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The Broadway Bomb: 200 skateboarders have a death wish on Saturday
Published on 10/10/08
Published on 10/12/08
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Whether you agree with them or not, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is not an organization you want to cross. Just ask dogfighting don and (former?) NFL quarterback Michael Vick. With 25,000 of its nearly 1.6 million worldwide members based in New York, the group has plenty of local agents around to rat out anti-critter residents. So which New Yorkers should be ducking for cover, lest they end up on the wrong side of the group's hard-line tactics? Michael McGraw, PETA's director of Media Relations, spoke candidly to TONY about Gotham people and institutions that furrow his brow.
1. Ringling Brothers circus
The so-called Greatest Show on Earth is scheduled to roll into town in March 2008 and, as usual, PETA will be on hand to assert its disagreement with the claim. PETA's grievance, however, has less to do with B&B's questionable entertainment value than the questionable treatment of its animals in captivity. Particularly irksome is the ritual of marching elephants through the Midtown Tunnel each year in a bid to lure gawking crowds toward the big tent. McGraw describes the midnight amble as "a PR stunt" and says, "The elephants look defeated and tired; it's a sad spectacle to watch."
2. NYU and Columbia.
According to PETA, New York is a hub of activity for scientific animal testing, with an axis of evil stretching from the far Upper West Side to just south of Union Square. Alka Chandna, Ph.D., a PETA senior researcher, even volunteers a couple of profs for particular censure: "NYU's Lynne Kiorpes subjects infant and adult macaque monkeys to invasive procedures that impair the animals' vision," she reports, "and Columbia University's Raymond Stark studies the impact of morphine on the development of fetuses by pumping morphine into fetal baboons."
3. The horse-drawn carriage companies
The Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages, an independent group supported by PETA, has been breathing down the necks of Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council since January 2006. Its origins trace back to an accident a few weeks prior, in which Spotty, a five-year-old gelding, got spooked on Ninth Avenue, threw his driver and ran inadvisably into traffic. He was severely injured and later euthanized. "That accident was the reason we formed our coalition," says Elizabeth Forel, the coalition president. Pressure on city leaders is ongoing.
4. The cosmetics industry
PETA 's name-and-shame tactics against the beauty products industry are old hat by now, but that doesn't mean the suspected animal testing bothers them any less. New York companies Colgate-Palmolive and L'Oreal are among those on PETA's shit list for (reportedly) employing techniques such as eye irritation and acute toxicity experiments during product testing. The group's site conveniently lists the respective corporate headquarters as 300 Park Avenue and 575 Fifth Avenue, for those who wish to stand outside and heckle.
5. Musicon venison farm
Following a tip-off from one of its many eager informants, PETA has launched an investigation into suspected clandestine activities at this kosher deer slaughterhouse (located somewhat west of the city in Goshen, New York). According to kosher methodology, the deer must have their throat cut while they are still conscious. Says McGraw, "The sound of the deer choking on their own blood is possibly worse than the sight." PETA plans to send video footage of deer in their final seconds, along with an imploring letter, to every restaurant in the New York metro area with venison on the menu.
6. Parsons The New School for Design (sort of)
While Anna Wintour won't be speaking soon at any PETA banquets, the organization has moved beyond that feud and focused on the fashion industry's next generation: Parsons students. Admittedly, PETA's beef is less with the kiddies than with Saga, a marketing organization representing Scandinavian fur breeders, which donates fur to Parsons enrollees to spur their design inspiration. As a concession to PETA, Parsons has now granted the group time with its students to win them over to the anti-fur side.
7. All New York dog owners
It's difficult to say who would be considered more fanatical—the New York dog owner or the PETA activist. Yet we may be able to find out, as the groups are surprisingly at odds on several issues. Firstly, PETA receives a high volume of calls complaining of Manhattan animals (especially dogs) that are caged all day while their owners work. And though PETA supports adoption in all forms, the group admonishes anyone who acquires a pet from a no-kill shelter (it considers euthanasia a more humane practice than "warehousing" animals) or—far worse—from a breeder. McGraw does not mince words for purebred enthusiasts: "A purchase from a breeder is like sentencing a sheltered animal to death."
