Now, I’m really mad!
PETA, the great media whore of moral equivalency, is building an ad campaign around child abandonment and the Nebraska Fiasco.
From an October 20 PETA press release:
In the wake of news that a Michigan mother drove more than 700 miles to abandon her 13-year-old son in Omaha in order to take advantage of Nebraska’s Safe Haven law, PETA has created a billboard stressing the importance of taking responsibility for all unwanted beings–dependent children and animals alike. The billboard features a child’s eyes superimposed over an animal’s face with the tagline “18 Kids, 25,000 Animals…
The decision to add an animal companion to the family should not be taken lightly, just as the decision to raise a child should be a lifetime commitment,” says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “Dogs and cats can live 16 years or longer, almost the same amount of time that responsible parents invest in raising a child. Children and animals deserve better than to be dumped on a doorstep when they become inconvenient.
Here is a preview of the billboard(s), PETA intends to put up in Omaha
Abandoned children are not
dogs
gerbils
ducks
peeps
minks
bunnies
or
lab rats
no matter what PETA or the Nebraska Legislature says!
Emma McTabby would like to say that she thinks Jonothan and Abbie are quite right, especially about the Nebraska politicians.
Jonathan and Abbie thank Ms. McTabby for her support and insight.
Demon, Bluto and Stripey, former abandoned cats, and Tilla and Fraidy Cat, born at home before their mama got fixed, agree as well! I thought PETA did not even believe in having pets, just setting everything free to fend for itself.
Anyone who wants to support help for homeless kitties should check out Alley Cat Allies, your local no-kill shelter, and for dogs, the various rescue groups like Greyhound Rescue.
Didn’t the president of PETA equate pet ownership with slavery?
Or am I thinking of something else?
This comment has been removed by the author.
“A lot of people have a softer spot for animals than they do people.”
And therein lies a big part of our problem, re; infant adoption. My pet rat, Splinter, also says that she is not a human baby and does not play one on TV.
It’s reductionist, dismissive and absurd.
Mishka, snatched from her mother’s paws at a mere ten weeks old, agrees with me.
Kippa
PETA is the extreme end of animal welfare organizations, and they anthropomorphise all animals to a ridiculous degree. I hate cruelty to animals as much as anyone, and deplore factory farming for many reasons, but having grown up with farm animals on my grandparents’ very small farm, I just do not have the same sentiment and attachment to them as to pets.
Cows are not very bright, nor are chickens or sheep or most farm critters. Most of us regard them as food. I do not see that as evil or wrong. Yes, I’d rather seem them all free range as ours were, and their sufferings kept to a minimum, but I can’t see PETA’s extreme views, and that the president of that group would say having pets is equal to slavery completly invalidates that group in my opinion.
After all, isn’t abandoning pets, which I think is horrible, setting them free from slavery by that rationale? I’d say PETA is talking out of both sides of its mouth.
Kippa asks if PETA is taking Patrick Henry too seriously ( http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
index.cfm ) or do they just have other priorities?
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
The difference between roadkill and commercially available meat is that one is allowed to decompose (usually) and the other isn’t. Although I wouldn’t have anything against eating roadkill if it were processed very quickly.
“Adoptees are the slaves,”
Ah, THAT’S it! THAT’S where I heard it before.
How could I possibly have forgotten?
(Let’s be honest. I hadn’t)
The adoption equals slavery argument is ridiculous and offensive. Even more so than this PETA conflation, which is simply inane.
It’s particularly offensive to those groups who actually suffered (and some who still do suffer) under slavery.
Kippa
This comment has been removed by the author.
Adoptees are not slaves. This is a ridiculous argument. Some adopted folks indeed are brought into seriously dysfunctional and even dangerous circumstances through adoption, but most are not. Moreover, plenty of bios suffer dysfunction and violence at the hands of their biological families. Many more don’t. Yes, there can be a corealation between animal abuse and child abuse/domestic violence (and violence in general) but to compare adoption with animal abuse and slavery is claptrap. It reminds me of the wingnuts who compare abortion to the Holocaust, KKK lynching, and the Pol Pot regime. Of course, none of these name-callers are Jewish, black, or Cambodian, and consequently don’t see how offensive and insulting it is–or care. It’s all about agendas, and any sordid graphic or soundbyte will do.
