hedgehog's dilemma (porcupine's dilemma)

The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is an analogy about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs all seek to become close to one another in order to share their heat during cold weather. However, once accomplished, they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp quills. They must step away from one another. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not occur for reasons which they cannot avoid.

Both Arthur Schopenhauer and Sigmund Freud have used this situation to describe what they feel is the state an individual will find themselves in relation to others. The hedgehog's dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak relationships. With the hedgehog's dilemma one is recommended to use moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as well as out of consideration for others. The hedgehog's dilemma is used to justify or explain introversion and isolationism.

Schopenhauer

The concept originates from German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's Parerga und Paralipomena, Volume II, Chapter XXXI, Section 396. In his English translation, E.F.J. Payne translates the German "Stachelschweine" as "porcupines". Schopenhauer's parable describes a number of hedgehogs who need to huddle together for warmth and who struggle to find the optimal distance where they may feel sufficiently warm without hurting one another. The hedgehogs have to sacrifice warmth for comfort. Schopenhauer draws the conclusion that, if someone has enough internal warmth, they can avoid society and the giving and receiving of psychological discomfort that results from social interaction.

Freud

Schopenhauer’s tale was quoted by Freud in a footnote to his 1921 essay Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Freud stated that his trip to America in 1919 was because: “I am going to America to catch sight of a wild porcupine and to give some lectures.”

social psychological research

The dilemma has received empirical attention within the contemporary psychological sciences. Jon Maner and his colleagues (Nathan DeWall, Roy Baumeister, and Mark Schaller) referred to Schopenhauer's "porcupine problem" when interpreting results from experiments examining how people respond to ostracism and other forms of social rejection. Their results revealed that, for people who are chronically anxious, the experience of rejection led people to be relatively anti-social; but among people with more optimistic dispositions, the experience of rejection led to intensified efforts to get close to others. They concluded,

This last point is worth remembering when one considers the answer that Schopenhauer himself supplied to the porcupine problem. Schopenhauer suggested that people ultimately feel compelled to retain a safe distance from each other. "By this arrangement," he wrote, "the mutual need for warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked" (1851/1964, p. 226). Of course, Schopenhauer was known for his sour temperament – "It is hard to find in his life evidences of any virtue except kindness to animals… In all other respects he was completely selfish" (Russell, 1945, p. 758) – and his philosophy was famous for its pessimism. So it is not surprising that he resigned his porcupines to a life spent shivering in the cold, fearing pain from other porcupines’ sharp quills. In real life however, the porcupine problem is often resolved in far more sociable a manner. For many people, the potential pain of prickly quills is trumped by the powerful need for social warmth.

cultural references

In Qian Zhongshu's novel "Fortress Besieged", a character explicitly deliberates about the dilemma.

The hedgehog's dilemma is a strong motif in Neon Genesis Evangelion and lends its name to the episode Hedgehog's Dilemma.

Hedgehog's Dilemma is the title of a song and EP by Jani Galbov (Maxis).

"Hedgehog's Dilemma" is the title of a two part song spanning the second and third tracks of The Postman Syndrome's release "Terraforming".

"Porcupine's Dilemma" is the title of a poem by Stephen Wack which examines the attempt at integration of retaining distance while being involved with love and relationships.

In the movie "The Thomas Crown Affair," Crown compares his relationship with Banning to "porcupines mating" in a session with his pyschiatrist.

four eyed monsters

Four Eyed Monsters is a 2005 film by Susan Buice and Arin Crumley. It roughly follows Buice and Crumley's real life relationship; the couple initially communicated only through artistic means because Arin was too shy to introduce himself to Susan. The film is a very low budget digital video production but has gained attention for its use of various web-related strategies in distribution and in its attempt to build an audience through the use of online resources, a growing trend among contemporary American indie filmmakers.

The film was shot on MiniDV using the Panasonic AG-DVX100 in Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York, Framingham, Massachusetts and Johnson, Vermont. It was edited on Apple's Final Cut Pro editing software. It debuted on the festival circuit in January 2005 at the Slamdance Film Festival where it was well received. The filmmakers hoped to obtain a conventional deal for theatrical distribution on the basis of its success at Slamdance, but nothing was forthcoming.

plot

A shy videographer (Arin) and an uninspired artist working as a waitress (Susan) meet on the Internet and spark a relationship. Fed up with the usual dating game, the two decide to not communicate verbally, only through artistic means to see if they can make it work.

video podcast

Out of their creation of the film, the Four Eyed Monsters podcast was born. It played on various places on the web, and episodes 9-13 debuted on IFC as a featured web series.

awards

Best New Directors - 2005 Brooklyn International Film Festival
Chameleon Award - 2005 Brooklyn International Film Festival
Student Jury Award - 2005 Newport International Film Festival
Special Audience Award - 2005 South by South West Film Festival
Special Mention - 2005 Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival
Nominated for Best Cinematography - 2007 Independent Spirit Awards
Nominated for John Cassavetes Award - 2007 Independent Spirit Awards
Winner of the Undiscovered Gems 2006 Showcase - Awarded 50K towards further theatrical release and 50K for a TV deal with Sundance Channel still under negotiation.

drug

A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function.There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.

In pharmacology, a drug is "a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being." Drugs may be prescribed for a limited duration, or on a regular basis for chronic disorders.

Recreational drugs are chemical substances that affect the central nervous system, such as opioids or hallucinogens. They may be used for perceived beneficial effects on perception, consciousness, personality, and behavior. Some drugs can cause addiction and habituation.

Drugs are usually distinguished from endogenous biochemicals by being introduced from outside the organism.For example, insulin is a hormone that is synthesized in the body; it is called a hormone when it is synthesized by the pancreas inside the body, but if it is introduced into the body from outside, it is called a drug.

Many natural substances such as beers, wines, and some mushrooms, blur the line between food and drugs, as when ingested they affect the functioning of both mind and body.

etymology

Drug is thought to originate from Old French "drogue", possibly deriving later into "droge-vate" from Middle Dutch meaning "dry barrels", referring to medicinal plants preserved in them.

medication

A medication or medicine is a drug taken to cure and/or ameliorate any symptoms of an illness or medical condition, or may be used as preventive medicine that has future benefits but does not treat any existing or pre-existing diseases or symptoms.

Dispensing of medication is often regulated by governments into three categories—over-the-counter (OTC) medications, which are available in pharmacies and supermarkets without special restrictions, behind-the-counter (BTC), which are dispensed by a pharmacist without needing a doctor's prescription, and Prescription only medicines (POM), which must be prescribed by a licensed medical professional, usually a physician.

In the United Kingdom, BTC medicines are called pharmacy medicines which can only be sold in registered pharmacies, by or under the supervision of a pharmacist. These medications are designated by the letter P on the label. The range of medicines available without a prescription varies from country to country.

Medications are typically produced by pharmaceutical companies and are often patented to give the developer exclusive rights to produce them, but they can also be derived from naturally occurring substance in plants called herbal medicine. Those that are not patented (or with expired patents) are called generic drugs since they can be produced by other companies without restrictions or licenses from the patent holder.

Drugs, both medicinal and recreational, can be administered in a number of ways:
Bolus, a substance into the stomach to dissolve slowly.
Inhaled, (breathed into the lungs), as an aerosol or dry powder.
Injected as a solution, suspension or emulsion either: intramuscular, intravenous, intraperitoneal, intraosseous.
Insufflation, or snorted into the nose.
Orally, as a liquid or solid, that is absorbed through the intestines.
Rectally as a suppository, that is absorbed by the rectum or colon.
Sublingually, diffusing into the blood through tissues under the tongue.
Topically, usually as a cream or ointment. A drug administered in this manner may be given to act locally or systemically.
Vaginally as a suppository, primarily to treat vaginal infections.

Many drugs can be administered in a variety of ways.

recreation

Recreational drugs use is the use of psychoactive substances to have fun, for the experience, or to enhance an already positive experience. National laws prohibit the use of many different recreational drugs and medicinal drugs that have the potential for recreational use are heavily regulated. Many other recreational drugs on the other hand are legal, widely culturally accepted, and at the most have an age restriction on using and/or purchasing them. These include alcohol, tobacco, betel nut, and caffeine products.

spiritual and religious use

entheogens

The spiritual and religious use of drugs has been occurring since the dawn of our species. Drugs that are considered to have spiritual or religious use are called entheogens. Some religions are based completely on the use of certain drugs. Entheogens are mostly hallucinogens, being either psychedelics or deliriants, but some are also stimulants and sedatives.

nootropics

Nootropics, also commonly referred to as "smart drugs", are drugs that are claimed to improve human cognitive abilities. Nootropics are used to improve memory, concentration, thought, mood, learning, and many other things. Some nootropics are now beginning to be used to treat certain diseases such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. They are also commonly used to regain brain function lost during aging.

legal definition of drugs

Some governments define the term drug by law. In the United States, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act definition of "drug" includes "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals." Consistent with that definition, the U.S. separately defines narcotic drugs and controlled substances, which may include non-drugs, and explicitly excludes tobacco, caffeine and alcoholic beverages.

governmental controls

In Canada the government has moved to remove the influence of drug companies on the medical system.“The influence that the pharmaceutical companies, the for-profits, are having on every aspect of medicine ... is so blatant now you'd have to be deaf, blind and dumb not to see it,” said Journal of the American Medical Association editor Dr. Catherine DeAngelis.