8. All New York meat eaters
PETA figures state that that 27 billion animals pass through the mouths of Americans each year. Never one to shy away from lofty goals, the organization has launched a "GoVeg" campaign (the group's largest marketing effort) urging people to give up the pleasures of the (animal) flesh. For a week, anyway. "We want people to see how easy it is," says McGraw. A lot easier than standing in PETA's way, most likely.
matt stewart
Sun, Dec 02, 07, at 3:17am
I really think people wanting to ban animal testing should put themselves up for the testing. I'm also wondering how much Ingrid gets payed a year and why does it feel to me that when peta kills a heck of a load of animals each year that it is like just sweeping a problem under the carpet. the world is over populated shall we start putting humans down?
Adela
Fri, Oct 05, 07, at 10:20pm
Thank you, Lindsey Bezzina, for more or less accurately listing only some of PETA's wonderful campaigns on behalf of ALL nonhuman animals...if with a bit of sarcasm on your part though...
First, I refer all those ignoramus quavelva, kathy, BadKarma, STEVE, JJen, Cameron Kuhns (and any others appearing after this) to read (and re-read again if already done) the comment by Zelda, of Sep. 28 at 10:56. It encompasses many of the reasons for which it's imperative to release the nonhuman animals from the yoke of the only predator on earth: human!
As to breeding nonhuman animals, let me give you a few quotes (and...actually YOU are the terrorist of the helpless animals whose vaginas and penises are in your hands for profit. You're a RAPIST, A PIMP!:
Only humans would make their money on the uteruses of other animals. Down with ALL breeders! Amy-Lou Giannelli
All breeders of any kind and for any reason are NAZIS, PIMPS, RAPISTS, and IMMORAL to all animals! If you RESPECT animals - not only love them - you will fight breeders with ALL your might!!! Adela
I am a German native, born and raised in Germany so I know what I am talking about. There is no difference between what Hitler did and what people are doing to animals, i.e., breed and save the purebreds and kill the rest! Renate
I'm a responsible breeder - I don't breed! Jan Stern
As to the rabid jerk who calls VEGANS, "Veganist jihads"... We don't throw anything down anyone's throats, we generously GIVE info in text and film and let people decide for themselves. You say if PETA is a human you hate it...that explains it, YOU must be a jihad lover, they hate humans who aren't islamic. How dare you, piece of waste, call us jihadists, the ultimate insult??? We're peace loving people who only want nonhumans to enjoy life too, rather than remain in slavery!
As to animals subjected to their entire existence in a small cage with a wire floor...have YOU ever tried to exist until your end comes, in a similar cage??? Of course if you're a masochist... You have a lot of problems haven't you? What's wrong with abstaining to "breed" ourselves? We don't make others abstain but we do because human overpopulation is strangling us all and your itsy-witsy brain thinks it funny that responsible, caring people abstain from bringing more people to the already inflated and unbalanced world.
As to calling PETA, PUTH... it fits YOU better: PERSON UNIQUE TO HALFWIT. Also, "puth" sounds almost like a Spanish word that fits you to a T! tehehehe!
Those who criticize us for helping totally defenseless nonhuman animals, will also have to criticize these highly respected personalities of the past and present:
Jeremy Bentham, Philosopher, Oxford University: The question is not, can animals reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?
Henry David Thoreau: I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual development to leave off the eating of animals as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with civilization.
George Bernard Shaw: Animals are my friends...and I don’t eat my friends!
Pulitzer Prize Winner Alice Walker "The Color Purple": The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites, or women for men.
Henry Beston "The Outermost House": In a world older and more complete than ours, animals move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not underlings; they are other nations.
Alexander von Humboldt: Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people.
Schopenhauer (On the Basis of Morality): The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
Mark Twain: If a man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man, but it would degrade the cat!
