Your morning adorable: Rescued turkeys' pre-Thanksgiving spa day

For longtime vegan Karen Dawn, eating turkeys on Thanksgiving isn't an option. So last year, Dawn started a new tradition, inviting live turkeys into her Pacific Palisades home to celebrate the holiday along with her human guests. She adopted two turkeys otherwise destined for slaughter, Bruce and Emily, who lived the high life in the Palisades for a few weeks before being "retired" to the Acton-based Animal Acres sanctuary for rescued farm animals.

This Thanksgiving, Dawn continued the tradition, purchasing two turkeys -- she named them Monty and Marsha -- that very nearly ended up on someone's table rather than at someone's table. "Why shouldn't vegans have 'Turkey Day'?" she wondered. That's a question that Dawn has clearly been able to answer for herself: This year, she welcomed about 20 human guests for a vegan feast, the only turkeys in sight being Monty, Marsha and a bottle of Wild Turkey for good measure.

Becasue Monty and Marsha were, quite understandably, filthy after their close call at a slaughterhouse, baths for both were Dawn's first order of business upon getting them home. ("As I drove home on the freeway with them crated in the car, I had every window open," she told Unleashed, "yet I still retched with every breath.") 

NBC affiliates won't air PETA Thanksgiving ad promoting veganism

PETA's Thanksgiving-themed ad has stirred a controversy. While ad doesn't show graphic imagery, its description of the turkey-slaughter process may disturb some viewers; watch wisely!

Four NBC affiliates broadcasting the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade are banning a commercial promoting veganism sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA spokesman Michael Lyubinsky said Tuesday that the organization wanted to air the commercial during the parade, but stations in Raleigh, N.C., Columbia, S.C., Savannah, Ga., and Little Rock, Ark., had banned it.

The commercial depicts a young girl saying grace at Thanksgiving, giving thanks for "the turkey farms where they pack them into dark, tiny little sheds for their whole lives."

The ad encourages viewers to "go vegan."

Brad Moses, general manager of Raleigh's WNCN, said he decided to ban the ad in Raleigh and Savannah because it's not appropriate for the spirit of the parade.

— Associated Press

Video: officialpeta via YouTube

Fashion guru Tim Gunn talks fur (specifically, what's wrong with it)

Our esteemed colleague and Unleashed contributor Patt Morrison caught up recently with Tim Gunn, the main man behind the popular fashion-themed reality show "Project Runway." Gunn expanded on the issue of fur in fashion (like any good fashion expert, he's against it; he's even narrated an anti-fur video for PETA) for The Times' All the Rage blog. Here's an excerpt:

Patt Morrison: Do we have you to thank for the fact that there is no fur in the challenges?

Tim Gunn: Yes, thank you! I was called a fool when I was chair of fashion at Parsons and I invited PETA to speak to students. The industry went crazy. I said: "Wait a minute. The International Fur Trade Commission is coming here. I have a responsibility to bring another point of view, let the students decide." I would say if you're going to use fur, you have a responsibility to know its origins. At Liz Claiborne, every brand is now fur-free. A woman assaulted me verbally for my fur position. She said one of [her] favorite items is a mink coat, and that furthermore, it's sheared mink, so people wouldn't even know it's fur. I said: "Then you have even less of an excuse. Sheared fur looks like velvet. You could wear a velvet coat." I'm also not a great fan of faux fur that looks real -- I'd much rather have it look fake.

And yet every few seasons, including this one, you thumb through the fashion mags, and there's fur, fur, fur. PETA's chic, no-fur celebrity messages can't compete -- they can't afford to make the same splash that huge, rich fashion brands can, and it's the latter that drive buying habits. I won't say ''taste'' because it isn't tasteful.

There's no reason to kill animals for fur. Wearing fur is like wearing a big sign reading, ''I'm in favor of inflicting cruelty and pain on animals as a fashion statement.'' Unspeakable torture is inflicted on dogs, cats, bunnies, raccoons, foxes, minks and myriad trapped, helpless creatures in the name of fashion -- yes, dogs and cats.

