NEXT STOP FRANKFURT?

(link via hesiod, but i'm sure i heard about this elsewhere)

April 22, 2003 | HAMBURG, N.Y. (AP) -- A national animal rights group has offered Hamburg officials $15,000 to change the town's name to Veggieburg.

"The town's name conjures up visions of unhealthy patties of ground-up dead cows," said Joe Haptas, spokesman of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, in a letter faxed Monday to Hamburg Supervisor Patrick Hoak.

PETA offered to supply area schools with $15,000 worth of non-meat patties for the name change.

"Our offer is serious as a heart attack," Haptas said. (full story)

First off, I'm a vegetarian, not that that entitles me to have greater say or anything.

PETA has done good work. Getting McD's and BK to make those deals (particularly getting the latter to market a veggie burger in America, nice job) impressed me. But this concerns me. Are historical etymological quirks appropriate as prime targets for animal advocacy groups? As long as we're at it, perhaps PETA should stop by the JFK Library and mention that he called himself a jelly donut in full view of thousands of Germans.

Another part of me, though, knows that language is terribly important in political discourse. Ask those deep in the trenches of the abortion debate, the estate/inheritance/"death" tax debate, and elsewhere. In that respect, it's worthy to argue that if we move away from carnivorous language, we can inch away from being a carnivorous culture.

Nevertheless, of the many things on which PETA focuses, this is one of the more superficial.