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You’re Not John Merrick [Dan Collins]

Late in the documentary I Am an Animal, PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco says that PETA founder and president Ingrid Newkirk believes there’s no such thing as bad publicity. If that’s the case, PETA could have used a scathing indictment and not this boring, balanced portrait.I Am an Animal is at once a profile of Newkirk, an historical look a PETA, a contemporary tale of animal activism and a look at PETA’s controversial publicity machine. After catching the recent release Your Mommy Kills Animals, a documentary on the history of the animal rights movement which didn’t have anything kind to say about PETA and its fundraising over fur-saving, I fully expected this film to be a rebuttal. It’s not. It’s hardly anything. With fairness in its sights, I Am an Animal, in a mere 75 minutes, woefully attempts to cast a very wide net without knowing what it is trying to catch.

Prolly not a dolphin, I’m guessing.

I’m not clear on the concept of how not wearing a fur she already has would make animals safe, but perhaps I’m as dense as my critics say I am.

43 Replies to “You’re Not John Merrick [Dan Collins]”

  1. happyfeet says:

    Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue except when it is.

  2. mac says:

    If people were closer to real life, such shock tactics would not work. Killing, eating and wearing animals is part of human history and is a good thing. My wife would turn to our kidlet and say, “I kill many animals each year, and it is a good thing. Now go outside with this clever and cut the head off the biggest goose, I’m making foie gras for our friend Ingrid.”

  3. BJTexs says:

    I’ve always been fond of barbequed penguin marinated in garlic, olive oil and the juices of squeezed spotted owls.

    What?

  4. mac says:

    crap….CLEAVER

  5. happyfeet says:

    hard on the beaver quip in 3… 2… 1…

  6. TheGeezer says:

    Most fur coats come from animals that are not eaten.

    Wearing fur promotes the fashion of wearing fur, which necessitates killing animals not for survival, but for mere fashionability.

    Mink are harvested using anal electrodes to prevent damage to their coats. Such cruelty might be completely avoided with use of very similar acrylic fabric that is as warm and as beautiful as the mink, but with far less sufering to dumb species.

    Other cultures permit the eating of dogs, which are kept in pretty terrible positions during marketing (front paws tied so that the shoulder blades nearly cross). It makes the animals manageable.

    There are no laws, to my knowledge, that would prevent us from humanely slaughtering and eating dogs, but we freely choose not to. The same might be said of wearing fur. We might simply choose not to wear it.

  7. Dan Collins says:

    “Wearing fur promotes the fashion of wearing fur”

    Now I feel really complicit with the Seventies, man.

  8. happyfeet says:

    Also living up north promotes wearing fur. I think it’s cause of the weather, is my theory. But I’m pretty sure living in the Valley promotes use of anal electrodes, so I guess it’s a wash.

  9. Back in the Thirties, communists like to portray themselves merely as “liberals in a hurry.” PETA can justly be portrayed as totalitarians trying to pass themselves off as the Humane Society in a hurry. Cull out the young and/or duped, and you’re left with a hard core of misanthropes who believe that the greater portion of humanity should just die, so that hippies will have a quiet, natural space to smoke their pot.

  10. John Lewis says:

    If you are unable to see the causal relationship between what you choose to consume, what the markets demand, and therefore what will get produced, then yes, Mr. Collins you are as dumb as they say.

  11. Dan Collins says:

    I see. So, let’s say I choose to dress up as a Pilgrim for Thanksgiving. Will I then be guilty if others begin dressing as Pilgrims?

  12. Dan Collins says:

    And let’s say that I use a fabric that appears to be the very sort of fabric that Pilgrims used–but it’s NOT. Am I therefore guilty if others mistakenly try to recreate Pilgrimy fabric from scratch?

  13. Dan Collins says:

    Let’s say Mom inherited her fur coat. Should she be able to wear it?

  14. Dan Collins says:

    Animals were killed to make the coat that is Mom’s. Does her wearing it cause more animals to die?

  15. happyfeet says:

    I like fur.

  16. I see. So, let’s say I choose to dress up as a Pilgrim for Thanksgiving. Will I then be guilty if others begin dressing as Pilgrims?

    If we agree to reason from the modern progressive premise that everything is always somebody else’s fault, yes you will be.

  17. andy says:

    “I see. So, let’s say I choose to dress up as a Pilgrim for Thanksgiving. Will I then be guilty if others begin dressing as Pilgrims?

    You will be helping along the ‘dress as a pilgrim’ market. And we thank you for it.

  18. Fat Man says:

    Gordon Gekko: “I just got on the board of the Bronx Zoo….Cost me a mil. [Laughs to self] That’s the thing about WASPS…they love animals, can’t stand people.”

  19. buzz says:

    Turns out if minks reproduce like rabbits. I have a number of leather coats, and they keep making cows. Both minks and cows are a renewable resource, AND as it turns out, neither is people. Also, everyone knows you have to knock the rabbit in the head with a hammer before butchering it, not attack it like you’re a serial killer. Silly peta people.

