Clark: PETA puts passers-by into win-fin situation
Kooky members of PETA want us to stop fishing because fish can feel pain and are intelligent.
Yeah?
Well I’ve never heard of a fish passing the Mensa entrance exam.
And if fish are such geniuses why haven’t they figured out how to avoid all the nets, hooks and tuna cans?
True, a blowfish could fill in for our county prosecutor without anyone noticing. But the same could be said for a hand puppet or a peanut shell.
Fish IQ aside, there’s no question about the three shirtless actors who pretended to be dead fish in a Wednesday PETA protest in Spokane.
They’re dumber than a box of bait.
Daubed with gray-blue body paint and wearing gauzy fins, the trio spent the good part of an hour with their bare backs pressed against the sidewalks at Main and Stevens.
Sure, they had this flimsy piece of netting to sprawl on. But that’s no protection.
Have you seen the spit-caked condition of our downtown sidewalks lately? If these idiots don’t wind up with a staph infection or a flesh-eating disease it’ll be a miracle.
The three didn’t speak during the protest. Next to their bodies were signs that read, “Suffocated” and “Gutted Alive.”
I knew PETA would leave out the most important description of all.
“Tasty!”
That’s why I crashed the PETA party. I wanted to present an alternative (read: sane) point of view by giving away Filet-O-Fish sandwiches that were hot off the grill from a nearby McDonald’s.
“Getcher free fish sandwich,” I hollered.
“You can’t enjoy the protest on an empty stomach!”
Don’t thank me. Thank the newsroom petty cash supply.
Someone told me the PETA spokesboob called me insensitive.
Really?
During a 2003 visit to Spokane, some PETA ass clowns compared the deaths of chickens in the poultry industry to the genocide of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
Their display included large death camp photographs of skin-and-bone bodies tossed into enormous piles. Juxtaposed next to this nightmare were photographs of hens cramped in cages at a chicken plant.
“To animals,” read a caption, “all people are Nazis.”
This is the sort of perverse, radical nonsense that PETA is known for.
And I’m insensitive?
Maybe so. But I was pretty popular, too.
Gawkers scarfed down my supply of 32 fish sandwiches in less than 10 minutes.
Everyone who took one was all smiles.
“I need one of those,” said Ryan Blackhurst, one of the lucky eaters, who added: “I wonder if their next protest will be about the corn screaming when it gets picked.”
If so I’ll bring cornbread.
Not to complain, but this PETA stunt didn’t live up to all the “naked” hype.
OK, the two dudes were topless. But the fish actress had the business end of her breasts covered with some sort of star-shaped stickers.
That’s falsie advertising.
My pal Scott Cooper and I arrived at the protest site ahead of the protestors, a little before noon.
The only other person there was a woman police officer who was sitting in her squad car.
I offered her a fishwich to be polite and to let her know what game I was playing.
“You’re not gonna be naked, are you?” she asked, declining my free meal deal. “Don’t do that to me.”
You know, that’s the nicest thing a Spokane cop has said to me in ages.