We’ve been trying to get designer Donna Karan to watch some footage of exactly what happens to the animals killed for her fur coats for a long time now—and yesterday, a brave PETA member who was up in New York for fashion week made sure that happened, with a little help from some soy lattes: Dressed to the nines and carrying a tray of coffees, she marched up to Donna Karan’s apartment and was welcomed inside without any questions, and offered a seat in the living room. When Donna Karan returned home, my friend pulled out the mini DVD player she had in her bag and cued up the fur farm footage, prompting the following exchange:

DK: I can't watch this now. I have somewhere to be . . . I just really don't have the time.
PETA: Yes, but you’ve promised twice that you would stop using fur and you keep bringing it back. Everyone’s so disappointed. You have to know that this isn’t right.
DK: I've seen all these videos, but for me it's just purses and accessories.
PETA: But for me and millions of other people, these are animals. They suffer terribly as they are electrocuted, gassed and skinned alive for their pelts.

…and so on, until Donna decided enough was enough and escorted my friend out of the house. Pissed off as she was, hopefully this has at least planted the seed in her head that it’s time to stop supporting the horrific abuses of the fur industry. But if that doesn’t work, we’ve got a few more tricks up our sleeve:

The New York Post featured this story on their front page today. You can read their coverage here.

Last week, there were a lot of news reports mentioning the fact that President Bush had turned up for a dinner with Saudi King Abdullah wearing a full-length fur-lined robe. It’s probably for the best that there aren’t any available images of this little fashion disaster, but we did confirm that the President had received the robe as a gift from the king, which prompted this response from PETA VP Dan Mathews:

"President Bush should learn from his mother, who refused the offer of a free fur coat for his dad's inauguration. I can't imagine he'd embrace the pimp look anyway."

The damage is done as far as the animals are concerned, but we’re hoping the President will consider donating the robe to our anti-fur campaign. We have a great program in which old furs are given to homeless people who can't afford to buy coats (the only people who have any excuse to wear fur), so we’d be sure to put it to good use. You can read PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s appeal to the President here.

Here's another classic for you, from a few years back. I've often heard people make the point that no one would wear fur if they were able to see that draping yourself in dead babies is barbaric, regardless of the species. Of course, only at PETA can you make that point in a meeting and end up with a "baby" fur coat by the end of the day. Yup. The handsome model in luxury baby trim is my friend Pulin. And the expressions on those people's faces are priceless.

Maybe Britney should stick to her trademark crotch shots, because her new post-rehab look definitely isn’t working for her. Unless of course she’s actually going for the whole "street walker" look, in which case she nailed it. I’m referring to this pic from an article talking about her supposed “comeback”:

I realize the girl has had it rough and the whole teen star aftermath meltdown was inevitable, but now that she’s got a couple of husbands and a stint in rehab behind her, one would think she’d get over her desperate need for attention and ditch the furs. Anyway, if you’d like to send her some inspirational thoughts to help her get over her current fur addiction, you can do that here (click on the star).

And of course, if the furs are fake Britney, I totally take back the whole “street walker” thing. I was just joshing with ya.