Written by PETA
Jonathan Babineaux, defensive tackle for the Atlanta Falcons, is facing felony charges in Gwinnett County Court, stemming from his alleged February 18 fatal attack on a dog. Evidently, after arguing with his girlfriend, the 286 pound lineman inflicted blunt force trauma on her dog, Kilo. According to news sources, Kilo vomited blood en route to an emergency vet clinic, and was pronounced dead there.
We're calling on the Falcons to suspend Babineaux without pay until the courts can do their thing, and if he is found guilty we have asked the Falcons to release him from the team. But as if this case isn’t disturbing enough, there have been repeated instances of animal abuse by NFL players in the past. In December, six pit bulls belonging to the Chicago Bears' Tank Johnson were said to have been the subject of public and official concern in Illinois. Leshon Johnson, who played running back for three NFL teams, faced felony charges with 21 others in 2004 stemming from their alleged involvement in a massive dogfighting ring. Former Eagles' safety Damon Moore was accused in 2001 of abandoning his puppy in a soccer field in New Jersey, and former Eagles’ running back Thomas Hamner was twice convicted of beating his dog.
Given the seeming pattern of abuse here, we’ve also written to Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, asking him to implement a strict, clear no-tolerance policy on players' abuse of animals. Surely this issue deserves as much attention from the league as any other illegal or violent player activity, which he swore to crack down on in a recent press conference.
At least there are some NFL players who get it. Check out Giants lineman Michael Strahan’s ad here.
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.
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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