Written by PETA
Just so I can complete the perfect trifecta of posts about quirky demonstrations today (see the shower girls and the DC dinosaur in case you missed them), here’s one that involves six businesspeople in one small cage. The purpose of this protest—which took place outside drugmaker Eli Lilly’s annual shareholder meeting yesterday—was to let the company’s shareholders know about its decision to outsource animal experiments to China and other countries where animal protection laws are virtually non-existent.
As a wise man once said, “A man’s crimes against nature aren’t any less disgusting when he pays the Chinese to do them for him.” OK, fine, a wise man didn’t once say that. But he should have. ’Cuz it’s true.
"I've worn a lot of pleather in my life. Anybody who knows me knows that I've kind of lived half my life in it. I love the idea of having choices outside of leather. The outfit that I'm wearing in the ad is so sexy that I suggest if people want to have a better time in the bedroom — then please explore the pleather side."
Thank you, Jenna Jameson! And you can find some more information about great alternatives to buying leather (in addition to just, like, not buying it), right here. Be on the lookout for Jenna’s new ad on March 10—it’s kind of spectacular.
Deflocked, baby. Deflocked.
To check out the archives of past strips, click here.
With all the constant chatter about 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy announcement, this seemed like an ideal time to air our “Sex Talk” ad, which draws a connection between irresponsible animal guardians who refuse to spay and neuter their pets, and parents who are a bit too blasé about having that awkward chat with their kids about birds, bees, and other such reputedly promiscuous creatures.
The ad will be running in Ms. Spears’ home state of Louisiana this week to remind residents of the Bayou State that animal overpopulation in this country has extended well beyond crisis proportions, and that anyone who cares about their dog or cat should have them spayed or neutered immediately. Fortunately, the ad itself is a lot funnier and less preachy than what I just wrote, so you should check it out if you haven’t seen it yet. You can also read Fox News’ take on the story here. The “Sex Talk” ad, and its companion piece “Buy One, Get One Free” are below—stay tuned for the third installme which is coming out in a couple of weeks (that’s what’s called a teaser!). Check ‘em out:
Two members of PETA Asia Pacific hijacked a fur seminar at Hong Kong Fashion Week today to ensure that attendees got the animals’ side of the story as well. Here’s what PETA Asia Pacific’s Rebecca Chui had to say about it:
“We want the Fashion Week attendees to know that fur means cruelty to animals. They suffer terrible pain from the time they are caught. Some of them are skinned alive. Some are killed by poisoning, gassing or anal or vaginal electrocution. We are in the 21st century and there is fur substitute now. There's no excuse to kill any more animals.”
Asked for comment on this statement, the Hong Kong Fur Federation called it “extremely regrettable”—by which I can only assume they meant “bad for business.” Which, well, fair enough. I can’t imagine that they would have chosen these images themselves to represent their nasty little promotional event in the international media:
To celebrate the occasion, PETA India held a giant birthday bash in Mumbai, hosted by Ingrid Newkirk and some of India’s biggest stars. Happy Birthday, guys! Here are some of the pics that have been circulating the web (just in case you’re not keeping tabs on the Indian celebrity blogosphere already).
Ron Jeremy has been, um, a really big supporter of PETA's work to help cats and dogs for a long time, and this Friday he took some time out of what I can only imagine was a ridiculously busy night at the Adult Entertainment Awards in Las Vegas to unveil his "Too Much Sex Can Be a Bad Thing" ad, aimed at reducing cat and dog overpopulation by promoting spaying and neutering.
Here are a few pics from the event, followed by Ron's awesome PSA for us. Admittedly, this may not be the first time that Ron Jeremy has posed naked for the cameras, but it's a hell of an ad nonetheless. Oh yeah, and the shirt he's wearing in these pics is priceless ...
It’s too bad that it required an outbreak of a disease that’s contagious to humans for PetSmart to make this decision, but this is something we’ve been asking the pet store chain to do for a long time now. According to The Huntsville Times PetSmart has stopped selling birds in all of its stores for the moment while it looks into the outbreak of psittacosis that has affected the birds it gets from various suppliers. And now that they’ve taken this step of removing these animals from the sales floor, we want to do everything we can to make sure things stay that way. One has to wonder what is happening with all of the sick birds as we speak?
Like all animals exploited by the pet trade, exotic birds sold at pet stores like PetSmart are raised in conditions that are designed to be the most profitable for breeders, which means that they are often crowded inside sheds, barns, and garages without any regard for their basic needs or the dangers of spreading infection and disease. No one should be surprised when this sort of thing happens in a pet store. It should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about birds—the very symbol of freedom—that keeping them confined in cages is cruel in the extreme, and PetSmart should never have been selling these wild animals in the first place. You can click here to learn more about our campaign against PetSmart and contact the company about its lousy track record of animal sales.
There’s a new headstone in one of the plots adjoining Colonel Sanders’ grave in Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery. It’s inscribed with what our press release is calling a “moving tribute” to a "Kind Friend of Chickens." I’ll refrain from commenting on the literary merits of the poem itself, but the fact that the bright red letters running down the left side of the poem spell "KFC Tortures Birds" is a piece of undeniable genius on the part of my friend Matt Prescott, who spearheads PETA’s Kentucky Fried Cruelty Campaign, and whose name is on the headstone. In addition to ensuring that when Matt’s time eventually comes, he’ll have a prime piece of real estate waiting for him in Louisville, this has garnered us some great coverage for our KFC Campaign, including a story in US News and World Report today.
Here’s what Matt had to say about the whole thing, and you can see a photo of the tombstone below:
"This headstone will remind visitors that KFC stands for cruelty and death. We'll continue to pressure KFC executives to stop these grotesque abuses of billions of chickens—no matter how long it takes."
It’s just a suggestion of course, but I think it makes sense that a dude who’s been accused of cooking and eating someone should be put on a flesh-free diet. Or as PETA VP Bruce Friedrich puts it, “If people are revolted by the idea of eating a human corpse, they should also lose their appetites at the thought of eating the flesh of other tortured victims.” You can read Bruce’s letter to the Texas prison where accused murderer Christopher Lee McCuin is being held here.
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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