saying: whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it because boldness has genius power and magic in it. I do believe, as I travel around talking to people about PETA, about our work to stop cruelty to animals, people raise their hands and they commonly say, But what can I do to stop that? And of course everybody can do something to stop that. You can stop eating animals and you can stop wearing fur. But the same is true, wherever I go, people might have other interests too. They might think that there should be an after-school reading program for children. Or they might think that the Special Olympics needs help. You can get involved and you can do something. I believe you have a finite time on earth and who knows how long you’re going to live? I think movies like The Bucket List are extremely annoying because it says if you find out that you only have, say, six months to live, you should go out and do frivolous things whereas I think you should look at your life as possibilities that you could leave your mark in wonderful ways. Don’t think you can’t. You have enormous power, whoever you are.
MJ: The values that you’re talking about in this book, just being kind and thinking consciously, and making the world a better place, sound to me like very Christian values. I was wondering if PETA has ever gone after the Christian demographic or done a partnership with any local churches?
IN: Yes, and of course and especially with battered women’s shelters and with family homes for distressed people. We also work with a Christian mission, cooking vegetarian hot dogs for people because the last thing I think a homeless person wants is heart disease, atherosclerosis, cancer, and the meat-related diseases. We work, of course, with all sorts of religious organizations who do overseas aid. For example, people give us their fur coats because they’ve had a change of heart, and we then have used them for everything from wildlife bedding to giving them to religious charities who work overseas who go into regions in remote areas of the globe and we cut the fur coats up and make them into coats for children who don’t have the option of going to a store and buying something to keep them warm.
MJ: I’ve just got the strangest image in my head of someone in the Himalayas schleping around in a Saks Fifth Avenue mink coat.
IN: Oh, it’s true, it’s absolutely true, in fact I got some photographs this week. We’ve sent them to Serbia, we’ve sent them to, you name it for the winter. I’ve got a picture of some herders the children wrapped up in obviously some fur coats that were once bought in a ritzy store in Manhattan.
MJ: One question I did have. I really do appreciate the work PETA has done but it has gotten a lot of criticism for using women in some of its ads. A lot of times in bikinis, or scantily clad, I think there was a striptease campaign that came online recently. What do you say to people who criticize PETA and say that it’s not women-friendly, that it denigrates women?
IN: Well, it’s rubbish because the organization is run by a woman, who is me. I marched in the earliest of rallies, I am an adamant feminist, but I’m not a prude and I think you can go to the beach and see people who are in less than you can in a PETA ad. Our people are all volunteers, no one has asked a woman to take off her clothes. I’ve done it myself, we’ve all marched naked if we want to, and I think that it’s very restrictive and in fact wrong. I would expect someone in, say, Iran to tell us that we should cover up, but I don’t expect women or men in this country to criticize women who wish to use their bodies in a form of political statement, to tell them, you need to cover yourself up. There’s this idea of ‘naughty bits’ and I just think it’s funny more than anything else. It’s not sexist, it may be sexual, but no. No woman has ever been paid to strip. She has decided to use her body as a political instrument. That’s her prerogative and I think it is anti-feminist to dare to tell her that she needs to put her clothes back on.
MJ: I guess I just feel that there are so many more women who are vegetarians than male and I don’t know if these campaigns are to raise general awareness or appeal to heterosexual males. What do these campaigns bring for PETA?
IN: It’s a biological fact, isn’t it, that people are drawn to breasts and whathaveyou, it’s just a biological fact. Maybe if everyone walked around naked it wouldn’t be so appealing. But it does, for example, when Alicia Silverstone did a very beautiful, tasteful, ‘naked’ TV spot for us it went everywhere because everyone wanted to take a look. But when people came to the web site, after they saw her commercial, they then were confronted with the facts about why she’s a vegetarian. So when people come to the web site to gawk, they actually get an education. And that’s extremely effective. Because if you just say to people, ‘Hello, would you like to see a slaughterhouse video?’ people are going to say ‘No’ and run in the other direction. But if you say would you like to see Alicia Silverstone without her clothes, most people go, ‘Good Lord, yes. Let’s have a look at that.’
MJ: One thing I saw recently that made me think of you and of PETA is a movie that’s coming out called Beverly Hills Chihuahua. And I was just wondering what your response is to that, whether it’s helping people empathize with animals or it’s kind of exploiting the animal actors in the film.
IN: Well, you know it’s a mixed bag. And we have several campaigns related to this at the moment. I wrote a book, just before this one, called Let’s Have a Dog Party.
MJ: I have that book.
IN: It’s a very fun book, I hope you agree.
MJ: I do.
IN: And I wrote it because Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, these people are terrible role models in that they acquire little dogs like the Beverly Hills Chihuahua as arm candy. One of the lessons is please don’t ever get a dog no matter how small or cute if you don’t have the time. It’s like having a baby. You can’t sleep in late, you have to get up and take them out, you can’t stay out all night, they need things. I do think that Beverly Hills Chihuahua is going to cause a run on people getting small dogs and that’s bad because that’s what happened with the 101 Dalmatians movie.
MJ: PETA has so many different campaigns, how do you guys gauge your success? How do you determine whether or not you as an organization have made progress? Do you do it in terms of revenue, or web site visits?
