PETA upset over Six-Flags promotion: eat a cockroach go to front of line

[Ladewig]

GURNEE, Ill. -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants Six Flags Great America to scrap its Halloween-themed cockroach-eating promotion.

A spokeswoman for the animal rights organization said the contest at the amusement park's FrightFest is “gratuitously cruel.''

"Cockroaches may get a bad rap, but these gentle, complex, sensitive animals do not deserve to be eaten alive, especially not for a gratuitous marketing gimmick. Given the proliferation of violence in today's society, it is imperative that we teach compassion for all living beings instead of publicly encouraging cruelty to and devaluation of animals. No animal should ever suffer or die in the name of entertainment," a press release said.

The park in Gurnee, Illinois, is joining other Six Flags parks in offering unlimited line-jumping privileges to anyone who eats a live Madagascar hissing cockroach. The bugs are up to three inches long.

Amusement park officials are defending their menu choice. Great America spokesman Jim Taylor said the bugs are nutritious, high in protein and fat free.

The contest begins next month.
http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=171254&SecID=2

Doesn't PETA have bigger fish to fry? C'mon, they're cockroaches.

[tkingdoll]

Would they object less if the bugs had been pre-killed and dipped in chocolate?

[TragicMonkey]

I would worry about the health consequences of eating insects. Don't they carry substantially different sorts of bacteria and parasites than mammals?

[toddjh]

What, they didn't have enough people puking on their sidewalks already?

I wonder if cockroaches taste better on the way down or the way up?

[JayT]

http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=171254&SecID=2

Doesn't PETA have bigger fish to fry? C'mon, they're cockroaches.




They worry about ethical treatment of cockroaches, but advocate violence towards people in the name of their cause.

What's wrong with this picture?

If it was cute little baby bunnies getting their heads chewed off, I'd have an issue with that, but cockroaches?

But with their public record, I have to pause.


PETA in the news:

* In the December/January 2000 issue of 'Genre', PETA's Dan Mathews was asked to name men of the 20th century he admired. Mathews told the magazine he admired serial killer Andrew Cunanan, "because he got Versace to stop doing fur."

* In 1999, an animal rights terrorist group calling itself the Justice Department sent letters booby-trapped with razor blades to medical researchers and fur farms in the United States and Canada. When asked about the letters, Newkirk said, "I hope it frightens them [the researchers] out of their careers. If experimenters feel afraid now, that's nothing compared with the fear, harm and death they have inflicted on their victims."

* In a new author's note in her book about the Animal Liberation Front, 'Free the Animals', Newkirk writes, "Determined to cause economic injury to the exploiters, ALF members burn down their emptied buildings and smash their vehicles to smithereens. Perhaps, after reading this book, you will find that you cannot blame them."

* In 1994, PETA donated $42,500 to the Rodney Coronado Support Committee. Coronado is an animal rights terrorist who in 1995 pleaded guilty to firebombing a medical research facility at Michigan State University.

* In fact, Newkirk herself has expressed a wish to carry out arson. At a 1997 animal rights convention she said, "I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down." In 1999 she expanded on that sentiment, telling the 'Chronicle of Higher Education', "I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren't all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I'd light a match."

[Ducky]

They worry about ethical treatment of cockroaches, but advocate violence towards people in the name of their cause.

What's wrong with this picture?

If it was cute little baby bunnies getting their heads chewed off, I'd have an issue with that, but cockroaches?

But with their public record, I have to pause.


PETA in the news:

I have to find the link, but lest we forget where PETA takes animals from shelters and kills them in the vans as they leave. There were PETA members arrested for dumping the bodies of the animals in dumpsters around the city a while ago. Also, they had euthanasia drugs for vets that no one in the van had a license to have. iirc, it was on the CNN website, but only google cache has it now (hopefully.) I'll try to find the link. There was a thread about it on this forum somewhere.



