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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), was founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk to promote a healthy vegan diet and cruelty-free shopping (i.e., buying nonanimal products). PETA’s goal is to protest, loudly and publicly, against cruelty to animals in all forms, and to expose what really goes on in animal laboratories.
PETA’s first legal victory was the precedent-setting 1981 Silver Spring monkeys case, that resulted in the first arrest and criminal conviction of an experimenter on charges of animal cruelty. It also resulted in the first confiscation of abused laboratory animals, and the first Supreme Court victory for laboratory animals. PETA has persistently protected animals from abuse by corporations, governments, and individuals throughout the world and their success has led to dramatic improvements in animal’s lives.
Anyone who loves animals, as most of us do, would concur that the idealist goals of PETA are valid even while some of their violent vitriol is questionable. For example, PETA is famous for throwing blood on people who wear fur, and attending fashion shows to cause chaos and disruption whenever a designer shows clothes fashioned from fur.
The famous author Earnest Hemmingway, who’s numerous novels include; The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bells Toll, and The Old Man and The Sea, was such a celebrated hunter it’s fair to say he was the antithesis of PETA. When I’m in Paris, I like to sit at the Café des Deux Magots. There’s a garden behind the café with a simple plaque relating how Hemmingway would steal pigeons from the park during his destitute days. As a friend of his explained, “Hemingway hung out around the Medici Fountain and around closing time would grab and strangle a pigeon, then smuggle it out of the gardens hidden in the baby carriage with his son.”
While attending culinary school in Provence, we prepared pigeon dishes that were surprisingly good. Pigeon meat is bright red like a rose, the only other meat that comes close in color in ostrich but it’s not as tasty. To put pigeon cuisine in perspective, it’s a bit like rabbit or squirrel in that it’s not for everyone.
All of this is lead-up to today’s perplexing problem; namely, what to do about the massive number of homeless pigeons in liberal cities? After years of liberal policies that permit bums to defecate in the streets, drug addicts to spew hypodermic needles around parks and beaches, gangs to roam freely, and an overall unwillingness to eradicate any form of vermin, such as rats, pigeons, politicians, and the media, liberal cities are in dire need of adult supervision. Things have deteriorated to the point that normal people cannot walk the streets of a liberal managed city anymore. For example, after a rain in Washington DC, the rats get flushed out of the sewers onto the streets and are everywhere. For someone who feels the same way about rats that Indiana Jones feels about snakes, Washington is a very scary place.
Therefore, the plight of the poor pigeons in liberal cities concerns me; as statutes tumble refuge pigeons are losing their habitat, suddenly they have nowhere to do their business. Where is PETA during this dire moment of need and why are they not protesting to protect pigeon habitat? By most measures, liberal cities appear to have fallen so I call on PETA to initiate a pigeon relocation program. I believe what’s best for all parties involved is for PETA to gather up all the pigeons who have lost their habitat due to racial rioting and relocate them to the Mall in downtown DC. There’s so much crap is already flowing in the Mall a few million birds defecating on congress won’t even be noticed.
If PETA is serious about securing a modest donation from me, as their literature incessantly suggests, the relocation program should also include re-education; something every good liberal can get behind. I advocate relocating pigeons to Washington DC and retraining them to proficiently dive-bomb the political class and to kill rats. . . humanely of course.
