This coat didn’t originally belong to Lindsay … or Masha Markova

I don’t know whether or not LiLo actually stole some rich chick’s fancy fur coat, as the blogs have been suggesting this week, but I can tell you that a lot of the stories about this seem to have missed the real crime here. According to The Superficial, which is where I get pretty much all my important news nowadays, this girl called Masha Markova is accusing Lindsay of running off with her $10,000 fur coat after a party. Apparently, Masha only found out that this was where her coat had gone when she saw pics of Ms. Lohan sporting it in OK magazine. As soon as I’d gotten finished weeping about poor Masha’s terrible experience, I asked PETA Vice President Dan Mathews what he knew about the story, and he forwarded me a copy of this e-mail that he sent to Masha Markova this morning. It makes for pretty good reading:

To: Masha Markova, c/o Merrill Cohen

Dear Ms. Markova,

We at PETA have read with interest about your distress over Lindsay Lohan supposedly stealing your fur coat. Has it ever occurred to you that neither you nor Lindsay are the rightful owners? That coat belonged to dozens of animals who were electrocuted, gassed, strangled, drowned or beaten to death just so you could try to appear wealthy. Ms. Markova, people who wear fur simply show that having money and style don’t go hand in hand. Please take 5 minutes to watch this video, hosted by former fur wearer Martha Stewart, who had a change of heart about wearing real fur when she saw what the animals go through. Perhaps you, too, will find your conscience and consider donating your fur coat to PETA, as have Mariah Carey, Kim Cattrall, and hundreds of others who don’t want animals to be fashion victims. We give them to the homeless, and you would even receive a tax credit for the donation. We look forward to your reply.

Dan Mathews
VP, PETA
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=martha

P.S. I just realized that I missed an opportunity for a bunch of “Lindsay Lohan showing off her fur in public” type jokes. Please accept my humble apologies for dropping the ball on that.

There are two things I really like about the story that hit the wires this week reporting New York’s recent ban on anal and genital electrocution of animals for fur. The first thing’s kind of obvious: Animals on fur farms in New York won’t be electrocuted any more (they’ll still suffer, but their deaths will now, hopefully, be just a bit less painful). In case you haven’t kept up to date on electrocution techniques, this isn’t like sticking your finger into a wall socket: The fur farmers attach one electrode to the fox’s or raccoon’s ear or muzzle and stick the other one in the animal’s anus or vagina. The result is a dagger-like heart attack without loss of consciousness. On one fur farm we investigated, the farmer plugged the chinchillas into the wall socket and timed it by listening to a song on the radio—then skinned them without checking to see if they were dead.

But the thing that should be really remarkable for most people reading this story is not the fact that New York has banned electrocution—but the implication that this is still legal everywhere else. That’s right. New York is now the only state where anally and genitally electrocuting fur-bearing animals (fur farmers do it this way so they won’t damage the pelts) could get you into trouble.

As my friend Melissa put it when she was interviewed for the AP piece, "Anal electrocution is common practice in fur farms across the world. A lot of these methods aren't effective and these animals will wake up while they are being skinned."

That’s all. I just wanted to drive home that point. It’s awesome that New York is leading the way here, and hopefully other states will soon follow suit. But this is also a good opportunity to store away that little tidbit about anal and genital electrocution being 100 percent legal in 49 out of 50 states—just in case anyone ever tries to tell you that wearing fur is anything other than reprehensible.

In case you missed it, there’s a Battle of the Divas going on in the media right now. Mothra Madonna is evidently trying to throw down with Mariah Carey to see who’s the most popular. Which means that it’s time to either take sides or get out of the way … and I want to take this opportunity to officially throw the weight of the world’s largest animal rights organization (that’s us) behind our girl Mariah, with whom—to use the immortal words of Ol’ Dirty Bastard (RIP)—we go back like babies and pacifiers. Here’s my argument for why Mariah blows Madonna out of the water in this competition:

1. When a Russian tycoon gave Mariah Carey a pair of outrageously expensive fur coats in a misguided attempt to show her what a big fan he was, she immediately donated the coats to PETA for us to give to the homeless. Roughly around the same time, Madonna was photographed trouncing around London in about $70,000 worth of dead chinchillas.
2. A whole lot more people are buying Mariah’s new album than are buying Madonna’s. Which kind of settles it, just in case my first point didn’t do the trick for you.