ETA:

This is one of the posts I made referring to the links. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1402071#post1402071) The google cache one doesn't show the CNN story anymore, but the other link works. Feel free to check it out. (http://brianoconnor.typepad.com/animal_crackers/2005/12/cnn_report_on_p.html)

[JayT]

I have to find the link, but lest we forget where PETA takes animals from shelters and kills them in the vans as they leave. There were PETA members arrested for dumping the bodies of the animals in dumpsters around the city a while ago. Also, they had euthanasia drugs for vets that no one in the van had a license to have. iirc, it was on the CNN website, but only google cache has it now (hopefully.) I'll try to find the link. There was a thread about it on this forum somewhere.



ETA:

This is one of the posts I made referring to the links. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1402071#post1402071) The google cache one doesn't show the CNN story anymore, but the other link works. Feel free to check it out.


Try this link:
http://www.fbresearch.org/Deathvan/timeline.htm

Some of the links on that page are broken - but not all of them.

Or try this Google search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=peta+%22death+van%22



People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has just updated their animal-control statistics for 2005, and the numbers aren't pretty. According to the Virginia state veterinarian, PETA killed 1,946 cats, dogs, and other pets last year, in addition to 141 wild animals. In 2005 PETA managed a startling 90 percent kill rate (up from 86 percent the year before), adopting or transferring out only 215 animals. Added to PETA's earlier numbers, these new figures tell us that since July 1998 the group has killed over 14,400 cats, dogs, and other pets in Virginia.

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/2982



The smoking gun on PETA:
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/petaTrial2.cfm

Evidently, PETA is the definition of hypocrisy in the extreme.

In my eyes, they have no credibility anymore.

[Dorian Gray]

That's a mighty interesting definition of 'animals' they have there. I will reflect on this as I'm eating steak tonight.

[JayT]

That's a mighty interesting definition of 'animals' they have there. I will reflect on this as I'm eating steak tonight.

Steak?

Yummy! I'll be right over!


:D

[RandFan]

PETA is an ass.

[Mycroft]

I like anti-Peta threads. :)

Maybe Cain will show up and we can all argue the ethics of eating meat with him?

[Darth Rotor]

PETA is an ass.
PETA is acting in self interest, as an ass is an animal. Cockroaches, on the other hand, are a pain in the ass. Hence, if PETA is being caused pain by roaches, why object to their being eaten or otherwised consumed/destroyed?

Methinks those Petanuts are just that: nuts.

They seem, at least the vegan strain, to want me to eat nuts rather than animals, so PETA's vegan position can be summed up as this:

Eat me.

Small wonder I hold them in low regard.
DR

[RandFan]

PETA is acting in self interest, as an ass is an animal. Cockroaches, on the other hand, are a pain in the ass. Hence, if PETA is being caused pain by roaches, why object to their being eaten or otherwised consumed/destroyed?

Methinks those Petanuts are just that: nuts.

They seem, at least the vegan strain, to want me to eat nuts rather than animals, so PETA's vegan position can be summed up as this:

Eat me.

Small wonder I hold them in low regard.
DRMe too. It's difficult to imagine a dumber and self destructive group. These people constantly shoot themselves in the foot then stick that self-same foot in their mouths.

[RandFan]

I like anti-Peta threads. :)

Maybe Cain will show up and we can all argue the ethics of eating meat with him? I found a point of agreement with PETA once and tried to defend that point on this forum. Damn, I'll never do that again. :) I got my head handed to me. Few organizations engender hostility from both sides of the aisle as much as PETA.

I'm not sure what it is that they are trying to do, but I'm reasonably certain that they are failing miserably at it.

[Ziggurat]

Q: How many PETA activists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!

[slingblade]

There's no ride or attraction in the world I want to ride so bad that I'll eat a cockroach.

Money, now, that's different. I'll eat all the roaches you want for $1000 each.
Anyone got a fat bank account? :p

[Jerry_ex_machina]

Let's divoroce PETA from the equation for a moment, if this is possible.

This is just a stupid policy and, reading this story divorced from the PETA angle it seemed pretty damn capricious and cruel to me. There's one thing about killing an animal (even a bug) for food or to prevent a health or sanitation problem, it's quite another matter to kill something just to score a better place in line. If you believe life has some value - even a "little life" to quote Bram Stoker - then capriciously taking a life seems cruel.

