PETA terrifies small children with comic book depicting mutilated cows - Anyone have pics?

[LilyCuster]

Video: PETA terrifies small children with comic book depicting mutilated cows; Update: PETA responds
posted at 8:31 am on February 6, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
PETA often employs controversy to get its point across to adults, but that usually takes the form of naked celebrities endorsing their message. With children, PETA uses a different strategy altogether — and that has parents in a Woodland Hills, California school district angry enough to consider a lawsuit. PETA distributed comic books with horrifyingly graphic images of butchery in order to terrify children into their ideology:

Claire Borsheim and many other parents at the Woodland Hills campus were outraged after PETA handed out the pamphlets to their children the same day a baby cow was on campus for a lesson about dairy farming.

The pamphlet appeared to be a cartoon comic and was titled “A Cow’s Life,” but the images inside were horrifying, parents said.

“My 6-year-old daughter was handed one of these comics, saw the insert of the mutilated cow that I ripped away right away, she started flipping through it and saw pictures of baby cows being electrocuted, factory farms with machetes, I mean, just graphically horrifying images for a 6 year old,” Borsheim said.


“The images are pretty graphic,” parent Shawn Belschner said. “They’re of mutilated cows, infected cows, cows being dehorned, cows in bad conditions. I don’t think it’s good for any child.”

PETA later claimed that they got their materials mixed up, and that the comic books were intended for adults:

Katie Arth of PETA says that it may have all just been an innocent mix up.

“PETA creates material for kids and for adults,” Arth said. “And it looks like there was just a mistake and our volunteers put the materials together to get them out quicker.”

Er, riiiiiiiiight. I’m sure that these comic books titled “A Cow’s Life” was intended for adults. Suuuuuuuure they were.

LAUSD said that they didn’t know PETA would distribute images like that to the children. The better question is why LAUSD allowed a protest group to distribute anything to children in the first place. Perhaps parents considering a lawsuit should think about adding the school and the school board to the list of respondents.

Update: PETA has responded to me about this post, and I have a point to make afterward. First, here’s the response from David Perle:

Hi, Ed. I wanted to let you know that PETA has sent a letter to Calabash Charter Academy in response to the recent mix-up in which volunteers, including one Calabash Elementary parent, gave students kid-friendly comic books about the dairy industry that contained a more graphic leaflet intended for adults, something that was not supposed to happen. (In your piece, you mocked the concept that the comic books were intended for adults. No, of course they weren’t. The problem was the leaflets that were mistakenly put inside of those child-friendly comic books.)


As PETA notes in its letter, the volunteers had been concerned that a representative of the dairy industry was visiting the school that day to sell the kids on cow’s milk, and PETA had intended for the in-depth leaflets to go to the students’ parents so that they could be fully informed about how the dairy industry hurts animals (and how dairy products can make kids and adults sick).


In an effort to mend fences, PETA has offered to provide staff and students at Calabash Elementary with Tofutti Cuties—delicious dairy-free ice cream sandwiches.


“Kids have a natural empathy for animals and know that the abuse that cows endure on factory farms—the pain of dehorning, the constant deprivation in filthy feedlots, and the ache of mastitis—is wrong,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman, who is also the mother of an elementary student in the Los Angeles area. “PETA’s child-appropriate comic book starts an honest conversation about how what we choose to eat and drink can help—or hurt—animals.”

He also included a letter to the principal of the school from PETA’s executive VP Tracy Reiman, which is referenced in the story, but I’ll include it here without the names included:

I wanted to contact you about the volunteers who visited your school on Thursday and to apologize for the fact that some students apparently received leaflets intended for adults and that had not been approved for distribution to kids for this visit. The volunteers, including a parent of a fifth-grader at Calabash, were concerned when they learned that the dairy industry would be visiting the school and wanted to offer your students kid-friendly comic books in order to help them understand how milk gets from cows to their cereal bowls as well as to offer parents more detailed information about the cruelty and health concerns associated with dairy products.


As the mother of a 10-year-old, I know that kids have a natural empathy for animals but may not understand the connection between the animals they see in picture books or on farms and the food on their plates. Our comic book was designed with the help of parents and educators in order to help start honest discussions with kids about helping animals. Most cows used in the dairy industry live in cramped, filthy conditions, often mired in their own waste, and are deprived of almost everything that is pleasant, natural, and important to them. They are genetically manipulated and given drugs that force them to produce more than four times the amount of milk that they would naturally, and this milk also promotes antibiotic resistance in humans who drink it. Their calves are taken away from them shortly after birth—females are cycled into milk production, and males are relegated to veal crates, which cause horrible animal suffering. The cows are repeatedly impregnated using artificial insemination, and up to half of them suffer from a painful udder infection called mastitis. Once their milk production wanes, at about only 4 or 5 years old, almost all mother cows are sent to slaughter. There is a health factor here, too, as milk and other dairy products have now been linked to serious illnesses, including heart disease, type 1 diabetes, and obesity.


PETA encourages parents and children to choose humane and healthy options, such as soy or almond milk, vegan cheese, and dairy-free ice cream. Unlike dairy products, which are loaded with cholesterol and saturated fat, nondairy milk is cholesterol-free and low in saturated fat as well as high in calcium and essential nutrients.


I’d be happy to meet with you or talk on the phone. We would like to mend fences and give the school some delicious dairy-free ice-cream sandwiches (Tofutti Cuties) for all the kids to enjoy.


Thanks so much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

The last point, and one that supports Perle’s response: the comic book is on line, and while I wouldn’t give it to my granddaughters, the comic book itself does not contain the graphic images that concerned the parents — at least not as presented from their website. Still, I’d be demanding some answers from the school as to why this material was allowed at all. If PETA wants to target kids for their campaign, they should be working through parents rather than around them, and schools should know better.

