Written by PETA
I haven’t always been as nice as I could be to Britney Spears over the past year or so, but if she pays attention to PETA’s latest attempt to reach out, I’ll have to change my tune in a hurry. Impressed by Britney’s performance as a receptionist on How I Met Your Mother last week, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk wrote to her on Friday to offer her a job. The hope is that a bit of time in the PETA offices will help her to change her mind about wearing fur and buying dogs from pet stores. MSNBC covered the story this morning, and you can read Ingrid’s letter below.
March 27, 2008 Britney Spears[address redacted] Dear Britney, After seeing your excellent performance on How I Met Your Mother, PETA would like to offer you a real job as a receptionist. It could be for as little as an hour, and you would see—from the inside—why we are so concerned about issues like fur and homeless dogs and cats. As a "thank you" for your willingness to learn and help, we would donate $1,000 to a children's charity. As PETA's "virtual receptionist," you will see firsthand the problems that we deal with every day. You would be able help the cats and dogs who linger in animal shelters because people have chosen to buy animals from breeders or pet stores. You will also personally respond to calls about our Animal Birth Control (ABC) campaign, which provides no- to low-cost spay/neuter surgeries and other services in underprivileged communities. You will explain to callers that every time someone buys a dog or cat from a breeder or a pet store instead of adopting from an animal shelter, a shelter animal loses a chance at ever finding a home. You will explain how 6 to 8 million unwanted dogs and cats enter U.S. animal shelters every year and how most will die simply because there are not enough good homes for them. You would also tell people about the misery that foxes, chinchillas, and other animals suffer on fur farms and explain how mother animals caught in traps are so desperate to return to their young that they will often chew off a limb to escape. You will tell callers about the number of animals killed to make one fur coat and how these animals—like us—would prefer to love and enjoy life rather than be strangled, poisoned, or electrocuted. And you will never be the same again. We might have criticized you in the past for contributing to the dog overpopulation crisis and wearing real fur, but perhaps now that your own crisis has abated, a new day calls for a new relationship, a new outlook, and a new understanding. We wish you well and look forward to a positive response. Very truly yours, Ingrid E. NewkirkPresident
March 27, 2008
Britney Spears[address redacted]
Dear Britney,
After seeing your excellent performance on How I Met Your Mother, PETA would like to offer you a real job as a receptionist. It could be for as little as an hour, and you would see—from the inside—why we are so concerned about issues like fur and homeless dogs and cats. As a "thank you" for your willingness to learn and help, we would donate $1,000 to a children's charity.
As PETA's "virtual receptionist," you will see firsthand the problems that we deal with every day. You would be able help the cats and dogs who linger in animal shelters because people have chosen to buy animals from breeders or pet stores. You will also personally respond to calls about our Animal Birth Control (ABC) campaign, which provides no- to low-cost spay/neuter surgeries and other services in underprivileged communities. You will explain to callers that every time someone buys a dog or cat from a breeder or a pet store instead of adopting from an animal shelter, a shelter animal loses a chance at ever finding a home. You will explain how 6 to 8 million unwanted dogs and cats enter U.S. animal shelters every year and how most will die simply because there are not enough good homes for them.
You would also tell people about the misery that foxes, chinchillas, and other animals suffer on fur farms and explain how mother animals caught in traps are so desperate to return to their young that they will often chew off a limb to escape. You will tell callers about the number of animals killed to make one fur coat and how these animals—like us—would prefer to love and enjoy life rather than be strangled, poisoned, or electrocuted. And you will never be the same again.
We might have criticized you in the past for contributing to the dog overpopulation crisis and wearing real fur, but perhaps now that your own crisis has abated, a new day calls for a new relationship, a new outlook, and a new understanding.
We wish you well and look forward to a positive response.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid E. NewkirkPresident
Two PETA carriage horse monitors—who had been watching Central Park carriage drivers to document any cruelty to horses—were recently attacked by a man who shoved them and struck one of them on the head as they videotaped the hack line on Central Park South. We’re still waiting to find out whether the individual involved in the attack was a carriage horse driver himself or whether he’s just, like, a really big fan of their work, but I’ll post an update if we get any more information from the NYPD.
In the meantime, here’s your standard shaky-camera, profanity-laden youtube video of the encounter. For more information about the carriage horse industry and to find out what you can do to help carriage horses in New York, click here.
Seal boots, Gucci? Come on, guys. Did you think that just because you were selling them in Russia, we wouldn’t notice?
PETA’s Assistant Director, Matt Prescott, contacted Gucci CEO Robert Polet this week asking him whether he really wants his company associated with the seal hunt. Seriously, Gucci, when even Paris Hilton has worked out that something’s a moral outrage, there’s not a lot of room for saying you didn’t realize it was a problem.
You can contact Gucci about this latest lapse in judgement through the webform here.
Update: The Lehman monkeys—Wanda, Holly, Jada, Sophie, Samantha, and Lilly—have all arrived safely at a sanctuary and are currently living together as a group. In a little while, they’ll be integrated into a larger group of macaques at the sanctuary. Hooray!
Last month, a whistleblower contacted PETA to tell us that six monkeys who were about to be retired to a sanctuary from City University of New York's Lehman College had instead been sold to New York University for invasive neurological experiments.