MADD(mothers against drunk driving)

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a non-profit organization that seeks to stop drunk driving, support those affected by drunk driving, prevent underage drinking, and overall push for stricter alcohol policy. The Irving, Texas–based organization was founded in 1980 by Candice Lightner after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver, Clarence Busch, a 46-year-old cannery worker.

mission

"The mission of Mothers Against Drunk Driving is to stop drunk driving, support the victims of this violent crime and prevent underage drinking."

Generally MADD favors:
Education (about the dangers of drunk driving), advocacy and victim assistance
Strict policy in a variety of areas, including an illegal blood alcohol content of .08% or higher and using stronger sanctions for DUI offenders, including mandatory jail sentences, treatment for alcoholism and other alcohol abuse issues, ignition interlock devices, and license suspensions
Helping victims of drunk driving (this includes family members and other loved ones of both innocent victims and guilty impaired drivers)
Maintaining the minimum legal drinking age at 21 years
Mandating alcohol breath-testing ignition interlock devices (IIDs) for everyone convicted of driving while legally impaired

shift from reducing DUI to reducing alcohol use

In 2002, Lightner stated that MADD "has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving". Lightner had left the group in 1985.

Immediate past President of MADD, Glynn Byrch, wrote in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post that "Taking away a teenager's car keys and replacing them with a beer may prevent death and injury on the road but it sends a dangerous message to teenagers that it's okay to break the law."

In 2005, John McCardell, Jr. wrote in The New York Times that "the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law" that has made the college drinking problem far worse.

Many who otherwise would have been sympathetic to MADD's cause feel the organization has gone too far. Radley Balko argued in a December 2002 article that MADD's policies are becoming overbearing. "In fairness, MADD deserves credit for raising awareness of the dangers of driving while intoxicated. It was almost certainly MADD's dogged efforts to spark public debate that effected the drop in fatalities since 1980, when Candy Lightner founded the group after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver," Balko wrote. "But MADD is at heart a bureaucracy, a big one. It boasts an annual budget of $45 million, $12 million of which pays for salaries, pensions and benefits. Bureaucracies don't change easily, even when the problems they were created to address change."

history

Candice (Candy) Lightner is the organizer and was the founding president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In 1980, Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver as she walked down a suburban street in California. The 46 year-old driver, who had recently been arrested for another DUI hit-and-run, left her body at the scene.

A 1983 television movie about Lightner resulted in publicity for the group, which grew rapidly.

In the early 1980s, the group attracted the attention of the United States Congress. Frank R. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Senator, did not like the fact that youth in New Jersey could easily travel into New York to purchase alcoholic beverages, thereby circumventing New Jersey's law restricting consumption to those 21-years-old and over. The group had its greatest success with the imposition of a 1984 federal law, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, that introduced a federal penalty (a 5%–later raised to 10%–loss of federal highway dollars), for states that didn't raise to 21 the minimum legal age for the purchase and possession of alcohol. After the United States Supreme Court upheld the law in the 1987 case of South Dakota v. Dole, every state and the District of Columbia capitulated by 1988 (but not the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam).

In 1985, Lightner objected to the shifting focus of MADD, and left her position with the organization.

In 1988, a drunk driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 in Kentucky caused a head-on collision with a school bus. Twenty seven people died and dozens more were injured in the ensuing fire. The Carrollton bus disaster in 1988 equaled another bus crash in Kentucky in 1958 as the deadliest bus crash in U.S. history. In the aftermath, several parents of the victims became actively involved in MADD, and one became its national president.

In 1990, MADD Canada was founded.

In 1994, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, an industry publication, released the results of the largest study of charitable and non-profit organization popularity and credibility conducted by Nye Lavalle & Associates. The study showed that MADD was ranked as the "most popular charity/non-profit in America of over 100 charities researched with 51% of Americans over the age of 12 choosing Love and Like A lot for MADD.

In 1991, MADD released its first "Rating the States" report, grading the states in their progress against drunk driving. "Rating the States" has been released four times since then.

In 1999, MADD’s National Board of Directors unanimously voted to change the organization’s mission statement to include the prevention of underage drinking.

In 2002, MADD announced an "Eight-Point Plan". This comprised:
Resuscitate the nation's efforts to prevent impaired driving.
Increase driving while intoxicated (DWI)/driving under the influence (DUI) enforcement, especially the use of frequent, highly publicized sobriety checkpoints.
Enact primary enforcement seat belt laws in all states.
Create tougher, more comprehensive sanctions geared toward higher-risk drivers.
Develop a dedicated National Traffic Safety Fund.
Reduce underage drinking.
Increase beer excise taxes to the same level as those for spirits.
Reinvigorate court monitoring programs.

In a November 2006 press release, MADD launched its Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving: this is a four-point plan to completely eliminate drunk driving in the United States using a combination of current technology (such as alcohol ignition interlock devices), new technology in smart cars, law enforcement, and grass roots activism.

Chuck Hurley has been MADD CEO since 2005. He was nominated in April 2009 by Barack Obama to run the NHTSA. Obama has since withdrawn the nomination.

funding

According to the Obama-Coburn Federal Funding Accountability Transparency Act of 2006, MADD received $56,814 in funds from the federal government in fiscal year 2000, and a total of $9,593,455 between fiscal years 2001 and 2006.

In 1994, Money magazine reported that telemarketers raised over $38 million for MADD, keeping nearly half of it in fees. This relationship no longer exists.

2001, 'Worth magazine listed MADD as one of its "10 worst charities".

In 2005, USA Today reported that the American Institute of Philanthropy was reducing MADD from a "C" to a "D" in its ratings. The Institute noted that MADD categorizes much of its fundraising expenses as "educational expenses", and that up to 58% of its revenue was expended on what the Institute considered fund-raising and management.

Charity Navigator rated MADD at 36.72 on its charity rating scale for the 2006/2007 fiscal year, based on it efficiency and capacity. MADD reported that it spent 16% of its budget on fundraising that year. Charity Navigator reported MADD's total revenue for the year as $49 million (US).

In 2009 MADD took in $41,006,038 and paid salaries of $20,537,936, over half of their income.

activities and criticism

drunk driving laws

More recently, MADD was heavily involved in lobbying to reduce the legal limit for blood alcohol from BAC .10 to BAC .08. In 2000, this standard was passed by Congress and by 2005, every state had an illegal .08 BAC limit. MADD Canada has called for a maximum legal BAC of .05. Although many MADD leaders have supported a lower limit, MADD U.S. has not yet officially called for a legal limit of .05.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) supports legislation setting the illegal blood alcohol content (BAC) limit for adult drivers who have been previously convicted of DUI/DWI at .05 per se. This lower BAC limit shall apply to these offenders for a period of five years from date of conviction and they shall be required to provide a breath test if requested by an officer following a legal traffic stop.

MADD continues to advocate the enactment of laws for more strict and severe punishment of offenders of laws against driving under the influence.

With the lobbying of MADD in conjunction with other efforts, California's state Governor Schwarzenegger has signed legislation to crackdown on DUI offenders and to prevent minors from getting alcohol. The five bills recently signed into law strengthen current DUI laws to discourage drunk drivers from getting behind the wheel and to increase penalties for underage drinking violations and the manufacturing of fraudulent ID’s.

declines in drunk driving deaths

The death rate from alcohol-related traffic accidents has declined since the 1980s. According to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), alcohol related deaths per year have declined from 26,173 in 1982 to 16,885 in 2005. MADD has argued that the group's efforts have brought about this decrease, because it claims that alcohol-related fatalities declined more than did non-alcohol-related fatalities.

However, NHTSA's definition of "alcohol-related" deaths includes all deaths on U.S. highways involving any measurable amount of alcohol (i.e. >0.01% BAC) in any person involved, including pedestrians. In 2001, for example, the NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System estimated an annual total of 17,448 alcohol-related deaths. The NHTSA breakdown of this estimate is that 8,000 deaths involved only a single car and in most of those cases the only death was the drunk driver, 5,000 sober victims were killed by legally drunk drivers, and there were 2,500 to 3,500 crash deaths in which no driver was legally drunk but alcohol was detected. Furthermore, some of the sober victims undoubtedly included those willing passengers of the drunk drivers. It should also be noted that vehicle safety has been improved since the 1980s, and this has likely resulted in a decrease in all auto fatalities, including alcohol-related deaths. Also, public attitudes are more negative toward drunk driving than they were in the early 1980s. The data also uses raw numbers rather than per capita rates. That being said, however, the number of "alcohol-related" deaths have dropped more so than non-alcohol-related ones (which actually increased in the late 1980s), which shows that the decrease in the former largely drove the substantial decrease in the total fatalities since 1982. It should also be noted that with the increasing age of the baby boomer generation,if you look at statistics on alcohol related crashes among consistent age groups (20-30 in 1985 versus 20-30 in 2005) there are no statistically significant changes in the number of drunk driver related deaths. In 1999, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluated the effectiveness of state .08% BAC laws in reducing the number and severity of crashes involving alcohol. It stated, "Overall, the evidence does not conclusively establish that .08% BAC laws, by themselves, result in reductions in the number and severity of alcohol-related crashes. There are, however, strong indications that .08% BAC laws in combination with other drunk driving laws (particularly license revocation laws), sustained public education and information efforts, and vigorous and consistent enforcement can save lives."

minimum drinking age laws

MADD argues that, given that the brain does not stop developing until the early to mid-20s, alcohol consumption damages brain development. Being a major force for having raised the drinking age, MADD also cites NHTSA data that the 21 minimum drinking age law has saved 17,000 lives since 1988, or about 900 per year. Thus, they contend that science is on their side, and vigorously oppose any attempt to lower the drinking age.

