Written by PETA
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is the first of several colleges whose president has been asked by PETA to eliminate the school's fishing team. We know what you're asking yourself: "There are actually enough boys on several college campuses trying to compensate for their below-the-belt shortcomings to start fishing teams?" Of course, they must be compensating for something. After all, why else would they participate in a "sport" in which you handle a long rod and take out your aggressions on animals who are about a hundredth of your size—in this case by tearing through their mouths with hooks and watching them thrash about and slowly suffocate, just as you would if you were in their element?
Wondering how you measure up when it comes to rod vs. rod? Take this 10-second online poll to find out.
Written by Joe Taksel
Athletes who are still choking down chicken or pounding whey-protein shakes can be relieved to know that they can trade in that garbage for gardein and soy protein powder. A new book, Bikeextreme, by sports scientist Dr. Katharina Wirnitzer is out to prove that as far as energy and vitamins go, vegan athletes are not at any disadvantage compared to those who eat meat. Wirnitzer also argues that even extreme athletes require far less protein than U.S. government guidelines (at the prompting of the meat, dairy, and egg industries) would have you believe.
"To maintain good health, a daily intake of 8–12 percent is more than enough and ideal for the highly strained metabolism of athletes," Wirnitzer says. She makes it clear that vegan diets "are not only well suited for all phases of life, as well as for top athletes, but if adequately implemented and combined with a supporting lifestyle, also optimally suited for endurance sports." To back up her research, Wirnitzer has first-hand knowledge of the subject—she's a two-time finisher of the grueling TransAlp Challenge mountain-bike race.
With endurance athletes like Dr. Katharina Wirnitzer, Brendan Brazier, and Rich Roll reaching the peak of their performance on a plant-based diet, there is no question about it: If you're a jock reaching for the top of your game, it's time to go vegan!
Written by Jeff Mackey
On Saturday, a bat found his or her way into the San Antonio Spurs game. (Some speculate that the animal didn't just fly in by accident.) The bat, of course, did what anybody would do in such a terrifying, unfamiliar situation—try to get the heck out of there—which, naturally, delayed the game. Until, that is, Spurs guard Manu Ginobili smacked the bat out of the air and slammed the animal into the hardwood court. Sports blogs across the 'net have been replaying the video of Manu in action as they celebrate his quick reflexes.
Here's our take on it:
To bludgeon a 4-ounce animal to death, it takes either a small man or a totally unthinking one—with no respect or consideration for lives humbler than his own. This is a time when athletes in particular need to be on their best behavior around any animal and show that they have brains and a heart, not just reactionary brawn.
Bats always try to avoid contact with humans, and there are plenty of easy ways to keep bats out of a basketball arena (or your home). We hope that the next time someone's life is on the line, Manu Ginobili will take just a few seconds to think before he acts.
Written by Amanda Schinke
It's a hazy day here on the Right Coast. As I watch leaves fall and steam rise from my soy mocha, the mood is set for a lazy (yet highly skilled) meander through gossip rags for fun stuff. Here are my faves:
Thanks for stopping by! Catch you next time, and don't forget to hug all your vegetarian friends.
Written by Missy Lane
It's time once again for my favorite PETA Files feature: our Vivisector of the Month contest. Each and every month, I read up on two of our nation's most vile vivisectors and let you, our dear readers, decide who is the worst by voting.
Let me begin by recognizing Marina Picciotto, whose primate addiction studies and mouse torture won her the undesirable title of Most Vile Vivisector last month. Her competitor was much-derided Allyson Bennett. Congrats, Marina—I'm certain Yale and all of New Haven are glad to have you!
This month, we have another two truly bizarre candidates … just see for yourself.
David Gozal of the Kosair Children's Hospital Research Institute in Louisville has a bit of a problem. He is fascinated by erections—mouse erections, to be exact. He passes his days in the lab getting up close and very personal with little boy-mice, studying their erections and even severing their spinal cords so that they cannot move while experimenters observe their penises.
