By Leslie Goldberg
Why does PETA insist on using exhibitionist hotties in its campaigns? Is it to prove that animal rights activists aren’t stuck-up, no-fun, prudes? Is it to show how unbelievably sexy and attractive it is to eat plants? Is PETA trying to suggest that if you go vegan you’ll probably get a date with Pamela Anderson?
Yes, PETA is saying you will get to know Pamela personally if you go vegan! Or, if you like, you can become Pamela Anderson (try THIS green smoothie). At the very least you’ll certainly get to trade jokes with Ricky Gervais if you give up eating meat.
After I went vegan I got to stay at Paul McCartney’s house in England (yes, he paid for me to fly over there.) Whoa, was that fun! But maybe my most exciting plant-based experience was getting to go on Ellen DeGeneres’s show. Was that better than having dinner with Morrissey? Hard to say.
I like Morrissey and I like Tobey (Maguire). Still I did get kind of bored hanging out on the set of “Spiderman” eating vegan cupcakes. He made up for it, by giving me a mint copy of the first Spiderman comic.
Who cares about saving animals, lowering your cholesterol, losing weight, saving water and mitigating climate change? I want to go on a cruise with Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton – is he really a vegan? Well, not totally, which is why PETA will not hook us up. He says he occasionally eats salmon and sometimes eggs.
When you think about it, it’s a little scary – the once most powerful man in the world can’t be counted on to say no to eggs and fish. While you might want to applaud his efforts at going vegan, he’s also sending a message out there that being vegan is just too hard – even for the once most powerful man in the world.
I’ve come to realize celebrities aren’t always solid when it comes to pushing veganism. It’s really disappointing. I so wanted to go hiking with Reese Witherspoon! She was nominated by PETA to be the 2005 World’s Sexiest Vegetarian. It was lucky she lost, since the next year she was on the Ellen Show, cooking up some chicken flesh mess, saying “Everything’s better with bacon.”
The sketchiness of celebrity vegans or vegetarians gives me pause. That’s why when I get down to it, I tend to prefer some of the dead vegan/vegetarians for idolatry and advertising – Tolstoy and Einstein for instance. You’re not going to see them blowing it on “Dr. Oz.”
– A Vicious Vegan blog post –
Yeah – safe with the Tolstoy’s and the Einsteins, b u t I think Pam for veganism is ok because she does go around and promote it and has her own vegan ‘Pam things’ that she does and has raised her children vegan etc. I do know what you’re saying though. Someone said (re Bill Clinton) in case Hilary gets into the White House – can’t have a vegan in there, s o – some Dr. stole B.Clinton away from Dr Esselstyn (forks over knives) and got him eating some more of the proteins from animals and fish. The thing is though – no one who goes back to eating animals (after abstaining from animal flesh and secretions) ever was ‘ vegan.’ A vegan has discovered ‘ahimsa’ which is ‘no harm to any creature’ and has made the ethical choice (not for health or planet saving) – the ethical choice to care about animals . As the christians would say – (even though they continue to eat animal flesh and condone it and have it at all their ‘church functions’) care for ‘the least among us.’ So — on the heirarchy rung that would be the poor and the very least among us – the poor animals. That’s what vegans do – they find their heart – they care and they Always continue to care – that’s why they’re vegans. Vegans are not faddists or trendies, or wishfuls or wishy-washy’s or yellows or heartless ones or me-me-Me’s. Vegans have found their heart and it beats for ‘the least among us’ – the animals. No turning back. Vegans have gone vegan and stay vegan. The rest – just wishful wannabe’s who didn’t have a big enough heart to find the stamina.