THERE'S MORE; READ THE REST.

Photo credit: F. Scott Schafer / Bravo

Food fight: Sarah Palin ticks off vegetarians and vegans in her new book, 'Going Rogue'

Sarah Palin's highly anticipated book, "Going Rogue," is not likely to win any literary awards, but it's very likely to sell a gazillion copies.  (It's currently Amazon's No. 1 bestselling book, besting even the likes of Stephen King and Dan Brown.)  

But very few of those copies, we suspect, will be purchased by vegetarians or vegans.  In his review, our colleague Tim Rutten explains that a large portion of "Going Rogue" covers Palin's life before she emerged as a well-known public figure, "so there's a lot of winter, guns, fish guts, long hours at the nets under the midnight sun and a great deal about Palin's fondness for meat.... There's even a photo of her father teaching her to skin a harbor seal, an activity the caption informs is now forbidden for all but native peoples under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Ah, for the good old days."

That part about Palin's love of meat products, perhaps unsurprisingly, is raising the hackles of some animal-loving vegetarians and vegans, according to our colleague Johanna Neuman of The Times' politics blog, Top of the Ticket.  Especially offensive to the animal-byproduct-free set?  Palin's comment that "If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?"  (Humorous news-aggregation site Fark.com's snarky rejoinder: "In other news, Sarah Palin endorses cannibalism.")

PETA's latest anti-fur celebrity spokesmodels: Atlanta Falcons star Tony Gonzalez and his wife, October

PETA certainly has its issues with certain NFL stars who shall remain nameless. But one major sports star -- who just so happens to play for that nameless player's former team, the Atlanta Falcons -- is certainly in the animal-rights group's good graces.

Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez and his wife, October, are just the latest celebrities to pose for PETA; their anti-fur ad, in which they're covered up (just barely) by the tagline "We'd rather go naked than wear fur," was released recently to considerable fanfare. (For the record, Gonzalez told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the two "had clothes on" during the photo shoot -- but if that's the case, the clothes were certainly skimpy.)

"We should be protecting animals, not sacrificing their lives for the sake of fashion or luxury," Gonzalez explained of the couple's motivation to work with PETA. "October and I have changed many of our habits in light of the inhumane treatment of animals that occurs not only in the fur industry but also on factory farms." (Gonzalez was briefly vegan, but told the Associated Press that he reintroduced some animal products to his diet after he lost more weight than he intended. "I eat a little meat now, but it comes from clean sources: grass-fed cows, free-range chickens, wild fish, stuff like that," he said. "I'm OK with it as long as you do it humanely.")

Florida College Republicans group hosts meaty barbeque to protest PETA

A Republican students' group at the University of Florida used barbeque to voice its opposition to PETA's principles on Wednesday -- and encouraged students to bring their pets to the event. Why that last part? Well, to prove that the group's members love animals, of course.

Wait, what?

UF's College Republicans organization staged the event, which it termed the People Eating Tasty Animals Barbeque, to draw attention to what its members say are the extreme stances of that other PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  "I think it's the best thing ever," Nick Galyon, a junior at UF, told the student-run newspaper the Independent Florida Alligator. "I am a big supporter of eating animals. I think PETA is just ridiculous. It's liberal propaganda."

College Republicans President Bryan Griffin (no relation to the fictional, talking dog from TV's "Family Guy") echoed Galyon's sentiment in an interview with the Gainesville Sun's Chalkboard blog.  "We're against radical environmental extremism," Griffin said. 

Strange bedfellows: Glenn Beck, PETA join forces to give Al Gore what for

A day has dawned that we never thought we would see: conservative Fox News commentator Glenn Beck (who recently shocked viewers with his throwing-a-seemingly-live-frog-in-boiling-water gag) has publicly expressed his admiration for controversial animal-rights group PETA.

