Tag: Matt Rice

What Matt Rice Does Is Lie

The Helena, Montana Independent Record reported on an appearance there by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals anti-circus protesters.

Julie Kelton, 19, stripped seminude in order to protest the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. She was accompanied by PETA’s Matt Rice who told the Independent Record,

We sometimes have to do interesting and shocking things to get animals the attention they deserve.

But what Matt Rice seems to do is spend his time lying to reporters about PETA’s activities.

In 2004, for example, Rice told reporters that PETA would never use shock tactics with children despite PETA’s repeated promises to do just that.

Rice’s claim that PETA doesn’t target children with shock tactics was as accurate as his claim that Kelton would appear naked.

Interestingly, an opponent of PETA got in a plug about PETA’s habit of killing animals into the story,

At least one passer-by took exception to the protest. Ingrid Rosenquist, a deputy county attorney, said her father is a biomedical researcher, and she has been active in training horses and dogs for competition. Saying she was speaking only for herself, not her employer, Rosenquist said PETA kills animals at its own shelters and supports animal rights terrorists.

As with its other campaign, she said, PETA exaggerates the frequency and severity of mistreatment of circus animals. She referred people to the Web site www.petakillsanimals.com.

Good for Rosenquist.

Source:

Semi-naked protester strikes a pose for mistreated circus critters. Ed Kemmick, The Independent Record (Helena, Montana), September 30, 2005.

PETA Unveils Bloody Col. Sanders Bobblehead

As part of its campaign against KFC, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently produced 2,000 “Cruel Colonel” dolls. The dolls are bobbleheads showing a Colonel Sanders character with a bloody knife and chicken.

According to the a PETA press release,

The 6-inch, painted ceramic dolls will be handed out at select protests across the country and are a clever way to remind people about KFC’s cruel treatment of chickens. Ask the bobblehead colonel if he likes to torture animals—and see what his response is!

In The Roanoke Times, the Center for Consumer Freedom’s David Martosko suggested that PETA activist might hand the bobbleheads out to children, “which fits right into their ‘Let’s get ’em young attitude.'” That prompted PETA” Joe Hinkle to lie to Roanoke Times reporter Mike Hudson. Hudson reported,

Hinkle says PETA “never hands out things to children under the age of 13 without parents’ permission.”

Hinkle is a liar. In May 2004, PETA sent activists to Capitol Middle School in Baton Rouge to hand out PETA’s “Chicken Chumps” trading cards. Here’s what the Talon News reported,

Students at Capitol Middle School in Baton Rouge could soon be trading some new “stomach-turning” cards while waiting for the bus thanks to an outreach effort by one of America’s leading animal rights organizations.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will be handing out “Chicken Chumps” trading cards to students as they leave school on Thursday after the school refused to allow the group to give its “Hidden Lives of Chickens” presentation during school hours.

PETA’s Vegan Campaign Coordinator Matt Rice will hand the cards out to kids at 2:10 p.m. as they leave school. He will be joined by two activists. One will be in a chicken costume holding a sign saying “I’m No Nugget,” and another will be wearing a television that will show chickens being slaughtered to make the nuggets the children love to eat.

“Kids would chuck their buckets of chicken into the nearest trash can if they knew how birds suffer in the meat industry,” Rice said on Wednesday.

Most of the children at Capitol Middle School, which serves 6th-8th grade, would be under 13 (not to mention its just funny how half the time they say they don’t target children at all, half the time they do, and the other half they only target kids 13 and over — nothing with PETA ever adds up).

Sources:

PETA Doll ruffles KFC’s feathers. Mike Hudson, The Roanoke Times, January 8, 2005.

Animal Rights Activists Again Target School Kids. Charles Mahaleris, Talon News, May 20, 2004.

PETA Takes Child Abuse Billboard to Canada

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has recently been trying to place its “Feeding kids meat is child abuse” billboard in Canada.

A billboard company in Newfoundland this month refused to accept the billboard, but PETA’s Matt Rice told the London Free Press that it would try to place the billboard in other Canadian cities.