However, evidence of harm to brain development is primarily based on studies of rats and age in human years of the adolescent rats in many studies often corresponds to very early adolescence (10–13 years, as opposed to 18-20). The relatively few human studies that they cite generally consist of truly heavy drinkers (with alcohol use disorders) that began drinking well before age 18, and/or lack an over-21 comparison group. Also, the NHTSA data is giving complete credit to the drinking age for lowering drunk driving accidents in young adults, and (as stated before) defines "alcohol related" as anytime a person involved in a crash had any measurable amount of alcohol, no matter how small. In contrast, most professionals[citation needed] agree that education about the dangers of drunk driving as well as greater penalties for driving drunk were the main factors in the drop in traffic deaths. Also, none of these studies have been confirmed by unbiased sources.

This is in direct contradiction to research and experience from outside the USA. Australia and the UK have a legal drinking age of 18 and higher alcohol consumption rates but significantly lower rates of drunk driving deaths. Both countries have also seen more progress in reducing DUI fatalities than the USA did as well. Data from British research has shown those most likely to drive drunk and sustain injuries in alcohol-related car accidents are in their early 20s rather than teenagers, as in the USA. In addition, both Canada and the USA saw virtually identical declines in both overall as well as under-21 alcohol-related traffic fatalities since 1982, despite Canada's maintaining a drinking age of 18 or 19 depending on the province.

victim impact panels

MADD promotes the use of victim impact panels (VIPs), in which judges require DWI offenders to hear victims or relatives of victims of drunk driving crashes relate their experiences. MADD received $3,749,000 in 2004 from VIPs; much of this income was voluntary donations by those attending as some states, such as California, do not allow a fee to be charged to offenders for non-legislative programs. Some states in the United States, such as Massachusetts, permit victims of all crimes, including drunk driving accidents, to give "victim impact statements" prior to sentencing so that judges and prosecutors can consider the impact on victims in deciding on an appropriate sentence to recommend or impose. The presentations are often emotional, detailed, and graphic, and focus on the tragic negative consequences of DWI and alcohol-related crashes. According to the John Howard Society, some studies have shown that permitting victims to make statements and to give testimony is psychologically beneficial to them and aids in their recovery and in their satisfaction with the criminal justice system. However, a New Mexico study suggested that the VIPs tended to be perceived as confrontational by multiple offenders. Such offenders then had a higher incidence of future offenses.

grand theft auto

On April 29, 2008 MADD issued a press release criticizing the video game Grand Theft Auto IV saying it was "extremely disappointed" with the manufacturers. MADD has called on the ESRB to re-rate the game to Adults Only. They also called on the manufacturer (Rockstar) "to consider a stop in distribution – if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.". Players can drive drunk in Grand Theft Auto IV but doing so makes it harder to drive. The game also explicitly recommends that the player take a taxi instead of driving, and the character makes humorous remarks suggesting that it is bad to drive drunk; ignoring these will lead to consequences, if any police officer is around while the player is drunk driving, the player immediately becomes wanted by the police.

blood alcohol content

MADD's critics assert that the organization is focused entirely upon the presence of alcohol in the body, rather than upon the actual danger posed by any impairment, while MADD's concern is the danger posed by the presence of a specified percentage of blood alcohol. Original drunk driving laws addressed the danger by making it a criminal offense to drive a vehicle while impaired — that is, while "under the influence of alcohol"; the amount of alcohol in the body was evidence of that impairment. The level specified at that time was so high (commonly .15%) that it was not impairment, but drunkenness. In part due to MADD's influence, all 50 states have now passed laws making it a criminal offense to drive with a designated level of alcohol, based on the presumption that all persons are impaired at the level specified.

beer taxes

Balko criticizes MADD for not advocating higher excise taxes on distilled spirits, even though it campaigns for higher excise taxes for beer. He writes, "Interestingly, MADD refrains from calling for an added tax on distilled spirits, an industry that the organization has partnered with on various drunk driving awareness projects." MADD writes, "Currently, the federal excise tax is $.05 per can of beer, $.04 for a glass of wine and $.12 for a shot of distilled spirits, which all contain about the same amount of alcohol." Point 7 of MADD's 8-Point Plan is to "Increase beer excise taxes to equal the current excise tax on distilled spirits".

random roadblocks

MADD writes that “opponents of sobriety checkpoints tend to be those who drink and drive frequently and are concerned about being caught”.

Radley Balko, a writer for Reason Magazine, talks about the possible social implications of some of MADD's policies. He writes, "In its eight-point plan to 'jump-start the stalled war on drunk driving,' MADD advocates the use of highly publicized but random roadblocks to find drivers who have been drinking. Even setting aside the civil liberties implications, these checkpoints do little to get dangerous drunks off the road. Rather, they instill fear in people who have a glass of wine with dinner, a beer at a ballgame or a toast at a retirement party.".

William F. Buckley, Jr., a conservative activist, was at times critical of policies MADD supports, although he generally avoided singling out the organization. In a 2001 article, Buckley noted the paradox between political support for expanding the rights of youth in the 1960s, a movement that led to Congress enfranchising 18-year-olds, and the sudden rescinding of some rights youth enjoyed a mere two decades later. "We all know that up until the counter-Woodstock anti-alcohol putsch of a generation ago, drinking was permitted in most states after age 18. What seemed to happen simultaneously was that our lawmakers resolved (a) to forbid drinking until age 21, and (b) to permit voting at age 18," Buckley wrote.

breath alcohol ignition interlock devices

Additionally, MADD has proposed that breath alcohol ignition interlock devices should be installed in all new cars. Tom Incantalupo wrote: "Ultimately, the group said yesterday, it wants so-called alcohol interlock devices factory-installed in all new cars. "The main reason why people continue to drive drunk today is because they can," MADD president Glynn Birch said at a news teleconference from Washington, D.C."

Sarah Longwell, a spokeswoman for the American Beverage Institute responded to MADD's desire to legislate breathalyzers into every vehicle in America by stating "This interlock campaign is not about eliminating drunk driving, it is about eliminating all moderate drinking prior to driving. The 40 million Americans who drink and drive responsibly should be outraged." She also points out that "Many states have laws that set the presumptive level of intoxication at .05% and you can't adjust your interlock depending on which state you're driving in. Moreover, once you factor in liability issues and sharing vehicles with underage drivers you have pushed the preset limit down to about .02%. It will be a de facto zero tolerance policy."

Some point out that the policy assumes that citizens are guilty of drunkenness and requires them to prove themselves innocent not only before they drive but repeatedly while they drive.

A review of devices concluded, "The results of the study show that interlock works for some offenders in some contexts, but not for all offenders in all situations. More specifically, ignition interlock devices work best when they are installed, although there is also some evidence that judicial orders to install an interlock are effective for repeat DUI offenders, even when not all offenders comply and install a device. California's administrative program, where repeat DUI offenders install an interlock device in order to obtain restricted driving privileges, is also associated with reductions in subsequent DUI incidents. One group for whom ignition interlock orders do not appear effective is first DUI offenders with high blood alcohol levels."

rat pack

The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, who appeared together on stage and in films in the early-1960s, including the movie Ocean's Eleven.

Despite its reputation as a masculine group, the Rat Pack did have female participants, though not full members, including movie icons Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, Angie Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, and Judy Garland.

the fifties rat pack

The name "Rat Pack" was first used to refer to a group of friends in New York.Several explanations have been offered for the famous name over the years. According to one version, the group's original "Den Mother," Lauren Bacall, after seeing her husband (Bogart) and his friends return from a night in Las Vegas, said words to the effect of "You look like a goddamn rat pack." "Rat Pack" may also be a shortened version of "Holmby Hills Rat Pack," a reference to the home of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall which served as a regular hangout.

The name may also refer to the belief that an established pack of rats will belligerently reject an outsider who tries to join them ("Never rat on a rat"). So called "visiting members" included Errol Flynn, Nat King Cole, Mickey Rooney and Cesar Romero, however.

According to Stephen Bogart, the original members of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack were Sinatra (pack master), Garland (first vice-president), Bacall (den mother), Sid Luft (cage master), Bogart (rat in charge of public relations), Swifty Lazar (recording secretary and treasurer), Nathaniel Benchley (historian), David Niven, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, and Jimmy Van Heusen. In his autobiography The Moon's a Balloon, Niven confirms that the Rat Pack originally included him but not Sammy Davis Jr. or Dean Martin.

the sixties rat pack

The 1960s version of the group included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and for a brief stint, Norman Fell. Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Juliet Prowse, and Shirley MacLaine were often referred to as the "Rat Pack Mascots", a title which reportedly made these ladies feel like "one of the boys". The post-Bogart version of the group (Bogart died in 1957) was reportedly never called that name by any of its members — they called it the Summit or the Clan. "The Rat Pack" was a term used by journalists and outsiders, although it remains the lasting name for the group.

Often, when one of the members was scheduled to give a performance, the rest of the Pack would show up for an impromptu show, causing much excitement among audiences, resulting in return visits. They sold out almost all of their appearances, and people would come pouring into Las Vegas, sometimes sleeping in cars and hotel lobbies when they could not find rooms, just to be part of the Rat Pack entertainment experience. The marquees of the hotels at which they were performing as individuals would read, for example, "DEAN MARTIN - MAYBE FRANK - MAYBE SAMMY" as seen on a Sands Hotel sign.