So there you have it. The forces of good prevail, while the groovy soundtrack of “Touch My Body” plays in the background. If you know of any other Diva competitions that need a’refereeing, just let me know. I’m always happy to help out.

Image credits: DailyMail, the-planets / CC

… So say a number of Canadian consumers, who have just filed a formal complaint against the Fur Council of Canada (FCC) with the Competition Bureau of Canada. The complaint—which has been signed by representatives of animal protection groups from British Columbia to Nova Scotia—alleges that the FCC has attempted to gain an unfair competitive advantage by using preposterous claims that fur production is “Eco-Friendly” and that people who choose fur alternatives are damaging the environment because of the energy that’s required to make faux fur.

In fact, the opposite is true. Not only are fur garments treated with toxic chemicals to keep them from decomposing, but fur production—which government agencies around the world have identified as a major pollutant—poisons waterways and consumes resources at an alarming rate. It is estimated that it takes 15 times as much energy to produce a fur coat from ranch-raised animals as it does to produce a faux-fur coat. Not to mention the pain and suffering and the existence of natural fibres like cotton, etc.

And it’s against the rules to lie in order to gain a competitive advantage. So the FCC needs to stop it. I’ll let you know how that goes.

You can take action on this issue here.

Model and designer Kimora Lee Simmons, whose Baby Phat ads and clothes were once disturbingly furry, has had a big change of heart over the time we have known her. Contact Music published an article yesterday about Kimora’s reasons for giving her branded Barbie doll a faux-fur coat accessory. Kimora says wants kids to know that faux fur is both compassionate and stylish, saying of the doll:

"She has a faux-fur chinchilla coat, because I want to show kids that synthetic fur can be fabulous, too. She's everything a Barbie is supposed to be."

So, thanks to Kimora for helping to spread the word. In the meantime, I’m trying to come up with some other Barbie dolls that will be equivalently effective as educational tools for kids. So far, I’ve got “Seal Hunt Protest Barbie” (artist’s rendition below), and “Runway Takeover Barbie”. If anyone else has any suggestions, let me know.

TableandHome / CC

But don’t take it from me, take it from Kathie Lee! She reminded people that they can donate their old furs to PETA on the Today Show this week. There’s more info on how to go about it here. We give the furs to homeless shelters, wildlife rehabbers, and activists (who use them in anti-fur demonstrations). Many thanks to Kathie Lee for the plug.

FoxNews / CC

With a bit of help from celebrity photographer Christopher Ameruoso, Girls Next Door star Holly Madison has created a downloadable video for the iPhone based on her amazing Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur ads. Proceeds from the video will go to benefit PETA’s anti-fur campaign. If you’re lucky enough to have an iPhone, and you want to make it even more beautiful by putting Holly Madison in it, you can download the PSA here. Thank you, Holly!

According to Reuters, the captain and first officer of the Farley Mowat, which belongs to the anti-seal hunt Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were arrested by Canadian authorities, who representatives from Sea Shepherd say boarded the ship outside Canada’s territorial limit last week. As you might imagine, both sides are telling some conflicting stories about the event, and while I’m really trying to maintain a bit of journalistic distance in reporting this thing, it’s pretty tough to take Canada’s Fisheries Minister seriously while he’s also using every opportunity to try and claim that this is humane, and, like, totally above board from an ethical perspective. In the meantime, Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd is pissed. Here’s how he described the incident:

"This is an act of war. The Canadian government has just sent an armed boarding party onto a Dutch registered yacht in international waters and has seized the ship."

