Written by PETA
Here’s a great story about a group of kids in Longmont, CO, protesting the circus there. The kicker: The circus boss got arrested for making lewd comments to the female protesters. Sounds like a classy guy . . .
The protesters kept their composure and gave a great interview to the paper, including this solid quote: “In this day and age, you’d think we’re past where we need animals to do stupid tricks to entertain us.” As one of the activists pointed out, the arrest of the circus manager was not a little ironic, given that the deputies were called out to the fairgrounds in the first place because of the protest.
Anyway, I got a kick out of that. Just more evidence that the abusive, foul-mouthed circus managers ought to be enough to scare most people away ... even if those freaky-ass clowns don't do the trick.
Just a quick little tidbit for you, because this was just too good to leave unremarked: Did anyone catch David Letterman's comments about Ringling coming to Madison Square Garden on his show last night?
"Ringling Brothers circus is coming back to Madison Square Garden. How about that? What they do, they bring the elephants right through the tunnel in midtown. … And New Yorkers don't care about elephants. Honest to god, we have rats bigger than that. I love going to the circus: what is more American than eating cotton candy and watching animal abuse? Am I right?"
You rule, Dave.
Burger King has announced a series of animal welfare improvements that put it right at the forefront of the fast-food industry in terms of holding its suppliers accountable for the way they treat their animals. As of today, the company will be requiring 2 percent of its eggs to come from hens who are not confined to battery cages, buying 10 percent of its pork from farms that don't use gestation crates, and rewarding suppliers that use "controlled atmosphere killing" (by far the most humane method available) instead of killing chickens by slitting their throats and dragging them through scalding tanks. These percentages, which amount to a huge number of animals, could be doubled by the end of the year.
These changes have been a long time coming. You may remember PETA's "Murder King" Campaign, which we called off in 2001 after the company agreed to make significant improvements in its standards, including conducting periodic animal welfare audits. Since then, PETA has been working behind the scenes with the company to improve conditions for the animals it uses for its restaurants. This new animal welfare plan makes Burger King an industry leader, and it sends a strong message to other fast-food companies (including one company which will remain nameless, but whose initials could stand for Killing Friendly Chickens) that are now going to have to play catch-up in a big way, which means good things for animals across the board.
For anyone whose reaction to this news is all, "WTF? That still means that 98 percent of BK's eggs come from battery cages and 90 percent of its pork comes from gestation crates," the short answer is that we're working on it, and that going vegetarian (and gently encouraging your friends to do the same) really is a fantastic way to opt out of all that unhappiness. But in the meantime, props up to Burger King for getting the ball rolling in a big way. Here are a few resources if you want some more info on this huge victory for animals:
P.S. Burger King also has a veggie burger.
The first time I saw Steven Glover, more commonly known as Steve-O, was in the opening credits of Jackass: The Movie. Steve-O and about eight of his best friends had all climbed into a shopping cart and pushed off from the top of a massive hill to see how long it would take before they smashed into a wall, flying onto the concrete and sustaining various potentially career-ending injuries. I would never have dreamed that it was possible for Steve-O to do something even awesomer than that—until the other week when he sat down with those wild, fun-loving hipsters in PETA's youth division, peta2, to talk about his experience at Ringling's clown college, and his thoughts about the circus's treatment of animals. Yes, I know "awesomer" isn't a word, but if anything merits it, this interview does. Definitely check it out if you haven’t seen it yet.
So a little while back, we had this brilliant idea for a web feature, which was going to be called "PETA’s Top 10 Reasons to Go to Ringling Circus." The idea was that it would secretly be, like, 10 reasons not to go, except cleverly disguised in a different format. Or something. I don't remember exactly—but I do remember that the meeting where we discussed it was really fun, and people were laughing a lot. Unfortunately, once the hilarity had died down and we actually wrote up the text, it just didn't come out quite right—turns out it may have been one of those "you had to be there" type of things. It seemed like a shame to just let the feature die though, so I bravely volunteered to post it right here on this very blog. Just don't blame me if you don't think it's funny.
Anyway, here it is. Ten PETA points to anyone who posts a comment with a reason that's better than ours. Who knows, maybe it’ll mean salvation for this feature.
P.S. PETA points don’t really exist.