PETA hijacks every cause, every news story, every misery it can to push its bizarre agenda–an agenda that is not necessarily found in its literature or website, but is definitely in the head of Ingrid Newkirk and her clique of troublemakers.
I fully support animal welfare. I’m wearing an Ohio SPCA shirt right now. The woman who runs that organization is one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, but she certainly doesn’t equate adoption with animal abuse.
Adopted persons are not slaves. Nor are we pets, not matter what PETA wants to promulgate. I’m not going to sit here while somebody exploits bastards for their own political purpose. And I don’t like it when adoptee rights gets hijacked by other causes.
Adoption is just adoption, each one with its unique set of circumstances. I was certainly not abused or neglected or exploited in any way. That’s my experience. Some aren’t so fortunate. Universalization of the adoption experience, though, trivializes, degrades and victimizes us all. Adoptees are a creation of statute and the collusion of state and business, and that’s where we should focus our energies–not on glomming on to other issues or being glommed on by those who don’t give a rat’s ass about us. So, please let’s not hijack a disussion on our rights.
This is from Maryanne. She had trouble posting, so I’m posting it for her.
Bastardette
Perhaps we can agree that PETA is not really an honest organization. If I had to kill my own meat I would probably be a vegetarian, but not a vegan. I do not care what anyone else eats, and think it rude thatanyone lecture others on what they should or should not eat.
Domesticated animals, pets and farm animals, have been bred for
generations to be dependent on humans. If “set free”, they just die. Is this what PETA wants??
I do not think equating adoptees with animals is really helpful to the cause, even to those of us who love animals, oppose their use in labs except where really needed, and support less extreme animal welfare groups than PETA.
Another gripe I have with PETA is their opposition to zoos. Today’s
large zoos like the Bronx Zoo of which we are members do a great deal to promote wildlife preservation and save species from extinction. Also, they don’t keep animals in small barren cages anymore, but have beautiful outdoor habitats and excellent care. Zoos are a great place for kids and adults to learn to care about animals, and to contribute to
projects that keep them alive in the wild. Yes,there are still nasty
little roadside zoos where animals are mistreated, and they should be
closed, but this is not what the big zoos and aquariums are about any more.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I’m not taking anything out on you, IA. PETA and the adoption industry on the same corporate level. Both exploit well-meaning people and make a lot money at the trouth of amerikan consumerism and leisure.They are vertible money vaccums.
Animals do not have civil rights. Hell, people barely do. I don’t care if somebody wants to be a vegetarian or a vegan. I was a veggie for awhile, but you have to cook to do that, and I won’t and don’t do girl work. My kitties like to catch mice and birds and other helpless creatures. When I catch them doing what comes naturally, I try to rescue the victim. If we follow this to the logical conclusion, then all carnivore animals, including birds and fish are evil, too.
One may project their feelings about adoption on to the situation of animals, but that doesn’t mean there is a moral equivalency–except for people who do that. Some people project adoption onto abortion, imperialism, and consumerism. Adoption is adoption. That’s it.
So, you hate carnivores, Improper, yet you claim to love cats? Many animals are carnivores and omnivores, not just humans. Nature is brutal too. I’ve never been to a slaughterhouse but did see my grandma chop the heads off chickens. It was nasty but not the end of the world and she made some tasty chicken soup.
I have no problem with any one being a vegan, vegetarian, or eating styrofoam for that matter, but I still contend it is rude to tell others what to eat.
I’m with Marley, adoption is just adoption, bad enough in many ways, but it is not slavery, not the Holocaust, not a universal source of abuse and not murder.
You are welcome to think and say anything you want, but that does not exempt you from disgreement and criticism.
As a practicing carnivore who started life on a farm and who ate the products of my grandfather’s work and his hunting and fishing skills, I have to say that this discussion has entered the area of personal freedoms. Just as one organization or movement cannot tell all citizens what to eat, neither can one organization or movement install laws in our federal government telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies and reproductive lives.
I just happened to remember seeing a group of photos of a PETA demonstration and the recent photos Marley posted of the anti-choice demonstrators. I saw an eerie similarity. I’ll just hang on to my membership in the ASPCA.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Well just as PETA intends, anytime their name comes up in any conversation, about any other toipic, within fractions of a moment, every last bit of said conversation is now about them and the pros and cons of PETA.
