Day: August 30, 2001

You Can’t Say That on Television

There were a couple of threads at Plastic yesterday about pushing the boundaries of acceptable content on network television. This anecdote isn’t about network television, but about commercial cable channels, but it shocked me nonetheless at the time.

I was watching Gene Wilder’s movie, “Silver Streak,” on one of those cable movie channels that features commercials — I’m pretty sure it was A&E. Anyway, someone had gone through and edited out all the f- words, which didn’t surprise me because that’s pretty common. But then near the end of the movie they did not edit out Patrick McGoohan calling Richard Pryor’s character the n- word.

That really floored me.

It Was Only A Matter of Time — PETA's Latest Billboard Exploiting Shark Tragedy

Back in July, I noted that it was odd that animal rights activists had not come out to defend the shark who attacked and almost killed Jessie Arbogast. Apparently People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was just temporarily distracted, because this month they unveiled a new billboard wit the tagline, “Would you give your right arm to know why sharks attack? Could it be revenge?”

On its web site, PETA likens the pain and suffering endured by Arbogast after the attack to what sharks experience when fishers catch them. According to PETA,

The recent injuries suffered by shark attack victims offer us a glimpse into the terrifying experience these fish endure when they are hauled out of their environment only to be pitch-forked back into the water after their fins have been sliced off. While their fins are made into “delicacies” such as shark-fin soup, the sharks either suffocate or slowly bleed to death.

PETA says that readers can help sharks avoid this fate by going vegetarian, but conveniently forgets to mention that shark finning is already effectively illegal in the territorial waters of the United States thanks to a law signed by Bill Clinton in December 2000. Australia also banned shark finning last year.

Dan Shannon, the coordinator of PETA’s anti-fishing campaign, told The Sun Herald that the animal rights group intends to “capitalizes on a news story, which is current right now, and that is Jessie Arbogast.”

Ironically Shannon added that “obviously our prayers are with him [Arbogast],” but if PETA had its way many of the cutting edge techniques used to keep Arbogast alive and treat his injuries would have been impossible since they were pioneered with animal research.

The microsurgery techniques used to try to reattach Arbogast’s right arm, for example, would have been all but impossible to develop without extensive development and testing with animals — exactly the sort of research that PETA regularly criticizes the medical research community for conducting.

Sources:

Shark Finning Banned in U.S. Waters. Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service, December 27, 2000.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back into the Water. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, web page.

PETA capitalizing on Jessie’s attack. Reni Winter, The Sun Herald, August 30, 2001.

Seriously Ill for Medical Research Announces Its Mad Animal Rights Awards Winners

The Great Britain-based Seriously Ill for Medical Research recently released a list of winners of its Mad Animal Rights Awards highlighting “some of the lunatic excesses of the animal rights and antivivisection movement.” Even if they restricted themselves to the previous year, they must have had an overwhelming number of lunatic moments to cull down to just 13 awards.

Some of the highlights included the award for the Best Conspiracy Theory which went to the British Anti Vivisection Association for its claim that it possesses information that could “save the lives of countless human victims of today’s vivisection-based medicine and research; information which is unfavourable to the multi-billion pound/dollar pharmaceutical/ vivisection industry, and which we believe is, for whatever reason, being deliberately withheld by the BBC.”

Read the full list at http://www.simr.org.uk/pages/news/08-2001/index.html

Source:

Mad Animal Rights Awards highlight loony antics. Seriously Ill for Medical Research, Press Release, August 29, 2001.

Animal Rights Activists Claims Parole Conditions Are Unconstitutional

Megan Lewis, one of the founders of the Texas Establishment for Animal Rights, is trying to have one of her parole conditions thrown out on the grounds that it unconstitutionally inhibits her right to free speech.

Lewis was arrested on November 27, 1998 and charged with a misdemeanor for blocking a passageway while taking part in a protest at a Nieman Marcus store. Lewis was convicted and sentenced to serve 10 days in jail and a 24-month probation.

As part of the conditions of her probation, Judge Ralph Taite ordered that Lewis may not participate in any animal rights protest for the duration of her probationary period. Lewis had been sentenced the year before to 1 day in jail after another arrest at an animal rights protest.

Lewis appealed her conviction to the 5th District Court of Appeals which upheld the judge-imposed restriction on her protesting activities, ruling that judges have wide discretion to impose reasonable rules to protect a community and attempt to rehabilitate an offender.

Sources:

Gag order. Mark Hughes, The Dallas Observer Online, August 23, 2001.

Rally will be held today for anti-fur activist who will be jailed. Rick Lannoye, Dallas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Press Release, August 9, 2001.