All right, so Beck's strange leap onto PETA's bandwagon just so happens to give him some ammunition against another of his regular targets, former Vice President Al Gore.

PETA has long held that Gore, whose work on behalf of the environment is well-known and who has apparently become the world's first "carbon billionaire," is remiss in failing to promote vegetarianism as an effective means of helping the environment.  ("Gore should have named his movie Sorta-Inconvenient Truths if he didn't want to cover the environmental destruction that his meaty diet causes," PETA blogger Shawna Flavell wrote earlier this year.)  Odd as it may sound coming from him, Beck says he agrees.

The Fox host explained last week that he's "siding with PETA on this one -- once again asking Al Gore: If you really want to save the planet, put down the cheeseburgers and pick up the veggie burgers. Time for soy milk and [Tofurky]. No more delicious chocolate cookies -- how about a nice bean-thing. That is, if you want to save the planet."  (Apparently Beck hasn't tried the host of delicious and widely available chocolate cookies that are free of animal products, but we digress.)

PETA protests Oregon wildlife park's car-washing elephants

The car-washing elephants at an Oregon wildlife park don't really get your car very clean -- but that's not the reason PETA wants the park to stop using them.

Wildlife Safari's website jokes that the spring and summer attraction, at which the park's African elephants "wash" the cars of visitors under the supervision of trainers, is "guaranteed not to get your car clean!"

The animal rights group wrote a letter Oct. 22 that called the elephant carwash "a gimmick that does nothing to foster respect for endangered species," according to the Associated Press. The group is particularly concerned with the elephant training tool known as a bullhook, or ankus, which is a metal rod with a hook at one end.

In an interview with Roseburg's News-Review newspaper, the park's general curator, Dan Brands, said the trainers use the bullhooks only as guides. And the car washing, he says, is a modification of a behavior the elephants do naturally and have been trained to do using positive reinforcement with carrots or yams.

PETA wants to turn Elvis Presley's former ranch into a Don't Be Cruel center

When we think of Elvis Presley, we think of one thing: animal rights. Right? 

Not really. But if PETA gets its way, the two could soon become synonymous.  That's because the controversial group is trying to lease one of Elvis' former properties -- Circle G Ranch in Horn Lake, Miss. -- for the purpose of turning it into an animal-rights museum called, naturally, the Don't Be Cruel learning center for children. (That's right, conspiracy theorists: The vegans really are trying to indoctrinate your kids.)

Apparently, PETA caught wind of the fact that the Circle J's current owner, Dennis McLemore (who currently keeps Angus cattle there), has put it up for sale.  But in the current economic climate, and with an asking price of $6.5 million, there's a good chance it will be on the market a long while.

In the meantime, the group wants to turn the place into an educational facility "to educate students about how smart and sensitive the animals we eat really are and why a vegan diet ... is kindest for animals, the Earth, and even our own arteries," PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman explained in a recent letter to McLemore.  ("Elvis would have benefited from going vegan, that's for sure," Reiman adds.  Snap.)

Bob Barker donated $1 million to university for animal rights curriculum

Former television game show host Bob Barker, who ended episodes of "The Price is Right" by asking viewers to spay and neuter their pets, donated $1 million to Drury University to establish a professorship on animal rights that he hopes will lead to a full undergraduate degree program.

Barker, who graduated from the small liberal arts school in 1947 with a degree in economics, said Tuesday that he hopes the school will eventually be able to offer a program of studies that would train them to be animal rights activists and to respect animals.

"I think some students would become full-fledged animal rights activists," Barker said. "Some will become lawyers and doctors who will always be interested in animal rights. And some will have more respect for animals."

The new professorship went to Patricia McEachern, a professor of French who will work full time to develop what Barker and McEachern said would be the nation's first undergraduate program in animal rights.

Barker named the new professorship for his late wife, Dorothy Jo Barker.