Monday, June 20, 2011
Everything Else PETA Proposes Ad for Memphis Garbage Trucks
Posted by Bianca Phillips on Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 12:41 PM
Last week, Memphis was named the fourth dirtiest city in the country by Travel+Leisure Magazine, but staffers at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) think they have the solution.
The animal rights organization will offer to pay the city's sanitation department for advertising space on garbage trucks. The ads would feature a lady wearing a lettuce leaf bikini with the message, "Meat Trashes the Planet. Go Vegan. Free Starter Recipes: PETA.org."
They may have a point. Factory farming is one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
"Our proposal is a win-win solution. Memphis will be better able to keep clean, and people will be encouraged to adopt a healthy and humane vegan diet that won't dirty the environment," said PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman. "The meat and dairy industries are among the leading causes of environmental devastation, so the easiest way for Memphis residents to go 'green' is to go vegan."
PETA said in a statement today that the organization sent a letter to Public Works director Dwan Gilliom. A city spokesperson said Gilliom hasn't received the letter yet, but Gilliom did offer this response:
"Although we have received several media calls from various local outlets regarding this matter, I take the position that we will not aggressively pursue this proposal unless directed to do so. Not that we opposed accepting this offer, [but] it would be a unique situation for us to sell advertisement space on the side of our trucks, although it is not unheard of in the solid waste business or in other cities. If we were to consider selling such advertisement [space], it would be like other purchases, by bid and based upon our specifications. Anything inappropriate or of a controversial nature would not be considered. As a courtesy, we will reach out to the representative from PETA today in order to properly here their proposal."
Comments (6)
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It's be nice to get some extra windfall, but too bad it's being offered by nut jobs :(
Maybe we can pitch the idea to whichever corporate overlord owns Febreeze?
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OK, but what to they have to say about lethal methods of squirrel control? BB vs .177 pellet vs .22s???
The misunderstanding of the Travel + Leisure survey is really getting on my nerves. Memphis came in 32nd out of 35 cities chosen to be in the 2010 survey of America's Favorite Cities. That means that many great cities of similar size to Memphis were not even represented. Several states weren't even represented in the survey.
In the "Cleanliness" category, Memphis scored 3.04 out of 5 - the same score as NYC.
The top score was Salt Lake City at 4.63.
These 2010 survey results have been out since Nov of 2010. I don't know why it is news now.
The 2011 survey is now open. Maybe we could improve our scores if the local media would promote that fact.
7 Things You Didn't Know About PETA
1) According to government documents, PETA employees have killed more than 19,200 dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens since 1998. This behavior continues despite PETA’s moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of animals by farmers, scientists, restaurant owners, circuses, hunters, fishermen, zookeepers, and countless other Americans. PETA puts to death over 90 percent of the animals it accepts from members of the public who expect the group to make a reasonable attempt to find them adoptive homes. PETA holds absolutely no open-adoption shelter hours at its Norfolk, VA headquarters, choosing instead to spend part of its $32 million annual income on a contract with a crematory service to periodically empty hundreds of animal bodies from its large walk-in freezer.
2) PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means the complete abolition of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey, zoos, aquariums, circuses, wool, leather, fur, silk, hunting, fishing, and pet ownership. In a 2003 profile of Newkirk in The New Yorker, author Michael Specter wrote that Newkirk has had at least one seeing-eye dog taken away from its blind owner. PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals, including research aimed at curing AIDS and cancer.
3) PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to Rodney Coronado, an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) serial arsonist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing memorandum, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich has also told an animal rights convention that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation,” adding, “Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it.”
4) PETA activists regularly target children as young as six years old with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda, even waiting outside their schools to intercept them without notifying their parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 1.2 million minor children, including 30,000 kids between the ages of 6 and 12, all contacted by e-mail without parental supervision. One PETA vice president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”
5) PETA’s president has said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.” And PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, solely because they support animal-based research aimed at curing life-threatening diseases and birth defects. And PETA helped to start and manage a quasi-medical front group, the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, to attack medical research head-on.
6) PETA has compared Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust to farm animals and Jesus Christ to pigs. PETA’s religious campaigns include a website that claims—despite ample evidence to the contrary—that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn’t be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compared the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide to farm animals.
7) PETA frequently looks the other way when its celebrity spokespersons don’t practice what it preaches. As gossip bloggers and Hollywood journalists have noted, Pamela Anderson’s Dodge Viper (auctioned to benefit PETA) had a “luxurious leather interior”; Jenna Jameson was photographed fishing, slurping oysters, and wearing a leather jacket just weeks after launching an anti-leather campaign for PETA; Morrissey got an official “okay” from PETA after eating at a steakhouse; Dita von Teese has written about her love of furs and foie gras; Steve-O built a career out of abusing small animals on film; the officially “anti-fur” Eva Mendes often wears fur anyway; and Charlize Theron’s celebrated October 2007 Vogue cover shoot featured several suede garments. In 2008, “Baby Phat” designer Kimora Lee Simmons became a PETA spokesmodel despite working with fur and leather, after making a $20,000 donation to the animal rights group.
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