I’ll let you know once I can get some more details on this—in the meantime, there’s no question about the fact that Canada has declared war on seals. The Canadian government will be killing 275,000 of these animals this year in a barbaric hunt that has provoked international outrage. If you want to take a moment to let these people know how you feel about that, you can sign on to PETA’s campaign against the seal hunt here.

ninemsn / CC

Word on the street is that our old pal Madonna is getting geared up to adopt an Indian baby to comfort her in her dotage. While the prospect of a fur-flaunting Ciccone clone wreaking havoc on the animal world some years down the line is too dreadful to imagine, we’re taking a more optimistic approach: This kid’s going to need a whole lot of extra energy to put up with mom’s pop star antics, so we’re asking Madonna to give her a head start by adopting not only the child but the child’s country’s preferred way of eating: a healthy, high-energy vegetarian diet. Just one word from Lady Madonna and we’ll dispatch our on-staff chef to London on the Red Eye to give her kitchen staff a crash course in how to prepare mashed peas and carrots and fruit compote for the kid and fabulous vegan fare, including Shepherd’s pie and Eggplant Biryani for the rest of the family.

So whaddaya say, Madge? We’ll even pony up some names for your new animal-friendly progeny that will go well with that whole spiritual, neo-hippie vibe you’ve got going on. I’m thinking something like Chickpea Ciccone. Or how about Ethereal Girl? If anyone else has some suggestions, feel free to weigh in.

The Sun / CC

We have folks in the office who comb through every celebrity magazine and watch every “Inside Hollywood”-type entertainment show to see (among other things) who’s wearing fur and where they got it from during a given season. And may God bless them for making this noble sacrifice. But the latest report on Beyoncé—who’s been getting an earful from us for years now, including a face-to-face ambush at a restaurant in 2007—is that she’s clean. Not a single sighting of Beyoncé in a fur coat all winter.

So we’re calling a ceasefire. As a goodwill gesture, PETA Senior VP Lisa Lange just sent newlyweds Beyoncé and Jay-Z a luxurious throw from top faux fur maker Fabulous Furs accompanied by the following note:

“From all of us at PETA, we wish you much happiness in your life together. Please accept this faux-fur throw with many good wishes and a hope from us that together, you’ll be a fur-free couple!”

Or, as she told the media, “Celebrities know that the easiest way to keep PETA off their backs is by keeping fur off their backs. Time will tell if Beyoncé is truly committed to being fur-free, but all indications are that she’s become a real ‘dreamgirl’ for fur-bearing animals.” We’re all pretty interested to see how this one pans out. Let’s hope for the best.

A little international flavor for you this afternoon: Earlier today outside the British embassy in Vienna, three PETA Germany members wearing little more than Union Jack Underpants and faux fur hats let the royals know exactly how they feel about the British Ministry of Defense's refusal to stop using bear fur for the Queen's Guards' ceremonial caps. Angry and naked, is how they feel. In case that wasn't clear.

Assuming you're of legal age and your boss isn't watching, you can check out the NSFW pic here.

Earlier this week, a group calling itself the "Paint Panthers" e-mailed my friend Michael McGraw, who works out of PETA’s New York office, to inform him that they had visited Donna Karan's home in The Hamptons and done a little "redecorating," stenciling "Donna Karan: Bunny Butcher" and painting a rabbit on the pavement with the message, "I don't want to be a handbag." The handwriting leaves a little to be desired, but the message is fairly plain.

Donna Karan, who was visited at home in February by an animal activist who walked into her living room and cued up a DVD of fur farm footage, is under fire for her refusal to remove fur from her collections. You can write to her about this lapse in judgment here.

Norfolk’s annual Doo Dah Parade invites local organizations and business owners to march the streets in ludicrous outfits so that the citizens of this fine city can laugh at them. I’ve never quite figured out why this goes on, but it’s certainly a whole lot of fun. Tragically, I didn’t make it this year, but a lot of my colleagues did — all dolled up in dresses and wigs to show that “Fur Is a Drag” — so let’s take this opportunity to laugh at them now:

Steve, Matt, Thomas, and Tim "Danger" Hogarth


Joel S. Bartlett


Thomas and Joel


Mike


Travis

Seal boots, Gucci? Come on, guys. Did you think that just because you were selling them in Russia, we wouldn’t notice?

