"PETA's Ingrid Newkirk" and "Hey, NASA, quit hoggin' space!"

Readers respond to Peter Brandt's interview with Newkirk and to Eric F. Lipton's essay on civilians in space.

May 2, 2001 | Read the story.

Ingrid Newkirk compares PETA's job to the cleaning of the Augean stables. How right she is, although the destination of the excrement seems to be PETA's P.R. campaigns.

PETA shows the tact of Louis Farrakhan in its ad campaigns, whether it's trying to convert a terrorist to veganism, playing on body image issues in the gay community or exploiting women to protest exploitation of animals in circuses.

The shame is that PETA could actually win people to its cause by focusing on vegetarians who are positive role models, such as athletes. Instead, it chooses cheap shock tactics. What's next, a campaign saying "Vegetarians Are Leaders" with a picture of Hitler?

-- Aaron Varhola

I absolutely love it when PETA does something unbelievably ridiculous. I, in turn, am enabled to do something equally groovy. Even though it costs me a small fortune, I eat nothing but veal at every meal for a solid month. (Hey, didja notice that veal and meal rhyme?)

Thank goodness I'm a first-generation German-American. There are so many choices available to me: Wiener schnitzel, veal chops, weisswurst and something I have craved since my dear departed mother passed away: stuffed veal breast with whipped potatoes. Thank you so much, PETA, for giving me the opportunity to reconnect on a regular basis with my roots.

And to think that at one time, my goal in life was to be the world's fattest vegan. (You know, a guy can eat only so many french fries, onion rings and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and drink only so many beers, before he just breaks down and eats a cheese omelet.)

-- Walter Schonhardt

The combination of the good works of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA and the horror of hoof-and-mouth disease will create a new and saner world comprised of vegans and only vegans -- not vegetarians. Vegetarians are fence sitters. At least PETA cannot be blamed for hoof-and-mouth. A round of applause for animal rights people is long overdue.

-- Perry Lawrence

"Just as we treated blacks as incapable of maternal love and so on, we continue to use animals as if they are commodities when they are actually families, cultures and individuals."

When I read phrases comparing the horrors of slavery with the suffering of animals, I shudder. Caring for animals is noble and all, but let's keep the distinctions clear and stay away from sweeping statements. Your techniques are working, Ingrid; I am seriously repulsed, but not for the reasons you'd like.

-- Gomez

Salon: How do you respond to people who claim PETA cares about animals at the expense of caring about humans?

Newkirk: I'd like them to give us one example.

Uh, how about when you ran that shitty billboard campaign with Rudolph Giuliani making light of his prostate cancer?

What about people like Alec Baldwin, who called a guy driving a horse carriage through Central Park a "faggot" and challenged him to a fistfight?

What about that disgusting ad for neutering one's cats that shows a male cat uncomfortably humping a female cat. A child watching such an ad would surely be a little ... affected.

I'm pro-vegetarianism, pro-animal and Christian, and I have come to despise PETA.

-- Charlie Kondek

Next Page: NASA needs to stop whining

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