In his most recent study, "Erectile Dysfunction in a Murine [Mouse] Model of Sleep Apnea," which was funded in part by the federal government, Gozal measured the number of erections and ejaculations in dozens of mice after placing them in a chamber to deprive them of oxygen. Some mice were also given tadalafil, an erectile dysfunction drug. They were then killed by puncturing their hearts with a needle, and their testicles and penises were cut out of their bodies for examination. Gozal concluded that oxygen deprivation makes it more difficult to get an erection and that tadalafil, which is already prescribed (as “Cialis”) for humans with erectile dysfunction, works in mice.
Daniel Traber of the University of Texas Medical Branch Department of Anesthesiology has made a living for almost three decades by burning animals' skin off. In a recent experiment, he either torched mice with a Bunsen burner until more than 40 percent of their bodies was charred or forced them to inhale smoke. A few select mice got the full treatment—they were both burned and forced to inhale smoke. Some died during the experiment, and survivors were subsequently killed.
In another study, Traber heated an aluminum bar to nearly 400 degrees with a Bunsen burner and roasted the skin of live pigs on it for 30 seconds, creating a series of deep burns that covered 15 percent of their bodies. In order to repair the deliberately injured animals, Traber and colleagues then removed skin from the pigs' legs to graft over the areas that had been burned off. After living through all this torture, the pigs were killed. Again, this is only his most recent work—Traber has been burning, mutilating, and killing sheep for years.
Who should win? The Children's Hospital Vivisector or the Bunsen Burninator? As always, let me help you decide by posing a question: Would you rather be molested, stabbed in the heart, and have your genitals torn out, or would you rather be roasted alive over a Bunsen burner, forced to inhale the smell of your burning flesh, and then killed?
It's a burning question, isn't it?
Written by Sean Conner
Staying up 'til the wee hours of the morning to catch your fave Olympians go for the gold in Beijing? That's cool. But what's even cooler is the fact that the best athletes in the world can be found in the animal kingdom, not the Olympic Village. If the Summer Olympics were open to all of the planet's species, humans probably wouldn't even have a shot at medaling—especially if they had to compete against these top five animal athletes:
5. Cows. Natural track and field stars, cows have been known to hurdle a 6-foot fence to escape from a slaughterhouse and trot 7 miles to reunite with calves sold at auction.
4. Ants. Known for their Herculean strength, ants can lift 20 times their own body weight. That's the equivalent of a 200-pound weightlifter bench pressing 4,000 pounds!
3. Cheetahs. The fastest land animal, cheetahs can reach speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. Able to accelerate faster than a Ferrari, cheetahs can go from 0 to 68 miles per hour in just 3 seconds.
2. Sharks. Frightfully fast, sharks are excellent swimmers thanks to scales covered with tiny teeth that enable water to flow smoothly over their bodies. Hoping to reduce drag and increase speed, many Olympic swimmers are now sporting swimsuits modeled after shark skin.
1. Chickens. Chickens know how to bend it like Beckham. Give a small round object to a group of chickens, and they'll happily pass it around, much like they're playing soccer.
Yep, chickens. Take that, all you live-animal markets! Speaking of China not exactly giving a cluck about animal protection (see also: fur farms), I say that we honor the true Olympic spirit of friendship and fair play by treating all animals like gold.
Written by Amy Elizabeth
Our beloved Stella McCartney is rightly outraged over the misuse of one of her designs. It seems a sheer black bra from Stella's lingerie collection was used—without Stella's permission, of course—in an ad for a fur boutique.
Stella—who is totally dedicated to her anti-fur and -leather stance—only found out about the ad when she saw it in the latest issue of Vogue. There it was: one of her designs—partially covered by a ghastly mink coat and accessorized with a ghastly leather belt. Stella had lent the bra to a stylist for use in an editorial photo shoot, but the stylist had a mix up and used it for the advertisement instead—without asking for Stella's permission.
