Morning Edition, February 20, 2008 · Barry McRoy was leaving a Waffle House in Walterboro, S.C., when he encountered two men fighting over a gun. A shot was fired, and the bullet hit a DVD McRoy had in his pocket.

listen here ....

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 18, 2008

“Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life.

So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.

L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.

But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted from the suffering of the poor to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.

In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably understates the true depth of many children’s misery.

Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not.

To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.

America’s failure to make progress in reducing poverty, especially among children, should provoke a lot of soul-searching. Unfortunately, what it often seems to provoke instead is great creativity in making excuses.

read more ...

By SAM ROBERTS
Correction Appended

It was nearly hidden on a New York City Transit public service placard exhorting subway riders not to leave their newspaper behind when they get off the train.

“Please put it in a trash can,” riders are reminded. After which Neil Neches, an erudite writer in the transit agency’s marketing and service information department, inserted a semicolon. The rest of the sentence reads, “that’s good news for everyone.”

Semicolon sightings in the city are unusual, period, much less in exhortations drafted by committees of civil servants. In literature and journalism, not to mention in advertising, the semicolon has been largely jettisoned as a pretentious anachronism.

Americans, in particular, prefer shorter sentences without, as style books advise, that distinct division between statements that are closely related but require a separation more prolonged than a conjunction and more emphatic than a comma.

“When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life,” Kurt Vonnegut once said. “Old age is more like a semicolon.”

In terms of punctuation, semicolons signal something New Yorkers rarely do. Frank McCourt, the writer and former English teacher at Stuyvesant High School, describes the semicolon as the yellow traffic light of a “New York sentence.” In response, most New Yorkers accelerate; they don’t pause to contemplate.

Semicolons are supposed to be introduced into the curriculum of the New York City public schools in the third grade. That is where Mr. Neches, the 55-year-old New York City Transit marketing manager, learned them, before graduating from Tilden High School and Brooklyn College, where he majored in English and later received a master’s degree in creative writing.

But, whatever one’s personal feelings about semicolons, some people don’t use them because they never learned how.

In fact, when Mr. Neches was informed by a supervisor that a reporter was inquiring about who was responsible for the semicolon, he was concerned.

“I thought at first somebody was complaining,” he said.

One of the school system’s most notorious graduates, David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer who taunted police and the press with rambling handwritten notes, was, as the columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote, the only murderer he ever encountered who could wield a semicolon just as well as a revolver. (Mr. Berkowitz, by the way, is now serving an even longer sentence.)

But the rules of grammar are routinely violated on both sides of the law.

People have lost fortunes and even been put to death because of imprecise punctuation involving semicolons in legal papers. In 2004, a court in San Francisco rejected a conservative group’s challenge to a statute allowing gay marriage because the operative phrases were separated incorrectly by a semicolon instead of by the proper conjunction.

Louis Menand, an English professor at Harvard and a staff writer at The New Yorker, pronounced the subway poster’s use of the semicolon to be “impeccable.”

Lynne Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation,” called it a “lovely example” of proper punctuation.

Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, praised the “burgeoning of punctuational literacy in unlikely places.”

Allan M. Siegal, a longtime arbiter of New York Times style before retiring, opined, “The semicolon is correct, though I’d have used a colon, which I think would be a bit more sophisticated in that sentence.”

The linguist Noam Chomsky sniffed, “I suppose Bush would claim it’s the effect of No Child Left Behind.”

New York City Transit’s unintended agenda notwithstanding, e-mail messages and text-messaging may jeopardize the last vestiges of semicolons. They still live on, though, in emoticons, those graphic emblems of our grins, grimaces and other facial expressions.

The semicolon, befittingly, symbolizes a wink.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 19, 2008 An article in some editions on Monday about a New York City Transit employee’s deft use of the semicolon in a public service placard was less deft in its punctuation of the title of a book by Lynne Truss, who called the placard a “lovely example” of proper punctuation. The title of the book is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” — not “Eats Shoots & Leaves.” (The subtitle of Ms. Truss’s book is “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.”)

