When I heard that Maui-born professional baseball player Shane Victorino had been asked to stop eating Spam musubi, I assumed it came from some confused special-interest group like People for the Ethical Treatment of Algae. I don't even know why anyone would be concerned about how algae is treated, but they obviously have confused algae with the seaweed that is wrapped around a block of Spam and rice to make musubi.

I don't really think it's unethical to eat algae or seaweed, although I stay away from it, mainly because I'm against eating plants that grow in water where about 12 billion fish go poopie. My way to enjoy a Spam musubi is to strip off the seaweed, scrape away the rice, fry up the Spam in an iron skillet until the smoke alarm goes off and then eat it with scrambled eggs. That kind of musubi is ono.

It turns out it wasn't a pro-

algae group that asked the Philadelphia Phillies center fielder to quit eating Spam musubi, it was the same group of knuckleheads who tried to get Ben and Jerry to use human breast milk to make their ice cream: People for the Edible, I mean, Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA, for some reason, is against eating Spam, as if Spam has something to do with animals. Everyone knows Spam doesn't come from animals, it comes from Safeway. The makers of Spam have always hinted that the delicious canned hunk of pale pink goodness might contain some pork products, but I think that is just a PR gimmick.

Spam is to pork what roast beef is to a Mazda. Hormel lets people think Spam is made from pork so it doesn't have to give up the real secret ingredients. They are like Coca-Cola that way. If the secret ingredient in Spam got out, the whole Spam franchise would collapse.

  What's been happening to the world economy because of failures in the housing and banking markets is nothing compared to what would happen if the Spam industry caved in. Sophisticated financial analysts will tell you that Spam is the backbone, so to speak, of the entire global commerce thingie.

So it makes you wonder what PETA's game really is. Do they really want to save a few pigs, or do they want to destroy the world? Anyone who has read George Orwell's seminal work “;Animal Farm”; knows what happens when people stop eating animals. The animals take over all the farms, the pigs start walking upright and then - bingo! - we're all wearing green hats with red stars on them.

Under the guise of protecting animals, PETA has attempted to sabotage ice cream makers, fried-chicken franchises, milk producers and now Spam. Maybe PETA actually stands for People Encouraging Total Anarchy.

Sorry, comrades, we're onto you. You overplayed your hand by trying to get baseball players to stop eating Spam musubi. First no musubi, then no chicken cutlet/curry plate lunches, then no teriburgers and then all the pigs are walking upright amid the smoldering ruins of what had been the greatest country in the world. No chance. I hear the smoke alarm going off now.