Peter Lawford was a brother-in-law of President John F. Kennedy (dubbed "Brother-in-Lawford" by Sinatra), and the group played a role in campaigning for him and the Democrats, appearing at the July 11, 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Lawford had asked Sinatra if he would have Kennedy as a guest at his Palm Springs house in March 1963, and Sinatra went to great lengths (including the construction of a helipad) to accommodate the President. When Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy advised his brother to sever his ties to Sinatra because of the entertainer's association with Mafia figures such as Sam Giancana, the stay was cancelled.Kennedy instead chose to stay at rival Bing Crosby's estate, which further infuriated Sinatra. Lawford was blamed for this, and Sinatra "never again had a good word for (him)" from that point onwards. Lawford's role in the upcoming 4 for Texas was written out, and his part in Robin and the Seven Hoods was given to Bing Crosby.

On June 20, 1965, Sinatra, Martin, and Davis, with Johnny Carson as the emcee (subbing for Bishop, who was out with a bad back), performed their only televised concert together during the heyday of the Pack at the Kiel Opera House in St. Louis, a closed-circuit broadcast done as a fundraiser for Dismas House (the first halfway house for ex-convicts). Thirty years later Paul Brownstein tracked down a print of the "lost" show in a St. Louis closet. It has since been broadcast on Nick at Night (in 1998) as part of The Museum of Television & Radio Showcase series and released on DVD as part of the Ultimate Rat Pack Collection: Live & Swingin.

later years

In 1981, Martin and Davis appeared together in the film Cannonball Run, and were joined by Sinatra in the sequel Cannonball Run II. This would be the last time that the three would appear in a movie together. (Shirley MacLaine also appears in the latter film).

revival

In December 1987, at Chasen's restaurant in Los Angeles, Sinatra, Davis, and Martin announced a 29 date tour, called Together Again, sponsored by HBO and American Express. At the press conference to announce the tour, Martin joked about calling the tour off, and Sinatra rebuked a reporter for using the term "Rat Pack," referring to it as "that stupid phrase".

Dean Martin's son, Dean Paul Martin, had died in a plane crash in March 1987 on the San Gorgonio Mountain in California, the same mountain where Sinatra's mother, Dolly, had been killed in a plane crash ten years earlier. Martin had since become increasingly dependent on alcohol and prescription drugs. Davis had had hip replacement surgery two years previously, and been estranged from Sinatra because of his usage of cocaine. Davis was also experiencing severe financial difficulties, and was promised by Sinatra's people that he could earn between six and eight million dollars from the tour.

Martin had not made a film or recorded since 1983, and Sinatra felt that the tour would be good for Martin, telling Davis, "I think it would be great for Dean. Get him out. For that alone it would be worth doing". Sinatra and Davis still performed regularly, yet had not recorded for several years. Both Sinatra and Martin had made their last film appearances together, in 1984's Cannonball Run II, a film which also starred Davis. This marked the trio's first feature film appearance since 1964's Robin and the 7 Hoods. Martin expressed reservations about the tour, wondering whether they could draw as many people as they had in the past. After private rehearsals, at one of which Sinatra and Davis had complained about the lack of black musicians in the orchestra, the tour began at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on March 13, 1988.

To a sold-out crowd of 14,500, Davis opened the show, followed by Martin and then Sinatra; after an interval, the three performed a medley of songs. During the show, Martin threw a lighted cigarette at the audience; this, coupled with his increasingly blasé attitude to the tour and his frustration with Sinatra's anger over hotel accommodation in Chicago, led to his leaving the tour after only four performances. Martin cited 'kidney problems' as the reason for his departure. Eliot Weisman, Sinatra's representative, suggested replacing Martin with his client, Liza Minnelli. With Minnelli, the tour was called The Ultimate Event, and continued internationally to great success.

Davis's associate recalled Sinatra's people skimming the top of the revenues from the concerts, as well as stuffing envelopes full of cash into suitcases after the performances. Eliot Weisman had already been convicted of skimming, the act of taking money before it has been accounted for taxation purposes, after a series of Sinatra performances at the Westchester Premier Theatre in 1976, eventually being sentenced to six years in prison for the offence. In August 1989, after Davis experienced throat pain, he was diagnosed with throat cancer; he would die of the disease in May 1990. Davis was buried with a gold watch that Sinatra had given him at the conclusion of The Ultimate Event Tour.

A 1989 performance of The Ultimate Event in Detroit was recorded and shown on Showtime the following year as a tribute to the recently deceased Davis. A review in The New York Times praised Davis's performance, describing him as "pure, ebullient, unapologetic show business."

legacy

Concerning the group's reputation for womanizing and heavy drinking, Joey Bishop stated in a 1998 interview: "I never saw Frank, Dean, Sammy, or Peter drunk during performances. That was only a gag! And do you believe these guys had to chase broads? They had to chase 'em away!"

The five key members of the sixties Rat Pack are now deceased:
Peter Lawford died on December 24, 1984 of cardiac arrest complicated by kidney and liver failure at the age of 61.
Sammy Davis, Jr. died at the age of 64 on May 16, 1990, of complications from throat cancer.
Dean Martin died at home on Christmas morning 1995, aged 78.
Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, at the age of 82.
Joey Bishop, the last surviving and longest-lived (89) male Rat Pack member, died on October 17, 2007.

rat pack films

It Happened in Brooklyn (1947) (Sinatra, Lawford)
Some Came Running (1958) (Sinatra, Martin, and MacLaine)
Never So Few (1959) (Sinatra, Lawford, and initially Davis)
Ocean's Eleven (1960) (Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Lawford, and Bishop)
Sergeants 3 (1962) (Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Lawford, and Bishop)
4 for Texas (1963) (Sinatra and Martin)
Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964) (Sinatra, Martin, Davis, and initially Lawford)
Marriage on the Rocks (1965) (Sinatra and Martin)
Texas Across the River (1966) (Martin and Bishop)
Salt and Pepper (1968) (Davis and Lawford)
One More Time (1970) (Davis and Lawford)
The Cannonball Run (1981) (Martin and Davis)
Cannonball Run II (1984) (Martin, Davis, Sinatra, and Maclaine)

MacLaine also had a major supporting role (and Sinatra a cameo) in the 1956 Oscar-winning film Around the World in Eighty Days. MacLaine played a Hindu princess who is rescued by, and falls in love with, David Niven, and Sinatra had a non-speaking, non-singing role as a piano player in a saloon, whose identity is concealed from the viewer until he turns his face toward the camera. Maclaine also briefly appears in Ocean's Eleven. The 1984 film Cannonball Run II marked the final time members of the Rat Pack shared theatrical screen time together.

moustache

A moustache is facial hair grown on the outer surface of the upper lip. It may or may not be accompanied by a beard, hair around the entire face.

The word "moustache" derives from 16th century French moustache, which in turn is derived from the Italian mostaccio (14th century), dialectal mustaccio (16th century), from Medieval Latin mustacium (8th century), Medieval Greek moustakion (attested in the 9th century), which ultimately originates as a diminutive of Hellenistic Greek mustax (mustak-) "moustache", probably derived from Hellenistic Greek mullon "lip".

history

Shaving with stone razors was technologically possible from Neolithic times, but the oldest portrait showing a shaved man with a moustache is an ancient Iranian (Scythian) horseman from 300 BC.

In Western cultures women generally avoid the growth of facial hair; though some are capable, the majority of these women use some form of depilation to remove it. In rare circumstances, women may choose to embrace this growth, often in the form of thin moustaches. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo famously depicted herself in her artwork with both a moustache and a unibrow. This tradition is followed by some contemporary women in the arts.

in male adolescence

The moustache forms its own stage in the development of facial hair in adolescent males.Facial hair in males normally appears in a specific order during puberty:

The first facial hair to appear tends to grow at the corners of the upper lip(age 11-15),

It then spreads to form a moustache over the entire upper lip(age 16-17),

This is followed by the appearance of hair on the upper part of the cheeks, and the area under the lower lip(age 16-18),

It eventually spreads to the sides and lower border of the chin, and the rest of the lower face to form a full beard(age 17-21).

As with most human biological processes, this specific order may vary among some individuals depending on one's genetic heritage or environment.

care

Most men with a normal or strong moustache tend it daily, by shaving the hair of the chin and cheeks, to prevent it from becoming a full beard. A variety of tools have been developed for the care of moustaches, including moustache wax, moustache nets (snoods), moustache brushes, moustache combs and moustache scissors.

styles

At the World Beard and Moustache Championships 2007 there were 6 sub-categories for moustaches:

Natural – Moustache may be styled without aids.

Mexican – Big and bushy, beginning from the middle of the upper lip and pulled to the side. The hairs are allowed to start growing from up to a maximum of 1.5 cm beyond the end of the upper lip.

Dalí – narrow, long points bent or curved steeply upward; areas past the corner of the mouth must be shaved. Artificial styling aids needed. Named after Salvador Dalí.

English – narrow, beginning at the middle of the upper lip the whiskers are very long and pulled to the side, slightly curled; the ends are pointed slightly upward; areas past the corner of the mouth usually shaved. Artificial styling may be needed.

Imperial – whiskers growing from both the upper lip and cheeks, curled upward (distinct from the royale, or impériale)

Freestyle – All moustaches that do not match other classes. The hairs are allowed to start growing from up to a maximum of 1.5 cm beyond the end of the upper lip. Aids are allowed.

Other types of moustache include:

Fu Manchu – long, downward pointing ends, generally beyond the chin;

'Pancho Villa' moustache – similar to the Fu Manchu but thicker; also known as a "droopy moustache", generally much more so than that normally worn by the historical Pancho Villa.

