I’ve been taking a break from the Vivisector of the Week posts for the past month, but when my colleague Justin told me about these two nasty little specimens, I knew I needed to highlight their work—because, well, it really is something to behold:

Eliot Spindel and Judy Cameron both work at a place called the Oregon National Primate Research Center, and they specialize in traumatizing and hurting monkeys.

Eliot Spindel OHSU/Creative Commons Eliot Spindel has squandered more than $3.5 million of taxpayer money since 2000 in an attempt to show that (wait for it) smoking during pregnancy can be bad for the child. It seems like Mr. Spindel could have saved himself some trouble by just asking someone, but he wanted to do it the hard way, by impregnating monkeys, injecting them with dangerous levels of nicotine, delivering the babies pre-term via caesarian section, then killing and mutilating them shortly after they’re born.

Judy Cameron DevelopingChild/Creative Commons I don’t know whether there’s something in the water over at ONPRC, but Spindel’s colleague Judy Cameron seems to share his fascination with performing expensive and painful experiments in the service of a mind-bogglingly self-evident piece of information. Cameron’s work involves separating baby monkeys from their mothers to see how much it traumatizes them—which, as we already know, is an awful lot. Now, thanks to the long hours that Judy and her predecessors have spent in the lab torturing primates, we know that babies suffer when they’re ripped from their mothers and deprived of affection. Thank you, Judy.

Wonderful work those guys are all doing over at ONPRC, huh? We’re going to see what we can do to make sure their whole operation is shut down for good.

I can’t think why, but apparently, the good folks at New Hampshire Community Technical College-Manchester have grown unhappy with their institution’s name. I guess it’s possible that they thought it was a bit on the boring side. Or perhaps just a teensy bit unwieldy?

Either way, as of last week, their long wait for an exciting new moniker is over, since the kindhearted souls in PETA’s Vegan Campaigns Department had a little brainstorming session and decided to offer them this striking suggestion:

It has a real ring to it, doesn’t it? Something about the alliteration, maybe. If they like our idea, not only will NHCTC students be able to hold their heads high with the knowledge that their school finally has a genuinely interesting name, but they’ll be sending a strong message that their progressive institution opposes cruelty to animals in all its forms. Plus, in case they need an incentive beyond the good they’ll be doing for the chickens abused for KFC’s restaurants, I can assure them that name changes like that tend to get a whole lot of publicity …

You can read our letter to the school here. We haven’t heard back from them yet for some reason, but I’ll let you know when we do.

I have to admit that I don’t have a very good head for figures, but the math here seems pretty straightforward. And while we’re talking numbers, selling people dogs and cats when there are between 6 and 8 million waiting for homes in shelters every year is about as dumb as shelling out a thousand dollars for an animal at Petland when you could be rescuing one of the 3 to 4 million who will be euthanized this year for lack of a good home.

These pics are from Friday’s demonstration outside an Orlando Petland where we debuted our new “Priceless” ads, which make a simple but effective point to potential pet store customers.

Here’s a taste of what PETA UK’s been doing with the money they received from Covance Inc. following the dismissal of Covance’s lawsuit against them. Karma’s a bitch, sometimes.

Up until Wednesday, you can put yourself in the running to earn a bit of spending money over at Helium.com just for doing what you do so well right here on this very blog. Anyone interested can head over there and post your thoughts on topics ranging from “PETA’s Kentucky Fried Cruelty Campaign” to “How to End Animal Homelessness”. Check it out here if it strikes your fancy.

They’ve got a nice little community going over there, and the articles make for some pretty interesting (and, yes, occasionally infuriating) reading.

Washoe, the chimpanzee who became world-famous after learning sign language and teaching it to other primates, died last week in Washington State. PETA’s Primate Specialist, Debra Durham, wrote this great op-ed about Washoe, and what we can learn from her experience, which appeared in The Saint Paul Pioneer Press yesterday. Check it out:

To be honest, I’m having trouble coming up with a decent intro to this video. It’s a behind the scenes look at the companion animal overpopulation crisis, from the perspective of a woman who deals with it every day, up close and personal. It really made me think about what an absolute joke the whole idea of “responsible” breeding is, when millions of animals are killed annually for one simple reason: there just aren’t enough good homes for them.

Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.

People will cling on to the most unlikely notions if it means that they can keep doing something they enjoy but know deep down is wrong. And sad as it is to say, there are going to be people who continue to ignore or deny the fact that crustaceans feel pain despite mountains of evidence that this is the case—including the study published in New Scientist today, which shows that lobsters, crabs, and other crustaceans all share pain sensitivity. Which means (just in case anyone needs this spelled out) that cramming them into pots of boiling water while they’re still alive should be a jailable offense. Literally. We prosecute people for equivalent cruelty to cats or dogs, so a lobster bake shouldn’t be any different.

Setting that aside for a second, I hate the fact that this study was ever done in the first place. The notion of a bunch of grown men and women in labcoats prodding lobsters to see if they react and then pompously announcing to the scientific community, that “yes, they do react,” would frankly be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that these animals suffered to prove what we all know intuitively already: That there’s something horribly wrong with the way we treat these animals, and that no matter how much someone might enjoy the taste of lobster, there is simply no way to justify torturing a living being for the sake of a palate preference.

If you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely check out the essay Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace (who happens, incidentally, to be my favorite living author). It’s a fascinating analysis of the ethics related to this issue from the point of view of someone who had never given it any thought at all, until he was assigned to write about a lobster festival for Gourmet magazine. You can find that here.

Sex and the City. People either love it or hate it. And since the series has ended, there has been no shortage of drama between the show's loyal fans and its detractors, and also between the actors themselves. But believe it or not, jumping into that fray isn't the point of this post.

The movie version of Sex is filming right now, and this picture is making its way all over the Internet. Apparently, there is a scene in the movie where people who call themselves PETA tell Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall's character) what they think of her choice of outerwear, as they throw paint on her. Here's the photo that's been doing the rounds of the Sex and the City fansites today, so you can judge for yourselves:

And for the record, PETA doesn't throw paint on fur wearers. What we suggest is giving them an earful while handing them one of these nifty anti-fur business cards, or maybe encouraging them to display one of these wonderful little warning labels:

Here’s what Natalie Portman told The Sun last week when she was asked about her refusal to wear leather for a role:

I’m still waiting for the right time to let Natalie Portman know the extent and depth of my feelings for her. I’ll let you know how that goes.

AskMen/Creative Commons