What a stupid idea.
Since taking office last summer, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has urged his employees to be creative and think outside the box.
Taking that advice to heart, the chief of the Los Angeles Animal Services Department paired with a Hooters restaurant in Hollywood for a bikini contest to raise money for city neutering and spaying programs.
But the howls of protests that greeted animal services chief Ed Boks’ fundraising plan forced him to reconsider. On Tuesday afternoon, he canceled the city’s role in the contest.
LA does have a problem with animals — they euthanize about 19,500 animals a year. That number would be much, much lower if people spayed and neutered their pets. But using half-naked chicks as bait to promote an otherwise worth-while cause? No thanks.
As a disgusting side note (stop reading now if you’d prefer to remain in the dark about the meat you eat — really), a few days ago I was watching a show on Greek TV about the American meat and fast food industry, and they showed all the stuff that U.S. television typically won’t — slaughterhouses, pigs twitching as they bled to death, the horrendous conditions that these animals live in, etc. It was sort of like a PETA brochure in motion, except even more disgusting. I had to turn the channel after a few minutes, but I did catch a piece where they interviewed a former cattle rancher about beef industry practices. He was talking about how they feed cattle all kinds of antibiotics to increase their growth, and how they also feed them all kinds of animal by-products, because meat fattens up the cows faster than grass. In addition to other cows, he casually mentioned that they also feed the cattle ground-up dogs, cats, roadkill, etc — and that euthanized animals from Los Angeles contribute quite a bit to the cows’ diet, because they’re plentiful and cheap.
I almost puked, too, and I’m seriously considering a return to vegetarianism — and barring that, I am now only buying beef from free-range cattle who only ate grass. Bon apetit.