Rina Deych
Thu, Oct 04, 07, at 8:06pm
Animals are sentient creatures. And unlike humans, they know how to live in harmony with nature, and not destroy the planet.
Compassion is compassion. I became a nurse because I cannot bear to watch someone suffer without doing something to help.
Twenty two years ago, after seeing the Animals Film, by Victor Schonfeld and Myriam Alaux, which depicted horrifying scenes from slaughterhouses, research labs, and fur farms, I became a vegan (for the same reason).
A 400-page UN report entitled "Livestock's Long Shadow" stated that animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than cars, buses, planes, and all forms of transportation combined. Switching to a plant-based diet is better for human health, the environment, and (obviously) the animals.
rrrina.com
aquavelva woman
Thu, Oct 04, 07, at 2:17am
cows are for eating and wearing shoes, you people are nuts
conchita
Wed, Oct 03, 07, at 3:07pm
I'm sure the writer felt her snarky condescension regarding Peta's efforts were oh so witty. I just wonder what part of suffering she finds so amusing?
Ted
Tue, Oct 02, 07, at 1:38pm
Some of the things you mentioned bother a lot more than peta members. The worst thing about Ringling is their ritual beating of elephants, whch they lie about, yet whistleblowers come forward over and over again with evidence of it. And as far as Columbia goes, I have the misfortune of personally knowing one of their researchers- a sadistic person who knows that their research is useless, and does not care about causing pain. They care about the grant money.
But I'm sure we will see the appearance of the kooky dog breeders (code "responsible dog owners") The breeders like making untaxed money with no licensing or regulations, and they hate any group that wants them to clean up their act. So we will see the usual propaganda, including that from CCF consumerdeception.com who puts out a lot of propaganda that the dog breeders use. And from AKC, who now makes most of their money from reegistering puppy mill puppies and protects the mills, and hates Peta. What else is new.
The Daily Veg
Tue, Oct 02, 07, at 11:42am
There's a lot of good reasons goveg.com is PETA's biggest marketing effort - one of which is that the meat farming industry causes more global warming than the entire transport industry, worldwide. May PETA annoy New Yorkers with the truth for years to come.
keith
Tue, Oct 02, 07, at 11:33am
No.2 & No.5 are the two most barbaric. I have already taken written action against these vile scum that degrade the Human Race..if it can be degraded further !!
Michele
Tue, Oct 02, 07, at 10:43am
I urge anyone who is skeptical about what they have just read, to watch the movie "Earthlings" narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, and to read "Sacred Cows and Golden Geese", and "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon".
Red5 Fan
Mon, Oct 01, 07, at 5:39am
Very interesting article! As I cat-lover (not literally), I feel deeply about these issues.
Zelda
Fri, Sep 28, 07, at 10:56am
To use the word "fanatical", to describe the many millions of men, women, children, all around the world, who are evolved individuals with a higher level of consciousness, whose thinking and feeling have emerged from the caves, is not only insulting and denigrating, but also reveals how limited is the writer's vision, sensitivity and level of compassion. We are not extremists, terrorists or fanatics because we have an enlightened view of the world's ecology and the non-human animals who inhabit the planet with us. We are not "fanatics" because we refuse to eat other sentient beings or wear their tortured skins.
We see a companion animal, a life saved from a horrid puppy mill or gassing, where you see another fad or possession! We see a living, feeling being, capable of experiencing pain and suffering, where you see bacon, hamburgers and chicken nuggets! We see loyalty, intelligence, the desire to live and care for her young where you see a fur coat, another "lifesaving" drug or a luxury car with leather seats. We see an indentured slave, deprived of everything natural in his/her life where you see an evening's entertainment: an elephant ride or a horse pulling a carriage around the city.
But get this....evolution and social change are inexorable and a given...just look back and you will see what I mean! Gladiators, slavery, children in coal mines were once the accepted norm. The light bulb has yet to come on in your house or in the huts or in the mega-mansions of many ignorant and insensitive people. But one way or another, that day will come!
