Written by PETA
On Saturday, PETA's DC Outreach Team, which is based at the Nanci Alexander Center for Animal Rights in Washington, D.C., held its 400th outreach event of 2010. No, that's not a typo! To mark the occasion, PETA volunteers and interns helped hand out almost 1,000 copies of PETA's vegetarian/vegan starter kit (VSK) and The Kids' Guide to Helping Animals magazine.
One volunteer estimated that 90 percent of passersby took a VSK. Many people said that they had been thinking about going vegetarian and were impressed by the numerous vegan dining options in the D.C. area. Since a whopping 45 percent of people who pick up a VSK kick the meat habit—and since every vegetarian saves more than 100 animals a year—the Outreach Team is making some tracks!
To be a lifesaver for animals wherever you go, please join PETA's Action Team so that you can order literature, get tips, and get started helping animals right away.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
It's so hot in the city, you'd think I'd be making another batch of lemonade—but I've got a hankering for some Internet Soup. It's been a while since the last batch, so dig in!
Oof! I don't know about you, but I'm full after all that soup—and guac. This Special K needs a siesta. Until next time …
Written by Karin Bennett
Yesterday, Nanci Alexander—one of our most generous and tireless friends to animals—joined a myriad of PETA supporters in D.C. to cut the ribbon and officially open the doors to PETA's Washington home, The Nanci Alexander Center for Animal Rights:
Nanci, whom Ingrid E. Newkirk describes as "an animal rights activist's activist," is the woman to whom Newkirk dedicated her book One Can Make a Difference. She is also the founder of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida and the creator of Fort Lauderdale's fabulous all-vegan world cuisine restaurant Sublime, where Sir Paul McCartney and Steve-O have enjoyed meals, and as Ingrid says, if George Bernard Shaw and the Buddha were alive, you'd find them eating there too. She was among the first to spark debate over SeaWorld's horrible confinement of killer whales and dolphins and was also behind Florida's pig gestation-crate ban.
Finding herself seated next to President Bush the elder one day, Nanci asked him to do one thing: think about the suffering of the animals he shoots. If everyone spoke up that way, the world would be a far kinder place. Nanci has devoted her life to waking people up to cruelty to animals and changing everything from what they think to what they eat. PETA plans to do great things from the building now named after her.
Written by Logan Scherer
Did you hear about the head-turning, headline-capturing, and climate-defying event that hit D.C. this weekend? No, not the record-breaking blizzard—we're talking about Saturday's opening of "Naked Ambition: 20 Years of PETA's Sexy Celebrity Ads" at the Govinda Gallery in Georgetown.
While many people in the D.C. area were bundled up inside, Twilight star Christian Serratos, who flew in from California to be at the event, was right when she said of the weather, "It will ruin everything but PETA's determination." In fact, the weather seemed to provide PETA campaigner Michelle Cho with some inspiration—to take PETA's campaign back out into the street, where it first started.
Cho, in nothing more than a G-string, was accompanied by an underwear-clad Jack Ryan and Serratos—who remained fully clothed on the insistence of her mother—for a bit of frolicking fun in the snowdrifts just outside the gallery. The three of them literally stopped traffic—monstrous snowplows, to be exact—and captured the attention of plenty of curious onlookers.
Fifty people braved the snowstorm to attend the show, which features photographs of Pamela Anderson, Tyra Banks, Dennis Rodman, Alicia Silverstone, and tons of other celebrities—including, of course, Serratos herself.
The blizzard came and went, but the "Naked Ambition" exhibition will be at the Govinda Gallery until January 9. Holiday road trip, anyone?
It was a cagey scene outside NASA headquarters in D.C. yesterday when our primates urged NASA to scrap its misguided $1.75 million plan to torment monkeys in radiation experiments. The demonstration was out-of-this-world spectacular, prompting NASA employees to approach our volunteers for some dynamic discussions. No one could walk by these guys without stopping to have a second look:
The more than two dozen monkeys in NASA's crude experiment will be zapped with a massive dose of radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York, and then spend the rest of their lives condemned to a laboratory at Harvard's McLean Hospital where they'll be enlisted in a never-ending series of experiments to assess how the radiation devastates their brains and bodies. NASA has admitted that the radiation is "going to cause some cellular damage." What they really mean is that the monkeys may likely suffer from brain damage, cancer and premature aging.
It goes without saying that you should urge NASA to abandon these abhorrent experiments ASAP.
I really hope that Michelle Obama was able to take in Pink's sold-out show at the D.C.-area Patriot Center last night.
Before launching into "Dear Mr. President," Pink showed some love for the current missus: "Let's get political for a second. Since we're near D.C., I have to give a shout-out to Michelle Obama, who has announced that she is officially fur-free. I love an animal-lovin' first lady!"
Even when she's on the road, hard at work, our pal Pink is never too busy to give props to people who are doing their part to protect animals.
Written by Shawna Flavell
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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