The story is that when Stella saw the ad, she "hit the roof and said that she planned to sue." Good for her! Stella doesn't want to support the cruelty of the fur industry. (Heck, I wouldn't like it if my second-grade finger-paintings were used to promote those animal killers.)
As for the fur boutique, they have already issued a "grovelling apology" and will not be using the ad again—which is quite a blow for them, considering that the ad would've cost £10,000 (about $19,000) to shoot in the first place—and about $50,000 to place in Vogue! That's a lot of money for a boutique to lose, even for one that regularly peddles $10,000 animal skins.
It's nice that the boutique has apologized to Stella. I don't suppose there's any chance that they'll next apologize to the countless animals who are caged, electrocuted, and skinned alive in the name of "fashion" … ?
OK, I'll go easy on the impotence jokes here. I promise—just straight-up hard reporting on this one. Damn…
Anyway, I'm happy to announce that Rocket Boy, an old-school ad featuring an impotence-fighting boy astronaut, is back and ready to go where no PETA ad has gone before: outer space. You see, Virgin chair Sir Richard Branson just unveiled the WhiteKnightTwo, a carrier aircraft created to launch a commercial six-passenger spaceship within the next decade. PETA wants Rocket Boy to be onboard, so our VP Bruce Friedrich sent Branson a letter asking to buy ad space on the seat backs.
In his letter, Bruce writes:
By following our advice and ditching meat, your male passengers could rise to new heights. Cholesterol and saturated fat clog arteries and block blood flow to all of a man's vital organs—not just to his heart. Physicians report that the link is clear: Eating meat can cause impotence. Any of your passengers who have trouble "lifting off" will be glad to hear that impotence—as well as heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and prostate cancer—can likely be prevented and even reversed by switching to a healthy vegetarian diet.
No word back from Mr. Branson yet, but here's Rocket Boy, all suited up and ready to launch:
Remember the Sanchong animal shelter outside Taipei, where PETA Asia-Pacific found suffering dogs kept in horrific conditions? Well, thanks to all your calls and e-mails, the city's mayor is going to meet with PETA Asia-Pacific. He wants to discuss reforms like fixing the shelter's floor and developing SOPs for caring for the sick and injured animals. But we want more—much, much more—and we need your help!
Conditions at the shelter are so bad that redoing the concrete floor and putting up a tarp to help keep out torrential rain isn't going to do it. So long as the same lazy louts are still in charge—people who stand around joking while dogs convulse at their feet—we'd like the place to be closed down and the money to be used to move strays straight from the street into veterinary care. Please tell Sanchong to use the shelter for something else, to reassign the callous workers, and to send dogs straight to the vet for treatment or euthanasia if they are pain.
PETA Asia-Pacific's Coco and local volunteers held a great demo (see below).
Ever wondered what it'd be like to roll around in Jenna Jameson's bed sheets? Well, now you can! Whoever leaves a comment below with their favorite naked PETA ad will be entered to win the autographed sheets and pillows that she posed nude on for this ad.
Gossip gurus are all worked up over recent rumors that PETA supporter Jenna Jameson is pregnant. Jenna recently stripped down to her birthday suit and slipped beneath the sheets (again, which you can win!) to appear in our new animal birth control ad.
Jenna definitely knows a thing or two about birth control—and she understands the necessity of birth control for animals too. Why is it so important? She says:
Until dogs and cats can go on the pill or wear condoms, we need to help them practice safe sex—by spaying and neutering. Millions of homeless animals are turned in to shelters every year because there simply aren't enough good homes for them all. The answer is as easy as ABC: Animal Birth Control, which means get your Fido of Fluffy fixed!
Jenna can decide for herself whether or not she has the time, love, patience, money, and desire to have a baby—animals cannot.
You can comment until August 29, 2008, to win Jenna's autographed sheets (how hot is that?). We will contact the winner on September 3, 2008. Be sure to read the contest terms and conditions and PETA's privacy policy before you comment—you're acknowledging that you have read and agree to both by leaving a comment.
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