PETA's Pothole Wars:
Kentucky Fried Chicken has offered to fill potholes at its own expense in select cities -- but there's a catch. KFC wants to stamp the filled holes with a temporary "Refreshed by KFC" logo. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals objects to this, arguing that any city that accepts the offer is supporting "Kentucky Fried Cruelty." So PETA is offering to fill potholes too. If cities decline KFC's offer, and accept PETA money instead, it will fill potholes and stamp them with the words "KFC Tortures Animals."
City leaders would be wise to pick KFC; if the company flakes on the agreement, or even comes up short, I'd bet on PETA being agreeable to picking up the slack. I somehow doubt it would work that way if you reversed it.
"We Helped" vs. "They're Evil"
YES! a great idea, but lets expand it: You fix a bridge (to specs), you get to name it.
This is just more of their campaign to sell junk food based on Obama's electoral victory.
KFC isn't Pepsi anymore. It was spun off in 1997 as Tricon Global Restaurants and they changed their name to YUM! in 2002. Different stock, different ownership.
YUM! is also Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Long John Silvers - so your point on promoting junk food is true. Funny that citys are busy taking out fast food around schools and getting rid of vending machines, but selling ad space on potholes (I can't believe I just wrote that!) to KFC is OK.
And clearly the KFC option is way less risky for any decision-maker than the PETA option. Mike Wilson's comment has it dead on.
swordfishsea kitten just to spite them.Methinks that some self-respecting carnivore should put together an anti-PETA-pothole-filling campaign. It would be kind of like one of those relays, where you pay someone for every mile they run, except here, you would agree to eat a chicken for every pothole filled and stamped by PETA. Alternatively, KFC could run some special, wherein every customer would get a free wing or thigh for every PETA pothole.
And I can't believe the lawyers' first thought here is liability. The work is being done by the cities, the donors merely create a fund. Who cares if somebody gets offended because a pothole repair gets chalk-marked with a slogan, which will disappear after the first rush hour?
Also, I'm not certain what the pothole repair could do to contribute to a future accident, so I don't know how liability would arise to begin with. If the road was improperly patched and a wash-out happened because of it, and somebody hit the washed-out area and wrecked, that could impart liability, but otherwise, I think there's no way a patched pothole could contribute to a crash.
PETA kills animals, too; they are "morally" opposed to the concept of domesticated animals, and think that our pets should be turned out to live "wild and free" or euthenized because their lives (being fed, cared for, provided with safety and medical care and affectionate companionship) is such an abomination that death is preferable.
I wouldn't trust them to fill potholes; they'd probably fill them with something "humane" like foam rubber: useless for it's stated purpose in filling the pothole, but soft and cushy if you trip and fall on it while crossing the street.
Regards,
Le
For example, once a year, my family buys half a side of beef from a local farmer who raises his cows in a way we find to be humane. Plus the beef tastes better too.
We also order lamb, chicken, eggs, etc. from local sources where we can decide the animals involved are treated humanely.
I have absolutely NO regard for PETA though. Most of the domesticated animals have evolved in the course of domestication considerably. They are no longer the same animals which were once wild. This is the case of cattle, sheep (wool is not possible from wild sheep), horses, dogs, cats, pigs, etc. As long as we animals are properly cared for, we should continue to keep them.
BTW, one of the most interesting cultures I have read about regarding domesticated animals are the Botai Tersek culture of the late stone age in the Pontic-Caspian Steppes. This culture seems to provide the first evidence of horseback riding but they were hunter-gatherers and so probably originally got horses and riding from elsewhere. What is noteworthy is that they probably ate mostly wild horse, which they hunted on horseback using organic bits (horsehair, leather, etc).
I also don't see a problem with liability for an improper repair. After all, we're talking about filling a pothole here; this isn't exactly complicated. But I live in RI, and if people could sue for a poor quality road repair, we'd have a lot more lawyers around here.
Then again, someone might come up with a really catchy or funny ad to paint on the pavement. That could create a hazard since drivers would be distracted by...watching the road. Oh, never mind.
Of course, the vegan PETA members could extract their revenge on KFC for torturing them by making tasty chicken. Repeatedly driving over the ads would have the symbolic effect of rising up against their oppressors, and in the real world, might actually wear down the paint.
But wait. That might contribute to global warming. Therefore, Cleveland's right. Any advertisements on potholes should be banned.
Plants are not ours to eat.
Plants are not ours to wear.
Plants are not ours to build housing out of.
Plants are not for entertainment.
End Plant Domestication Now!
A pile of asphalt doesnt cost much. Labor is the major cost. Couldnt KFC just go around filling potholes with their own truck and paint them as they go?
I'm generally opposed to the selling off of every last square inch of public space to advertisers, but considering that folks'll be driving over these, and SOME force caused there to be a pothole there to begin with, and will probably do so again, this doesn't seem terribly intrusive...(I remember a plan, a couple of decades ago, by Coke, IIRC, to pay Santa Monica and the State of California for substantial additional beach sand-cleaning and sand-rolling, in exchange for permitting them to cut the big sand-roller which followed the rake so that the sand would be stamped with Coke logos all along the beach, large enough to be seen from passing planes. THAT offended me...)
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