PETA Features David Duke in Bizarre Billboard Ad

Most of the times People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is intentionally offensive to garner media attention. But sometimes it’s really hard to tell what (if anything) PETA is trying to accomplish with some of its more bizarre ads and stunts.

Such is the case with a billboard that PETA is running in Shreveport that features an image of David Duke — used without the knowledge or permission of the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan — that parodies the “Got Milk?” advertisements.

The ad shows Duke’s image with a white mustache. The copy on the ad reads, “Got (lactose) intolerance? The white stuff saint’ the right stuff.”

Yeah, that one left me scratching my head too. According to PETA’s Bruce Friedrich,

David Duke is the perfect milk-industry poster child since he’s identified by many as being intolerant. . . . It’s a public domain photograph, but no one in their right mind applauds David Duke and no one in their right mind should be drinking milk.

That’s even more logically confused than normal for Friedrich. That makes about as much sense as putting up a picture of accused-Pim Fortuyn assassin Volkert van Der Graaft and arguing that since van Der Graaft is a killer, so is a vegan diet.

But then again, no one ever accused Friedrich and PETA of trying to make sense.

Source:

Anti-milk ad features David Duke. Alan Sayre, Associated Press, November 11, 2002.

Nigeria: Adultery Death Sentences Will Be Stopped

Reacting to negative attention it has received on the subject ahead of the Miss World pageant, the Nigerian government this month reiterated that it will not allow death sentences to be carried out against woman convicted of adultery.

Twelve states in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated North have adopted Islamic sharia law which calls for death by stoning for individuals convicted of adultery or rape. Several women have been sentenced to be stoned to death under the law, though none of these sentences has been carried out yet.

Nigerian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dubem Onyia said that Nigeria would use “its constitutional powers to thwart any negative ruling, which is deemed injurious to its people.”

Nigerian officials have said before that they the death by stoning sentences are unconstitutional, but they have also soft-pedaled their statements somewhat as they look ahead to nationwide elections in 2003.

Left unanswered was how northern Muslims will view the national government’s increasingly firm anti-sharia stance. Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo is a southern Christian, and violence between Muslims, Christians and animists has claimed more than 8,000 lives since Obasanjo’s 1999 election.

Source:

Nigeria vows to block stoning deaths. Glenn McKenzie, Associated Press, November 10, 2002.

Illegal Abortions a Major Killer of Women in Ethopia

According to the World Health Organization, complications arising from illegal abortions are now the second leading cause of death for young women in Ethiopia. Only tuberculosis kills more young women in that poverty-stricken nation.

Abortion is illegal in Ethiopia except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, but illegal abortions are easy to obtain and widespread. According to WHO, the death rate from illegal abortions in Ethiopia is a staggering 1,209 per 100,000 abortions. In the United States, by contrast, the death rate from legal abortions is about 1 per 100,000.

A number of factors help to make the death rate so high, including a lack of access to contraception, a very low literacy rate among women (only about 14 percent of women are literate), and Ethiopia’s poverty which leads to only about US $1.50 per person being spent on health care resources annually.

Source:

High Death Rate from Illegal Abortions. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, October 28, 2002.

Teens Pay The Deadly Price Of Religious Taboo. Tewedaj Kebede, Panos, July 2001.

Many Ethiopian Teens Dying from Illegal Abortions. Women’s E-News, November 4, 2002.

The Proper European Response to Zimbabwe

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has the right take on how the United States and Europe should handle members of Zimbabwe’s government who travel abroad — they should be arrested and charged with crimes against humanity.

A recent report by the ICG said,

The EU and the US should use the International Convention Against Torture to arrest senior members of Zanu PF responsible for Zimbabwe having one of the highest rates of torture in the world if these individuals do travel into their jurisdiction without the benefit of international legal immunity.

. . .

The international response is still characterised by too much bark and too little bite. More credible targeted sanctions, wider, deeper and better enforced than those presently in place in the US and the EU are a necessary start.

The situation in Zimbabwe, meanwhile, keeps devolving on a daily basis. When food aid is not being outright blocked by the ruling party, an ongoing fuel crisis is making it difficult to distribute aid.

In just five years, Zimbabwe’s total economic output has declined by 25 percent. Zimbabwe is going to be feeling a lot of pain for many years to come, even once Mugabe is out of the picture.

Source:

Arrest Visiting Zanu Pf Officials, Urges Think-Tank. Luke Tamborinyoka, The Daily News (Harare, Zimbabwe), November 12, 2002.

Wynona Ryder Treated Unfairly?

For the most part, I tried to ignore the Wynona Ryder trial. Because of her celebrity status, her shoplifting trial received coverage way out of proportion to what it deserved. But what to make of the results of a poll in which women said Ryder was treated unfairly because she was a woman,

A new the polling company?, inc/WomanTrend poll conducted September 23-25, 2002 of 800 American women across the nation found that 75% believe successful women are more likely to receive negative attention when accused of improper conduct than men who are accused of the same, and 87% say that while women are ridiculed and criticized for doing something bad, or unfavorable, men earn a ?cool? or ?humorous? image from acting in the same form of behavior.

Right, because news coverage of Robert Downey Jr.’s drug problem has been filled with laughs and insinuation that Downey was “cool” for waking up in a drug addled stupor in his neighbor’s house.

WomanTrend CEO Kellyanne Conway inanely added,

Their celebrity status does not exonerate them from being treated as a woman in times of crisis. Seventy-six percent (76%) think Winona Ryder is the most recent case study illustrating this point. Like others, Kathie Lee Gifford, Martha Stewart, Drew Barrymore, Halle Berry and Jennifer Capriati, to name a few, women generally like Winona, and empathize with her, feeling that she is being treated improperly.

Okay, she’s got a point there. Male executives at companies like WorldCom, Enron, and ImClone got a free pass from the media, leaving them to focus exclusively on Martha Stewart.

The reason Ryder and Stewart are front page news is not because they receive special treatment, but precisely because they do not receive any special favors from the media. Instead, celebrity status guarantees obsessive examination of even minor missteps regardless of sex.

Source:

Women denounce double standard applied to the sexes by law enforcement, media, public. The Polling Company, September 27, 2002.

Faking Out the Referees

In its game Saturday, the University of Southern Mississippi had the ball third-and-goal on the 2-yard line. So quarterback Micky D’Angelo faked a handoff to the running back and then rolled left and into the end zone.

The only problem was the line judge completely bought the fake handoff and when the running back entered the end zone (without the football), the line judge blew the play dead and signaled touchdown — all a second or two before D’Angelo ended up, who actually had the football, rolled into the endzone.

I love the quarterback’s perspective from The Clarion Ledger (Mississippi),

“I was at the 4-yard line, and I looked over and there was the ref with his hands up,” said D’Angelo, who wound up plowing into Scherrens, sending the official sprawling to the turf and prompting a call for medical attention.

“I was thinking, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve got the ball.'”

Ultimately, the play was negated and USM was given the ball at the 2-yard line and forced to run a third down play again. USM failed to score a touchdown and ended up settling for a short field goal. Bizarre.

Source:

Odd play: Fake so good it cost TD Tim Doherty, November 10, 2002.