8
Thursday, July 24, 2003
By Nara Schoenberg
KRT CAMPUS
CHICAGO — When the animal-
rights activist formerly known as
Karin Robertson arrives at the air
line check-in counter, the conversa
tion goes something like this:
“What is your name?”
“GoVeg.com.”
“Is that your first name or your
last name?”
“It’s just GoVeg.com.”
“Uhhh, let’s take a look at your
I.D.”
In March, Robertson, 23, of
Norfolk, Va., legally changed her
name to that of a major vegetarian
Web site, a move she hopes will
draw attention to the plight of farm
animals that she says are raised in
cramped quarters and subjected to
painful procedures.
“There’s a little bit of laughing
every time somebody says my
name, and that’s great, you know?”
GoVeg.com said over lunch at a
Chicago vegetarian restaurant.
“I love it. When people call for
me across a busy room, or when I
sign a check, or when I go pay my
electricity or rent, everybody has
that (anti-meat) message taken
down.”
It’s unclear how rare such name
changes are, but nothing similar has
come to the attention of People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA), owner of GoVeg.com the
Web site, and employer of
GoVeg.com, the person, according
to PETA.
U.S. Social Security
Administration spokeswoman
Martha McNish said her agency
doesn’t track names with punctua
tion, but said her co-workers do not
recall inquiries about similar name
changes.
Among those who have greeted
the name change with skepticism is
GoVeg.com’s mother, a kinder
garten teacher in Culver, Ind. “But
your name’s so pretty,” she protest
ed. And then: “What are you going
to do when you’re married?”
In an interview with the Chicago
Tribune, a spokeswoman for the
National Pork Producers Council
called the name change a “desper
ate” publicity ploy.
“It’s an outrageous tactic is what
it is, sort of the way a child screams
' CANDICE C.CUSIC* KRT CAMPUS
Animal rights activist Karin Robertson of Norfolk, Va., had her name legally changed to GoVeg.com. That is also the
Web site address for her employer PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
until you feed them,” spokeswoman
Kara Flynn said.
But GoVeg.com, who said she
has changed her name with the city
of Norfolk, the Virginia department
of motor vehicles, her bank, her
landlord, the electric company and
her credit card company, remains
firm in her conviction that she is
doing the right thing.
“The average farm is a factory
farm with over a million individuals
under one roof: chickens and pigs
who live their whole lives inside in
cages so small they can’t turn
around. Chickens live about eight to
10 in a cage the size of a file draw
er. That’s where they spend their
existence, and I know that people
who learn about these things are not
willing to accept (them),” she said.
“And that's why I changed my
name.”
GoVeg.com’s name change caps
nearly a decade of ardent vegetari
anism that began with a school proj
ect when she was 14. While
researching cosmetic testing on ani
mals, she came upon a book with a
section on “factory farms,” large,
economically efficient animal-rais
ing operations.
“This cannot be true!” she called
from the living room to the kitchen,
where her mother was cooking
sausage.
“This cannot be what animals go
through,” she said, as she read about
“chickens having their beaks cut off
with a hot blade when they're one
day old, piglets having their teeth
ripped out with pliers and castrated
without anesthetic, just as general
practices.”
It’s true that piglets are castrated
with no anesthetic, but researchers
haven’t yet determined whether the
process is painful, according to
Anna Johnson, director of animal
welfare at the National Pork Board.
Johnson acknowledged that sows
are kept in cages in which they can’t
turn around, but disputed the claim
that piglets’ teeth are ripped out. She
said the sharp tips of the animals'
teeth are clipped off, in a process
that is not painful.
Growing up in rural Indiana, the
fourth child of a teacher and a biol
ogist, GoVeg.com had never known
another vegetarian. But immediate
ly after reading about factory
farms, she stopped eating meat and
eggs. At Bucknell University,
where she was an animal behavior
major, she stopped eating dairy
products as well.
GoVeg.com said she had consid
ered changing her name for so long,
she can’t pinpoint the exact moment
of inspiration, although it came long
before her she landed a job at PETA,
where is she is the organization’s
youth projects specialist.
“I always wanted to leave people
with something other than, is your
name Karin or Karen or Caryn?
Nobody could ever pronounce my
name right,” she said.
She began the process of chang
ing her name in March, after a
recently divorced friend told her
how to register a change with the
city of Norfolk.
Thousands of former workers sue Enron
By Kristen Hays
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — A committee representing
thousands of former Enron Corp. workers abrupt
ly laid off when the company collapsed is suing
nearly 300 former executives, traders and others
who scooped up more than $72 million in hastily
arranged bonuses within days of the company’s
bankruptcy filing.
“Even as thousands of regular Enron employ
ees and retirees were facing the loss of life sav
ings, health benefits, their jobs or pensions, these
favored few were scheming to get millions more
for themselves,” said Richard Rathvon, co-chair
man of the committee, who lost his job along with
4,500 others.