Somewhere under all this crap is what Marley actually wrote- that AN OUTSIDE GROUP unrelated to the issue at hand, (Nebraska’s flagrant abandonment of any notion of a sane child welfare policy,) is attempting to utilize the crap these abandoned kids are enduring for its own (unrelated) purposes.
That’s the point here, not endless posts about the merits or lack thereof of carnivores and vegans eating habits.
It ultimately doesn’t matter who the attention whore is in this tale, it could be anyone, Left handed astrologers, unicycle enthusiasts, PETA, or skydivers anonymous, the bottom line is the focus has been intentionally shifted off the kids abandoned under the Nebraska law and the heat is thusly taken off the Nebraska politicians while everyone runs around blathering about non-sequitors.
Raise those 4 fucking letters and everyone looses their mind. It’s the ultimate distraction, which is after all, what the multi million dollar organization down in Virgina would like you all to do- focus on them.
Oooo, Oooo, Ooooo! Look over here! Shiny object!
And suckers fall for it, every time.
PETA is an attention sink, the fact that the media gives ’em the time of day is a testament to how desperate stations are to fill that space between the commercials.
While certain people around here would rather opine endlessly around in circles about the notion of “adoption as slavery” (it’s not, adoption is adoption, slavery is slavery) others of us have been busy deconstructing what’s been happening to the kids in Nebraska.
Focus people, get your eye back on the ball.
Marley TRIED to actually say something here, and all you folks did was fall right back into the same old patterns.
The ultimate effect of which is as always to change the subject, which is after all, what PETA does best, get people distracted from what matters and instead blathering about them.
Improper, animal rights and human rights are different issues.
Safe havens contravene *human* rights because they make anonymous abandonment of infants legal.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that when a child is abandoned anonymously under SL law, all record of the child’s original identity is lawfully – and permanently – erased.
So forget about open records! None exist to be opened. Not even locked away in the coffers of the state.
Safe haven laws erode fundamental identity rights for ALL *people*, not just those who are adopted.
There’s already confusion enough about this. Your average Jill or Joe in the street has been snowed into thinking SHs are a sacred cause, whereas in fact they are (sorry!) a sacred cow, one that in the public mind has no downside, that can by definition have no effects that aren’t positive.
For PETA to conflate safe havens with their cause just confuses and trivializes the problem.
Seriously, do you think calves care about identity rights and their historical origins?
That was me, Kippa.
I am having trouble posting.
Yes, BLC, thanks for reminding us we’re all a bunch of idiots.
And as for IA, I suppose this is my official, I have no interest in interacting with someone either uninformed or clinging to delusions post.
Let’s just explain why in short-
IA admits to not supporting some of PETA’s positions even while still maintaining a membership, well, that’s what PETA banks on.
Being able to do or say anything such that even when members disagree with them, the cheques continue to come in.
If PETA had its way, there would be
no pets:
“…it would have been in the animals’ best interests if the institution of “pet keeping”—i.e., breeding animals to be kept and regarded as “pets”—never existed.”
They hope to neuter “pet-keeping” out of existence, and yes, have equated it to slavery, see below.
Ingrid Newkirk has had a number of things to say about pets, The interview in Harpers back in Aug 1988 pretty well sums it up-
“Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.”
So IA’s notions of “my cats” while simultaneously holding a “PETA membership card” in her wallet just means she’s either a sucker or a hypocrite.
Either way, IA, you might want to read up on the organization you’re supporting and its actual stances.
Like the fact that PETA used “pets are slaves” as more than a mere slogan, it was an actual PETA campaign, until they were forced to suspend use of it amidst charges of racism.
Clearly you’re a member of and defending an organization you know very little about.
All then more reason to not pay much attention to your posts.
PETA and the Center for Bioethical Reform both serve the same purposes and utilize the same tactics, driving people to reaction to their propaganda. They exist to incite.
Understanding and rejecting that manipulation, seeing through to what it actually does and why, what purposes such serve and who benefits by such are important.
IA is just being your run of the mill reactionary and taking up space with such, being a distractionary.
Could I go on (at great length, actually) about such?
Of course, so can most people, and that’s what they count on, lack of research by those who fund them and endless discussion by everyone about them.
I’m not interested in playing that game.
IA clearly knows not of what she speaks/supports. That’s enough for me.
