BTW, I didn't know that human skin would make a nice furry rug.
Posted on 04/19/2003 11:08:48 PM PDT by DeepInEnemyTerritory
Leaving a donation to the nearest animal sanctuary is what many pet lovers do when they die. But Ingrid Newkirk has taken her animal-loving beliefs just a little bit further.
Ms Newkirk, founder and president of the radical group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), has decreed in her will that a portion of her body (she doesn't specify which) should be barbecued as a protest against "fleshfoods". She also wants her feet to be turned into ornaments to remind the world of the "depravity" of using animals in a such a fashion.
And that's not all. Ms Newkirk has also laid down that part of her skin be turned into a leather product to show that human skin and animal skin are the same thing and that neither is a "fabric". Ms Newkirk's will also holds bequests to two people. One is the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, who can expected to receive both her eyes, appropriately mounted, as a message that Peta will continue to watch the agency until it stops using animals in experiments.
The second beneficiary is Kenneth Feld, owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He can expect to receive her pointing finger to stand as "the greatest accusation on Earth" on behalf of animals used for public entertainment.
Her stipulations are in accord with the spirit of outrage fostered by Peta, which is based in the United States. In the past, its members have dropped a dead raccoon on the plate of a lunching Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue, over the use of fur in the magazine and claimed – without evidence – that the fat in milk contributed to the prostrate cancer of the former mayor of New York, Rudy Guiliani.
Ms Newkirk also said in her will that she hoped foot-and-mouth disease would reach the US since it would harm those "who profit from giving people heart attacks".
Ms Newkirk, 53, who was born in England, is still going strong as the mainstay of Peta. She stressed that the final decision over the use of her body remained with Peta. When she does die, lunching fashion editors may feel the need to examine the contents of their plates a little more carefully than usual.
BTW, I didn't know that human skin would make a nice furry rug.
This woman is more bizarre and disturbed than 1,000,000 Michael Jackson's dangling babies from outside hotel rooms. And, finally, someone is using the word "radical" in the same sentence as "PETA".
It's hard to make silk purse from a sow's ear.
That's PETA. Save the dolphins; forget the humans.
PETA has placed animal life above human tragedy before. Earlier this year, it unveiled a roving exhibit, ''The Holocaust on Your Plate,'' that juxtaposes images of chickens with a photo of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel as a young man at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Declaring a roaster chicken's life to be as valuable as a person's should be unthinkable. But PETA's vulgar attempts to get attention are tame compared to those of animal extremists who are torching medical research labs, severing delivery truck brake lines and planting incendiary devices at fast-food restaurants just to get attention.
So serious have such crimes become that the FBI has issued an alert to law enforcement agencies to remain on the lookout for possible criminal activity by ''animal rights extremists'' during the World Week for Animals in Laboratories protest scheduled to begin Saturday.
Vinegar, not honey
The animal rights movement has gone from cute and cuddly -- think baby seals -- to callous and cutthroat. ''Our non-violent tactics are not as effective,'' PETA's co-founder and president, Ingrid Newkirk, has said. ''We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works.'' She did not respond to a request for further comment.
Another group, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), is running a intimidation campaign against those who do business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a research lab that uses animal tests to help find new drugs for AIDS, cancer and other diseases.
''You don't need a four-year degree to call in a bomb hoax,'' SHAC leader Kevin Kjonaas says on a tape. At another event, he explains: ''We're not your parents' Humane Society. . . . We come with a new philosophy. We hold the radical line. We will not compromise! We will not apologize, and we will not relent!''
PETA ran the campaign against Huntingdon until a court order stopped it. PETA also funded the legal defense of a convicted arsonist and has served as the media representative for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a terrorist group. Think that's a misuse of the ''T'' word? The FBI doesn't. It calls ALF, along with its sister organization, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), ''a serious terrorist threat'' within the United States.
Detailing the terrorism
It is outrageous that the FBI must devote resources to the crimes of homegrown animal-rights zealots at the same time it faces overseas terrorist threats. Yet a few days into the Iraq war, ALF released a report of domestic terrorism committed by ALF and ELF in 2002, claiming ''100 illegal direct actions'' against businesses, government agencies and universities.
Militants have taken over the animal rights movement. But some mainstream institutions act as if they were still talking about shelters for stray dogs and cats. In February, California State University, Fresno invited ALF and ELF leaders to participate in a conference on ''revolutionary environmentalism.'' State taxpayers can savor the irony of paying both for Fresno to host terrorists and for the FBI to track them down.
Some of these activists have declared themselves heir to Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of protest. King engaged in civil disobedience, but he didn't use fire to make a point. Nor is there anything civil about those who value chickens over the lives of our troops. Richard Berman is executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, a non-profit coalition supported by restaurant operators and food and beverage companies. [End]
Hopefully she'll keep us abreast.
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