Source:

PETA’s burger billboard rejected. The London Free Press, August 22, 2004.

PETA Targets Children — And Lies Again

Despite Ingrid Newkirk’s assertions that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals does not target children, the animal rights group recently launched a campaign — “Chickens are Friends, Not Food” — aimed at elementary school-aged children.

According to the Associated Press, PETA’s vegan campaign coordinator Matt Rice sent letters to 120 principles of schools across the South wanting to show a PETA produced film, “The Secret Lives of Chickens” and hand out PETA trading cards trying to convince children not to eat chicken. Not surprisingly, according to Rice, “Not one principal responded to our letters.”

Well, maybe if Rice could go through a single interview without an abject lie. He told the Associated Press this whopper,

We would never use shock tactics with children. Children are so naturally empathetic to animals that we focus on showing chickens as intelligent with distinctive personalities, just like pet cats and dogs.

So when PETA promised to distribute Bloody Crown Meals to children at Burger King and Unhappy Meals at McDonald’s, those weren’t shock tactics? Here’s what PETA itself said about the Bloody Crown Meals,

Kids lured to Burger King by the free toy crown bestowed on young burger buyers will have plenty of food for thought when they receive PETA’s new promotional handout: a “blood-soaked” crown with golden points impaling pigs and cows. Below each skewered animal are factoids about how animals suffer on Burger King’s factory farms and a slogan that asks, “How Much Cruelty Can You Stomach?” The PETA crowns make their debut in Los Angeles on May 8 and then will appear at Burger Kings across the country.

Not to mention that last December PETA said it would distribute Your Mommy Kills Animals comic books to children whose parents were wearing fur. Again, here’s what PETA itself said about its plans to give the comic books away outside of holiday performances of The Nutcracker,

PETA activists – including cuddly, costumed raccoons and foxes – are making guest appearances outside performances of The Nutcracker across the country this holiday season with a cheeky message of compassion. As children arrive to see the “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy,” some will be unaware that their mothers are already starring in a real-life horror story! PETA will be there to greet any fur-clad moms and their children with their newest anti-fur leaflet-PETA Comics presents…”Your Mommy Kills Animals!”</p?

Kids will see the bloody truth behind their momsÂ’ pretentious pelts. Accompanied by graphic photographs of skinned carcasses and animals languishing on fur farms, children will read: “Lots of wonderful foxes, raccoons, and other animals are kept by mean farmers who squish them into cages so small that they can hardly move. They never get to play or swim or have fun. All they can do is cry-just so your greedy mommy can have that fur coat to show off in when she walks the streets.”

Like everyone else at PETA, Matt Rice is first and foremost an opportunistic liar.

Source:

PETA’s latest message aimed at youngsters. Lynda Edwards, Associated Press, June 2, 2004.

PETA Activists Pester Neighborhood Children After Arriving After School Closure

You remember People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, right? The group that Ingrid Newkirk insisted on national television doesn’t target children? Well, for some reason it sent three activists to Capitol Middle School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in May to convince children that it is wrong to eat chicken

What the PETA activists did not realize is that the school had let out two hours earlier, it being the last day of the 2003-2004 school year for Capitol Middle School students. So what did the three activists from an organization that doesn’t target children do then? Of course, they pestered neighborhood children walking or riding by the school.

The Advocate newspaper reports the following exchange that PETA’s Matt Rice had with a child outside the school,

Rice asked Keshon Bell, also a sixth-grader at Capitol Middle, whether she eats chicken.

“I eat chicken,” she said.

“That’s too bad. They’re just like dogs and cats,” Rice responded.

“Like that dog over there,” Bell said, pointing out a dog, perhaps dead, which had been lying in the middle of Gus Young Avenue, the whole time.

Afterward, Bell said eating chickens is wrong, repeating what the activists were saying in her own way.

“I know you can’t kill dogs and cats,” she said.

For an organization that targets their message entirely at adults, as Newkirk said, PETA spends an awful lot of time targeting children.

Source:

Animal-rights group too late to take message to school. Charles Lussier, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), May 21, 2004.