PETA has asked the Department of Transportation in Illinois to commemorate the spot where 16 cows lost their life on May 22 in a traffic accident says a report in the Chicago Tribune.
The cows plunged from the back of a tractor trailer when it jackknifed on a bridge on an I-80 highway overpass.
I’m wondering if we could just have a memorial BBQ. I’ll bring the grill.
Now, before you start laughing remember: This is Illinois.
(John Ransom is on vacation until 12/31/2012. Pls enjoy this column from 12/27/2011)
Yes, that state.
You know how people warn you about avoiding stupid mistakes by saying, “You don’t want to be that guy.”
Well, ladies and gentleman I present you your Daley-Obama-Rahm Emmanuel-led State of Illinois. That state.
It’s a state where graft makes everything “work,” and where 3 out 4 governors go to prison, because someone has to take the rap for all that graft. You have to keep up appearances that you are interested in good government. And there is nothing like sending both Republican and Democrat governors to jail to make the message clear.
You don’t want to be that guy? Then, don’t become governor of Illinois.
In other states the position of governor is one of honor. In Illinois governors are elected patsies so the graft machine can keep going.
The PETA proposal memorializing the Cow-Victims-of-5/22 asks Illinois to glorify the animals that died while performing their function “in the meat trade.”
The “meat trade” is what you and I call groceries.
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"These proposed signs would also remind tractor-trailer drivers of their responsibility to the thousands of animals they haul to their deaths every day," said Tracy Patton, 26, a campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals according to UPI. "It's a big enough tragedy that these animals end up in slaughterhouses, where they are kicked, shocked with electric prods and finally dragged off the trucks to their deaths. Sparing them from being tossed from a speeding truck and deprived of care afterward, sometimes for several hours, seems the least that we can do."
So they want drivers to act more responsibly while driving animals to their deaths? Maybe keeping truck drivers’ eyes on the road and not on some signs would be a good start.
Because, that’s all we need: truck drivers squinting at memorials to cows while speeding across bridges in downtown Chicago. What’s next? Cow-sensitivity training?
PETA submitted their application under a 2007 provision in Illinois law, where family members of those who die as victims of DUI accidents may request memorials to the victims. The law was passed, according to a DOT spokesman, in order to regulate unofficial roadside memorials says the Trib.
That’s been a terribly pressing problem for the US. If we could only get federal control of those roadside monuments, this economy would really boom. And certainly replacing spontaneous, personalized, ad-hoc memorials by friends and relatives who knew the victim with a sanitized government memorial will probably better aid the grieving process for those who are left behind.
Thank God for good government in Illinois.
The problem for PETA isn’t that their proposal is outrageous, stupid, ridiculous, insulting and loony; no the problem for PETA is the same problem that the rest of us have with government. The only reason why Illinois politicians aren’t rushing to support PETA in raising a memorial is because PETA doesn’t have the cash to get the graft machine to use the misguided law regulating personal acts of grief to help PETA with their outrageous, stupid, ridiculous, insulting and loony proposal.
Because earlier this year the Illinois legislature, in an outrageous, stupid, ridiculous, insulting and loony move, raised personal income taxes by 67 percent and corporate income taxes by 47 percent…and then started exempting the very biggest corporations from the tax.
And if you don’t think that those exemptions weren’t driven by cash and graft, then congratulations!
You qualify for either the Republican or the Democrat nominations for governor in Illinois.
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