Written by PETA
We've been busy countering KFC's offers to fill potholes in various cities across the country with our own proposal to pay double to fill them ourselves. We're excited to announce that at least one mayor is seriously considering our offer.
Mayor Michael O'Brien of Warren, Ohio, is currently thinking about allowing us to fix his city's potholes, but he wants to run it by KFC before making a final decision. Hmm, is he trying to start a bidding war?
As a nonprofit, we might not be able compete with dollars against a money-hungry company that can't even spare a few cents out of each bucket of chicken bits that it sells to improve conditions for the very animals it profits from. That's why we've offered to "sweeten the pot," so to speak, with a free vegetarian meal for the road crew—on any day that Mayor O'Brien chooses.
If he agrees to this, the mayor won't just be doing right by 1 billion chickens; he'll show that he's invested in the health of his city's employees and the well-being of his city's environment. I can't think of a better ending to "Meat's Not Green" Week than that.
Written by Shawna Flavell
Artist and designer Edgar Lituma Soto doesn't waste a moment in his stunning animated video short, "Chicken Hormonio," which makes it clear that chickens who are raised for KFC are bred and drugged to grow so huge that they can barely stand.
Written by Karin Bennett
I have flipped through Guinness World Records more than once, searching for a record that I could break. Longest fingernails? No thanks. Longest bout of hiccups? Whoa, 68 years!
Turns out, I'm not the only one looking. KFC is hoping to make a name for itself—other than Kentucky Fried Cruelty … or the company with the most people who've resigned from its animal welfare committee … or the company that's most resistant to taking any effort to stop chickens from being scalded alive in its de-feathering tanks—by attempting to break the world record for (wait for it) most people doing the chicken dance at once.
The Guinness World Records folks have already shown that they are a sensible and decent bunch by stating, "We do not accept records based on the killing or harming of animals." So we've now approached them to ask them to refuse to accept record attempts from companies that have yet to adopt even modest humane reforms to reduce the needless suffering of animals. After all, the chicken dance is what people do at weddings and bat mitzvahs. Who wants it associated with the pain of billions of chickens, many of whose throats were cut while they were still conscious?
Here's hoping you'll be seeing my name in Guinness World Records before anyone shakes their tail feathers for KFC.
Thanks for all of your wonderful comments on this Win It Wednesday. The winners of the Colonel Sanders Bobblehead are Stray, Lindsey, Brad, Amy, Bradshaw, and BJ. Congratulations!
For this week's "Win It" Wednesday, we're calling out Colonel Sanders for Kentucky Fried Cruelty! As you know from our Super Chick Sisters game and The Roost Web series, the farms that supply the Colonel's KFC restaurants raise and kill chickens in horribly cruel conditions. Birds raised for KFC are forced into filthy cages and sheds and are sometimes scalded alive while they are still conscious. It takes a pretty awful mindset to be responsible for this kind of cruelty, so we created an evil Colonel bobblehead figurine to reflect KFC's true nature.
How do you win? Post a comment about what you'd say to Colonel Sanders if he were still around. I know it's difficult, but keep it PG-13 so that we can make sure your comment gets approved. The five people who post the most creative answers will each win a Colonel Sanders bobblehead.
The contest ends on April 29, 2009, and we'll contact the winners on May 1, 2009. Be sure to read our privacy policy and terms and conditions, as you're agreeing to both by commenting. Check back every Wednesday for new prizes. Good luck!
Written by Lianne Turner
Campaigners from PETA and our affiliates have been working their tails off, fearlessly campaigning against McDonald's, protesting KFC, and pumping up the case against bad zoos. Take a look:
Inspired yet?
In our fight to get KFC to enact minimal welfare standards for the more than 350 million chickens slaughtered for its U.S. restaurants each year, our supporters have helped us choose billboards and dressed up like the Colonel for Halloween. Now we'd like to ask your help with an even bigger task.
We're filing a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking it to take action against KFC for the chain's deliberately deceptive and unfair statements to consumers about the treatment of chickens raised and killed for its buckets and boxes. KFC allows its suppliers to house chickens in crowded sheds—with waste on the floor so thick that the ammonia burns the chickens' skin, feet, eyes, and throats. It allows its suppliers to use a slaughter method in which birds' throats are cut while they are still conscious. A company like that should not be allowed to claim a "commitment to animal welfare."
Please, take the time now to file your own, polite complaint with the FTC about KFC’s false claims of humanity and send this video to 10 friends so they can see just how "humane" KFC chicken really is.
You may have heard about this already: KFC is offering to fund pothole repair in five U.S. cities in exchange for ads promoting the decomposing bird bits that the company sells at its fast-food outlets.
KFC even hired a Colonel Sanders lookalike for the kickoff of the program in its hometown of Louisville.
KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won't, so we're offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville—if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead. After all, drivers have a right to hear the chickens' side of the story—and it isn't pretty.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Colonel Sanders got a taste of his own medicine when PETA marked the Association of Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchisees Convention in Maryland last month by "slaughtering" the Colonel outside a nearby KFC restaurant.
Luckily for the brave actor portraying Colonel Sanders, our slaughter methods are a bit more humane than those employed by KFC's suppliers. The Colonel was not slammed into shackles (which often breaks birds' legs), he wasn't jolted by an electrified "stun bath," and he wasn't dunked into a scalding-hot defeathering tank. Nope—we just strung him up, poked him with a plastic knife, and let the red paint fly. But it made a darned nice visual, didn't it?
Written by Alisa Mullins
Top o' the mornin' and happy St. Patrick's Day to you! Since you'd never find a real leprechaun at a KFC (leprechauns are far too smart for that), PETA sent out our own sexy Leprechaun Ladies to encourage passersby to opt for pots of gold, not buckets of chicken. Check out these photos for a leprechaun sighting that doesn't require a rainbow:
"Even on St. Patty's Day, chickens raised and killed for KFC are the unluckiest animals in the world," says PETA Leprechaun Lady Kristina Addington. "Once people find out about the cruelty behind every bucket of chicken, they won't eat at KFC for all the pots of gold in the world."
As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I'll be the first to admit that baseball "curses" are a bit overblown. All that the infamous "Curse of the Bambino" ever did was sell a trillion copies of a certain curly-haired sportswriter's books. The Red Sox didn't lose all those years because Babe Ruth was putting a voodoo hex on them from beyond the grave—they lost because they didn't get big hits in big at-bats, field worth a damn, or pull Pedro after the seventh inning when he was serving up more meatballs than an IKEA food court. Not that I'm still hung up on that or anything.
But I digress. Perhaps you heard that a long-lost statue of our arch-nemesis Colonel Sanders was dredged out of the Dotonbori River in Japan earlier this week, supposedly ending a 24-year curse on the Hanshin Tigers, whose fans tossed the statue in the river in the first place. Can't say I blame them. Well, the folks over at KFC are now offering the statue to the Chicago Cubs as a way to break the team's own "Curse of the Billy Goat," stemming from an incident in 1945 when a fan and his companion goat (yep) were tossed out of Wrigley Field's bleachers because of the goat's unpleasant odor.
Today, PETA wrote to the Cubs recommending that they turn down KFC's offer. If Cubs fans believe that they haven't won a World Series in 60 years because the ghost of one goat has it in for them, think about the consequences of offending the nearly 1 billion chickens who are tortured and killed for KFC every year. Here's my prediction—if the Cubs accept this Colonel Sanders statue, there won't be a World Series game at the friendly confines until KFC's slaughterhouse suppliers stop scalding live chickens to death and the company adopts PETA's recommended animal welfare program.
You heard it here first.
Written by Dan Shannon
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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