The Animated Fried Fish: The Latest Development in Animal Cruelty

Irina Knopp
Tired of those boring fish in the lake and that bland fried fillet you had at the local fast food restaurant? Well come on down to China and combine the two! Get the fun of torturing a live fish with the satisfaction of getting to eat it at the same time!
Sarcastic venting aside, a [...]

“BatManu”

Stephen Iannacone
On Halloween night, Manu Ginobili, a shooting guard for the San Antonio Spurs, swatted down a bat that got loose in the AT&T Center.  The bat had been loose for most of the game and after several failed attempts by the Spur’s mascot to catch the bat in a net, Ginobili got close enough [...]

Can U.S. v Stevens Bite Back?

Irina Knopp
I am currently working on a paper that looks at the case, arguments for and possible consequences of U.S. v Stevens. Recently, I’ve found several articles online suggesting that the statute in the case thought to promote animal rights in America could possibly hurt animal rights groups.
Rory Eastburg, author of the article “High Court [...]

You Would Never Raise Your Voice to Your Mother…

 Sandra Mekita
            Walking along a crowded Boston street, you can see people stopping abruptly in front of you – if you did not run into them first – glaring at the spectacle across the street in front of a McDonalds. There are five people with signs and bullhorns surrounding a person in a beakless chicken [...]

Mansploitation for the Animal Cause

September 24th, 2009
image source: The Stranger, Sep 24 – 30, 2009, Vol. 19, No. 3

Ummm…this Seattle alt paper (think Village Voice, left-coast style) takes a page from PETA’s playbook (see here, e.g.) and then flips it, exploiting men’s bods for the animal cause.  That’s not ok, either.
The image is an interesting visual play [...]

PETA’s Use of Women

PETA takes a lot of grief from the animal advocacy community and from feminists for its use of naked or sparsely clad women in its public events.  This blogger offers a contrasting view.  For my part, though I find the controversy surrounding PETA’s methods interesting and worth having, I worry that the resulting schisms in [...]

Taking Animal Advocacy Seriously (Part 2 of 3)

A couple of months ago I wrote a post on why it is that people fail to take animal advocacy seriously. Today I want to elaborate that claim by illustrating it with a recent example. As most readers of AnimalBlawg probably know, President Obama swatted a fly during an interview with John Hardwood several weeks [...]

PETA and . . . Michael Vick

PETA continues to break new ground in the unusual approach to animal advocacy sweepstakes.  Apparently, Micheal Vick is in talks with PETA to become a spokesperson for the organization.  We can interpret Vick’s motives in a number of ways.  Perhaps he has rehabilitated himself and developed a love (or at least respect) for animals while [...]

Babies and Pigs in Diapers

Nadya Suleman, the California mother of 14 children, has said in a recent news interview that she is considering adopting a pet pig and/or a small dog.  PETA is urging Ms. Suleman to refrain.  According to PETA, a representative of that organization sent Ms. Suleman an e-mail dated April 27, 2009 (this is a [...]

Abusing Animals and Language

Reports of animal abuse at industrial operations are so frequent that they attract less and less notice.  This recent abuse of pigs at an Iowa swine facility, revealed through a covert PETA video is but one of many such tragic instances.  And, of course, the facility reacted with shock and sadness that such events could [...]

What’s Wrong With Dissection Anyway?

CNN reported yesterday (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/14/cutout.dissection.ap/index.html) that 19 year old Jennifer Thornburg officially changed her name to “Cutout Dissection.com” as a way of protesting animal dissection in schools. Her new name also attracts attention to her PETA sponsored website,  http://cutoutdissection.com/ . This story got me thinking about the wrongfulness of dissection. 
As one of the informational brochures distributed by PETA [...]