Written by Michelle Kretzer
Twitter cofounders Biz Stone and Evan Williams are putting their money where their beaks are, backing Beyond Meat, a company that produces cruelty-free faux meats. Now, every time cruel meat-peddling companies such as McDonald's use Twitter, they'll actually be helping to support the vegan cause!
Photo: Frank W. Ockenfels 3 For Solo Artist: Hair by David Gardner Makeup by Spencer Barnes
Tricia Helfer is tweeting to help end the Canadian seal slaughter and wearing her PETA pride on her sleeve chest:
After rescuing a dog himself, Josh Duhamel is a proud rescue advocate: "Pet adoption changed my life when we were looking to find a companion for our 7-year-old dachshund, Zoe. Soon after adopting Meatloaf, I learned that these pets are just grateful for the love you have to give them."
Yvonne Strahovski will be taking her animal rights advocacy to a killer new venue, as she will be appearing on season seven of Dexter, and Waka Flocka Flame's new album, Triple F Life, which debuted this week, is decidedly free of one "f" ("fur") and full of another ("fun").
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There's one thing that both Team Twilight and Team Hunger Games can agree on: Everyone should be on Team Tilly.
Are rats smarter than your search engine? The answer may make you want to Google the "Hidden Lives of Rats."
New Jersey is serious about protecting animals in vehicles. Drivers who let their Benjis ride without a seatbelt could find themselves shelling out a few Benjis.
Blood, flesh, veins, muscles, tendons, cow secretions, hen periods, and bee vomit? Bon appétit!
Sarasota County, Fla., officials postponed their decision on feral hog hunting—in which dogs are allowed to chase and maul feral hogs—in order to consider other wildlife control options. Send the county your thanks and ask it to choose humane methods.
Urban Decay is letting its values decay—urge the company to halt its new animal tests and remain cruelty-free.
The Hollywood baby boom is still going, but now it seems that everyone has found something new to go gaga over: cruelty-free food.
The original Focker, Ben Stiller, and his wife, Christine Taylor, are now vegan and are helping their kids embrace cruelty-free eating, too. "It really has changed our energy level," says Taylor. "Sometimes you don't realize it until someone says it to you, like, 'Your skin looks amazing.'"
Christie Brinkley already knew that. Still stunning at 58, she credits what she eats with giving her supermodel good looks—she's been vegetarian since age 13.
Fellow model and Sexiest Vegetarian alum Lauren Bush Lauren doesn't mince words when talking about her feelings on factory farms. When asked who her mortal enemy was, she responded, "Factory farms, because I am a vegetarian and the thought of innocent animals being raised in poor conditions and then systematically slaughtered is just horrifying to me."
Brad Pitt had some strong words to say about animal slaughter, too. "Ever seen them butcher a cow for hamburger?" he asked reporters at the Cannes Film Festival. "It's incredibly brutal and violent. We live in a very violent world." And Billy Bob Thornton, separated from Brad by only one degree of Kevin Bacon, told Craig Ferguson that he is now mostly vegan. When the stars weren't going vegan this week, they were tweeting for animal rights:
To keep up with what your favorite celebs are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
Rihanna got busted by the fashion police for wearing a dress made of crocodile. Kelly Osbourne rocked for crocs by proclaiming that she's not down with people wearing crocodile skins.
Over on one of our other favorite shows, Ellen, Carrie Underwood dished about how her hubby, hockey player Mike Fisher, is getting cozy with vegan cuisine. And since Ellen DeGeneres gave Underwood Vegan Cooking for Carnivores by her chef, Roberto Martin, we're betting things will really be heating up in the couple's kitchen.
Ellen, Portia de Rossi, and Roberto also veganized the Rachael Ray Show. While Roberto and Portia cooked, Ellen quipped that cheese is so heavy that if you skip it, "there is more room for cocktails!"