Again, what actually does matter here is that others are utilizing the misery in Nebraska for their own ends.
Nah…..BLC, I think you are just pissed that your partner got sued by PETA for the obnoxious and mean spirted website that he put up-and lost. 🙂 People DO still talk in Virginia….
I.A. said:
“actually people were vegetarians before the flood,and eating dead flesh was God’s way of saying people suck-if all people gave up meat, then nature would change as well-lion lies down with the lamb and all that”
You actually literally believe this? Amazing. Maybe fairytales are true too.
They ate mammoth steaks.
This Truth has been vouchsafed to me by the Hairy Fairy up there in the clouds.
And I defy anyone to dispute it.
Kippa
Kevan said:
Well, it’s been awhile since I showed up here again like a bounced check.
Now, Improper Adoptee said:
“…people can not control nature but we can control ourselves-people don’t HAVE to eat animals, it is a choice, not a need-actually people were vegetarians before the flood,and eating dead flesh was God’s way of saying people suck-if all people gave up meat, then nature would change as well-lion lies down with the lamb and all that-you say it is rude to tell others what to eat, well you are being rude to me about what I say I eat-or don’t eat.”
You need to check out some archaeology books. People were not vegetarians. Vegetarians require agriculture to exist solely as vegetarians and agriculture isn’t that old compared to the total time humans have been on the Earth. Of course, since you mention the Flood, perhaps you actually think the world is only 6,000 years old along with the other Sarah Palin Creationist wackadoos. I’m not sure if you actually think the lion will lay down with the lamb, but I’d say that sounds very anti-Nature. Nature does not have to change because you think it’s not pretty. Neither do I have to change my eating habits because you and other PETArds think I should. Then you go an whine about people being “rude” to you about your eating choice. Oh cry me a river! Grow up and get over it.
I’m not a Christian and I don’t accept your Creationism/Great Flood poppycock or “lions laying down with lambs” claptrap. Nature does not change because some group of people sitting safe in their houses decide it should. And since you like using flashy extremism, here’s something you’ll appreciate: Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. Now, if the diet is key to producing such humane, compassionate people, what happened there? Guy just up and decides he’ll have some carrot sticks and gas a few million people? Come on!
This one really cracked me up:
“And animals do have rights-we didn’t make them and no man has a right to interfere in their lives and control them…”
Well then, Socrates, who made us? And since other beings interfere with us—certain bacteria, viruses, microbes, as well as wild animals who atack humans—I’d say the Natural Law is pretty well estbalished. That law is: Life feeds on life. The law doesn’t say you have to like it or take it out to breakfast (with a huge plate heaped with crispy bacon, might I add), but you do have to live by it. I’ll bet you never worked on a farm and saw the rabbits and snakes sucked into combines harvesting wheat. That bread you eat cost animals lives to harvest the wheat for. But you’re going to sit there and give a Sermon on the Mount as if you’re above it. How arrogant! You need to get out there and see where your food actually comes from and what it costs to bring it to you in reality.
Whoa! Natural history is being distorted a bit. Humanity got its intellectual edge, scientists now believe, from eating meat. The proteins and fats fed our brain tissue. Omnivores are the ones who became top of the heap on this planet. It is what it is.
The point Marley was trying to make has, indeed, become lost. Our children should not be compared to animals. PERIOD.
slave Pronunciation [sleyv]
noun, verb, slaved, slav⋅ing.
–noun 1. a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.
2. a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person: a slave to a drug.
3. a drudge: a housekeeping slave.
puh-zesh-uhn]
–noun 1. the act or fact of possessing.
2. the state of being possessed.
3. ownership.
4. Law. actual holding or occupancy, either with or without rights of ownership.
5. a thing possessed: He packed all his possessions into one trunk.
6. possessions, property or wealth.
While I see the reasoning behind the idea that adoptees are “slaves,” I also disagree that the definition applies. BUT, my experience with some adopters and adoptees leads me to believe that adopted people are often seen as Possessions. There seems to be a sense of ownership on the part of those who adopt. Three Cheers to the adoptee who breaks loose from that burden!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Also too Kevan, Hitler was going into last stage syphillis the whole time he was making plans for the Holocoust. He was in the last stage of it, when he started rounding up Jehovah’s witnesses, gypsys and jews. Everyone knows syphillis makes people insane, and that is WHY he was insane. He may not of ever done what he did, if he wasn’t afflicted with that disease. The Nazi’s however have no excuse.(Unless they had it too)And no, don’t flip out, I’m not condoning the Holocoust, people just don’t ever talk about one of the main reasons Hilter went over the line. No one knows how he would of been if he wasn’t mentally ill from vd.
