On the way home last night, I had WOWO on the radio, and Pat White was all over the PETA cockroach story. It's stupid, it's silly, and wouldn't you like a yummy cockroach, perhaps dipped in chocolate, and, boy, isn't PETA just out there?
Cockroaches have feelings too!
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals want all Six Flags theme parks, including the one in Massachusetts, to exterminate an upcoming cockroach-eating extravaganza.
“Cockroaches have been given a bad (reputation) in our society,” said PETA spokeswoman Jackie Vergerio. “They are gentle, complex animals.”
Which means PETA has scored again. There were already almost 200 stories about this on Google news when I checked last night. I'm sure it was on radio stations all across the country, and I can just imagine editorial writers getting all cranked to express wry amusement or high dudgeon, depending on their moods, at PETA's latest lunacy. And that, folks, is the PETA plan. Every time they come out with an announcement that is outrageous or over the top, they get the same reaction, which adds up to tons of free publicity that millions of dollars in marketing and advertising couldn't achieve.
If I had a cause I wanted in the public eye, I'd hire whoever does this kind of stuff for PETA. They are nothing short of brilliant.
Comments
Oh, I think PETA sometimes goes too far, as with their mean-spirited, don't-even-wait-for-the-body-to-get-cold attack on the late Steve Irwin.
But they do good work.
I mean, yes, most human being don't like cockroaches, but life is diminished if we treat any non-human form of life as humankind's property, to be dispensed with as humans see fit.
Cockroaches, even cockroaches, deserve to be treated well.
That's not to say that there aren't more important matters to which to attend, such as the horrible treatment of cows, poultry and other animals in our indudstrial farms and slaugherhouses.
Still, as Mr. Morris observes, this both brings attention to PETA and serves to remind people that even cockroaches have value, as our fellow travelers in life, and deserve better treatment.
Um. But I'll admit I've never lived in a house infested with roaches. I might feel differently if I had.
In most movements, the extremists serve to make the overall message of the group seem moderate and thus palatable to the mainstream. Oh, yes, it's horrible to spike trees and maybe kill loggers in the process, but who can argue with a cleaner environment? Certainly, those "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle" feminists are nuts; now, let's talk about equal pay for equal work.
Sometimes, this is by happenstance; every group has adherents of varying levels of commitment and intensity. But sometimes it's by design -- groups make a deliberate attempt to move an issue by exaggerating the extreme, which tends to move where the middle point of the debate is.
This has nothing to do with whether or not we support the group's cause, which we should judge on its own merits. But it can help us make better judgments if we know the dynamics that might be in play.
See, MY question about old-time circus-geek "eat the squirming bug" antics is more technical.
Have you ever noted those certified statements in the end-credits of major motion pictures? - the one that solemnly declares that 'no animals were injured or killed in the making of this picture...blah blah blah'?
In order to be able to say that, the movie makers must assure that - if a bug is in the movie (say, they have a cockroach scurry across the kitchen floor just before the masked killer bursts through the picture window, wildly swinging a scythe) - then that bug MUST be completely unharmed.
And then you tune into a 'reality' show, and they eat bugs for sport!
Anyway - ol' Pat White only 'bugs' me when he gets onto his anti-public/pro-Catholic school rants
I think PETA are doping an amazing job at helping defenceless animals and speaking out for them. the cruelty and attoricities that is happening to animals on a daily basis is nothing short than shocking and totally unaceptable.
Thank god for PETA and you can never go to far at highlight animal abuse which in itself is the only thing that goes to far.