I am not a big supporter of PETA but I have to agree with them on this one.
I am not sure if it'll ruin Aiken's rep or not but he certainly is not
commenting on the ad either. I think Aiken is going to have to live with
what he said. He said he hates cats and called them Satan and as a cat lover
I was disgusted. I rooted for Aiken during American Idol but I think as I
re-read his comments it makes me regret doing so. Like I said before I saw
an interview where he said he ran over his cat but he also didn't seem to be
too bent out of shape about it either. The camera never lies. If you say
something negative then you have to learn to deal with it. I found the PETA
ad to be somewhat light compared to their more fierce campaigns. BTW, if any
of you have seen Triumph on shows like Conan O'Brien his skits are pretty
funny. Nobody takes that fake dog seriously. Aiken will have to live with
the fallout. There are two sides to being famous and you have to learn to
live with both sides.
"Rona Yuthasastrakosol" wrote in message
...
I'm taking this on to Lauren's post, just because it was the beginning of
this thread, not because I think any of what I have to say applies to her.
Here's the full article from Rolling Stone Clay Aiken and PETA. The
asterisks in the second paragraph were added by me, to draw attention to
the
context of the comment made by Clay Aiken.
from http://www.rollingstone.com/news/new...973&cf=2046795
---begin paste---
In a landmark display of canine-feline solidarity, Triumph the Insult
Comic
Dog has lashed out at professed kitty-hater Clay Aiken in a new ad
campaign
for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The print ad shows
Triumph
with a band-aid over his recently neutered doggy-bits and a post-surgery
collar, and reads, "Get Neutered: It didn't hurt Clay Aiken."
Though the barb was Triumph's own, PETA went along thanks in part to
comments that Aiken made in a recent Rolling Stone article. "I think cats
are Satan," Aiken said. "There's nothing worse to me than a house cat.
When
I was about sixteen, I had a kitten and ran over it. *****Seeing that cat
die, I actually think that its spirit has haunted me. I wasn't afraid of
cats before. But now they scare me to death.*****"
"It's a stupid statement," says PETA Vice President Dan Matthews. "We get
calls every week from people who throw kittens on barbecues because it's
funny. Or people who light cats on fire, or people who drag cats from
cars.
It's so irresponsible that we wrote him after that interview came out and
he
never got back to us. So we thought, you know, fair game, let's go for
it."
According to PETA, with animal shelters overflowing, neutering and spaying
cats and dogs saves shelter-workers from having to put animals to death
when
suitable homes cannot be found. Because Triumph's new album, Come Poop
With
Me, is full of jokes about losing his private parts, he seemed a perfect
spokes-puppet.
"There's already been a huge response," says Matthews, whose office has
been
bombarded by calls from angry Clay-mates. "When we explain why, they
understand it a bit better. In the end it's just funny. If you look at the
awful thing Clay said about cats, our ad in response is a pretty
lighthearted way to even up the score."
A spokesman for Clay Aiken had not comment on the ad.
DAVID SWANSON
---end paste---
At the risk of being flamed, I think people who thought "Clay called cats
"satan" so he must be a bad person and we should hate him and try to ruin
his reputation" are not that far off *in spirit* from those who might
think,
"Clay called cats "satan" so cats must be bad and we should do evil things
to them." Two sides of the same coin, in my opinion.
rona (donning flame-retardant clothing)
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