Herman Jank has again taken pen in hand to denounce my uncultured boorishness. This time he has taken it into his head that he can see into my head, a contention I vigorously deny. While I know Jank and I know he is serious about many worthy issues, ecology for one, and while I respect him I cannot always say the same for the causes he supports.

Jank complains about my word choice. Fringe, he claims, does not mean what I intended but instead what he interprets it to mean. Fringe has several meanings and the context I used it in should have been enough for a reader to figure out. Jank should consider Occam's Razor; simplified, it says given two possible explanations for a situation the simplest is more likely.

The fact is I used the word fringe because the phrase fringe group comes more easily to mind than the phrase marginal group. I chose the way I did because of rhythm, not any desire to attack PETA in insidious fashion.

Likewise the reason I combined PETA with ELF and ALF is also relatively straightforward. It's similar to the saying about squares and rectangles -- Not every rectangle is a square but every square is a rectangle.

On its Web site PETA does not condemn the acts of the terroristic ALF members and in fact the only mention I found on their site treats ALF members as praiseworthy and compares their acts to heroic civil rights activists, something I find repugnant. PETA's statement about ALF reads:

"Throughout history, some people have felt the need to break the law to fight injustice. The Underground Railroad and the French Resistance are examples of movements in which people broke the law in order to answer to a higher morality. The ALF, which is simply the name adopted by people who act illegally in behalf of animal rights, breaks inanimate objects such as stereotaxic devices and decapitators in order to save lives.…ALF "raids" have given us proof of horrific cruelty that would not have otherwise been discovered or believed and have resulted in criminal charges' being filed against laboratories for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Often, ALF raids have been followed by widespread scientific condemnation of the practices occurring in the targeted labs, and some abusive laboratories have been permanently shut down as a result."

Jank is upset because I do not accept his conclusions about animals and their place in the scheme of things. He uses comparisons with civil rights struggles of the past to try to conflate the two issues without giving any reasons to believe that they are related. He quotes like-minded individuals but that is nothing more than testimonials.

He claims that PETA is trying to spread the ethical word. I would question their ability to do that given that I can witness what's on their Web site. During the "Got Beer" campaign one page on the groups Web site claimed milk cows were kept in continual stress until they were eventually killed for hamburger once it was no longer economical to keep them for milk.

Anyone who knows about milk cows will tell you they are one of the most pampered animals on earth. It's not about ethics, it's about money. When a milk cow is stressed it does not produce as much milk; less milk from the cow means less money. Stress a cow hard or long enough and there will be no milk at all, therefore it is in the farmers selfish interest to treat his cows well.

Unlike most "evidence" PETA puts out this is an objective piece of data, it is not a matter of opinion whether a cow gives less milk when stressed; that fact can be observed and has been.

He claims I am dogmatic because I believe that humans have souls and animals don't. Well I would say -- so is he. What evidence does he offer for his claim that the meat industry uses more land, air, water, energy, food and forestry than a completely vegetarian culture? Talk about something put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds -- where is his evidence for this contention? I've heard estimates that completely refute this because many animals are raised on land that is marginal, at best, for other uses. Eliminating land from such use wouldn't add to the land available for crops or residential use.

Many PETA members believe you shouldn't use chemicals like pesticides and fertilizer for farming because of their effects on the environment. Well, do away with chemicals aids to farming and you'd end up using way more land for farming than is available.