10. Even the dullest show on earth is more exciting than your pitiful life.Get a life! Animal abuse and domination is not entertainment or education. You can enjoy modern circuses that don’t use ho-hum animal acts, such as Cirque Du Soleil. Or come up with some great old-fashioned family entertainment, such as a day trip to a museum or nature preserve or family picnic at a local park. Or God forbid you actually do something active with your kids, like roller skating or a hike!9. Coming from a broken family, you feel right at home among the animals who have been ripped from their families.Baby elephants as young as 1 ½ years of age are torn from their mothers to be broken, trained, and sent out on the road. Four baby elephants born at Ringling’s breeding compound have died since 1998. One fractured both hind legs when he fell from a circus pedestal, another drowned trying to escape a trainer, another got sick and died on the road and one died when she was just a few weeks old.8. You want to show your kids where they’ll end up if they don’t do well in school.Convicts and Criminals and Felons, oh my! From Ringling head elephant trainer Sacha Houcke (who was fined for beating his daughter) to Spanky the Clown (child pornography) to a murderer on parole and an acrobat arrested for sexual battery – Ringling’s had them all. Can you say “The Most Unsavory Show on Earth?”7. You want to teach your kids demeaning of life.Teaching kids about wild animals by taking them to the circus is like teaching them about sex by showing them porno movies. The circus teaches your kids that chaining, caging, whipping and beating animals is acceptable – a bad lesson considering that learning and development experts stress that “Children should see adults treating animals with dignity and respect at all times.” 6. You think $40 on sno-cones is money well-spent.You won’t be alone if you stay home instead of going to the Ringling Circus. Attendance at circuses is down while prices for concessions – sno-cones, soft drinks, programs and kids’ toys are way up. Plan on squandering several hundred dollars for a family of four to visit the circus this year.5. It’s like When Animals Attack meets Russian roulette!At least 12 humans have been killed and more than 100 injured in the U.S. by rampaging elephants. An elephant in a circus traveling in Hawaii killed her trainer and injured another circus worker – it took 87 shots from pistols, rifles, and high powered weapons to stop her. Other elephants have injured and killed trainers and spectators. Are you sure you want to enter your family in the Death-by-Elephant Lottery by going to the circus?4. If you don’t help the circus owner pay his fines and legal fees for animal abuse who will?Ringling management forked over $20,000 to settle charges for the death a baby elephant who was forced to perform while sick; $51,305 in legal fees in a PETA lawsuit; and more fines may be on the way with multiple investigations open by the USDA and a lawsuit for violating the Endangered Species Act.3. You believe that an elephant trainer who beat his daughter would be kind to animals.Ringling head elephant trainer Sacha Houcke pled guilty in May 2005 for beating his own daughter. Lucky for his daughter that Sacha didn’t use the same bullhook on her that he frequently uses on elephants.2. You think that 2000 years in captivity isn’t nearly long enough to understand elephants’ need for vast spaces.Elephants have been exhibited in captivity since before the birth of Christ. Despite Ringling’s claims of education and conservation, there are fewer elephants in the wild today than ever before and those in captivity often die prematurely from health problems caused by a lack of space. While most of Ringling’s elephants were captured in the wild, none of the baby elephants born at its breeding compound can ever be released into the wild because they won’t know how to survive.1. You’re a sucker, plain and simpleP.T. Barnum allegedly said “there is a sucker born every minute.” He might have been talking about people who spend good money to see animals abused at the circus (and pay for those $13 ‘souvenir’ programs).
Did you get this far? Congratulations! Remember, 10 precious PETA points for every reason you can come up with that's better than ours. Don't everybody shout at once.
The bird flu post the other day reminded me of a hilarious old picture from The Onion. Unfortunately, I just didn't get around to writing about it in the blog at the time, but as I like to say about me marrying Natalie Portman and you going vegetarian ... better late than never.
With all the people getting sick, don’t ya think this is exactly what KFC needs—a bird flu vaccine dipping sauce?
Breaking news here folks, and it's been 17 years in the making: In 1989, a video camera caught nightclub entertainer Bobby Berosini beating and punching the orangutans he used in his act at the Stardust. This week, Berosini lost yet another round in the court battle that has been going on ever since.
Instead of just paying PETA's court costs when we won the case the first time round, Berosini was forced by a federal district court to pay more than $250,000 incurred by PETA’s attorneys in trying to locate assets that he and his wife, Joan Berosini, had hidden after the initial legal battle. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that payment order, on top of the more than $400,000 in court costs Berosini had previously paid PETA. The real victory here, though, is for the animals depicted in the video below, which (just in case it wasn't clear from the whole hiding money and trying to manipulate the justice system deal) shows exactly what sort of a person this Berosini guy is.
$250,000 dollars is a hell of a lot of money to have paid, but after watching that video again, I'm not exactly welling up with sympathy for Mr. Berosini's misfortunes. As PETA's president, Ingrid Newkirk puts it,
“There’s a lesson here for any entertainers who still feel that beating animals is acceptable. Berosini kept intelligent apes locked up in steel boxes for years, and he can never pay back the animals for the nightly beating they endured.”
And in the esteemed words of Forrest Gump . . . that’s all I have to say about that.
Sure, if the signs were a little different and our girls weren’t drop dead gorgeous, it could be mistaken for a Hooters audition, but lucky for us—and the animals—the girls are super hot and instead of “Fried Pickles and Chicken Wangs” their signs read: “Fur Out Love In”.
Our traveling campaigners are on a nationwide anti-fur tour right now, and oddly enough, they are getting crazy amounts of attention at every stop. Here’s an article from Austin. Enjoy.
Oh man . . . sad, weird news. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Anna Nicole Smith passed away today. And I’m sure everyone in the world will have an opinion on how and why she died so young.
She worked with PETA on a lot of campaigns over the years, and as strange as it may sound, I always thought she was an absolute perfect fit for us, because just like PETA, you couldn’t ignore her and, love her or hate her, everyone had an opinion. What you see is what you get—I loved that about her.
I always got a kick out of the stories from my friend Michael, who worked with Anna Nicole on all of her PETA projects, and thinking back on it now, she really did a lot for PETA and for animals all over the world.
She spoke out against Iams for its cruel animal tests, spoke up for baby seals in Canada, and gave fur-wearing celebrities an earful, but in my mind her crowning achievement was this amazing anti-fur ad.
After being exposed to animal rights over the years, Anna Nicole even became a vegetarian, and was nominated for the 2006 World’s Sexiest Vegetarian, and looking at her ad you can certainly see why.
It's a tragedy when anyone passes away before their time, but with Anna Nicole, the animals have lost a true sympathiser, and PETA has lost a good friend. We’ll miss you, Anna.
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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