In the Philippines for a performance, outspoken vegetarian Morrissey (a few chords from Meat Is Murder, anyone?), urged President Benigno Aquino III to send Manila Zoo's lone elephant, Mali, who has spent the last 35 years imprisoned, to a sanctuary that PETA has secured for her in the U.S.
Captivating actor Marion Cotillard is also against holding animals captive. On the orca training scenes that appear in her upcoming film, Rust and Bone, she said, "I've always had a repulsion going in a place where animals are in captivity."
Of course, celebrities were also tweeting for animals this week, including Jonah Hill and Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino:
To keep up with what the stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
Just two months after telling Ellen DeGeneres, "I want to be a vegan," Meredith Vieira has done it. After seeing her Ellen appearance, PETA rushed Meredith a copy of Sir Paul McCartney's slaughterhouse exposé Glass Walls, a vegetarian/vegan starter kit, and Tal Ronnen's The Conscious Cook to help her along. On The Chew, she told chef Mario Batali about why she made the switch: "I've done a lot of stories on the way food is, you know, processed in this country—animals—and it's very disturbing."
CNBC's Jim Cramer isn't just mad about money—now he's gone mad for vegetarian cuisine. In the wake of the "pink slime" debacle, Cramer announced on Squawk on the Street that he is going vegetarian, just like his doctor and his daughter.
There will soon be less to see of Seattle Seahawk Deuce Lutui. He went vegan to lose weight and improve his performance in the coming season.
Sexiest Vegetarian alum Leona Lewis finds the song formerly called "Theraflu" by the tool currently called "Kanye West" "awful." She tweeted, "Heard that awful Kanye W song talking about minx dragging on the floor. What an awful thing to be proud of! I take all my love for him back!" She then tweeted a picture of an adorable mink and the words "Lil minx <3."
Leona's celeb pals joined her in sticking up for animals on Twitter this week:
After learning about Walter, a severely abused dog who was starved and then thrown out of the window of a moving car, Ashley Judd is picking up the tab for his medical expenses, visiting him every day, and updating her Twitter followers on his condition. "This never should have happened to Walter, and through his story, we can make sure that it never happens to another animal again," she said.
Rock legend Morrissey wants to help make sure that no more sheep are mutilated in a cruel process called "mulesing." While touring in Japan, Moz reached out to Tokyo-based international clothier Uniqlo and asked the company to stop sourcing wool from Australian farmers who still mules sheep.
Last week after Canadian Sen. Mac Harb announced that he would introduce a bill to end the seal slaughter, PETA immediately posted an action alert on our website asking our members to urge Canadian senators to support the bill. You responded in droves: Within two days, some 50,000 of you asked them to pass the bill and end the slaughter. Hollywood jumped in, too, and soon a link to our action alert had reached millions of people via Twitter.
Sam Simon, Stephanie Pratt, Jessica-Jane Clement, Joanna Krupa, Angela Simmons, Laura Vandervoort, Sheneka Adams, Jayde Nicole, Elisabetta Canalis, and Jessica Veronica, also tweeted their support, and before the bill had even been introduced, the worldwide support for it was evident.
With public support for the bill obviously so overwhelming, Sen. Larry Campbell seconded it after it was introduced, and the Senate voted almost unanimously to hear arguments on it. The bill will now be debated, so we still need everyone to continue to e-mail Canada's senators and urge them to support this historic piece of legislation.
How does Mad Men star Jessica Paré (aka "Megan Draper") keep her svelte figure? A vegetarian diet. Jessica told People magazine, "It's amazing what your diet can do for your skin." And Vincent Kartheiser isn't really a bad boy—he just plays one on TV. In real life, Vincent eats cruelty-free, too.
Los Angeles chef Roy Choi gained fame for his Kogi BBQ food truck, but he has turned his back on meat, earning him props from animal advocates and a slew of goodies from PETA.
And Scarlett Johansson credits vegan foods with helping her get ready for that Avengers bodysuit.