[Marquis de Carabas]

If you believe life has some value - even a "little life" to quote Bram Stoker - then capriciously taking a life seems cruel.
It's entirely plausible to value life in general, and even the life of a cockroach in particular, and still go along with the promotion. It only requires that you value line-jumping privilege more.

[Darth Rotor]

Let's divoroce PETA from the equation for a moment, if this is possible.

This is just a stupid policy and, reading this story divorced from the PETA angle it seemed pretty damn capricious and cruel to me. There's one thing about killing an animal (even a bug) for food or to prevent a health or sanitation problem, it's quite another matter to kill something just to score a better place in line. If you believe life has some value - even a "little life" to quote Bram Stoker - then capriciously taking a life seems cruel.
I kill cockroaches for no better reason than they are cockroaches, and in my house.

That is all the justification I need.

I frequently employ chemical weapons against them as well.

DR

[Marquis de Carabas]

I frequently employ chemical weapons against them as well.


Dear Mr. Rotor,

Please allow me to be the first to welcome you to our Axis of Evil.

Yours truly,

Kim Jong-il

[RandFan]

Let's divoroce PETA from the equation for a moment, if this is possible.

This is just a stupid policy and, reading this story divorced from the PETA angle it seemed pretty damn capricious and cruel to me. There's one thing about killing an animal (even a bug) for food or to prevent a health or sanitation problem, it's quite another matter to kill something just to score a better place in line. If you believe life has some value - even a "little life" to quote Bram Stoker - then capriciously taking a life seems cruel. Hmmm... If we, as a society, value life simply for the sake of life then we reduce the chance that our lives or the lives of those people or animals we love (family members, friends, pets) will be devalued. If you are or would make this argument I would accept it for arguments sake.

FWIW, I believe that causing unnecessary suffering is immoral. The difficulty is in defining "necessary". Necessary to the cannibal is different than to the missionary.

That being said, I'm not certain cockroaches can experience suffering and I rather doubt that there is any real slippery slope that would take us from eating cockroaches to anything most reasonable people would consider immoral.

If I have misstated your argument please forgive me.

[RandFan]

Dear Mr. Rotor,

Please allow me to be the first to welcome you to our Axis of Evil.

Yours truly,

Kim Jong-il:D Did you ever see the SNL Skit of the Roach Motel, a take off from the commercial only this motel cut the legs off of the roach and beat in the head with the legs and then shoved a hot poker up its rectum and poison in it's mouth?

Damn that was funny.

[Darth Rotor]

Dear Mr. Rotor,

Please allow me to be the first to welcome you to our Axis of Evil.

Yours truly,

Kim Jong-il
Dear Mr Kim:

I like bulgogi, I hate kimchee, though not due to its first syllable being your name. Let's do lunch sometime at a nice Italian joint I know in New York: Lombardi's.

I figure that between you, me, some brick oven pizza and a few beers, we can resolve a great many problems facing both our nations, or at least figure out who that fellow is coming in the front door with the Thompson.

Warmest Regards

Darth Rotor

[Elizabeth I]

Let's not forget PETA's campaign in New York state:

A fishy name will stay the same
September 6, 1996
Web posted at: 11:50 p.m. EDT
From Correspondent Mary Ann McRae

FISHKILL, New York (CNN) -- Welcome to the small, upstate New York town of Fishkill, or should it be called Fishsave?

All was quiet in Fishkill until an animal rights group, PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, took issue with the town's centuries-old name.

PETA wants the town to change its name, claiming it suggests cruelty to, well, fish.

"It seems like a light-hearted subject at first. But the real issue behind the name of Fishkill is the violent imagery," PETA spokeswoman Anne Sullivan said.

...Why all the names ending in 'kill'? One definition of the word is channel or creek -- of which there are many in this mountainous Northeast region.

The area around Fishkill, New York, was founded by the Dutch in the early 1600s; the 'kill' part in the name is actually the Dutch word for 'stream.'

Link: http://www.cnn.com/US/9609/06/fishy.name/index.html

IIRC, when this was pointed out to PETA, their answer was essentially, "We don't care what the name MEANS. It should still be changed."