 

[D.O.A.]

Just a quick note that the woman in charge of peta is A-Grade batshit fucking insane

As someone who has dedicated a part of my life to the alleviation of animal suffering in various parts of the world, it is my wish that upon my death, my body be used to further that same goal. It is with this purpose in mind that I make the following directions and designations relating to the disposition of my final remains. I make these directions and designations after thorough consideration and pursuant to my firm belief in the purposes for which they are made.

1. Upon my death, it is my wish that my body be used in a manner that draws attention to needless animal suffering and exploitation. To accomplish this, I direct that my body be donated to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 501 Front Street, Norfolk, Virginia 23510, to be used in whatever manner it chooses in order to accomplish the specified purpose, with the hope that most of my body will be put to use in the United States, with parts also dispatched to awaken the public consciousness of governments and citizens in the United Kingdom, where I was born, in India, my beloved childhood home, and in Canada, Germany, and France.

2. While the final decision as to the use of my body remains with PETA, I make the following suggested directions:

a. That the “meat” of my body, or a portion thereof, be used for a human barbecue, to remind the world that the meat of a corpse is all flesh, regardless of whether it comes from a human being or another animal, and that flesh foods are not needed;

b. That my skin, or a portion thereof, be removed and made into leather products, such as purses, to remind the world that human skin and the skin of other animals is the same and that neither is “fabric” nor needed, and that some skin be tacked up outside the Indian Leather Fair each year to serve as a reminder of the government’s need to abate the suffering of Indian bullocks who, after a life of extreme and involuntary servitude, as I have seen firsthand, are exported all over the world in this form;

c. That in remembrance of the elephant-foot umbrella stands and tiger rugs I saw, as a child, offered for sale by merchants at Connaught Place in Delhi, my feet be removed and umbrella stands or other ornamentation be made from them, as a reminder of the depravity of killing innocent animals, such as elephants, in order that we might use their body parts for household items and decorations;

d. That one of my eyes be removed, mounted, and delivered to the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a reminder that PETA will continue to be watching the agency until it stops poisoning and torturing animals in useless and cruel experiments; that the other is to be used as PETA sees fit;

e. That my pointing finger be delivered to Kenneth Feld, owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, or to a circus museum to stand as the “Greatest Accusation on Earth” on behalf of the countless elephants, lions, tigers, bears, and other animals who have been kidnapped from their families and removed from their homelands in India, Thailand, Africa, and South America and deprived of all that is natural and pleasant to them, abused, and forced into involuntary servitude for the sake of cheap entertainment;

f. That my liver be vacuum-packed and shipped, in whole or in part, to France, to there be used in a public appeal to persuade shoppers not to support the vile practice of force-feeding geese and ducks for foie gras;

g. That one of my ears be removed, mounted, and sent to the Canadian Parliament to assist them in hearing, for the first time perhaps, the screams of the seals, bears, raccoons, foxes, and minks bludgeoned, trapped, and sometimes skinned alive for their pelts; that the other ear be removed, preserved, and displayed outside the Deonar abattoir in Mumbai to remind all who do business there that the screams of the cattle who are slaughtered within its walls are heard around the world;

h. That one of my thumbs be removed, mounted upwards on a plaque, and sent to the person or institution that, in the year of my death or thereabouts, PETA decides has done the most to promote alternatives to the use and abuse of animals in any area of their exploitation;

i. That one of my thumbs be mounted in a downward position and sent to the person or institution that, in the year of my death or thereabouts, has gone against the changing tide of societal opinion and frightened and hurt animals in some egregious manner;

j. That a little part of my heart be buried near the racetrack at Hockenheim, preferably near the Ferrari pits, where Michael Shumacher raced in and won the German Grand Prix;

k. That anything else be done with my body that PETA believes will serve to draw attention to and so abate the plight of exploited animals.

3. As a resident of Virginia, and pursuant to Virginia law, including
§ 54.1-2825 of the Virginia Code, I designate PETA as the “person” who shall make arrangements for carrying out the directions contained in this document for the disposition of my remains upon my death. If, at any time, PETA is unable or unwilling to carry out these directions, I designate, in the alternative, Daniel Mathews as the individual who shall make arrangements for carrying out the directions contained in this document for the disposition of my remains upon my death. If Daniel Mathews is unable or unwilling to carry out these directions as required, I authorize either of the two listed “persons” in this paragraph to designate a third party to make arrangements for carrying out the directions contained in this document for the disposition of my remains upon my death.

4. While I prefer that my directions be first executed in the United States, I also direct that parts of my body be transported to the United Kingdom, of which I also am a citizen, and to India, my beloved spiritual home, to be executed there. If my directions cannot be executed in any of these countries, I authorize the transport of my remains to any location where my disposition directions, in whole or in part, may be lawfully executed.

5. I authorize the person carrying out these directions to deviate from them in any manner he or she deems appropriate to further the purpose expressed herein. If any provision or provisions of this document shall be held to be invalid, illegal, unenforceable, or in conflict with the law of any jurisdiction, the validity, legality, and enforceability of the remaining provisions shall not in any way be affected or impaired thereby.



Read more: http://www.peta.org/features/ingrid-newkirks-unique-will/#ixzz2sbyFTWNU

 

[Wayne Kerr]

i dunno, but the piece of cow i ate tonight was fucking delicious.

 

[janscutter]

I have no issue with the individuals that are members of PETA, I do however have a major issue with the association as a whole.

 

[R a n d o m]

PETA is overly crazy. While i agree we should treat animals "humanely" that doesn't mean we should not kill them for food. Interesting thought is that if we didn't they would never live at all because only a fraction of the animals that exists today would be born without human consumption of meat. Quite utilitarian if i may say so.