The monkeys had originally been used in non-invasive learning and memory experiments in an NIH-funded laboratory overseen by one Dr. Karyl Swartz, who drew up a plan and set aside funds for the monkeys to live out the rest of their lives at a primate sanctuary. Enter the villain of this particular story, a lady named Christina Winnicker, who evidently objected to the plan and asked the experimental oversight committee to keep or sell the monkeys for further experimentation, despite the strong objections of Dr. Swartz and her colleagues. As a result, the monkeys were sold to an NYU laboratory for experiments that would likely have involved removing the tops of their skulls and implanting electrodes in their heads.
Anyway, as you’ve probably guessed from the title here, this one has a happy ending: After asking some pointed questions of both institutions, we received confirmation last week that Lehman College had thought better of their decision to sell these animals to NYU where they may have had their brains butchered. They’re now working with NYU to get them transferred to a sanctuary instead.
Which certainly brightened my day a bit.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any crazier, the quest to find the cruelest Division 1 College in the country has revved up a notch! All 16 of last week’s contenders proved tough teams to beat, but only 8 could advance, and despite some powerful showings from Pittsburgh, KSU, Washington State, OSU, Purdue, Hopkins, Vanderbilt, and the University of Washington, only the nastiest can prevail … so without further ado let’s get down to narrowing the field even further as we prepare to put these vivisectors on the national stage in the Fatal Four next week!
Just like last week, I’ll be highlighting what I consider to be the key matchup in this exciting tournament, and you can consult the cheat sheet to help determine who else to vote into the next round. Use the voting form or leave a comment to cast a vote for this week’s Vilest Vivisectors in the Evil Eight!
Michael Platt, Duke
Like ‘em or hate ‘em, Duke University always puts forward a strong team, and for the past decade, that’s been largely due to the work of their MVP, Michael Platt, who drills metal screws into monkeys’ skulls, pushes electrodes into their brains, and implants wire coils under their eyelids. A similar winning technique has been made popular by UConn’s David Waitzman—another strong contender in this tournament, so if we’re lucky, we may see a classic Big East/ACC showdown in the finals this year. The published results of Mr. Platt’s cruel experiments include such timeless pieces of knowledge as the fact that one rhesus macaque monkey will often look in the same direction as another rhesus macaque monkey, so there’s no question that Michael’s earning his keep! To vote for Michael Platt, use the form or leave a comment below.
Michelle Hook, Texas A&M
Texas A&M might traditionally be the underdog in this matchup, but don’t make the mistake of underestimating Michelle Hook of Texas A&M University’s Department of Psychology. Her medium of choice is rats, and from the sounds of it, there’s not much she hasn’t done when it comes to slicing and dicing these animals. Michelle’s preferred technique involves cutting up the animals’ spinal cords, injecting them with chili pepper solution, pushing them into restraint tubes, and electroshocking their hind legs. Hook’s world-beating conclusion speaks for itself: “These data suggest that peripheral inflammation, accompanying spinal cord injuries, might have an adverse effect on recovery.” You heard it here first, folks: Giving electric shocks to torture victims might slow down their recovery time! To vote for Michelle Hook, use the form or leave a comment below.
Seriously, these just keep getting better and better.
To check out the archives of past strips, click here.
"McQueen's macabre designs might be intended to titillate, but they simply nauseate. There is nothing remotely 'fashionable' about the torture and death of animals killed for something that a caveperson would wear."
Hopefully this will serve as a message to McQueen and others who condone the torture of animals for their designs that compassionate people will not continue to indulge their cruel fetishes, and that their archaic sense of what’s “fashionable” will soon be little more than an ugly footnote in the history books. That, or they’ll obliviously keep it up until some legislator has the good sense to ban fur farming for good and put them out of business. Whichever comes sooner is fine with me.
I’ll update this entry with more info as this story develops.
I probably don't mention my colleagues in peta2 as much as I should on this blog. This is primarily because I am jealous of their youth, their vivacity, and their general "too-cool-for-school" attitude. But sometimes they put something together so good that it can't be ignored (no matter how hard one might try), and their new "Fur Is Dead" campaign definitely falls into that category.
They've partnered with the folks at Skelanimals to help garner support for their "100,000 strong against fur" petition, and judging by the number of signatures so far (38,631!), the whole thing's going pretty well. You can check out the site here. The photo gallery of kids wearing the peta2 "Fur Is Dead" bunny ears is more or less fantastic.
After TMZ posted documents last week showing that Aretha Franklin is facing foreclosure, the story has been reported everywhere. Well, despite the fact that we've had the occasional run-in with the Queen of Soul, we're willing to bury the hatchet and even help her out of her recent financial troubles by paying her $19,000 ... provided that she agrees to stop wearing fur and donate her unwanted furs to PETA as Mariah Carey and Kim Cattrall have done.
You can read PETA's letter to Aretha below, and, as always, those lightning-quick reporters over at TMZ are first on the scene with the full story.
The guys who run ICanHasCheezburger.com gave one of the most inspired and hilarious talks at South by Southwest this year, and, when they gave away burgers to everyone in the crowd at the end of the discussion, they made a point of providing lots of veggie burgers, which I thought was very decent of them. I know I'm not the only person in the office who's a devotee of the site, because a ton of people have been sending me this little gem, which they posted yesterday.
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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