"It's amazing what celebrities will do when their careers are on a downslide, but we didn't think that Janet was this desperate. Surely, she knows enough about suffering and unjustified death to recognize that both occur in the production of a fur coat. We are asking her to think again and to donate these stolen skins to be used as bedding for animals orphaned by other human-caused disasters, such as loss of habitat," PETA spokeswoman Amanda Schinke said in a statement.

Okay, let's start small. That crack about Janet's career? First of all, where the hell are the careers of PETA's celebrity spokespeople? I haven't seen any of them starring in a blockbuster movie, or performing on the finale of American Idol, or headlining the Essence music festival. In fact, it seems to me that the last really big movie Alicia Silverstone starred in was 1999's Blast From the Past -- and I don't say that to insult Alicia; despite her PETA support, I really like her. Also, let's not forget that ageism, misogyny and racism are a big part of why Janet's music career has waned in the last several years -- I really hope I don't need to explain this, but in case you're confused, start by heading to your local beach and counting how many male titties you see casually and uncontroversially on display.

But what really gobsmacked me was the "unjustified death" comment, which caused me to scream the F word with so much enthusiasm that I accidentally launched a spit attack on my entire desk. Because, PETA, are you saying what I think you're saying? I...wow. How do you think Janet's gonna listen to you now, when you're bringing her DEAD BROTHER into this out of absolutely nowhere? (Either that or they're talking about slavery, which doesn't exactly improve the situation.) Did it ever occur to you that this is why nobody listens to you, why you're a water cooler punchline? Plus, given Janet's past commitment to compassionate causes, maybe you shouldn't have gone into this with the attitude that the only thing you have to gain is pissing her off. If PETA approached Janet respectfully, there's a good chance she'd listen, as she did when she stopped using a panther in her Rhythm Nation tour after animals rights groups protested.

And what the hell kind of bizarre-ass phrasing is "unjustified death," anyways? I mean, is that as opposed to justified death, like when somebody breaks into your home to kill you and you whack them in the head with a frying pan? How did we get from fur to killing home intruders anyhow? Now you've made everybody so confused that they forgot what the topic was. Good job, PETA.

It also occurred to me as I was agonizing over this that, wait a minute, what about Audrina Partridge, who was a PETA spokesperson before advertising for Carl's Jr? Do you think PETA slams her on their blog, or their favorite spokesobject, Pamela Anderson, who helped at the launch of a steakhouse/strip club in New York last year? Nope, because if you've done a photo shoot for PETA in the past, they'll never criticize you again, it seems. And let's not forget the time Olivia Munn showed up at a PETA event wearing leather boots and the PETA staffers actually defended her.

It also seems that they won't criticize you if you're a part of, shall we say, certain demographic groups. After all, aren't there tons of celebrities who wear leather that PETA isn't going after? WTF is up with that? Frankly, I'm so sick of the "fur is worse than leather" argument that claims it's worse to wear fur because leather is a byproduct of the cattle industry, and using the whole animal is apparently A-OK as long as it's a white dude doing it. Doesn't it make more sense to say that if we deal a blow to the leather industry, we also deal a blow to the cattle industry? You're taking out two targets at once if you actually try to take on the leather industry. Activist multitasking! (But given PETA's difficulty understanding the connectedness of human and animal struggles, I can't say I'm surprised that they don't get this connection, either.)

So, is PETA consistent on the no-animal-skins front? Puh-lease, you do remember who we're dealing with, right?

Behold, the dudes whom PETA apparently has no problem with: Vin Diesel wore a leather kilt while co-hosting MTV Europe Video Music Awards in 2003, and has often been photographed in leather, such as this photo where he's wearing leather pants and a leather jacket. And with how often Nathan Fillion wears leather jackets, you'd think they're his natural habitat -- just look him up on Google Images. Neither Diesel nor Fillion are mentioned anywhere on PETA's blog. 50 Cent loves his extravagant fur coats, but his only mention on PETA's blog is flattering. Adam Lambert wears so much leather so often I'm surprised the damn stuff isn't coming out of his pores, yet he's also AWOL on PETA's site.

But of course, when PETA chooses to excoriate a celebrity for wearing leather, it's a woman -- Jessica Simpson. They call women who wear fur "fur hags" but have no equivalent term for men who wear fur or leather. In fact, if you look on the right hand side of that link, you'll see that all the contestants for their 2010 Worst Dressed List are women. Now, they have called out Kanye for wearing fur, but don't think I haven't noticed that the only dude they've called out recently just so happens to be black. And, they made sure to call his girlfriend "sleazy" while they were at it, because a party wouldn't be a party at PETA HQ if nobody was being sexist and racist, amirite?

Model/actress/G4 TV-host Olivia Munn, quite popular among gaming and sci-fi nerds (like myself), just did a campaign with PETA to combat circus cruelty and showed up to the PETA event wearing leather boots. A protestor asked, “Are those boots leather?” To which PETA staff retorted, “This isn’t a leather campaign.”

You'd think that being a victim of violence would have opened Rihanna's heart to the suffering of others—like the animals who were beaten, drowned, and electrocuted for her fur coats. Girl, you've got beautiful eyes: Use them to see the pain and suffering your wardrobe causes.

In a perfect world, lobsters and crabs would be able to do their deep sea thing without being preyed upon by humans hell-bent on turning sea life into seafood. Unfortunately, we live in a woefully imperfect world in which crustaceans are routinely boiled alive or cut open while they are still conscious. That's why we're hoping that the Crustastun will catch on.

A less cruel method of slaughter, the Crustastun uses a low-voltage current to instantly render crustaceans unconscious and to kill them within five to 10 seconds. I don't think that I need to tell you what a huge improvement this is over the three minutes of pure agony that lobsters suffer though when they are cooked alive!

....

Knowing that this method will spare our crustacean comrades untold agony, we recently reached out to Tucson's Child & Family Resources concerning its upcoming annual lobster dinner fundraiser. Last year, another organization reached out to the event's organizers and tried to get them to dump the lobsters from their menu. The organizers refused, but this year we convinced them to allow to us to provide them with a Crustastun to use. The inventors of the Crustastun will be on hand to train the staff in how to use the device, which is easy to operate and guarantees the lobster a quick and painless death. And while we don't condone this event and we hope that the organization's future fundraisers will not include harming animals, we're glad that we can at least help reduce the suffering of these lobsters.