I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

I love some fried chicken just like the rest of you folks in Memphis. Well, most of you, anyways. I have a lot of vegetarian/vegan friends and I have love for you as well. You keep me honest and healthy, and that I appreciate. But I'm not gonna fake the funk here -- I love some fried chicken, especially from Gus's Fried Chicken on Front Street. See, that's what I personally call finger-lickin' good stuff. Mmmm, mmm.

But one place I swore years ago I wouldn't eat fried chicken from ever again was the world's most famous chicken purveyors, KFC. Apparently, the Rev. Al Sharpton agrees with me. Aligning himself with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Sharpton has created an 8-minute video campaign to be shown outside of KFC's all over these United States asking the fast-food consortium known as Yum Brands to, quite simply, clean up their act. He is asking for a boycott of KFC until the fast food giant puts new standards in place for the treatment of the 750 million chickens they process for KFC every year. If that wasn't enough, add Russell Simmons of Def Jam to the list of people calling for the boycott.

Why would PETA work so hard to get these two celebrities involved? Simple -- KFC has a large number of franchises in predominantly black neighborhoods and in 2003, the executives told investors they were working to increase promotion to the black community.

Sharpton, Simmons and PETA aren't asking KFC to stop killing birds. They just want more humane conditions for housing and killing the birds, birds who are currently being giving huge doses of hormones by producers in order to rapidly increase their growth -- an inhumane process which frequently causes the birds to crumple under their own weight. The savings is passed along to us humans, along with yummy doses of the growth hormones left right there in the chicken. Ostensibly, this bonus treat is included so you can get fatter and fatter and watch your heart explode even faster than it will from chomping on a hormone-free chicken wing! Oh, yeah. Mighty fine eatin'.

So like I'm telling you, go with the flow on this one, people. KFC isn't the only bird in this town, and it certainly isn't the place I'm headed to spend my hard-earned dollars when it's fried chicken time. I'm urging you to join this boycott.

Now pick yourself up, go on over to Gus's and get you some fried chicken, baby. Y'all are lookin' kinda hungry. Or if you're feeling the Wednesday vibe, rumor has it your friendly neighborhood McDonald's (who, believe it or not, has complied with PETA's requests to improve their conditions) is having a Groundhog Day sale -- 39 cent hamburgers and 49 cent cheeseburgers. Even Punxsutawney Phil can't see his shadow on a deal that good.