When vegan powerhouses collide: Catch the conversation that everyone's favorite vegan former POTUS, Bill Clinton, had with Ellen DeGeneres and prepare to swell with vegan pride.
Disturbed at how Ukraine is cruelly killing stray animals before the Euro 2012 football championship, the always gorgeous vegetarian beauty Pamela Anderson wrote to the president of the Union of European Football Associations imploring him to support spaying and neutering as a way to control animal overpopulation. Then, while she was in Mumbai, Pam was so stricken by the plight of the many homeless dogs roaming India's streets that she adopted one to join her family of rescued dogs.
Never one to miss an opportunity to speak up for animals, Pam joined other celebrities in tweeting for them this week:
Diane Keaton found an opportunity to promote animal adoption during an appearance on The Tonight Show. The witty star of the new film Darling Companion and longtime vegetarian introduced the audience to Clover, a dog up for adoption, and said, "Clover looks like Jay … except without the chin."
The crooning voice of Enrique Iglesias was music to one dog's ears. The sultry singer expanded his dog family to three, with a rescued German shepherd.
And country songbirds Kellie Pickler and Laura Bell Bundy both chose animal-friendly professions for their appearances on Great American Country's Day Jobs. Sexiest Vegetarian alum Kellie worked at a sanctuary with elephants rescued from circuses and zoos, and PETA pal Laura prepped a homeless dog from Emmylou Harris' animal shelter, Bonaparte's Retreat, for her big "audition" for a potential adoptive family.
To keep up with what all your favorite celebs are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
Of course, PETA loves cheering for Team Peeta, but Josh Hutcherson has really stepped up his game for animals. The Hunger Games hottie adopted a pit bull puppy from a California animal shelter, and now the dog's broken femur and broken heart are both on the mend.
Hollywood may be experiencing a second baby boom this year. Marie Osmond adopted a new dog, and Miranda Lambert tweeted that it was "being discussed" whether or not she and hubby Blake Shelton would keep a stray dog she had just rescued.
There were plenty of other discussions about animal issues going on elsewhere in the Twitterverse:
In her post for Global Grind, Simone Reyes wrote in depth about PETA's dairy farm investigation and made a great case for why milk is bad for our bodies and for animals.
Simone's boss, Russell Simmons, dissed milk, too, when he wrote to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo explaining why milk shouldn't be the official state beverage.
Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz noshed on cruelty-free vegan ice cream on Bones, and Gwen Stefani grabbed a healthy vegan lunch with her son Zuma.
Do you sometimes get down in the dumps about cruelty to animals? Me too. But to change that, we need to be gung-ho go-getters, not teary-eyed tissue-wetters. And it has never been easier to initiate changes for animals without even leaving home.
Getting active online takes just a few clicks of the mouse, and since we already use social media almost every day, getting animal rights messages out to hundreds—even thousands—of people is even easier.
A one-click way to spread animal-friendly content on any social-networking site is simply to "like" it, give it a "thumbs up," click "rate 5 stars," etc.
People sometimes hesitate to "like" content that describes or illustrates cruelty, such as an undercover investigative video showing circus trainers who beat elephants. But by "liking" it, we aren't condoning the abuse—we're suggesting that others learn about it so that they will, hopefully, be prompted to act. It seems natural to "dislike" such horrific images, but that can actually discourage people from viewing important content.
Another easy way to help spread the anti-cruelty message is just to post it on your social-networking pages. Post PETA content on the following sites:
And last, but not least: anywhere—we love it when people share our posts far and wide!
Please sign up for our e-news—it's a great way to get new information to share with others.
Are you gung-ho yet? Go get 'em!
What do a tweet, a toy, and a Toyota have in common? They can all be used to help animals! Hey, times are tough, and while lots of people may be in the giving spirit at this time of year, their wallets may not be feeling quite so generous. With that in mind, we've thought of some great ways that anyone can give to animals simply by donating time—or an old car!
Happy holidays from PETA!
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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