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“No, not me. You've got the wrong guy.” And she said, “You're going to hear from your constituents.” I'm always going to hear from them. They always threaten me. I said “That's fine. Get the letters movin'.” Then I said “By the way, if you have a little extra time, can I tell you something that is on my mind, that bothers me about the way animals are handled?” Then I said, “I can never get over or accept the fact that there are people who take living lobsters and scald them to death, to death! They throw them into hot water and they scald them to death. Is that any way to treat a lobster?” And then I said, “And there are other people who eat animals alive -- clams and oysters alive, alive! Is that terrible? Now, if you have a little extra time, Miss Harrington, get that stuff stopped!”

So she looks at me like I am crazy, as I was in a way, and she leaves. I haven't heard from her since, except I now have introduced legislation which is called The Commission to Provide Humane Treatment for Animals. And it came to me (I sound like a prophet), it came to me as a result of the fact that this guy, Peter Singer, from Australia, who has just done a book on animals called Animal Liberation, came down to see me and I said to him, “I think I can help.” And it was a thought I had which was that you take all of these animal cases -- the baby seals, the whales, the beagles having their throats cut, experimentation on primates, all of these gruesome cases -- and have a commission determine whether or not it in fact is inhumane treatment.