SQUEAL LIKE A PIG
They’re known for in-your-face tactics, but People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals’ latest pro-vegetarian campaign may do as good a job of arousing
Christians as it does meat-eaters. This week, just in time for the Easter holiday,
PETA says it purchased billboard advertising at Stevenson Drive and South Sixth
with the message: “He Died for Your Sins – Go Vegetarian.” A pig appears on
the billboard.
What did the Illinois Pork Producers Association think of the billboard, which
was slated to go up near their offices at 6411 South Sixth St.? Not much.
“PETA’s latest ad campaign to promote their anti-meat agenda is disgraceful
and insensitive,” says executive director Jim Kaitschuk. “It is absurd for this
group to use a sacred and celebrated religious holiday like Easter as another
negative attack on animal agriculture.”
TALK TO ME
The Renatta Frazier story has gone national. This week, the ex-Springfield
city cop hit the talk show circuit with an appearance on “Tavis Smiley Show,”
which is carried on NPR affiliates coast-to-coast but not in central Illinois.
Smiley, a former Black Entertainment Television personality, also interviewed
Illinois Times staff writer Dusty Rhodes, whose October 2002 investigation
found that Frazier had been falsely accused of failing to prevent the rape of
another officer’s daughter. The City Council on Tuesday approved a settlement
with Frazier, which should pay her nearly $650,000. The first part of Frazier’s
interview aired Tuesday; Rhodes’ was scheduled for broadcast on Friday. Rebroadcasts
of Smiley’s program can be found at www.npr.org/programs/tavis/
TRADE TALKS
The fair-trade debate comes to Springfield as the campus group United
Students Against Sweatshop hosts three leading advocates of workers’ rights.
Scheduled speakers are Blanca Valazques Diaz, a Mexican labor activist; the
Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, senior minister of Plymouth Congregational United
Church of Christ in Washington, D.C., and comedian Dave Lippman. The free event
is at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 13, at UIS in PAC Conference Room C.
This article appears in Apr 8-14, 2004.
