Peta

Browns coach Eric Mangini was encouraged by two days of meetings with Ravens pro personnel director George Kokinis and indicated his longtime friend will soon be Cleveland's new general manager. Kokinis spoke with team owner Randy Lerner yesterday and could be days away from joining the club. It is not known whether Lerner offered Kokinis a contract. Patriots: : Quarterback Tom Brady said his rehabilitation from season-ending knee surgery was "going really well," but he did not offer any timetable for a return to the football field.

They have finally gone too far: insulting one man's meatloaf. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has attacked Paul Christ's bread and butter -- his $2.65 meatloaf lunch special.Meatloaf causes impotence?! Say that to our faces!!"Eating Meat Can Cause Impotence" says the latest, in-your-face billboard from PETA, the Virginia-based animal rights group now with a Baltimore connection. The billboard is plastered on a storage building on E. Monument Street, seductively overlooking Paul Christ's Dog House restaurant, where the motto is, "Our Meatloaf is Made -- Not Accumulated."

NORFOLK, Va. -- Baby, it's cold outside, that time of year when the outlawed F-word appears. Not fall. Fur. Meaning that here, in the offices of PETA -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- it's prime time. Yes, it's PETA -- the acronym you've come to love or loathe. So what better time for a pop quiz on the animal-rights group. Take out a No. 2 pencil and begin:True or false? PETA believes your cat should be a vegetarian. True.True or false? PETA employees spend weekends feeding the homeless veggie burgers.

NEWS ITEM: Santa's reindeer have been barred from the Christmas Pageant for Peace, Washington's official holiday display. The National Park Service agreed to remove Dasher, Prancer & Co. following complaints from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal-rights group.-- Associated Press, Dec. 13, 1996BOSTON, Dec. 23, 2014 -- Hard to believe now, but it wasn't until 1996 -- just 18 years ago -- that the rehabilitation of Santa Claus began in earnest. PETA's effortless victory in excluding Santa's reindeer from the national Christmas pageant that year encouraged other progressive organizations to mount challenges of their own.The Ms. Foundation and the National Organization for Women were among the first to follow in PETA's footsteps.

Zoo's progress not yet completeReading the Sept. 6 column by Jeff Jacoby, "The suffering of a mother bird," made me think of a recent morning visit to the Baltimore Zoo. It was my first glimpse of the chimpanzee house, and it served to point out how far the zoo has come in doing a good job in placing animals and birds in their natural habitats.It's a far cry from when I brought my own kids there in the 1960s. But the poor tigers. They do stand out as majestic, intense animals still relegated to the same (albeit bigger)

SOME PEOPLE might call it ironic, but it was because of AIDS that I first became involved with animal rights. When my dearest friend, Robert Redding -- who helped me develop the Elvira "Mistress of the Dark," character -- found out he had AIDS, I was determined to keep him going until a cure was found. I was always looking for anything that would make him feel better, and one of the things I heard about was a macrobiotic diet. But the only way I could talk Robert into it was to do it with him. After a while we lapsed from the macrobiotic diet, but Robert and I both stayed vegetarians, and I began reading more about vegetarianism.

FOR 14 YEARS I've carried the label "HIV positive" and all the baggage that goes with it. But through the darkest of moments I could always depend on one symbol to lift my spirits -- the tiny red ribbon worn by compassionate people throughout the country, but especially by Hollywood celebrities. To me, the ribbon -- worn as a sign of compassion for people with AIDS -- had always been a reminder that when much of the world turned its back on those suffering from the disease, or simply lost interest, Hollywood opened her arms and kept the world's attention focused on this terrible plague.

The world has turned upside down. I'm reading the Washington Post recently and there's a with a column championing gay rights. Yes, that Barry Goldwater."

Eight people, including a woman who wore a giant white bunny suit and handcuffed herself to the Loews Annapolis Hotel, were arrested yesterday during a protest against the Gillette Co.'s use of animals in product testing.Gillette officials were in town for a safety and regulatory meeting, said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which organized the protest.PETA says Gillette burns animals' skin and eyes when testing products ranging from liquid paper to shaving cream.The eight were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.