  20. Pablo says:

    …PETA founder and president Ingrid Newkirk believes there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

    Oh, href=”http://www.consumerfreedom.com/pressRelease_detail.cfm/release/148″>really?

  21. Frank G says:

    I tried wearing the pelts of PETA supporters, but you couldn’t get the damn smell out. I now wear Baby Seal Skin boxers, which smell nice

  22. andy says:

    “http://www.consumerfreedom.com/”

    Did you see him on colbert? “sooo, consumers come to you and say ‘defend my rights”

    http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2007/11/colbert-exposes.html

  23. Swede says:

    That is EXACTLY how mom used to prepare the hassenpfeffer.

    I wonder if the old recipe is inside.

  24. Pablo says:

    Do you have a point, actus? An argument, perhaps?

  25. B Moe says:

    Fur is a renewable resource, synthetics derived from petrochemicals are not.

  26. B Moe says:

    “In reality, CCF is an astroturf group for the fast food and alcoholic beverage industries and its goal is to block policy initiatives aimed at very real problems, such as America’s growing obesity epidemic and drunk driving.”

    When “advocacy groups” are trying to legally prevent me from having the beers and cheeseburgers I prefer to consume, anyone who helps protect my right to consume is a consumer rights advocate. Progressives like andy seem to have a hard time understanding that some consumers actually appreciate suppliers, and are smart enough to realize that life without suppliers would suck pretty hard.

  27. andy says:

    “anyone who helps protect my right to consume is a consumer rights advocate.”

    Colbert explained that for you: “Colbert: Businesses whose consumers are being denied the freedom to use their product?”

    enjoy your consumption.

  28. B Moe says:

    I didn’t need it explained to me. I enjoy my freedom to choose. I appreciate someone else paying to protect that right. I don’t appreciate pinheads like you trying to use the police to force your tastes and choices on me.

  29. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    andy: How about you stop consuming oxygen? It’s a limited resource, you know. And do you REALLY need a computer, when billions of people living in the Third World have a hard time even getting enough to eat?

  30. andy says:

    “andy: How about you stop consuming oxygen? It’s a limited resource, you know. ”

    I don’t buy that photosynthesis pseudo-science jive.

  31. McGehee says:

    Colbert explained that for you

    A philosopher for the ages.

  32. andy says:

    “A philosopher for the ages.”

    And, he’s a catholic.

  33. JD says:

    Damn, tbogg and his army of the outraged is easier to tolerate than andy. Would you make a fucking point ?!

  34. Kresh says:

    So, did Colbert say it, or was he just using what his writers scripted for him? Seeing as how the latter is most likely the case, does that mean you should be lionizing Colbert’s writers and not the mouthpiece himself? Thusly, his being catholic is pointless. A non sequitur. Tell us about his writers instead, as they’re the true brains behind the mouth.

    Also, show us how repeating the words of a political comedian makes you especially bright.

  35. Cowboy says:

    Mink are harvested using anal electrodes to prevent damage to their coats. Such cruelty might be completely avoided with use of very similar acrylic fabric that is as warm and as beautiful as the mink, but with far less sufering to dumb species.

    Do you know why mink and other fur-bearers are raised in farms?

    I put myself through college on two trap lines I ran in Indiana. The trappers’ ethic was to always work to lessen the degree of pain and suffering experienced by any animal. We worked hard at it. I spent many freezing mornings setting and checking traps in the middle of a river or pond because the “drown set” was more humane than a “dry set.” I knew guys who set leg traps in the middle of fields and they were ostracized by the rest of us because their practices were inhumane.

    Then, anti-fur types started to throw (I suppose) synthetic blood on women walking down the street wearing fur. The demand for fur dried up by the time I was in grad school, and now the only people who trap in my part of the country do so as a hobby.

    Mink, when I trapped, was prized. A mink in good condition would net you between $50 and $65. Today, you’d be lucky to get $15. Muskrat would get you $13 a piece, now they sell for $3 or $4.

    Why?

    Because PETA-types drove the trapping economy down. Period.

    It’s called capitalism, my friend, and if anal electrodes are used to kill mink in those farms, you’ve got noone to blame but yourself.

  36. B Moe says:

    “Do you know why mink and other fur-bearers are raised in farms?”

    What do you suppose the infant mortality rate for farm raised versus wild animals is? How about health care? Food? Housing? How come it always seems to be the same people who are appalled by depriving other animals of their freedom in exchange for safety and security think it is an obligation to do so to man?

  37. JD says:

    I have a beaver hat. True.

  38. JD says:

    It is warm, but it itches.

  39. Rusty says:

    #

    Comment by JD on 11/18 @ 9:04 am #

    I have a beaver hat. True.

    I had a girl, when I was in college, give me one of those for an hour or two.

    Most fur coats come from animals that are not eaten.

    Seal flipper pie! Mmmmmmmmmm.

  40. Merovign says:

    I want a poster of that comic cover.

    I think it’s awesome.

  41. mojo says:

    Let’s skin Newkirk and wear her around like that loon in “Silence of the Lambs”…

Comments are closed.