PETA’s Assistant Director, Matt Prescott, contacted Gucci CEO Robert Polet this week asking him whether he really wants his company associated with the seal hunt. Seriously, Gucci, when even Paris Hilton has worked out that something’s a moral outrage, there’s not a lot of room for saying you didn’t realize it was a problem.

You can contact Gucci about this latest lapse in judgement through the webform here.

Variety/Creative Commons

During a rare Alexander McQueen fashion show in New York last night, the designer (whose intentional use of fox heads and bird skulls has been called "desperate" by PETA’s president) got more than he bargained for. In the middle of the show, two PETA members with blood-red paint covering their hands leapt onto the catwalk and displayed signs reading, "Fur on your back, blood on your hands," before being tackled by security guards and dragged off the stage. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk puts it,

"McQueen's macabre designs might be intended to titillate, but they simply nauseate. There is nothing remotely 'fashionable' about the torture and death of animals killed for something that a caveperson would wear."

Hopefully this will serve as a message to McQueen and others who condone the torture of animals for their designs that compassionate people will not continue to indulge their cruel fetishes, and that their archaic sense of what’s “fashionable” will soon be little more than an ugly footnote in the history books. That, or they’ll obliviously keep it up until some legislator has the good sense to ban fur farming for good and put them out of business. Whichever comes sooner is fine with me.

I’ll update this entry with more info as this story develops.

I probably don't mention my colleagues in peta2 as much as I should on this blog. This is primarily because I am jealous of their youth, their vivacity, and their general "too-cool-for-school" attitude. But sometimes they put something together so good that it can't be ignored (no matter how hard one might try), and their new "Fur Is Dead" campaign definitely falls into that category.

They've partnered with the folks at Skelanimals to help garner support for their "100,000 strong against fur" petition, and judging by the number of signatures so far (38,631!), the whole thing's going pretty well. You can check out the site here. The photo gallery of kids wearing the peta2 "Fur Is Dead" bunny ears is more or less fantastic.

After TMZ posted documents last week showing that Aretha Franklin is facing foreclosure, the story has been reported everywhere. Well, despite the fact that we've had the occasional run-in with the Queen of Soul, we're willing to bury the hatchet and even help her out of her recent financial troubles by paying her $19,000 ... provided that she agrees to stop wearing fur and donate her unwanted furs to PETA as Mariah Carey and Kim Cattrall have done.

You can read PETA's letter to Aretha below, and, as always, those lightning-quick reporters over at TMZ are first on the scene with the full story.

The Honorable Tom Rideout
Credit: CBC/CC

Bad PETA Germany! What were you guys thinking? Did you even take a second to think that you might be hurting the feelings of the Newfoundland Fisheries Minister when you released a video depicting the horrors of the seal slaughter that he presides over? No, of course you didn’t. And look what happened. Because of your heartless disregard for the complicated emotional needs of Canadian Fisheries Ministers (and this isn’t the first time you’ve upset defenseless bureaucrats, is it, PETA Germany?), you’ve gone and hurt The Honorable Tom Rideout’s feelings. What do you have to say for yourselves?

Here’s how it’s all going down, according to Newfoundland’s Western Star newspaper:

"The provincial government is alarmed by a new anti-sealing video which is being distributed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) 2, in Germany. The Honourable Tom Rideout, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, expressed his disappointment and concern that this group would draw such a vile comparison to the Canadian sealing industry, which includes one of the most well-managed harvests anywhere in the world. The video compares the harvesting of seals to the violent physical abuse of a human."

And Minister Rideout has been eloquent on the subject of his “disappointment” in a press release that he’s been sending around:

“We are now witnessing a new low on the part of anti-sealing organizations. We in Newfoundland and Labrador have become accustomed to the misinformation and inaccurate depictions of the seal harvest that are presented around this time every year. However, this particular attack is the most vile that I have ever seen myself in my almost 30 years in public life. It is completely indecent for this group of people, who have likely never even visited our province, to present such a disturbing depiction of sealers. It is ironic that this group, which is making such an unethical attack, has the word ethical in its name. Their ethics are certainly nowhere to be seen in this approach to addressing their concerns with the Canadian sealing industry. It is also ironic that this attack is coming from Germany where there is a harvest of wild animals including the hunt of 1.2 million deer and over 500,000 wild boars per year.”