THOUGHTS for the day:"Inequality exists. So do discrimination and sexism. A true power feminism would urge women to stand their ground and fight against the individuals who commit these offenses. A truly new feminism would recognize an old truth: the man who does not take his female co-worker seriously because of her sex is a jerk, not a part of systematic oppression of women by the 'opposition.' "-- Karina Rollins in The Public Interest, Summer 1994.* * *FILM and TV superstar Mary Tyler Moore is so disgusted by fur that she shipped her sable coat and hat to PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals]

Browns coach Eric Mangini was encouraged by two days of meetings with Ravens pro personnel director George Kokinis and indicated his longtime friend will soon be Cleveland's new general manager. Kokinis spoke with team owner Randy Lerner yesterday and could be days away from joining the club. It is not known whether Lerner offered Kokinis a contract. Patriots: : Quarterback Tom Brady said his rehabilitation from season-ending knee surgery was "going really well," but he did not offer any timetable for a return to the football field.

No fumble: Brady pops question; model says yes New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady proposed to supermodel Gisele Bundchen on a private jet on Christmas Eve - and she said yes, TMZ.com is reporting. Brady, who, it said, is famous for his quarterbacking skills and running errands for Bundchen, proposed aboard a jet that took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and landed in Boston. There were four dozen white roses on board, as well as champagne. Her parents were also onboard.

Gifts of gems pass quickly through the hands of Condoleezza Rice Arab leaders showered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with jewelry worth more than a quarter of a million dollars last year, including at least $316,000 in gem-encrusted baubles from the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, making her one of top recipients among U.S. officials of gifts from foreign heads of state and government and their aides in 2007. In January, Jordan's King Abdullah II gave Rice an emerald and diamond necklace, ring, bracelet and earrings estimated to be worth $147,000, according to the State Department's annual inventory of such items released yesterday just in time for Christmas.

The Ravens probably have enough on their plate right now, what with a new coach and a new quarterback and Derrick Martin's recent citation for alleged marijuana possession and impersonation of a Cincinnati Bengal, but they still found time to run afoul of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA has sent a letter of protest to Ravens vice president for marketing Gabrielle Dow concerning the team's plan to feature a pair of actual ravens during pre-game player introductions at M&T Bank Stadium during the coming season.

Finally, an answer for that age-old question: What part of the chicken does the nugget come from? Answer: maybe not from a chicken at all. The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is offering a $1 million prize for laboratory-produced meat that tastes like fried chicken. Of course, there's a lot of fried stuff that tastes like chicken, but PETA is quite firm on the laboratory bit. They expect scientists to grow the meat in vitro - without killing any animals.

New in hoosgow chow: veggie burgers, tofurkey and mock dogs. Faux meat has gone mainstream among those who are, alas, no longer in the mainstream. Most correctional institutions around the nation offer vegetarian entrees at all meals, according to a new survey by the Norfolk, Va.-based animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The group has also looked at colleges (very veggie) and ballparks (not as much) and insists there has been a response to growing demand in the nation's institutions, some of which haven't often been at the forefront of wholesome eating.

And now let's go to the infield to interview the Fantastic Two. During Sunday's NASCAR telecast on Fox, reporter Steve Byrnes was set up to interview four cast members from the new Fantastic Four movie. However, he introduced only Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis. (OK, to be perfectly honest, Mr. Flip recognizes only those two, also. For the record, the other half of the four is composed of Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffudd.) Byrnes talked about the movie briefly and then ended by expressing his outrage that Alba finished behind Lindsay Lohan in Maxim magazine's "Hot 100" list.

One of Baltimore's biggest companies, Constellation Energy Group, could be gobbled up by a Florida utility. What's the most serious fallout for Charm City? Losing one of Baltimore's last Fortune 500 companies? Bummer, but we'd get over it. Losing thousands of jobs. Even bigger bummer. Losing Molly Shattuck as a Ravens cheerleader. Ugh! Perish the thought! I phoned Ms. Molly the other day as news of the merger was spreading to ask what it meant for her cheerleading career. If CEO-hubby Mayo had to look for a new job, would she limit his search to NFL cities?

PETA isn't a bother most of the time. The animal rights group's efforts are often annoying, sometimes laughable, but rarely craven and vile. Until recently. My first inclination was to ignore the latest outrageous stunt by the Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals rather than give it any ink. I held my tongue several years ago when it implored The Sun to stop covering fishing. I didn't comment when PETA asked the Boy Scouts to stop giving out fishing merit badges.

McDonald's Corp., the world's largest restaurant chain and one of the largest buyers of chicken, is considering requiring its processors to use a more humane method for slaughtering poultry. The hamburger chain said yesterday that it is studying a slaughtering method known as controlled-atmosphere killing, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved process that kills chickens by slowly replacing oxygen with argon or nitrogen in the air they breathe. The chickens quickly go to sleep. The company said that some of its European suppliers already are using the newer method, which replaces one in which chickens, hanging from a moving conveyer line, are pulled through a vat of water that is charged with electricity.