Elaine Sloan
Fri, Sep 28, 07, at 8:21am
peta is right on all counts.....animals are not ours to exploit. If everyone practiced Peta's guidelines, it would be a far more compassionate and humane world.
Roberta Pliner
Fri, Sep 28, 07, at 12:46am
Neither Columbia nor NYU own more
than a very small percentage of the
land from Morningside Heights
to Greenwich Village, and they're only using a very, very small proportion of the little land they do occupy for animal research. I have lived in the middle of the West Side
of Manhattan longer than PETA has
been in existence, and there is no
animal research going on anywhere
between Morningside Heights and
Greenwich Village, and precious little of that in both areas.
There are, at the most conservative
estimate, 3.5 million pet dogs and cats in New York City. The vast majority are not kept in cages. Dog
walkers and dog and cat sitters do a
brisk business in NYC taking care of
dogs and cats during their working owners' business hours. Even if
some animals are kept in cages during the day, why would anyone at
all be calling PETA? The owners aren't going to complain about themselves, and the neighbors aren't going to complain about animals quietly sitting in cages.
There is nothing wrong with no-kill
shelters. They are able to maintain
a no-kill status by reaching out in
many ways to get their animals
adopted to good homes.
Buying from a breeder does not sentence a shelter animal to death.
If shelters did good outreach, they
could get all their adoptable animals
adopted, without one less sale of a
puppy by a breeder. In any case, if
a prospective owner has his heart
set on a certain breed or size or age
or color of dog, and the shelter does
not have that dog, no substitute will
do. Should the shelter talk a prospective owner into adopting an
animal he didn't want in the first place, the adoption won't work out,
and that animal will be back in the
shelter or another shelter.
As to eating or not eating meat, I find
it much, much easier to tell PETA to
go to hell than to give up meat and
most especially my favorite, lobster.
Roberta Pliner, New York, NY
kathy
Thu, Sep 27, 07, at 3:53pm
I think the folks at PETA need to mind their own back yards - I am a breeder of purbred dogs and I am incensed at their accusations. They really haven't a clue. They have a lot of nerve imposing their ideals on other people - they are almost as bad as the terrorists!!!
BadKarma
Thu, Sep 27, 07, at 3:34pm
PETA, like the rest of the Veganist Jihad movement, has as its ultimate goal turning the U.S. into a 14th-Century serfdom with PETA Jihadists and their buddies as the annointed, oh-so-correct ruling class, and all the rest of us as their borderline-slave peons. They've been trying for over 20 years to bully and terrorize Americans into the Veganist cult, and since that hasn't worked, they are now throwing billions of dollars a year at bribing lawmakers into legislating it down our throats instead... "For the children" of course... If truth-in-advertising laws applied to Politically Correct Communist Wingnut cults, PETA's motto would have to be, "PETA - If you're human, we hate you".
STEVE
Thu, Sep 27, 07, at 2:50pm
WHY THE HELL SHOULD ANYONE WITH COMMON SENSE AND A FREEDOM OF CHOICE CARE WHAT SOME EXTREMIST GROUP HAS TO SAY? PETA WITH THEIR CHEAP PUBLICITY STUNTS AND THEIR STABLE OF HYPOCRITICAL CELEBRITIES HAS AS MUCH CREEDENCE AS OJ SIMPSON EXCEPT THAT OJ MIGHT HAVE MORE.....
JJen
Thu, Sep 27, 07, at 11:30am
So kill all of your shelter animals (PETA kills 92% Plus of animals it gains custody of at it's own and only shelter each year) and those kept alive in No-Kill shelters till adopted are better off dead, and of course don't ever buy anything...
robot dogs anyone? or maybe furbies?
Certainly no children as PETA does not think it ethical to "breed" those either
Cameron Kuhns
Thu, Sep 27, 07, at 10:29am
I'm beginning to think that PETA should be called PUTH (People for the Unethical Treatment of Humans).