[JamesDillon]

I find it continually shocking that there are people out there who see no more serious moral issues facing the world today to which to dedicate their resources than the eating of cockroaches and anti-fish imagery.

[Solus]

I thought PETA only cared about furry cute animals. :confused: What's next for PETA save the flies? :boggled:

[RandFan]

I thought PETA only cared about furry cute animals. :confused: What's next for PETA save the flies? :boggled: Oh hell no, parasites, viruses, bacteria, etc., :)

[Mycroft]

Let's divoroce PETA from the equation for a moment, if this is possible.

This is just a stupid policy and, reading this story divorced from the PETA angle it seemed pretty damn capricious and cruel to me. There's one thing about killing an animal (even a bug) for food or to prevent a health or sanitation problem, it's quite another matter to kill something just to score a better place in line. If you believe life has some value - even a "little life" to quote Bram Stoker - then capriciously taking a life seems cruel.

I do not value insect life. Period.

No compassion, so sympathy, no remorse, no nothing.

A general rule that’s served me very well in life so far is if it wears it’s skeleton on the outside, then I don’t need to worry about it’s feelings. Ever.

And no, I neither know nor care if there is any science to back that up or not.

[JayT]

Let's not forget PETA's campaign in New York state:

A fishy name will stay the same
September 6, 1996
Web posted at: 11:50 p.m. EDT
From Correspondent Mary Ann McRae

FISHKILL, New York (CNN) -- Welcome to the small, upstate New York town of Fishkill, or should it be called Fishsave?

All was quiet in Fishkill until an animal rights group, PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, took issue with the town's centuries-old name.

PETA wants the town to change its name, claiming it suggests cruelty to, well, fish.

"It seems like a light-hearted subject at first. But the real issue behind the name of Fishkill is the violent imagery," PETA spokeswoman Anne Sullivan said.

...Why all the names ending in 'kill'? One definition of the word is channel or creek -- of which there are many in this mountainous Northeast region.

The area around Fishkill, New York, was founded by the Dutch in the early 1600s; the 'kill' part in the name is actually the Dutch word for 'stream.'

Link: http://www.cnn.com/US/9609/06/fishy.name/index.html

IIRC, when this was pointed out to PETA, their answer was essentially, "We don't care what the name MEANS. It should still be changed."

They should change the name of the Catskill mountains too for the same reason.
LOL

[JayT]

Let's divoroce PETA from the equation for a moment, if this is possible.

This is just a stupid policy and, reading this story divorced from the PETA angle it seemed pretty damn capricious and cruel to me. There's one thing about killing an animal (even a bug) for food or to prevent a health or sanitation problem, it's quite another matter to kill something just to score a better place in line. If you believe life has some value - even a "little life" to quote Bram Stoker - then capriciously taking a life seems cruel.



cockroach // n.
A stout-bodied beetle-like scavenging insect of the order Dictyoptera, esp. Blatta Orientalis and Periplaneta Americana, which infests kitchens, warehouses, etc.


The thing I take most offense at is PETA preaching about cruelty to animals. With their contemptible record, who are they to preach to anyone about cruelty to animals? They remind me of a whore in a nun's habit.

We are, after all is said and done, animals. Lots of creatures eat living prey. As a moral issue, that's an independent decision for the individual to make. In some cultures, people do eat living things, so it seems more a cultural thing, since morals in this world are relative to one's cultural beliefs, not to nature itself. Relative morals means that whatever is moral in one place, may be considered immoral somewhere else.

I don't like the idea of eating cats and dogs, but if people in another culture do, I have no right to try and judge them by my relatively foreign morals. If I visited their country, I simply wouldn't eat things I disapproved of, but I wouldn't preach to them about the moral issues of eating certain things.

Some people consider eating any form of meat immoral, regardless of whether alive or cooked. Others will eat anything that can't run fast enough to escape.

Eating cockroaches may not be a healthy idea, depending on the environment in which they were bred and raised and their diet. They may harbour certain parasites or diseases. For health reasons, I personally don't approve of eating any form of food alive or uncooked meat or fish for that reason.

