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| An American Idiot |  |
One of the largest PETA file organizations has been broken up, resulting in hundreds of arrests. PETA? Because of the makeup of my household, I am ever so aware of various aspects of consumer products that I used to be ignorant about. There are times, many times, when I wish I was still that ill-informed. We have one vegetarian, another that is about 95% vegetarian, another is overly panicked on cholesterol and one who is constantly dieting to no avail. We all have various other nutritional needs and political concerns. Some shoes, belts and wallets must be made without any animal or petroleum products. Others must be durable enough for strenuous tennis play. Some shoes must also “tone” and provide orthopedic support. Most clothes must be cotton or bamboo or dri-fit. Some dress shirts must have collars without buttons. Some shirts must have clever sayings on them, others must be plain. All must be made in countries with a strong record of human rights and nothing can be made in sweatshops or by children. Made in America by union labor is the preferred way to go. You would think vegetarian simply means no meat. You would be wrong. Meat products are sneaked into the most bizarre things as I have learned. Gelatin is made from collagen collected from animal bones and cartilage. If it is from fish bones in the proper fashion, it is kosher gelatin. There is a vegetarian gelatin made from seaweed but it rarely works well and is icky and apparently expensive. Gelatin is in most nonfat yogurts, chip dip and marshmallows. It is also weaseled into other food items and sometimes you have to wonder if they do it simply out of spite. Other meat products can be found in crackers, chips, noodle and rice dishes and soups. Cheese cannot have rennet. Rennet is made from a mammalian stomach. Luckily, here in Oregon, we have the Tillamook dairy that guarantees its products are never made with rennet and they have the extra bonus of being really, really tasty. Mmmmmm. Cheese. Our coffee and chocolate have to be free trade and organic. Butter and milk has to be organic and without hormones. Any meat that is bought has to be local, vegetarian-fed, and never treated with hormones. It also has to be either beef or chicken as we do not eat pork, mutton or wild game. Eggs must be from free-range chickens that have been named (preferably Lucille), sleep in solar-heated coops and are not forced to wear hats unless the hats are really awesome like Indiana Jones’ or sombreros. I have to check every single label. It takes me roughly forever to go grocery shopping. Combine that with the way some fluorescent lights give me migraines, the rise in food prices, the fact I forgot my coupons (again!) and the way my cloth bags set off the self-check alarm every other item means that I am rarely in a perky mood by the time I finish the checkout. Sometimes it takes an entire bag of M & M’s to get me to the parking lot without committing some small act of random violence. Still, I have never heard of a criminal aspect to PETA and I could not understand why there would be a large file on the organization that would lead to any arrests in Europe or anywhere else. The BBC News Hour reporter went on to explain that when they made the arrests on the PETA files, hundreds of victimized children has also been rescued. Okay, now hold on. I know PETA can be annoying. Sometimes some very attractive young ladies conduct demonstrations in bikinis for no apparent reason at the KFC but if they are trying to get men to not look at them as pieces of meat, they fail miserably. The local radio station, KTWS, has their annual Turkey Drop in homage to the WKRP in Cincinnati episode but KTWS doesn’t use actual turkeys. They claim to do so and it is a big inside joke that everyone plays along with, just in case the people who go to the event haven’t been before. They rope off a large area “for the PETA members who are protesting the abuse of turkeys.” The turkeys are actually made out of paper with a number on them and when you “catch” one, you turn it in to claim the prize that matches your number. But that is hardly a crime and no children are ever hurt. So why the big criminal investigation into the largest PETA file organization in Europe? Maybe, because I am an American. And I am an idiot. I am…an American idiot. In America, we pronounce pedophile as ped-o-file. In Great Britain, home of the BBC News Hour, they pronounce pedophile as peed-o-file. False alarm, people. Time for some more M & M’s.
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