Handlebar – bushy, with small upward pointing ends. See baseball pitcher Rollie Fingers. Also known as a "spaghetti moustache", because of its stereotypical association with Italian men.

Horseshoe – Often confused with the Fu Manchu style, the horseshoe was possibly popularized by modern cowboys and consists of a full moustache with vertical extensions from the corners of the lips down to the jawline and resembling an upside-down horseshoe. Also known as "biker moustache".

Pencil moustache – narrow, straight and thin as if drawn on by a pencil, closely clipped, outlining the upper lip, with a wide shaven gap between the nose and moustache, widely recognized as being the moustache of choice for the fictional character Gomez Addams of The Addams Family. Also known as a Mouthbrow, worn by John Waters, Sean Penn and Chris Cornell.

Chevron – thick and wide, usually covering the top of the upper lip. Comedian Jeff Foxworthy and NASCAR driver Richard Petty wear Chevrons.

Toothbrush – thick, but shaved except for about an inch (2.5 cm) in the center; associated with Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy, and Robert Mugabe.

Walrus – bushy, hanging down over the lips, often entirely covering the mouth. Worn by John Bolton, Dick Strawbridge, Wilford Brimley and Jamie Hyneman

notable moustaches

The longest recorded moustache belongs to Bajansinh Juwansinh Gurjar of Ahmedabad, India. It had not been cut for 22 years and was 12 feet, 6 inches long in 2004.

In some cases, the moustaches are so prominently identified with a single individual that it could be identified with him without any further identifying traits, such as in the case of Adolf Hitler. In some cases, such as with Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin, the moustache in question was artificial for most of their lives.

Jonathan Easley's foray into journalism is marked by the appearance of a moustache.

The American composer and musician Frank Zappa is so identifiable by his moustache that after his death its image was copyrighted by the Zappa Family Trust.

Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, was also well-known for the distinctive moustache he wore in the 1980s.

Kaiser Wilhelm II's moustache, grossly exaggerated, featured prominently in Entente propaganda.

U.S. Air Force ace Robin Olds became celebrated for the flowing handlebar moustache he grew while commanding the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing "Wolfpack" during the Vietnam War, and when forced to shave it by his superior became the source of an Air Force tradition known as "Moustache March".

The French actor François-Alexandre Galipedes used the stage name “Moustache” in reference to his luxurious facial hair. He appeared in the 1966 William Wyler movie How To Steal A Million.

in art and fiction

Moustaches have long been used by artists to make characters distinctive as with Charlie Chan, Snidely Whiplash, Hercule Poirot, or the video game character Mario. They have also been used to make a social or political point as with Marcel Duchamp's parody of the Mona Lisa which adds a goatee and moustache or the moustachioed self portraits of Frida Kahlo. At least one fictional moustache has been so notable that a whole style has been named after it: the Fu Manchu moustache.

Salvador Dalí published a book dedicated solely to his moustache.

Moustache was the alias name of a French comic actor.

in sport

The Liverpool sides of the late 1970s to late 1980s were famously notable for numbers of moustachioed players, including Mark Lawrenson, Graeme Souness, Bruce Grobbelaar, Terry McDermott and Ian Rush.

For the 2008 Summer Olympics Croatia men's national water polo team grew moustaches in honor of coach Ratko Rudić.

In the early 1970s, Major League Baseball players seldom wore facial hair. As detailed in the book Mustache Gang, Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley decided to hold a moustache-growing contest within his team. When the A's faced the Cincinnati Reds, whose team rules forbade facial hair, in the 1972 World Series, the series was dubbed by media as "the hairs vs. the squares".

Swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals while sporting a moustache when swimmers usually shaved all their body hair to decrease drag. When other competitors questioned the moustache and the potential increased drag, he claimed that it helped create a pocket of air to breathe.

South African rugby union coach Peter De Villiers also has a moustache, and is derisively known as Piet Snor (Peter Moustache). In 2008 De Villiers was nicknamed "Twakkie" in a public competition held by the South African Sunday Times newspaper - this in reference to a local fictional character with a similar moustache from the SABC's "The Most Amazing Show".

NHL player George Parros is well known for his moustache, of which fans can buy replicas of at the team store, with proceeds going to charity. Parros also has a line of apparel called "Stache Gear" that benefits The Garth Brooks Teammates For Kids Foundation.

Steven Cozza, a professional cyclist from the United States, has found much love from European cycling fans for his horseshoe mustache; facial hair is unusual in the professional peloton.

did americans in 1776 have british accents?

Reading David McCullough’s 1776, I found myself wondering: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? If so, when did American accents diverge from British accents?

The answer surprised me.

I’d always assumed that Americans used to have British accents, and that American accents diverged after the Revolutionary War, while British accents remained more or less the same.

Americans in 1776 did have British accents in that American accents and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. That’s not too surprising.

What’s surprising, though, is that those accents were much closer to today’s American accents than to today’s British accents. While both have changed over time, it’s actually British accents that have changed much more drastically since then.

First, let’s be clear: the terms “British accent” and “American accent” are oversimplifications; there were, and still are, many constantly-evolving regional British and American accents. What many Americans think of as “the British accent” is the standardized Received Pronunciation, also known as “BBC English.”

The biggest difference between most American and most British accents is rhotacism. While most American accents are rhotic, the standard British accent is non-rhotic. (Rhotic speakers pronounce the ‘R’ sound in the word “hard.” Non-rhotic speakers do not.)

So, what happened?

In 1776, both American accents and British accents were largely rhotic. It was around this time that non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper class. This “prestige” non-rhotic speech was standardized, and has been spreading in Britain ever since.

Most American accents, however, remained rhotic.

There are a few fascinating exceptions: New York and Boston accents became non-rhotic, perhaps because of the region’s British connections in the post-Revolutionary War era. Irish and Scottish accents are still rhotic.

10 Incredible Artists Unappreciated in Their Time

Sometimes artists are ahead of their time, and their work simply isn’t as beloved or highly regarded by people during their lifetime as it is by those in the generations that follow. Artists, writers and musicians can all fall into this unfortunate phenomenon, robbing them of the credit they deserve for their genius. Here are ten great artists you’re bound to learn about during your university studies, who simply weren’t appreciated for the work they produced during their time.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890): Today, Van Gogh’s work sells for unprecedented prices and is some of the most valuable and highly sought after in the world. His Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for $82.5 million in 1990, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever sold. In his time, however, Van Gogh was a failed, starving artist. He produced more than 2,000 works of art, but sold only two during his lifetime. Suffering with mental illness and further depressed by his lack of success, Van Gogh committed suicide at the age of 37. Van Gogh’s post-Impressionist style, filled with emotion, movement and vibrancy, was not popular during his life but would go on to influence decades of artists that followed, and his works remain some of the most highly regarded paintings in modern art.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924): Few artists ever have terms in the English language coined after them, but Kafka’s influence should be evident in the wide – and perhaps over – usage of the term "Kafkaesque." While today he is seen as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, he enjoyed little to none of this success during his lifetime. His main income came from work as an insurance officer and later helping to operate an asbestos factory. Yet, Kafka’s true passion was writing and he eventually quit working to focus on his art. Kafka may very well have been appreciated during his time had a wider audience gotten to see his work, but the author died from starvation brought on by tuberculosis at age 40, before much of his work had been published or even finished. Kafka asked his close friend to burn all his work on his death, but luckily for the literary world, he didn’t and today people the world over can enjoy his dry humor and existential take on the world.

El Greco (1541-1614): Domenikos Theotokopoulos, or El Greco as he came to be known, wasn’t an entirely unsuccessful artist during his lifetime. Born in Crete, he studied in Rome and Venice before settling down in Toledo, Spain, where he created some of his best known paintings for the Spanish royal family. While El Greco found work and made a comfortable living as an artist, he was largely panned by art critics. The works he painted for the royal family displeased the king and dashed all hopes he had for becoming a court painter. His work was laughed at, scorned and within the larger art community, ignored. It was not until the 19th century that his work saw the attention it deserved. It became an inspiration for the artists that would push forth the Expressionist and Cubist movements, drawing inspiration from El Greco’s dramatic compositions and bizarrely elongated and distorted figures. Spanish artists of the late 19th and early 20th Century paraded his works through the streets and critics, artists and everyday people now laud his work as that of a true artistic genius and pioneer– status he never attained during his own time.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Today, even those who know little of classical music will recognize the name Bach. Yet during his lifetime, Bach was successful not as a composer of unique musical arrangements, but as a highly respected and competent organist. While he was intimately involved in music and did win acclaim for his work within it, his work as a composer largely went unrecognized, save that which involved the organ. It was not until a revival in interest in the works of the Baroque period during the early 19th Century that the true value of his musical compositions was truly appreciated. While he did not innovate a new musical style, Bach brought Baroque music to its pinnacle, adapting the style and making it his own by bringing in musical elements from Italy and France and enriching his native German style. In modern times, he is regarded as one of the greatest composers ever, and it’s hard to imagine that his work wasn’t lauded during his own period.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862): It’s hard to imaging Thoreau today as a struggling writer and unappreciated artist given his widespread success and name recognition, but during his own time, Thoreau wasn’t a widely known or read author. His work, praising the importance of appreciating the natural world, preaching social activism, and peppered with symbolism and hidden meanings was unique and different and society at the time was perhaps not quite ready for it. Thoreau could not find a publisher for many of this works, and in one case took money out of his own pocket to publish, selling only a fraction of those that he printed. At the time of his death, Thoreau had published only two books which were not well-received by the larger public. While he enjoyed the support of authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau was an unknown in the literary world and only received attention for his works in the 20th century. Today, his work has served as the inspiration for great leaders, artists and thinkers and is regarded as one of the greats in American literature.

