People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announced this week an ambitious new initiative aimed at changing the way people perceive mules. The program was announced by PETA spokesperson Barb Arians in an emotional, sometimes acrimonious press conference. “This represents a confident new direction for PETA. We’ve long focused on getting everybody to go vegetarian. That hasn’t worked out too well yet.”
According to Arians, recent marketing research shows the vegetarian message has failed for two main reasons. Meat tastes good, and PETA is a farily ridiculous organization.
“So we realize now, we can’t get people to stop eating animals until we convince people that animals are people too. Our new mission starts today, with encouraging everyone to stop disparaging the jackass.”
The presentation was briefly interrupted by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien announcing loudly she’d just learned Tofu enchiladas were the buffet main menu item. Ms. O’Brien stormed out muttering something about “I’ll get you Anderson Cooper.”
Once order was restored, PETA spokesperson Arians urged the few remaining journalists to consider O’Brien’s tirade a ‘teachable moment’ in future conversations.
“Many of you would likely return home after this work day and tell your life partners ‘Soledad acted like a complete jackass today’ wouldn’t you? Such statements are unfair to jackasses. That is what we are trying to express in our great leap forward. When a human behaves badly, don’t compare them to a jackass. After all, mules had nothing to do with Ms. Obrien’s frustration about our delicious meat-free buffet. We should think of animals differently than we think of people.”
The press conference was again interrupted, this time by High Times correspondent Kurt Turgisson shouting from the fourth row. “Hey lady, didn’t you say like six hours ago that animals were the same as people? Now you’re saying they’re different? Mules are the people who transport drugs across borders, right? So of course mules are people.”
Once order was again restored, Ms. Arians clarified her organization’s position on this pressing matter. “We can’t get everybody to go vegetarian until we stop the use of animal names as insults. This comparison of bad human behavior with animals contributes to a perspective of animals as not quite human. We mean to stop it, starting with the jackass.”
The controversy is expected to continue, since now nobody knows what to call Alec Baldwin.