Whoa ! Hitler !
Invoke Godwin’s law.
Kippa
Kevan brought up Hitler first kippa.
Kevan! Whoa!
Invoke Quirk’s Exception!…..
Hitler was in the last stages of syphilis? Where did you hear that? He was basically asexual. He became a vegetarian immediately after the “suicide” of Geli Raubel.
This discussion is getting way too weird.
More later.
Way to change the subject there IA. Naturally you’d rather talk about PETA itself and the suit than your own hypocrisy and how all of this is a massive distraction from Nebraska.
Fine, you wanna go there? Let’s take that 60 second detour, this is pretty much the most either of us (Mike or I) have ever written about the case.
The following is just my opinion, I can’t speak for him about any of this.
My partner was sued by PETA?
Yup. No great shocker, nor anything to hide there. We’ve certainly never hidden it- kind of hard to even if we had wanted to considering it’s in major law texts and journals and often cited in case law. Any simple google search on Mike, who I will note writes under his own name, and you’ll find it.
So the case itself is hardly some great secret, Mike mentions it on his homepage, not that he’s ever really gotten around to writing about it or writing his side of it. So no stunning revelation there.
Mike’s page was up before we got together.
It was a case about domain name policy and how free speech rights were going to apply online.
Put simply, it was an early case of first impression dealing with resolving an unresolved area of net governance. Some of the Circuit Courts were going one way, others the other. The law was unsettled at the time. The case was from back at the dawn of the web.
“Animal rights” and lack thereof was never what the case was about.
His “People Eating Tasty Animals” page was a parody, though the Fourth Circuit failed to recognize it as such.
As he’s pointed out, he’s one of the the few people who’s been nailed by the unconstitutional retroactive application of a new law. (In his case, the “Anti Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.”) A law that wasn’t even that wasn’t in effect when the case was originally filed in 1999.
I guess the one thing I can say about the whole experience is that yeah, we’ve learned in a very firsthand manner just what propagandists PETA are, to their core.
Not that that’s particularly surprising considering Ingrid Newkirk has been quoted as saying:
“We are complete press sluts.” The New Yorker, April 2003
and
“Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt” USA Today, Sep 1991
Of course the fourth circuit (the same court) went the exact opposite way on the JerryFalwell.com case, essentially reversing itself. The ninth ciruit has cited Mike’s case as wrongly decided.
The case was always more about domain names and net governance than anything specific to PETA itself.
Would I characterize myself as you put it “pissed”?
No. I will however say at least my eyes were opened to how deeply ingrained it has become in American law law that individuals and their ability to speak are easily overridden by large corporations wielding trademark and “cybersquatting” laws. Watching such applied RETROACTIVELY was yes, shall we say, a real eye opener.
PETA of course is the large corporation in this case, going after an individual with the tools at their disposal- trademark law and the anti-cybersquatting law, both of which as we now see pose grave threats to individual speech rights on the net.
But my ‘eye opener’ was in relation to the American legal system, not PETA.
As I said very clearly in my first comment,
It ultimately doesn’t matter who the attention whore is in this tale, it could be anyone, Left handed astrologers, unicycle enthusiasts, PETA, or skydivers anonymous, the bottom line is the focus has been intentionally shifted off the kids abandoned under the Nebraska law and the heat is thusly taken off the Nebraska politicians while everyone runs around blathering about non-sequitors.
All that I did in my two comments was point out that they serve a purpose- that of distraction.
And that yes, some of their members, such as yourself, happily support an organization that is actively working against the very things you do- such as pet ownership.
See Newkirk’s Newsday Feb 1988 quote:
“In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.”
Hypocrites such as yourself are precisely where PETA gets their resources to be a distraction, on things that genuinely matter such as what’s happening to the kids in Nebraska.
Detour over.
Kevan here,
IA said:
“…so go cut down jews then if you don’t beleive that story.”
My birth father was Jewish. UH-OH! I’m half-Jewish! I guess that’s what happens when you assume things about adoptees, eh?