Now, there are those who would say that drawing attention to the vicious bludgeoning and skinning of live seals is worth disappointing the occasional Fisheries Minister, but to those people I ask this question: What about the emotional bludgeoning that Mr. Rideout might have experienced as a result of having to watch video footage depicting the horrific acts that his government is condoning? It almost seems as if my counterparts in PETA Germany (who, as the Minister so astutely points out, live in a country that still allows deer hunting and should therefore not be allowed even to talk about cruel hunting practices that occur elsewhere in the world) don’t care at all about whether their video about the internationally reviled Canadian seal hunt offends some functionary in the Newfoundland Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Unbelievable.

This is the video in question:

And this is the footage it’s referencing. Tom Rideout calls it a “harvest.” I call it an atrocity. You say tomato …

If you speak a bit of German, you can learn more here.

Do it. It’s amazing.

I’ve been following the continued exploits of the black bear who’s been showing up at all of Prince Charles’ appearances in the Caribbean lately, to help remind the Brits that the Queen’s Guard’s regiments should make their hats out of, well, something that’s not bears. Shenanigans have been unfolding on the trip with a good degree of regularity, and the reports from the bear and her companion, Melissa, make for excellent reading. Here’s an example from last week:

Subject: Report from Montego Bay, 3-13 - PETA bear crashes royal party!

Today we drove 4 hours to Montego Bay where we’d arranged for a boat to take us as close as possible to The Prince’s yacht, The Leander. When we arrived security was familiarly tight so, we asked around and discovered C&C were having a party at the same resort, right near the beach where we’d board.

Here’s a photo near The Leander.

Then we headed back to the resort JUST in time for the party but we had to be subtle so, the bear laid down in the boat as we approached:

We disembarked just steps from the royals’ reception:

And were greeted by some of the children there to perform and greet the royals:

And then we just walked in…

We mingled with a few guests.

The band

More of the children, of course.

And even British members of the press who refused to take photos of us. So, we took photos of them.

Then we were spotted by one of Charles’s chief security officers. We know him. He knows us. :)

These people seem not to like bears seeing as they kill them and kick them out of parties.

We were escorted off premises.

And we were interrogated for a long while.

Because we’d reserved the boat ahead of time and paid the resort, threats of being charged with trespassing didn’t stick. Tomorrow we return to Kingston, home of Bob Marley.

One of our most popular anti-fur slogans here at PETA is “Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people”. And we’ve got some great ads to back it up. But the pictures that have been circulating of Aretha Franklin at the Grammy awards last week don’t even really need the tagline to drive that point home. She looks like a walrus in a cat costume. Except, like, nowhere near as cute as that sounds.

Here’s the note that PETA VP Dan Mathews sent to Aretha, who got all in a tizzy yesterday about the fact that Beyonce called Tina Turner “the Queen” and not her.

Dear Aretha-

Music lovers may think of you as a "queen," but to animal lovers, you are a court jester. I'm sorry, Aretha, but your furs make you look like a clown. Why not shed the old-fashioned look that adds pounds to your frame and detracts from your beautiful voice? Won't you donate your furs to the poor as "queen of compassion," Mariah Carey, did? You'll get a tax credit for the donation, and we at PETA will all sing your praises.

Dan Mathews
VP, PETA

And remember: Pels Ud, Kaerlighed Ind!

Some more pics and video at these sites, which are presumably more informative if you speak German Danish.

http://politiken.tv/nyheder/indland/article470983.ece
http://galleri.tv2.dk/index.php/category-Nyhederne/id-10407233/page-1.html

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.

Seems like there’s been quite a bit of naked going on lately, especially with all the work that went into putting together this year’s glorious State of the Union Undress, but these images—from a recent anti-fur demonstration in Barcelona—are way too good to pass up. Dozens of activists gathered to draw attention to the cruelty of the fur industry on Monday, and the results are just incredibly compelling.

Check out the photo gallery here.

And there’s a nice piece about the event here.