But still, it's the blatant hypocrisy of PETA burns me up. If anyone chooses not to eat cockroaches, it shouldn't be because of them. There are still good reasons not to, regardless of any moral issues regarding the sanctity of life.

It would take a lot more than the reward being offered to get me to eat a live bug of any kind, but if someone else wants to do so, I don't think I have the right to forcibly stand in their way, at least as far as cockroaches are concerned. The cockroach species they are offering are big enough to put a saddle on and ride, brrrrrrrr.

PETA should take a trip to the Orient. They would faint at what people eat there. They eat anything that creeps, crawls, slithers, swims or flies. If it moves, it's on the menu!

LOL

[Beerina]

I like anti-Peta threads. :)

Maybe Cain will show up and we can all argue the ethics of eating meat with him?

I'm pro-Peta, myself. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peta_Wilson)

How can you be ant-vampires? (http://www.virgin.net/movies/galleries/superheroines/pix/16_main.jpg)

[ponderingturtle]

Let's not forget PETA's campaign in New York state:

A fishy name will stay the same
September 6, 1996
Web posted at: 11:50 p.m. EDT
From Correspondent Mary Ann McRae

FISHKILL, New York (CNN) -- Welcome to the small, upstate New York town of Fishkill, or should it be called Fishsave?


And lets not forget their attempts to get Hamburg to change its name to Veggieburrg (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32191)

[CFLarsen]

Luciana? LUCIANAAAA????

.....funny, I had expected her to be vividly interested in this subject...

[Darat]

I kill cockroaches for no better reason than they are cockroaches, and in my house.

That is all the justification I need.

I frequently employ chemical weapons against them as well.

DR

I heartily endorse the use of weapons of mass destruction and the genocide of all cockroaches that dare to invade our homes.

[Terry]

Can I just say that PETA are nuts? I know you all know that, but as someone who choses to eat a diet without animal products (for my own partly emotional reasons), I'd just like to say again that these people do not in any way represent my views.

[Bob Klase]

Money, now, that's different. I'll eat all the roaches you want for $1000 each.
Anyone got a fat bank account? :p

To paraphrase Shaw(?), we've established that you're a cockroach eater, now we're just negotiating your price.

[Katana]

And lets not forget their attempts to get Hamburg to change its name to Veggieburrg (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32191)
They offered $15,000 worth of veggie burgers if Hamburg made the switch? If I gave money to PETA in good faith that they would spend time on issues of great importance to animals, I would be pissed about this utter waste of time and money. The cause of defending animals' rights and preventing abuse is absolutely worthy of time and attention, but I fail to see what this ridiculous campaign does to further it. If PETA wants a credible voice, this is no way to go about gaining one. Give me a break.

[Checkmite]

I do not value insect life. Period.

I value the lives of honeybees. They're cute and fuzzy, and make good honey.

[Katana]

I value the lives of honeybees. They're cute and fuzzy, and make good honey.

Butterflies are pretty.

[Ziggurat]

Butterflies are pretty.

Bart: If it helps, I believe that after you die, you come back as
whatever you want. I'll be a butterfly.
Lisa: How come?
Bart: Because, nobody _ever_ suspects the butterfly. [laughs]

http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F32.html

[ponderingturtle]

Butterflies are pretty.

If you fry a grasshopper in butter it tastes like a cross between bacon and popcorn.

So if I could cook the roaches I might give it a try, but eating moving food is not something that appeals to me

[RandFan]

Butterflies are pretty. Butterflies Are Free (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068326/)

[ponderingturtle]

Butterflies Are Free (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068326/)

But not if you want to ride them at the bug merry go round at the bronx zoo, or see them at their new butterfly exibit.

[Mycroft]

I value the lives of honeybees. They're cute and fuzzy, and make good honey.

I can make an exception for the functional.


Butterflies are pretty.

They sure are! And they're just as pretty pinned to felt and protected by glass. They last longer that way too!

[StewartP]

If you fry a grasshopper in butter it tastes like a cross between bacon and popcorn.