Then IA says:
“Robin, you AREN’T Adopted…”
So, now on top of being the moral law judge, you’re also a family court judge? Who are you to make such a statement?
IA tells me:
“And if you are so in to eating and killing animals, go kill your own-don’t be a pussy and let Tyson do it for you.”
Well, I do. I am a hunter. And it happens to be part of my heritage. My birth mother is Native American. We have always hunted. That’s probably why we’re here and not still in Siberia. So now you’ll tell me I can know my true identity, but not act on it? Another problem with assuming things about adoptees, what?
IA tells me:
“And don’t ever complain either if a shark or bear eats someone you love-“
I wouldn’t. I believe in Nature, remember? I think if someone goes into Nature, they must accept Nature’s law as it is right there. That includes you and your mistaken idea that you are somehow better than the rest of us and that you do not kill to eat. You do kill to eat. You just haven’t worked on a farm to see how many animals are killed during grain harvests. By the way, if you’re eating any imported grains from South or Central America, they still use shooting and poisoning to eliminate seed-eating birds from eating the crop. Tell me again how free your hands are from the collective bloodstain.
Finally, IA said:
“Then you can reval in how selfish you are too, complaing abotu the Adoption system while igorning allthe wrongs in how other beigns are treated.”
Ok, let me be clear. I do not support or condone factory farming. I am very selective in buying meat. Or I take personal responsibility for the meat and pay full spiritual price and obtain the meat through hunting. However, I do not judge others in their choices. You cannot equate being adopted with being the victim of genocide, an African-American slave, or think animal rights somehow magically causes a paradigm shift in human conciousness. That’s messianic thinking: “If only_____________, everything would be all better!” Yeah, without any of the sweat equity put into change, we suddenly all have a worldwide communal way of life. I hate the adoption system. But do I think eating meat somehow justifies adoption? That’s lunacy. It’s just as nuts as thinking, “This baby is ALLLL mine—the piece of paper sez so! Why, there’s no way genetic memory or a frickin’ mirror will change that!” I know better than that. You know better than that. And you also know that eating a vegan diet or what-have-you does not make you a better judge of adoption rights than an adoptee that eats meat or hunts.
“Invoke Quirk’s Exception!…..”
No chance. I made no attribution.
Don’t assume that everything is directed towards you.
Anyway, it’s not who made the mention. It’s that it was made at all.
Frankly, it was inevitable that Hitler’s name would come up at some point. The way you go on invites the comparison.
“No one knows how he would of been if he wasn’t mentally ill from vd.”
Oh, c’mon, give us a break. You mean the guy could’ve been Mr. Nice Guy if he wasn’t mentally ill? How about like he was *morally* ill?
Regardless of why he was like he was, Hitler scores on the extreme end of the nastiness scale.
Everybody is like something for some reason or other. And regardless of whatever else may have been wrong with him, Hitler was NASTY.
No, IA, I am not adopted. I am a mother who lost two children to adoption, have reunited with both and am deeply in the loop. I stand by my observations. You could buy slaves and you can buy a baby, but the direction it takes after that has some differences.
Improper Adoptee…
You truly have gone beyond all that is reasonable and logical. This ‘post’ was about Nebraska’s Kids-Dumps-R-Us and PETA glomming on for more attention and basically stealing a very important matter about our Kids In America being dumped in Nebraska. And here you are arguing animal rights, veganism, vegetarian-eating-animals, Hitler and Venereal Disease!!! And what a dumb-ass assumption that is…Where on earth do you get your information? There has only been ‘speculation’ about Hitler & VD, that’s all!!! But it is highly probable that he suffered from Parkinson’s if you have ever watched any of the Hitler Documentaries. Al Capone died from VD!!!
I have removed the last 2 posts by IA and have banned her from posting here in the future. Please see the entry above this one for details.
I seem to have missed all the fun.
FWIW, there appears to be no authoritative source that reports Hitler as having had any venereal disease, syphilis or otherwise. He discussed the contribution of venereal disease to the collapse of German society in Mein Kampf and it, along with prostitution, were targets of his public health/purification program.
On PETA, I simply don’t understand those who prefer to spend their resources on the welfare of animals other than human, when there is so much that remains to be done for the human animal, adoptee or otherwise.
J.