John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969): An American novelist from New Orleans, Toole’s work A Confederacy of Dunces won him a Pulitzer Prize in fiction. You wouldn’t think that would be a recipe for an unappreciated artist, but his work was not published nor praised until nearly 12 years after his death. Toole’s lack of success and widespread acceptance as a writer during his lifetime wasn’t from a lack of trying. He submitted his famous novel to publisher Simon & Schuster, where he was told it needed major revisions and that ultimately, it was not publishable. Distraught over his lack of success and rejection, Toole took off on a journey around the country, killing himself in a cabin in Mississippi at the age of 31. It was not until Toole’s mother brought his novel to writer Walker Percy that it was published and received the attention that it, and he, deserved.

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675): Check out any art history text these days and you’re bound to see page after page dedicated to this Dutch Baroque painter. A fictional novel and a movie were made that were inspired by one of his better known works. Yet Vermeer wasn’t always the art historical star that he is today. During his lifetime, Vermeer made a respectable living as an artist, painting small genre scenes but never achieving particular wealth or widespread name recognition as an artist. His masterly treatment of light and color and careful treatment of the subjects in his work did bring him high regard in the Netherlands during his life, but upon his death he was a forgotten and obscure artist for almost two centuries. It was not until art historians Waagen and Thore-Burger published an essay on him in the 19th century that his work came to light in the larger art world. Today, the limited number of works he created (only 34) and his high level of skill make him one of the most sought-after artists in the world.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849): Poe wasn’t always seen as the master of the macabre that he is today. In fact, he struggled most of his life to make a living as a writer, often making only a few dollars for the publication of some of the works that are his most famous today. Plagued by the death of his young wife, alcoholism and financial troubles, Poe moved from place to place trying to sell his work, stay out of trouble and make a life as a writer. His depression and addiction finally grew to be too much and under mysterious circumstances, Poe was found dead in an alley at the age of 40. While his work did see publication during his lifetime, it certainly didn’t see widespread success, nor was it as appreciated as it is today for its style or content. Today, Poe’s work is known the world over and he is credited with helping bring credibility to the short story, detective fiction and science fiction.

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903): Gauguin’s close friendship with Van Gogh should make it no surprise that the two shared a similar fate in the art world during their lifetimes. Today, we can look at Gauguin’s work as heralding in the Symbolist movement, paving the way for new artistic styles and famous painters who would come after him. Yet during his life, Gauguin was a bit of an outsider and never received widespread success for his work. Gauguin deserted a prosperous life as a stockbroker and his family to live and paint in the South Pacific. Yet Gauguin didn’t find the idealized paradise he sought out on these islands, nor the success he so desired as an artist. His work was appreciated by few and even ridiculed when presented in the Post-Impressionist exhibit of 1910 in London. It was not until the 1940s that his work saw widespread success in the marketplace and was appreciated by a larger audience. Today, his paintings rank among some of the most expensive in modern art and few critics would ridicule his work.

John Keats (1795-1821): It might be unfair to say that Keats wasn’t appreciated in his own time because his life was so short, but even while he was alive, this Romantic poet’s works weren’t especially well-received. Critics panned his work and he was recognized as a talent mainly by other poets, not a wider audience. Keats didn’t get much time to prove his talent to himself or anyone else — he died of tuberculosis at age 25, believing himself a failure. While a small circle of academics praised his work soon after his death, it was not until 1890 that he became recognized as one of the greatest Romantic poets. Today, Keats’ works are some of the most studied in English literature classes, and his life and his works have become the subject of numerous books and movies both in academic and popular culture.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and two million members and supporters, it says it is the largest animal rights group in the world. Its slogan is "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment."

Founded in March 1980 by Newkirk and animal rights activist Alex Pacheco, the organization first caught the public's attention in the summer of 1981 during what became known as the Silver Spring monkeys case, a widely publicized dispute about experiments conducted on 17 macaque monkeys inside the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The case lasted ten years, involved the only police raid on an animal laboratory in the United States, triggered an amendment in 1985 to that country's Animal Welfare Act, and established PETA as an internationally known organization. Since then, in its campaigns and undercover investigations, it has focused on four core issues—opposition to factory farming, fur farming, animal testing, and animals in entertainment—though it also campaigns against fishing, the killing of animals regarded as pests, the keeping of chained backyard dogs, cock fighting, dog fighting, and bullfighting.

The group has been the focus of criticism from inside and outside the animal rights movement. Newkirk and Pacheco are seen as the leading exporters of animal rights to the more traditional animal protection groups in the United States, but sections of the movement nevertheless say PETA is not radical enough—law professor Gary Francione calls them the new welfarists, arguing that their work with industries to achieve reform makes them an animal welfare, not an animal rights, group. Newkirk told Salon in 2001 that PETA works toward the ideal, but tries in the meantime to provide carrot-and-stick incentives. There has also been criticism from feminists within the movement about the use of scantily clad women in PETA's anti-fur campaigns, and criticism in general that the group's media stunts trivialize animal rights. Newkirk's view is that PETA has a duty to be "press sluts".

Outside the movement, the confrontational nature of PETA's campaigns has caused concern, as has the number of animals it euthanizes. It was further criticized in 2005 by United States Senator Jim Inhofe for having given grants several years earlier to Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) activists. PETA responded that it has no involvement in ALF or ELF actions and does not support violence, though Newkirk has elsewhere made clear that she does support the removal of animals from laboratories and other facilities, including as a result of illegal direct action.

history

ingrid newkirk

Newkirk was born in England in 1949 and raised in Hertfordshire, and later New Delhi, India, where her father—a navigational engineer—was stationed. Newkirk, now an atheist, was educated in a convent, the only British girl there. She moved to the United States as a teenager, first studying to become a stockbroker, but after taking some abandoned kittens to a shelter in 1969, and appalled by the conditions she found there, she choose a career in animal protection instead. She became an animal protection officer for Montgomery County, then the District of Columbia's first woman poundmaster. By 1976 she was head of the animal-disease-control division of D.C.'s Commission on Public Health, and in 1980 was among those named as Washingtonian of the Year. She told Michael Specter of The New Yorker that working for the shelters left her shocked at the way the animals were treated:

I went to the front office all the time, and I would say, "John is kicking the dogs and putting them into freezers." Or I would say, "They are stepping on the animals, crushing them like grapes, and they don't care." In the end, I would go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself. Because I couldn't stand to let them go through that. I must have killed a thousand of them, sometimes dozens every day. Some of those people would take pleasure in making them suffer. Driving home every night, I would cry just thinking about it. And I just felt, to my bones, this cannot be right.

In 1980, she divorced Steve Newkirk, whom she had married when she was 19, and the same year met Alex Pacheco, a political major at George Washington University. Pacheco had studied for the priesthood, then worked as a crew member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's first ship. He volunteered at the shelter where she worked, and they fell in love and began living together, though as Kathy Snow Guillermo writes they were very different—Newkirk was older and more practical, whereas Pacheco could barely look after himself. He introduced Newkirk to Peter Singer's influential book, Animal Liberation (1975), and in March 1980 she persuaded him to join her in forming People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, at that point just five people in a basement, as Newkirk described it. They were mostly students and members of the local vegetarian society, but the group included a friend of Pacheco's from the UK, Kim Stallwood, a British activist who went on to become the national organizer of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection . Pacheco was reluctant at first. "It just didn't sound great to me," he told The Los Angeles Times in 1992." I had been active in Europe ... and I thought there were just too many formalities. I thought we should just do things ourselves. But she made a convincing case that Washington needed a vehicle for animals because the current organizations were too conservative."

silver spring monkeys

The group first came to public attention in 1981 during the Silver Spring monkeys case, a dispute about experiments conducted by researcher Edward Taub on 17 macaque monkeys inside the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The case led to the first police raid in the United States on an animal laboratory, triggered an amendment in 1985 to the United States Animal Welfare Act, and became the first animal-testing case to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld a Louisiana State Court ruling that denied PETA's request for custody of the monkeys.

Pacheco had taken a job in May 1981 inside a primate research laboratory at the Institute, intending to gain firsthand experience of working inside an animal laboratory. Taub had been cutting sensory ganglia that supplied nerves to the monkeys' fingers, hands, arms, and legs—a process called "deafferentation"—so that the monkeys could not feel them; some of the monkeys had had their entire spinal columns deafferented. He then used restraint, electric shock, and withholding of food and water to force the monkeys to use the deafferented parts of their bodies. The research led in part to the discovery of neuroplasticity and a new therapy for stroke victims called constraint-induced movement therapy.

Pacheco visited the laboratory at night, taking photographs that showed the monkeys living in what the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research's ILAR Journal called filthy conditions. He passed his evidence to the police, who raided the lab and arrested Taub. Taub was convicted of six counts of animal cruelty, the first such conviction in the United States of an animal researcher, overturned on appeal. Norm Phelps writes that the case followed the highly publicized campaign of Henry Spira in 1976 against experiments on cats being performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and Spira's subsequent campaign in April 1980 against the Draize test. These and the Silver Springs monkey case jointly put animal rights on the agenda in the United States.

