As always, the yahoos in Texas have something to teach the rest of us non-criminally insane Americans. However, for a change, the madness is not coming from the 12-gauge-toting, Bible-thumping Christian right of George W.'s homeland. This time the madness is being spread from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, protesting school lunches in El Paso. Now before you PETA members out there start blacklisting me, let me say I'm all for freedom of ideas. But these eco-punks went a little far in their message.
The members of PETA assembled outside of a middle school and, with a man in a chicken costume as their mascot, proceeded to hand out literature that equated eating chicken with abusing a house cat or a pet dog. Demonstrators insisted that people be vegetarians. This demonstration, which had the subtlety of a man dressed in a chicken costume, occurred without so much as a notice from PETA to the school, the school board or the city.
I refuse to judge PETA on their message. I think anyone who has read Scholosser's \Fast Food Nation"" would contend that massive revisions need to occur in the poultry, beef and pork processing industries. And PETA certainly has the right to demonstrate where they would like. However, consider their target audience: teenagers. The place: a middle school. The kids still go to school, right? I mean, I know they do ""the meth"" and ""the techno music,"" but first they go to school, right? The timing of the event: immediately after school. PETA had the responsibility, but not the obligation, to make someone aside from the local TV news station aware of this.
Furthermore, if PETA wants to to be considered a serious political/animal rights watchdog organization, they should phase out these media stunts and begin intelligent campaigns for animal advocacy.
A perfect example of these ""stunts"" was PETA's trading card farce back in February 2001. This campaign amounted to PETA members handing out trading cards with the eating of animal products equated to obesity and various other maladies. Instead of serving as a reminder to eat healthy and vegetarian, these cards served as a reminder to not take PETA seriously.
The PETA members in El Paso ended up not being cited by any authority and for good reason. They hurt no one and perhaps affected no one. In my most cynical of moods, I picture those teenagers. Before they do ""the special K"" and ""engage in promiscuous sex,"" and after seeing those men dressed as chickens, they will smoke cigarettes and eat tons of chicken to ""damn the man and to piss off PETA.\
