Virginia Commonwealth Attorney Gerald G. Poindexter, whose job entails dealing with a certain dogfighting case that you may have heard of involving Falcons Quarterback (for the time being) Michael Vick has apparently decided to sit around and do nothing instead. A full eight days after the indictment, Mr. Poindexter has yet to file any state charges against Vick. As PETA Director Daphna Nachminovich puts it,

"Short of an engraved invitation, what else will get Poindexter to file charges against Vick? He should be ashamed that it took the federal government to come down here to do his job for him. This case needs to go before a grand jury lickety-split. Vick's name will forever be associated with cruelty to dogs and so will Poindexter's unless he takes immediate action to see that justice is served."

Right on, Daphna. And Poindexter, what the hell are you up to? You can read our letter to the attorney here.

OK, this one's from a few years ago, but these things are so damn popular that I thought I'd post it. A little context—this is the letter that PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich sent to Michael in 2004 to ask him to reconsider his anti-animal stance. The sad truth is that Bruce’s decidedly less sensational letter never received any attention at all—least of all from Michael Moore, who refused even to acknowledge receipt. But it's a cracking good letter, nonetheless. You can check it out here.

Michael Moore on the animal rights movement: “This shit makes me want to kick my dog”

Phew. I spent a lot of time this weekend reviewing the hundreds of comments on Friday's Michael Moore blog, and they're still coming in! It's pretty clear that this letter brought out some strong reactions in people—both positive and negative—and that's always good. I figured it might be a good idea to elaborate on a few issues that have come up as a result of our publicizing Ingrid's letter.

First of all, if you know Michael Moore, you know he can take it. Seriously. The guy is not going to cry himself to sleep because we offered him some diet advice. For anyone who has seen a Michael Moore documentary or read one of his books, you'll know that he doesn't pull punches when it comes to issues he's passionate about, or miss an opportunity to take a potshot at those he disagrees with. Compared with the letters Michael Moore writes (see, for instance, this letter he wrote to the president), Ingrid's letter was incredibly polite.

Secondly, I should probably provide a little context to our own relationship with Michael Moore—which goes back a long way. We've written to him several times over the years, starting back in the days of Roger & Me with ever-so-polite appeals to embrace animal rights. We don't hold it against him, but the only response we ever got from him was when his people showed up outside the PETA building with a donkey, two goats, two sheep, a rabbit, a chicken, three dogs, a fish in a bowl(!), a guinea pig, two gerbils, and a rat in a cage "wearing" offensive signs, like “You are wasting your lives.” He arranged to haul these animals out on a hot day to taunt hard-working people just to get a cheap laugh for his show. In addition to that little stunt, whose real victims didn’t even have the luxury of understanding what was happening to them, Michael Moore has made comments throughout his career glorifying meat-eating and hunting, and mocking people who care about animals. Now, neither I nor any of my colleagues take those comments personally—we dish it out, and we can take it. But, like I said, so can Michael Moore.

Michael Moore has never responded with anything but sneering to PETA's requests that he address animal protection issues in one of his documentaries, but we're not giving up hope. And, even if he ignores this particular attempt to reach him in his own style—playful and provocative at the same time—we hope that some of the people who hear about this story will get the message: A vegetarian diet is the compassionate choice, it's the healthy choice, and it's the right choice—for us and for animals. I'm glad that this letter has given us the opportunity to say that again.

P.S. Judging from some of the comments I read yesterday, I should probably also point out for a few people that “elephant in the room” is an expression that means “an important issue that people are avoiding.” Not, like, an actual pachyderm in someone’s living space. Like this one.

DebbieTomassi/Creative Commons

Salon/Creative Commons

Jim Webb has been getting a lot of mileage out of a Father's Day fishing trip he took over the weekend with his son Jimmy—who's on leave following a tour of duty in Iraq—but it really does seem a bit odd to celebrate someone's return from a war zone by taking them out to do some killing. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk points out,

"There's nothing 'peaceful' or 'relaxing' about torturing sensitive, intelligent beings. There are plenty of opportunities for fathers and sons to bond that don't involve killing animals."

You can read the letter that Ingrid wrote to Senator Webb this morning here. I'll let you know if we get a response.

ChinaDaly/Creative Commons

As PETA Vice President Dan Mathews pointed out in his letter to Paris Hilton today, the pair of them now have a common bond: they’ve both spent time in the big house. Dan’s hope is that Paris’ experiences being locked away with a bunch of disgruntled chicks will give her just a bit of insight into the lousy conditions that the chicks who are routinely crammed into tiny cages for KFC have to suffer on their way to the fast-food chain’s buckets, and he’s asked her to narrate a brief video for PETA detailing KFC’s abuse of birds. Dan, who obviously has a soft spot for imprisoned celebrities, has had success with this tactic in the past—when Martha Stewart was incarcerated, she was so moved by his letter that she gave up wearing fur and later narrated an anti-fur video for us, so here’s hoping that Paris will have the same open-minded response to this little overture. As Dan points out, “Unlike inmates at the jail in L.A., these animals get no reprieve or medical treatment.” And Paris has plenty of time to mull it over. You can read the letter here.

Pamela Anderson is truly amazing. Seriously, could the woman do any more for animals? This time, she got wind of KFC’s plans to expand in Russia, and jumped at the chance to write the president of KFC’s partner company there, urging him to use his influence to convince the company to protect the 850,000 chickens it kills from the worst abuses they suffer.

And of course, the Russian press was all over the story.

Here’s a copy of Pam’s letter, and I’ll let you know if we get a response.

The massive Iams pet food recall has been all over the news lately, and I've been hearing a lot about it from people who are concerned about their own animals. Anyway, I thought you’d like to see the letter we sent to Iams about it all. You can click here to read it, and I'll let you know if we get any more news. In the meantime, just in case there's any confusion about this: Please don't buy Iams until they get their act together and stop testing on animals.