The ten-year battle for custody of the monkeys—described by The Washington Post as a vicious mud fight, during which both sides accused the other of lies and distortion— transformed PETA into a national, then international, movement. By February 1991, it claimed over 350,000 members, a paid staff of over 100, and an annual budget of over $7 million.

philosophy and activism

profile

PETA writes that it is an animal rights organization, and as such it rejects speciesism and the idea of animals as property, and opposes the use of animals in any form: as food, clothing, entertainment, or as research subjects. One oft-cited quote of Newkirk's is: "When it comes to feelings like hunger, pain, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." The group has been criticized by other animal rights advocates for its willingness to work with industries that use animals—a position many animal rights advocates find problematic. Newkirk rejects the criticism, and has said of the group that it is here to hold the radical line.

PETA lobbies governments to impose fines where animal-welfare legislation has been violated, promotes a vegan diet, tries to reform the practices in factory farms and slaughterhouses, goes undercover into animal research laboratories, farms, and circuses, initiates media campaigns against particular companies or practices, helps to find sanctuaries for former circus and zoo animals, and initiates lawsuits against companies.

The group has two million members and supporters, it received donations of over $32 million for the year ending July 31, 2009, and its website was receiving four million hits a month as of November 2008. Over 80 percent of its operating budget was spent on its programs in 2008-2009, 15 percent on fundraising, and four percent on management and general operations. Thirty-two percent of its staff earned under $30,000, 24 percent over $40,000, and Newkirk just under $37,000.

Pacheco left the group in 1999, and since then the two key staff members next to Newkirk have been Bruce Friedrich, director of vegan outreach—a devout Catholic who spent years working in soup kitchens, and who gives 20 percent of his income to the church—and Dan Mathews, the group's senior vice-president.

campaigns and consumer boycotts

The organization is known for its aggressive media campaigns, combined with a solid base of celebrity support—Pamela Anderson, Drew Barrymore, Alec Baldwin, John Gielgud, Bill Maher, Stella McCartney, and Alicia Silverstone have all appeared in PETA ads. Every week, Newkirk holds what The New Yorker calls a war council, with two dozen of her top strategists gathered round a square table in the PETA conference room, no suggestion considered too outrageous. PETA also gives a yearly prize, called the Proggy Award (for "progress"), to individuals or organizations dedicated to animal welfare or who distinguish themselves through their efforts within the area of animal welfare.

Many of the campaigns have focused on large corporations. Fast food companies such as KFC, Wendy's, and Burger King have been targeted. In the animal-testing industry, PETA's consumer boycotts have focused on Avon, Benetton, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Chesebrough-Pond's, Dow Chemical, General Motors, and others. Their modus operandi includes buying shares in target companies such as McDonald's and Kraft Foods in order to exert influence. The campaigns have delivered results for PETA. McDonald's and Wendy's introduced vegetarian options after PETA targeted them; Petco stopped selling some exotic pets; and Polo Ralph Lauren said it would no longer use fur. Avon, Estee Lauder, Benetton, and Tonka Toy Co. all stopped testing products on animals, the Pentagon stopped shooting pigs and goats in wounds tests, and a slaughterhouse in Texas was closed down.

As part of its anti-fur action, PETA members have infiltrated hundreds of fashion shows in the U.S, Europe, and once in China, throwing red paint on the catwalks, and unfurling banners. Celebrities and supermodels have posed naked for the group's "I'd Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur" campaign—some men, but mostly women—triggering criticism from feminist animal rights advocates. The New Yorker writes that PETA activists have crawled through the streets of Paris wearing leg-hold traps and thrown around money soaked in fake blood at the International Fur Fair. They regularly engage in pie-throwing—in January 2010, Canadian MP Gerry Byrne compared them to terrorists for throwing a tofu cream pie at Canada's fishery minister Gail Shea in protest at the seal hunt, a comment Newkirk called a silly chest-beating exercise. "The thing is, we make them gawk," she told Satya magazine, "maybe like a traffic accident that you have to look at."

Some campaigns have been particularly controversial. Newkirk was criticized in 2003 for sending a letter to PLO leader Yasser Arafat asking him to keep animals out of the conflict, after a donkey was blown up during an attack in Jerusalem. The group's 2003 "Holocaust on your Plate" exhibition—eight 60-square-foot (5.6 m2) panels juxtaposing images of Holocaust victims with animal carcasses and animals being transported to slaughter—was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League. In July 2010, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that PETA's campaign was not protected by free speech laws, and banned it within Germany as an offense against human dignity. In 2005, the NAACP complained about the "Are Animals the New Slaves?" exhibit, which showed images of African-American slaves, Native Americans, child laborers, and women, alongside chained elephants and slaughtered cows.

PETA's "It's still going on" campaign features newspaper ads comparing widely-publicized murder-cannibalization cases to the deaths of animals in slaughterhouses. The campaign has attracted significant media attention, controversy and generated angry responses from the victims' family members. Ads were released in 1991 describing the deaths of the victims of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, in 2002 describing the deaths of the victims of serial killer Robert William Pickton, and in 2008 describing the murder of Tim McLean. In several cases, newspapers have refused to run the ads.

The group has also been criticized for aiming its message at young people. "Your Mommy Kills Animals" features a cartoon of a woman attacking a rabbit with a knife. To reduce milk consumption, it created the "Got Beer?" campaign, a parody of the dairy industry's series of Got Milk? ads, which featured celebrities with milk "mustaches" on their upper lips. When the mayor of New York, Rudolf Giuliani, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000, PETA ran a photograph of him with a white mustache and the words "Got prostate cancer?" to illustrate their claim that dairy products contribute to cancer, an ad that caused an outcry in the United States. After PETA placed ads in school newspapers linking milk to acne, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and strokes, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and college officials complained it encouraged underage drinking; the British Advertising Standards Authority asked that the ads be discontinued after complaints from interest groups such as The National Farmers' Unions.The other campaigns are less confrontational and more humorous. In 2008, it launched the "Save the Sea Kittens" campaign to change the name of fish to "sea kittens" to give them a positive image, and it regularly asks towns to adopt a new name. It campaigned in 1996 for a new name for Fishkill, New York, and in April 2003 offered free veggie burgers to Hamburg, New York, if it would call itself Veggieburg.

undercover investigations

PETA sends its staff undercover into research laboratories, factory farms, and circuses to document the treatment of animals, requiring them to spend many months as employees of the facility, making copies of documents and wearing hidden cameras. By 2007, it had conducted 75 such investigations. It has also produced videos based on material collected during ALF raids. Some investigations have led to lawsuits or government action against the companies or universities. PETA itself faced legal action in April 2007 after the owners of a chinchilla ranch in Michigan complained about an undercover inquiry there, but the judge ruled in PETA's favor that undercover investigations can be legitimate.

Notable cases include the 26-minute film PETA produced in 1984, Unnecessary Fuss, based on 60 hours of researchers' footage obtained by the ALF during a raid on the University of Pennsylvania's head injury clinic. The footage showed researchers laughing at baboons as they inflicted brain damage on them with a hydraulic device intended to simulate whiplash. Laboratory animal veterinarian Larry Carbone writes that the researchers openly discussed how one baboon was awake before the head injury, despite protocols being in place for anaesthesia. The ensuing publicity led to the suspension of funds from the university, the firing of its chief veterinarian, the closure of the lab, and a period of probation for the university.

In 1990, two PETA activists posed as employees of Carolina Biological, where they took pictures and video inside the company, alleging that cats were being mistreated. Following the release of PETA's tapes, the USDA conducted their own inspection and subsequently charged the company with seven violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Four years later, an administrative judge ruled that Carolina Biological had not committed any violations.

In 1990, Bobby Berosini, a Las Vegas entertainer, lost his wildlife license, as well as (on appeal) a later lawsuit against PETA, after the group broadcast an undercover film of him slapping and punching orangutans in 1989. In 1997, a PETA investigation inside Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), a contract animal-testing company, produced film of staff in the UK beating dogs, and what appeared to be abuse of monkeys in the company's New Jersey facility. After the video footage aired on British television in 1999, a group of activists set up Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty to close HLS down, a campaign that continues.

In 1999, a North Carolina grand jury handed down indictments against pig-farm workers on Belcross Farm in Camden County, the first indictments for animal cruelty on a factory farm in the United States, after a three-month PETA investigation produced film of the workers beating the animals. In 2004, PETA published the results of an eight-month undercover investigation in a West Virginia Pilgrim's Pride slaughterhouse that supplies chickens to KFC. The New York Times reported the investigation as showing workers stomping on live chickens, throwing dozens against a wall, tearing the head off a chicken to write graffiti, strangling one with a latex glove, and squeezing birds until they exploded. Yum Brands, owner of KFC, called the video appalling, and threatened to stop purchasing from Pilgrim's Pride if no changes were made; Pilgrim's Pride fired 11 employees, and introduced an anti-cruelty pledge for workers to sign.

In 2004 and 2005, PETA shot footage inside Covance, an animal-testing company in the United States and Europe, that appeared to show monkeys being mistreated in the company's facility in Vienna, Virginia. According to The Washington Post, PETA said an employee of the group filmed primates there being choked, hit, and denied medical attention when badly injured. After PETA sent the video and a 253-page complaint to the United States Department of Agriculture, Covance was fined $8,720 for 16 citations, three of which involved lab monkeys; the other citations involved administrative issues and equipment. The company said none of the issues were pervasive or endemic, and that they had taken corrective action. In 2005 Covance initiated a lawsuit charging PETA with fraud, violation of employee contract, and conspiracy to harm the company's business, but did not proceed with it.