Four lawsuits, filed by the group earlier this
year in federal bankruptcy court in Houston and
recently consolidated, say most of the individual
bonuses ranged from $200,000 to $5 million.
Some were five figures. A former top trader’s
bonus rose to $8 million about two weeks before
Enron filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 2, 2001, after
six weeks of revelations of hidden debt, inflated
profits and shady accounting.
Laid-off employees ultimately received up to
$13,500 each — less than many were entitled to
under Enron policy.
“We are out there now to restore fairness to the
severed employees,” Rathvon said Wednesday.
The lawsuits allege that 286 upper-level execu
tives, managers and traders had employment con
tracts amended in October and November 2001, as
Enron careened into bankruptcy, to ensure they
pocketed large bonuses before they would have to
be approved by a bankruptcy judge after the
Chapter 11 case was filed on Dec. 2, 2001.
The employees also allege the bonus checks
didn’t clear Enron’s account until after the bank
ruptcy was filed, so they should be returned. Most
checks were doled out the Friday before the
Sunday filing.
“If they can demonstrate that the officers,
without justification, awarded themselves signifi
cant money before Enron crashed and burned,
then they have a fairly good chance of recover
ing,” said Anthony Sabino, an expert in bankrupt
cy and energy law at St. John’s University.
But Tom Kirkendall, an attorney for former
Enron executive Jeffrey McMahon, who is
among defendants named in the retention suits,
said the bonuses were justified. He said $1.5 mil
lion paid to McMahon days before Enron went
bankrupt is comparable to the $1.3 million paid
annually to restructuring expert and interim
Enron chief executive Stephen Cooper.
“A reorganization is often lost if the debtor
cannot retain key management personnel,”
Kirkendall said.
® IS*"—
THE BATTALi
What’s in a name? Ask GoVeg.com
Texas lottery
situation stil
up for grabs
By Jim Vertuno
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sports
r
Volume 10
An
AUSTIN — The odds of Texas joiningiv
multi-state lotteries are dwindling fast,
Lotto Texas Executive Director Reagan Gut
said Wednesday he’s not yet ready torecomei
which multi-state lottery Texas should join, 1»
said his ultimate decision will not includetryii
to join more than one.
The state is considering whether to joii
Powerball or Mega Millions games and statel
tery commission Chainnan C. Thomas Cl«
surprised many last month when he suggest,
Texas could try to join both.
Greer said that while Powerball officials si
they would consider such an option, Meg
Millions officials were “very uncomfortaii
with the idea.
“They just didn't like it for their game as
whole,” Greer said. “I will not be recommei:;
(joining) both.”
Penny Kyle, director of the Virginia Lottei
and current president of Mega Millions gra-
said a move to join both would have tea
unprecedented.
“We had a long conversation about if this#!
something we wanted to get into,” Kyle
don’t think any state in the union had evert#
sidered joining both. Leave it to Texas
something different.”
Greer said he could be ready with a recoir
mendation as early as Aug. 4, although thee®
mission did not immediately schedule its it
meeting.
Multi-state lottery games are designedtogti
erate jackpots into the hundreds of
dollars, creating a frenzy of ticket
across the country. Participating states gel ao
of the tickets sold within their borders.
The push to join a multi-state lottery comesi
Lotto Texas, the state’s signature game,continii
to suffer from depressed ticket sales. Thisspriii
lottery officials increased the odds against wit
ning a jackpot from one in 25 million to
one in 48 million.
Powerball and Mega Millions officials mai‘
presentations to lottery commissioners in lit
and Greer originally hoped to make his recto'
mendation at Wednesday’s meeting.
Greer said he needed more time for study,pi
ticularly on how joining a multistate gamemf
“cannibalize” players and money away
Lotto Texas.
“That’s a huge issue,” Greer said. “What’sil
going to do to the other games?”
Kyle suggested that by joining both,
would create so-called “player fatigue” w
many big jackpots.
Greer said he’s already received more
e-mails and other correspondence from the public
most of it in favor of joining a multistate lotteiy.
Powerball drawings are on Wednesday a
Saturday nights, the same as Lotto Texas, Mf
Millions drawings are on Tuesday and Frida)
nights.
Texas also could decide to not join eil
group, although the Legislature wrote the 20
05 budget counting on the estimated $101 mill
that joining a multi-state game would bri
Greer said he would recommend joining one
the two groups.
Any recommendation he makes will still iri
the approval of the three-member commission,
“This an interesting time,” Clowe said, ft
decision “is something that’s going to change
lot of things.”
Powerball is a consortium of lotteries in2!
states plus the District of Columbia and the 111
Virgin Islands. Mega Millions is madeupofK 1
states.
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See page 3 for more
Dennehy coverage.