PETA Wants Amityville House of Meat-Eating Horror

The Amityville House on which the book, then the movie was based.

Here in the impetuous offices of The Crusty Curmudgeon, we are often shooting off of figurative mouths about the latest PETA absurdity, with this caveat: we are pro-animal rights.  I do not want any more forests to be taken for wood, or the rainforest clear-cut so someone can try to grow potatoes, or any species should face extinction, etcetera, etcetera, but PETA is beyond the bounds of crazy behavior.

Much have I written about them, including their Florida billboards with pictures of fat humans and the slogan, “SAVE THE WHALES; Lose the Blubber – Go Vegetarian.”  Or their recent outrage over a destructive squirrel who was caught in a trap on a home’s roof and spent a little too long in the hot sun, or their supposed outrage over Puxatawney Phil, the famous shadow seeing ground hog. They thought Phil was abused performing for the cameras like that, and suggested an animatronic groundhog instead.

Now they’re at it again.  This time, they want to lease the Amityville house of horror (Currently up for sale for 1.15 million).  They want to turn it into a meat-eaters house of horror.  PETA vice-president Tracy Reiman wrote to the present owners, “In our horror house, the sound of slaughterhouse blades whirring while animals scream for their lives would play over loudspeakers.” And the letter went on: “Visitors would be able to see animatronic hens struggling for space inside tiny battery cages and lifelike “fish” gasping for air as they slowly suffocate on the deck of a fishing boat.”

You didn’t think the wackos would stop there, did you?  Oh no, not by a long shot.  Visitors would be subjected, er…treated to a smorgasbord of tasty visual delights, like branding irons and an electrified cow prod and the opportunity to be locked in a small pig crate.  And don’t leave without a special souvenir.  I suggest a doll that resembles a crazed,  knife-wielding Ronald MacDonald.  No kidding.

And you can’t leave without dining in the zero star Cruelty-Free Cafe, featuring delicious, mouth watering vegan food, such as protein-packed mock chicken and faux ribs.  See the irony of that?  Their so-called delicious food tries to resemble meat.  Why not just serve the vegetables instead of trying to pass it off as meat? Is it because meat is delicious and that’s what people like to eat?

Sounds like a lovely afternoon, and I’m booking my tickets as soon as it’s official.  My main beef is I love me some meat.  Steaks, chops, chicken, ribs, and fish, broiled, smoked, braised, baked, grilled, and roasted.  Don’t get in my way, PETA, I’m warning you.  I’ll mess you up, because your game is easy to play.
Of course, the neighbors are thrilled with the prospect of PETA moving into the home, which is best summed up by a neighbor way back in 1999, when he told the N.Y. Daily News that the movie “…screwed up the whole neighborhood.”  Well, just wait until PETA moves in.

Talk about screwed up.

(Information for this story came from the N.Y.Daily News.)

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PETA and Punxsutawney Phil Go Shadowboxing

Phil being petted by females. I wonder if PETA would let me have Phil's job?

Here in the affable offices of The Curmudgeon, we enjoy an amusing anecdote, a charming custom, and all things homespun.  We are in fact, highly agreeable co-workers – as far as co-workers go – and yet there are some employees I would like to change for animatronics, since they appear to be slightly mechanical anyway.  I think PETA would agree with me, probably because of the cruelty and suffering I force upon them, like actually working for their pay.

In fact, PETA has many things they would like to substitute animatronics for, but this time they’ve really gone off their rocker.  Gemma Vaughn, PETA’s Animal Entertainment Specialist, fired off a letter to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club asking them to retire the two groundhogs, Punxsutawney Phil and his understudy, Staten Island Chuck, and replace them with animatronics.  Oh, PETA, now you’ve gone too far.  I would love to be in a PETA staff meeting:  “Who should we go after now?”  “I know.  Ant farms!”

In their own words, PETA said the treatment of the groundhogs was “cruel,”  and pointed out that Phil was “forced to be on display year round at the local library and is denied the ability to prepare for and enter yearly hibernation.”  Um…yeah, but they don’t have to hibernate, instead living in forced opulence and comfort.  PETA added that “Tradition is no excuse for cruelty.”  Yeah.  I’ll think about that the next time I have to go to a wedding.

Not accustomed to dealing with controversy, Punxsutawney Groundhog Club called the request “crazy,” and blundered the following statement:  “Phil is probably treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania.  He’s got air conditioning in the summer, his pen is heated in winter … He has everything but a TV in there. What more do you want?”  Holy Moley!  Are you saying the average child in Pennsylvania doesn’t have air conditioning, heat, or perhaps the biggest cruelty of all, television?  Okay, I’m sure he didn’t mean that.  They at least have television, right?

But perhaps the groundhogs agree with PETA.   Last year, Phil made several escape attempts from his home at the Punxsutawney Library, and Staten Island Chuck bit N.Y. Mayor Michael Bloomberg during a Groundhog Day celebration.  Bloomberg wasn’t hurt, but he did refer to Chuck as a terrorist rodent.  But these episodes aren’t that big of a deal.  The average child in Pennsylvania also makes several escape attempts every year, and over of the kids bite their parents.

I have made my own prediction.  I walked out of my house today and saw my shadow.

I predict 6 more weeks of this particular PETA nonsense.

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PETA Picks Apart Pudgy Porcine People

Here in the lush digs of The Crusty Curmudgeon, all staff must be an animal lover, and people are encouraged to bring their dogs with them.  There is doggie day-care, a dog park, and a dog agility course.  So you would think we would support PETA.  Sometimes, we do, and other times we want to pick PETA up by the collar and slap them silly, saying, “What were you thinking?”  And now they’ve done it again.

In Jacksonville, Florida, PETA has erected billboards featuring a cartoon of a fat woman in a bikini on the beach with the slogan:  “Save the Whales.  Lose the blubber.  Go vegetarian.”  WTF?  This bothers me on many levels, not the least of which is I love my beef, pork, and chicken cooked about every way you can imagine.  Nor do I find eating meat as being “cruel” to animals.  Personally, I believe that plants feel as much as animals, and scream their bloody pulp out when we yank them from their home turf.   Except we can’t hear them due to some glitch in the “nature of things.”

This is not to say I approve of cruelty to animals.  I don’t, and have been known to weep during episodes of “Animal Cops.”  I guess what I’m thinking is PETA should teach and inspire rather than threaten and embarrass.   If you don’t change peoples hearts, you will never stop cruelty to animals.  Calling us fat doesn’t work for me.

And why specificaly target women?  Are they more susceptible to body image and public ridicule?  Are there no fat guys at the beach?

So come over here, PETA, and let me get a hold on your collar.  For those of you who want to get into the slapping line, it starts behind me.

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