PETA also goes undercover into circuses. In 2006, they filmed trainers at Carson & Barnes Circus—including Tim Frisco, the animal-care director—striking elephants while shouting at them; The Washington Post writes that the video shows Frisco shouting "Make 'em scream!" A company spokesman dismissed PETA's concerns as 'Utopian philosophical ideology," but said the circus would no longer use electric prods.

positions

on direct action and the ALF

Newkirk is outspoken in her support of direct action, writing that no movement for social change has ever succeeded without what she calls the militarism component: "Thinkers may prepare revolutions," she wrote of the ALF in 2004, "but bandits must carry them out."

In 2004 The Observer described what it called a network of relationships between apparently unconnected animal rights groups on both sides of the Atlantic, writing that, with assets of $6.5 million, and with the PETA Foundation holding further assets of $15 million, PETA funds a number of activists and groups—some with links to militant groups, including the ALF, which the FBI has named as a domestic terrorist threat. American writer Don Liddick writes that PETA gave $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front in 2001—Newkirk said the donation was a mistake, and that the money had been intended for public education about destruction of habitat, but Liddick writes that it went to the legal defense of Craig Rosebraugh, an ELF spokesman. That same year, according to The Observer, PETA gave a $5,000 grant to American animal rights activist Josh Harper, an advocate of arson.

According to Liddick, PETA has substantial links with Native American ALF activist Rod Coronado. He alleges that two Federal Express packages were sent to an address in Bethesda, Maryland, before and after a 1992 fire at Michigan State University that Coronado was convicted of setting, reportedly as part of "Operation Bite Back," a series of ALF attacks on American animal testing facilities in the 1990s. The first package was picked up by a PETA employee, Maria Blanton, and the second intercepted by the authorities, who identified the handwriting as Coronado's. Liddick writes that the package contained documents removed from the university and a videotape of one of the perpetrators. When they searched Blanton's home, police found some of the paraphernalia of animal liberation raids, including code names for Coronado and Alex Pacheco—PETA's co-founder—burglary tools, two-way radios, and fake identification. Liddick also writes that PETA gave Coronado $45,000 for his legal bills and another $25,000 to his father.

Newkirk is a strong supporter of direct action that removes animals from laboratories and other facilities—she told The Los Angeles Times in 1992 that when she hears of anyone walking into a lab and walking out with animals, her heart sings. In an interview for Wikinews in 2007, she said she had been asked by other animal protection groups to condemn illegal acts. "And I won't do it, because it were my animal I'd be happy." But she added that she does not support arson. "I would rather that these buildings weren't standing, and so I think at some level I understand. I just don't like the idea of that, but maybe that's wishy-washy of me, because I don't want those buildings standing if they hurt anyone ... Why would you preserve [a building] just so someone can make a profit by continuing to hurt and kill individuals who feel every bit as much as we do?"

on neutering, backyard dogs, working animals, and pets

PETA runs several programs though its Community Animal Project that helps cats and dogs in poorer areas of Virginia, near its headquarters. In 2008 they neutered 7,485 cats, dogs, and rabbits in that area, including pit bulls and feral cats, at a discounted rate or free of charge. They help neglected dogs and cats who are ill and injured, and pursue cruelty cases. Each year they set up hundreds of dog houses with straw bedding for dogs chained outside all winter. They urge population control through neutering and adoption from shelters, and campaign against organizations such as the American Kennel Club that promote the breeding of purebred strains.

PETA argues that it would have been better for animals had the institution of breeding them as "pets" never emerged, that the desire to own and receive love from animals is selfish, and that their breeding, sale, and purchase can cause immeasurable suffering. They write that millions of dogs spend their lives chained outside in all weather conditions or locked up in chain-link pens and wire cages in puppy mills, and that even in good homes animals are often not well cared for. They would like to see the population of dogs and cats reduced through spaying and neutering, and for people never to purchase animals from pet shops or breeders, but to adopt them from shelters instead. PETA supports hearing dog programs where animals are taken from shelters and placed in appropriate homes, but does not endorse seeing-eye-dog programs because, according to one of their Vice Presidents, "the dogs are bred as if there are no equally intelligent dogs literally dying for homes in shelters."

on euthanasia

PETA opposes the no kill movement. The group takes in feral cat colonies with diseases such as feline AIDS and leukemia, stray dogs, litters of parvo-infected puppies, and backyard dogs, and says that it would be unrealistic to follow a no-kill policy in such instances. They offer free euthanasia services to counties that kill unwanted animals via gassing or shooting—they recommend the use of an intravenous injection of sodium pentobarbital if administered by a trained professional, and for severely ill or dying pets when euthanasia at a veterinarian is unaffordable. They recommend euthanasia for certain breeds, such as pit bull terriers, and in certain situations for animals in shelters: for example, for those living for long periods in cramped cages.

Two PETA employees were acquitted in 2007 of animal cruelty, but convicted of littering, after at least 80 euthanized animals were left in dumpsters in a shopping center in Ashoskie over the course of a month in 2005; the two employees were seen leaving behind 18 dead animals, and 13 more were found inside their van. The animals had been euthanized after being removed from shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties. The group said it began euthanizing animals in some rural North Carolina shelters after it found the shelters killing animals in ways PETA considered inhumane.

on wildlife conservation personalities

PETA is critical of television personalities they call self-professed wildlife warriors, arguing that while a conservationist message is getting across, some of the actions are harmful to animals, such as invading animals' homes, netting them, subjecting them to stressful environments, and wrestling with them—often involving young animals the group says should be with their mothers. In 2006 when Steve Irwin died, PETA's vice-president Dan Mathews said Irwin had made a career out of antagonizing frightened wild animals. Australian Member of Parliament Bruce Scott said PETA should apologize to Irwin's family and the rest of Australia.

on animal testing

PETA opposes animal testing—whether toxicity testing, basic or applied research, or for education and training—on both moral and practical grounds. Newkirk told Vogue magazine in 1989 that even if it resulted in a cure for AIDS, PETA would oppose it. The group also believes that it is wasteful, unreliable, and irrelevant to human health, because artificially induced diseases in animals are not identical to human diseases. They say that animal experiments are frequently redundant and lack accountability, oversight, and regulation. They promote alternatives, including embryonic stem cell research and in vitro cell research. PETA employees have themselves volunteered for human testing of vaccines; Scott Van Valkenburg, the group's Director of Major Gifts, said in 1999 that he had volunteered for human testing of HIV vaccines.

position within the animal rights movement

Robert Garner of the University of Leicester writes that Newkirk and Pacheco are the leading exporters of animal rights to the more moderate groups in the United States—both members of an animal rights elite that he argues has shaken up the animal rights movement, setting up new groups and radicalizing old ones.

There is criticism of PETA from both the conservative and radical ends of the movement. Michael Specter writes that it provides for groups such as the Humane Society of the United States the same dynamic that Malcolm X provided for Martin Luther King, or Andrea Dworkin for Gloria Steinem—someone radical to alienate the mainstream and make moderate voices more appealing. The failure to condemn the Animal Liberation Front triggers complaints from the conservatives, while the more radical activists say the group has lost touch with its grassroots, is soft on the idea of animal rights, and that it should stop the media stunts, the pie-throwing, and the targeting of women. "It's hard enough trying to get people to take animal rights seriously without PETA out there acting like a bunch of jerks," one activist told writer Norm Phelps.

The ads featuring barely clad or naked women have appalled feminist animal rights advocates. When Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis posed naked for Playboy, donating half her $100,000 fee to PETA, the group issued a press release saying Davis "turns the other cheek in an eye-opening spread," then announced she had been photographed naked with Hugh Hefner's dog for an anti-fur ad. In 1995, PETA formed a partnership with Playboy to promote human organ donation, with the caption "Some People Need You Inside Them" on a photograph of Hefner's wife. The long-standing campaign, "I'd rather go naked than wear fur," in which celebrities and supermodels strip for the camera, generated particular concern.

Newkirk has replied to the criticism that no one is being exploited, the women taking part are volunteers, and if sexual attraction advances the cause of animals, she is unapologetic.Asked by Wikinews how she feels when criticized from within the movement, she said: "Somebody has to push the envelope. If you say something that someone already agrees with, then what's the point, and so we make some more conservative animal protection organizations uncomfortable; they don't want to be associated with us because it will be embarrassing for them, and I understand that. Our own members write to us sometimes and say, 'Oh why did you do this? I don't want anyone to know I'm a PETA member.'"

Gary Francione, professor of law at Rutgers School of Law-Newark, argues that PETA is not an animal rights group—and further that there is no animal rights movement in the United States—because of their willigness to work with industries that use animals to achieve incremental change. This makes them an animal welfare group, in Francione's view: what he calls the new welfarists. A proponent of abolitionism, Francione argues that PETA is trivializing the movement with what he calls the "Three Stooges" theory of animal rights, making the public think progress is underway when the changes are only cosmetic.

Like Francione, PETA describes itself as abolitionist. Newkirk told an animal rights conference in 2002 that PETA's goal remains animal liberation: "Reforms move a society very importantly from A to B, from B to C, from C to D. It's very hard to take a nation or a world that is built on seeing animals as nothing more than hamburgers, handbags, cheap burglar alarms, tools for research, and move them from A to Z ..."

Francione has also criticized PETA for having caused grassroots animal rights group to close, groups that he argues were essential for the survival of the animal rights movement, which rejects the centrality of corporate animal charities. Francione writes that PETA initially set up independent chapters around the United States, but closed them in favor of a top-down, centralized organization, which not only consolidated decision-making power, but centralized donations too. Now, local animal rights donations go to PETA, rather than to a local group.