IN: We do do it in a number of ways. For example, our web sites. We have more than a million visitors to PETA.org every month. So we know that’s a success. And then of course we have victories, for example, if you see maniquins in a television car commercial please know that it was PETA who got rid of the car crash tests on baboons and pigs. We stopped NASA from sending monkeys into space. We have persuaded over 600 cosmetic and household products companies not to test on animals. We have, we’re always doing something that makes a tangible difference. But to me, it’s hearts and minds and it’s making activists.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ( PETA ) is protesting a requirement by Chrysler that factory workers must wear leather shoes or face being sent home without pay.
“I hope that you will retract this memo immediately and allow workers to wear shoes or boots made from any of the rugged, safe leather alternatives that exist today,” PETA corporate affairs director Matt Prescott said in a letter to Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli that was distributed to the media Thursday.
Chrysler spokesman Mike Palese said a recent memo was posted at the Los Angeles parts depot to remind workers to wear appropriate footwear after a manager noticed people wearing canvas shoes.
The standard calls for footwear with leather uppers and slip-resistant soles.
“It is a safety issue,” he said. “We were just re-articulating that, in order to get the folks working there moving in the right direction for their own benefit,” he added.
Palese said that no one was going to get fired as long as they had a shoe with a strong-enough upper and slip-resistant sole.
The PETA letter was sent via an e-mail. It said, “This requirement is likely to offend many, and it may even discriminate against employees whose religious beliefs forbid or discourage the wearing of leather.”
Oct
16
This is so revoltingly inhuman, angering, and repulsive. You can’t really call yourself human if you treat animals with that kind of untamed cruelty. The animals look so scared; they skin them alive??!! Wtf??? What in the hell are people thinking? suffocation? What the hell? That’s such disgusting treatment. It’s so simultaneously sad, aggravating, and repulsive. Animals werent put on this earth for people to abuse beat and slaughter. whoever thought that shit up doesnt deserve to live. and people arent carnivores. so you arent supposed to eat them . if you knew ANYTHING you would realize a human body has all the characteristics of a herbivore.
China is a major source for FUR
PLEASE write to the Chinese ambassador if you are in US or if you are in India contact Mr. Zhang Yan ;
His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008, US.
THESE DEFENCELESS ANIMALS ARE TREATED WITH UTTER CONTEMPT YET THEY ARE THE VERY THING THAT IS ENABLING THESE CALLOUS BUTCHERS TO MAKE A LIVING.
Urge China to enact an animal welfare law that will stop the barbaric slaughter.
ACT NOW TO HELP STOP THIS TORTUROUS TRADE.
Danity kane group PETA
With a string of hits and two successful albums on Bad Boy Records already under their belts, Danity Kane are well on their way to becoming the next female supergroup. These gals are overflowing with talent and compassion because it turns out that they’d rather go naked than wear fur. The pop sensations shed their clothes and posed in the buff for PETA’s sexy new anti-fur PSA, urging their fans and everyone else to “be comfortable in your own skin and let animals keep theirs.”
Since the group formed on MTV’s hugely popular “Making the Band” series, the multi-talented quintet of Aubrey O’Day, Aundrea Fimbres, D. Woods, Dawn Richard, and Shannon Bex has taken the music industry by storm and shows no signs of slowing down. From tours, videos, and guest spots on other albums to appearances on Broadway and the latest season of “Making the Band,” these gals are busy—but not too busy to stand up for a cause they believe in.
Danity Kane bared all in their new ad because they want everyone to know there’s nothing glamorous or beautiful about wearing fur. “Any time we would see people wear it we’d be like, ‘Gosh why’d they wear that? That’s so sad. That was a living animal at one point,’” Aundrea told us.
These songbirds know that behind every collar, cuff, or jacket is a horrible, painful death. Animals such as rabbits, foxes, minks, raccoons—and even dogs and cats—who are killed for their fur are beaten, strangled, electrocuted, and drowned, and many will be skinned alive so they can be made into clothing and accessories. Says Dawn, “Animals don’t have the voice to speak out, and that’s where it’s our place to come in and stand firm with that. And being that we’re artists, we have so much power. A lot is said in these photos, and I always thought that this statement was so beautiful.” Check out what else Danity Kane had to say when we chatted with them during their photo shoot.
Oct
12
Da Veggie Code
Are you excited about the new Da Vinci Code movie? You?re not alone. More than 40 million people read the thrilling novel, which revolves around the hidden messages in Leonardo da Vinci?s art. Da Vinci?s paintings and inventions are world-famous, and he is widely considered a genius and the ultimate ?Renaissance man.? Although people everywhere enjoy his art, humans aren?t the only ones who love Leonardo?animals are big da Vinci fans too. Why? Because da Vinci was an outspoken vegetarian. He once proclaimed, ?[T]he time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.?1
Numerous other brilliant and compassionate people throughout history have refused to eat animals. From mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras to peace activist Mahatma Gandhi and from Albert Einstein to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, history is full of great thinkers who decided to extend their circle of compassion to animals by leaving them off their plates.
Watch PETA?s fun ?Famous Historical Vegetarians? e-card starring the beloved Nugget, and send it to all your friends. (And if you love Nugget as much as we do, check out Nugget?s T-shirt!)
Send to your friends if you like it http://www.peta.org/AutomatedCards/CardFiles/Pages/PreviewFlash.asp?CardID=veg48
Members of the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), wanted to increase awareness of what the group claims is the inhumane treatment of circus animals by asking people to boycott the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus scheduled to come to Erie Oct. 30 – Nov. 2. One member of PETA sat inside a small cage to capture peoples attention as they passed by on Oct. 9.