So if I could cook the roaches I might give it a try, but eating moving food is not something that appeals to me

When I lived in Zimbabwe, the Shona ate grasshoppers. Actually they still do, it's just that I no longer live there.
The grasshoppers were cooked without any oil at all. They released their own waxy grasshopper oil as they cooked.
To eat they were treated much like prawns - tear off the legs and head (and wings - unlike prawns) and eat.
They taste exactly like grasshoppers. I can't describe it, but if you eat one you'll say "Yep, that's a grasshopper alright" and probably refuse a second helping.

[RandFan]

They taste exactly like grasshoppers. Cool, something that doesn't taste like chicken.

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I kill cockroaches that are in my home without hesitating. However if I see a cockroach outside not bothering me at all I won't just squash it I don't think. Would I eat cockroaches for line cutting privileges? No. Not because I care about cockroaches because I don't care much about them. I would not do it because I would vomit.

[Elizabeth I]

They offered $15,000 worth of veggie burgers if Hamburg made the switch? If I gave money to PETA in good faith that they would spend time on issues of great importance to animals, I would be pissed about this utter waste of time and money.

Excellent point. I've always been so busy rolling my eyes about PETA's activities I never thought of that.

[HeyLeroy]

:D Did you ever see the SNL Skit of the Roach Motel, a take off from the commercial only this motel cut the legs off of the roach and beat in the head with the legs and then shoved a hot poker up its rectum and poison in it's mouth?

Damn that was funny.


Or remember 'Jogger Motel'? "Joggers jog in, but they don't jog out"? Kevin Nealon, iirc, jogs under a footbridge and gets caught in some slimy ick. The more he struggles the stucker he gets. As he looks around he sees other joggers fully trapped, skeletons, etc.

Maybe if someone were to design a PETA motel...

(just kidding on that last, not advocating any violence or stuff!:D)

[Just thinking]

Can I just say that I hate the promotion?

No, I couldn't care less about the roaches -- or people eating them live. It's the line-jumping privileges I hate. It's just another scheme these money hungry parks use to generate revenue. Yes, let those willing to do something extra (often by paying more $$$$) for the privilege of cutting in line. Nothing like like making you pay through the nose to get in and then feel like the great unwashed as the privileged get to go on attractions ahead of you after waiting an hour or so in line. These policies suck, in plain English.

[Katana]

Can I just say that I hate the promotion?

No, I couldn't care less about the roaches -- or people eating them live. It's the line-jumping privileges I hate. It's just another scheme these money hungry parks use to generate revenue. Yes, let those willing to do something extra (often by paying more $$$$) for the privilege of cutting in line. Nothing like like making you pay through the nose to get in and then feel like the great unwashed as the privileged get to go on attractions ahead of you after waiting an hour or so in line. These policies suck, in plain English.
Animal issues, aside, I have to agree with this. My husband and I went skiing in Tahoe last year, and the first place that we visited offered a deal allowing you to cut to the front of the lift lines if you paid something like $50 more for your lift ticket. That really piss'd us off. Let's just say that we didn't go back there and were greatly relieved to see that the rest of the places didn't resort to this ridiculousness.

[toddjh]

I like Disney's system, where, instead of standing in line, you can get a (free) ticket from a machine that will let you come back at a specific time and "jump" the line. Then you just go off and do something else until your time rolls around. You can only have a limited number of tickets at any given time, but at least you can spend your time looking around, having lunch, or going on the less popular rides instead of standing in a rat maze for an hour.

That's the way it was a couple years ago, anyway. Knowing them, they probably started charging, too. :P

[Just thinking]

That's the way it was a couple years ago, anyway. Knowing them, they probably started charging, too.

It was still like that as of December, 2005 --- they do seem to have the best system.

[RandFan]

I like Disney's system, where, instead of standing in line, you can get a (free) ticket from a machine that will let you come back at a specific time and "jump" the line. Then you just go off and do something else until your time rolls around. You can only have a limited number of tickets at any given time, but at least you can spend your time looking around, having lunch, or going on the less popular rides instead of standing in a rat maze for an hour.

That's the way it was a couple years ago, anyway. Knowing them, they probably started charging, too. :PThe last time I was there they had the system (2005) it was grand. Magic Mountain charged $75 for a set number of line jumps. It sucked.