Can I bring someone to your dinner party?

PETA Threatens Ice Cream Production in the state of Vermont

So in case you missed it in my profile, I'm confessing it now. I am an Aries.

Now, I don't dabble much in the occult anymore since having kids, so my Aries-ocity basically means scanning my Thursday thru Sunday horoscope (saving on newspapers due to my continuing efforts to do my share, I'll pony up for a half subscription) and receiving a message along the lines of these recent samplings:

Aries
March 21-April 19
You need to refrain from expressing any opinions today.


Aries
March 21-April 19
You need to stop yourself from adding fuel to the fires around you.

Aries
March 21-April 19
You need to stop offending everyone around you with your snarky observations.

Aries
March 21-April 19
Have you tried counting to 10 before you speak?

Aries
March 21-April 19
You need to just apply duct tape over your mouth today and play it safe.

So as a life long Aries by birth, I've learned that sometimes opening my mouth in public will cause some embarrassment along the way so I've learned to seek out other people who may open their mouths and say something stupid and/or offensive and try to sit next to them at parties to minimize my own astrological shortcomings.

So I have but one small request for the hosts of the next dinner party I'm coming to and I guess that would be my good friends The Krug: Please invite the spokesperson for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to my Brookfield following) 'cause I want to sit next to her.

Now you might be asking yourselves, who wouldn't want to sit next to the PETA chick 'cause that probably means more meat and dairy for me? No, the latest press release from this person has landed her into the offensive comment Hall of Fame with this little tidbit as seen in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Friday September 26:

"Moove over, Holsteins, PETA wants world-famous Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream to tap nursing moms, rather than cows, for the milk used in its ice cream."

Once I stopped laughing, I could read that the article went on to say:

"If Ben & Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers--and cows--would reap the benefits," wrote Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of the animal-rights advocacy group.

Ok Tracy, maybe you possess a potentially gender neutral name so you don't exclude either sex, but I'm going to assume you are a woman and that you never have lactated because most of what people read on the Internet is based on assumptions.

Based on your proposal, it is cruel and unusual to milk a cow for the purposes of producing ice cream, but nursing mommies are fair game for the pump--through which they'd have to produce 1.5 gallons of milk to make a gallon of ice cream (not sure the physics involved in liquid to solid transformations, but I double checked this in the article and that's what it said). Now, Ben and Jerry won't say how much they'd need to tap to stay competitive in the ice cream market that has taken a hit as our country becomes increasingly dependent of foreign cows, but 1.5 gallons of milk is, well, a gi-normous sum to take out of one or even two, breasts and that would yield only one gallon of Chunky Monkey!!

For my friends who bottle fed, let me share a memory from the moment my own homemade milk came in after the birth of my son. I was producing what seemed like an extraordinary amount of the liquid gold from both sides, crying profusely while I did it and even my tears were made of milk, pumping both breasts and crying the proverbial river, I expressed the amazing sum of 8 fluid ounces of milk. A gallon and a half would be a heck of a lot more. Even for the over achievers in the nursing hall of fame like my sister Anja, who nursed multiple children simultaneously and even in public long before it was en vogue to do so.

The article goes on to say "Ashley Byrne, a campaign co-coordinator for PETA (alert: bullsh** title if I ever saw one--what does PETA ever run for?) acknowledged the implausibility of substituting breast milk for cow's milk, but said it was no stranger than humans consuming the milk of another species."

Really Ashley-Never-Lactated-Either-Byrne? No stranger than packing a Milk Chug in Junior's lunch? Hooking up weeping post-partum mommies to pumps for hours so that tourists in Vermont could partake in Cherry Garcia with less guilt? Not strange, cruel or unusual at all, but here is a sampling of "man on the street" responses, my favorite part of any news story:

"It's kind of creepy," said Jeff Waugh, 42 of Dayton, Ohio.

"I think its a little nutty," said Rev. Roger Wooton, 83 of Malden Massachusettes.

"How would they get all that milk?" said his wife, Jane Wooton, 77.

"Breast pumps just weren't that much fun. You really do feel like a cow," said Jen Wahlbrink, 34, of Phoenix Arizona.

Fortunately, the crack PR team at Ben & Jerry's took the high road when declining this marketing ploy:

"We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," spokesman Sean Greenwood said.

While Greenwood's response certainly won't get him an invite to the Krug dinner party, we applaud his common sense approach. Even the spokeswoman for La Leche League International, Jane Crouse, couldn't back this with a straight face (Though I personally feel she held back a bit): "Cow's milk and mother's milk aren't interchangeable." She went on to say that breast milk is different with each woman and might have difficulty being processed into ice cream.

My conspiracy theory roots tell me this was just a jealous plot move by PETA. Now that the economic Armegeddon is getting some attention, no one seems to care that Pam Anderson's silicone breasts are PETA's poster girl anymore. Economic Bailout: front page, PETA Breast Milk to Ice Cream: Page 2. This is a desperate attempt to get breasts back on the front page and continue to distract society from the fact that the sky, is indeed, falling all around. Had our nation not been so all consumed by supercilious celebrity (show of hands, how many of you knew who PETA's poster girl is? ), someone might have noticed the Bush regime tanking the economy in a desperate move to get media coverage and societal pressure directed his way. Kudos to the Bush regime for waiting until Brett Favre, was quietly and sheepishly wearing a Jet's jersey to unveil the disaster that is your legacy. No one in Wisconsin would have noticed that they had been hit by a meteorite back in July much less that the emperor had no clothes. Sometimes it pays to wait it out until you can have the spotlight.

To the Krug, I'm bringing W to your next one--I'm planning to come off like a diplomatic genius.