The Blog is Back

I was recently on a bus, and saw a kind-of-cute sticker that read: "Pigs are friends, not food!"

The Web address at the bottom was that of the PETA kids page. Now if I were a parent, I'd be anxious.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is to animal rights what ACT UP! is to gay rights. Neither group is composed of the sort of person you want making major decisions for you--kind of like these guys, and each has a history of being shrill, and annoying the very group they most need to reach.

PETA is fronted by prominent celebs such as Barb Wire--oops, I meant Pam Anderson. . .I mean, Barb Wire would chew this bunch up and spit out the bones, she wears leather and everything!

Whoops--moral conflict there, I guess.

For most of human history, the question has been "How do we get enough energy to find enough to eat tomorrow". The ability to kill and eat animals is one of the things that make us, humans, as a civilization, possible.

While it's ridiculous to suggest that we should slaughter and eat all the animals, it's just as daft to say that we should stop eating them altogether. Everything in moderation, including moderation.

Still, PETA have a right to their opinion, and I to mine. But the kiddie page disturbs me, among other things, with its insultingly lowbrow rhetoric: "Did you know that pigs are as smart as dogs? It’s true! And we know you wouldn’t eat your dog, so don’t eat pigs, either."

Reeeally? I suppose then that Koreans are exempt from PETA? How about Cambodians? Germans?

The PETA home page starts with a pop-up that reads "Let's face it America (one of the few nations they apparently know about)--eating meat makes you fat!"

On the kids page, a movie entitled "The Meatrix" outlines a history of "greedy agriculture corporations" who corrupt "family farms".

Apparently, it's also these corporations who have created the conditions for an antibiotic resistant epidemic, which is just waiting to happen. Remember--it's not caused by idiots who only take the pills for as long as it takes for the rash to go away.

Likewise, massive meat farms also cause water quality issues. Surprisingly, I don't entirely disagree here. That would be because a) I don't have all the facts and b) There's actually some independant scientific evidence that this is the case.

This moo-vie leads to a conclusion in which children are instructed to click on the pill or stay in the meatrix. The term used in the film is "alternatives" to eating meat. The page then navigates not to a page dealing with "alternatives", but to a "Vegetarian Starter Kit".

It's all about eating righteous.

The alternatives to "agricultural corporations" should surely include organically produced meats, no? What about those family farms? Free range animals--what about non-traditional food animals such as ostritches?

But PETA isn't about being reasonable.

As if this wasn't enough, PETA runs campaigns which endeavour to turn schoolchildren against not only meat, but milk. One of their claims is that dairy consumption has been linked to osteoperosis. Hmm. I'm thinking of a product more often associated with bulls than cows.

Apparently, all the osteoporosis organizations have been sucked in by ruthless (and greedy! Don't forget greedy!) dairy corporations.

Either that or PETA, as always, is trying to hijack your enlightened self-interest.

Let's sum up: Into a school containing a bunch of girls and boys enduring far crueller conditions than animals experience on many farms (after all, when did pigs cows or chickens have to deal with zits, first dates, sexual issues and identity crises?) will come PETA.

Their objective is to preach about the evils of eating meat and dairy products. Oh, and chicken. What have they to say about fish I wonder?--seems as though Koreans are exempt again.

Hello? PETA? Yeah--uh, about that "don't eat anything"-fest you're inflicting on teenagers with self-esteem issues? Have you ever heard of this?

Into high schools traipses PETA, whose main ambition is to convince us that we should eat no meat, fish, nor fowl, that we should drink no dairy, and that in fact all we should ever eat are salads.

A pneumatic bimbette poses with a couple of lettuce leaves over her bikini and this is a big deal? Unfortunately, since we don't teach critical thinking in schools (lest our children come up with better superstitions than we have now), it is.

"It was finally decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal which wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and succinctly. And here I am."
--The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I'm all for healthier cows--better steaks. PETA sometimes blames the rotund shape of (presumably North) Americans on "the high-protein diet"--this outfit might disagree.

Note: This blog disparages all diets equally. If you're fat, make adjustments and exercise. We don't care about the number of carbs or calories you eat, the foods you're avoiding, or the consistency of your daily eliminations of any nature.

(I wouldn't mention that last, but ever since several traumatic incidents I make sure to cover that particular base.)

By the way, I ain't exactly sylph-like myself.


My point is that PETA is wrong about any number of things: Seals, left unchecked, may become a pest. A certain amount of human predation is no bad thing.

Most peoples worldwide eat meat. Innu people boiled the blood of elk inside the elk's former stomach with moss to make the nutrition in the moss acessible so that they wouldn't die of, among other things, scurvy. Of course vegetarian Innu existed, I'm certain. They lived on. . .well, uh. . .hang on there. . .

For most of the world, vegetarianism is a luxury choice. The inability to eat meats for religious reasons holds entire nations in poverty. people starve not for the lack of adequate greens, but for the inability to slaughter an animal lying right in the road.

In North America, vegetarianism, and the accompanying fervour for "organic" veg, means that you can become a vegetarian. Your food bill might quadruple, depending on whether you subsist on lentils or go for the $4.00/100g soy "meats", but it's possible.

You'd have to radically rethink your diet, and you'll need to take supplements to give you the stuff you can't get from veg alone, but it can be done.

But it shouldn't be done by misguided teenagers who have been used as pawns by even more misguided adults.

Misguided? Yes. Check this out. "Misguided" is a nicer word than "₤µ€λed-up-like-a-football-bat".

Again: Most of human history has been about finding more food--not deliberately restricting our diets. It's a sign of rampant self-preoccupation, and I just don't think these loudmouths are worth the attention they get.

If you'd rather go naked than wear fur, I'm A-okay with that (am I ever!). Although I wouldn't try it in Canada.

PETA hates wool, (and I'm so sorry that Chrissie Hynde used her beatiful voice for that), milk, and meat (while endorsing Burger King via its veggie burger), fur ("your mommy kills animals!"), and as far as I can see, every major improvement in the human condition since about 1780 or so.

How come they don't seem willing to go naked rather than wear wool? And they seem so quiet about leather--perhaps 'cos it's easier to harass old ladies than motorcycle gangs.

But this is supposed to be the fair and balanced blog. I just can't find any pro-meat sites radical enough to balance out this bunch of self-absorbed Americentric fruit-bats.

Oh, but I like this idea! Too bad about the rest of that blog and the people she links to.

Still, March 15th is on my calendar!

Hey! This just popped up half-a-day ago!

Clearly what we need is a new campaign. Stop PETA cruelty to kids!

I'm not particularly pro-hunting, but the site. makes some good points.

By the way, while we're talking fur:

Read this.

Good, now this.

Myself, I don't even understand why there are laws banning the eating of dogs or cats. Why? It's not a public health issue, really. In most nations where dog is eaten, the animals are raised specially for the purpose.

This is kind of interesting and meaningless.