Aliya Khan

April Tucker, a sophomore pre-law major and explorer of the Buddhist doctrine, grew up as a Jehovah's Witness. Her mother married a Muslim; her best friend is an atheist, and her boyfriend is a Catholic.

"Being able to be exposed to several different religions in such a close proximity gives people such an opportunity to compare views and decide what path is the correct one for them is the most important part of being in a religion or being nonreligious," Tucker said.

Tucker said exploration of religions leads to enlightenment and embrace of various beliefs.

"I don't think it's important in religion to end up in one certain place or with one certain set of beliefs, but rather it's important to make the effort to concentrate on improving your life that you live here on Earth and not focus on the life-after-this-life aspect," Tucker said.

Larry Tinnerman, an assistant professor of curriculum, instruction and media technology, said Buddhism, more of a philosophy and way of life than a set religion, is integrated in the form of spirituality in people's everyday life.

"While I study and practice the spirit of what Buddhism has to say, I am a practicing Christian," Tinnerman said. "I have found that much of what is said and discussed here helps to fulfill my life as a Christian more fully."

read more ...

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

An ambitious program announced Thursday by a coalition of government agencies could lead to the end of animal testing to evaluate the safety for humans of new chemicals and drugs.

Three agencies — the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Toxicology Program and the National Institutes of Health — have signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" to develop and implement the new methods. The collaboration is described in today's edition of the journal Science.

The agreement is a "milestone" says Martin Stephens of the Humane Society of the United States. "We believe this is the beginning of the end for animal testing. We think the (conversion) process will take about 10 years."

The agencies acknowledge that full implementation of the shift in toxicity testing could take years because it will require scientific validation of the new approaches.
The Humane Society and other activist groups have long protested the use of animals to test the safety of chemicals, particularly those used in cosmetics and other personal products. The agencies noted that the public's "unease" with animal testing, in addition to a growing number of new chemicals and high testing costs, fueled the new collaboration.

Although there are no actual figures, Stephens says his "best guess" would be that about 10 million animals a year are used in toxicity testing, mostly mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and then lesser numbers of dogs, monkeys and other species.

Historically, toxicity has been identified by injecting chemicals into animals and seeing whether they were harmed.

"It was expensive, time-consuming, used animals in large numbers, and it didn't always work," says Francis Collins, director of the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute.

The new systems the agencies hope to use rely on human cells grown in test tubes and computer-driven testing machines. They allow the scientists to examine potentially toxic compounds in the lab rather than injecting them into animals.

read more .....

By: Dr. Nicholas Dodman

In the English language, we have just one word to describe the different types of love. The ancient Greeks were a bit smarter in this respect; they used different words to describe the love for a spouse, a sibling, a parent or a friend.

You have to wonder which word they used to describe the love between pets and people. We know how we feel towards our pets, but do they experience the same emotions toward us? Or is the bond simply a mixture of instinct, dependence and social role?

In short, do our pets really "love" us, as we understand it? In a word, the answer is yes, according to clinical evidence. Food does play a large role in feelings of affection between pet and owner. But dog does not live by biscuit alone – and neither does a cat's affection depend solely on treats. The mere presence and/or touch of a preferred person has been shown to reduce the heart rate of these animals – a sign of bonding. (The same is true with horses.)

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By PATRICIA COHEN

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture.

read more ...

The StarTribune reports ...

Associated Press
February 13, 2008

WINONA, Minn. - A family rescued from a house fire by their dogs before the animals succumbed to the blaze have received offers of support from across the country.

Bella, a 3-year-old golden retriever/collie mix and Maddie, a 6-month-old golden retriever, woke up owner Sue Feuling in time for Feuling and her 9-year-old daughter to get out of the house early Friday morning. Both dogs died in the fire.

Since then, Feuling said her phone has been ringing constantly. She spoke with a representative from "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." Someone from a dog food company called to offer to buy the family a new dog and feed it for life.

A story about the dogs appeared on the list of the most viewed, most popular and most e-mailed on Yahoo.com for nearly 48 hours.

And the Winona Daily News, which first reported the story last week, has received calls and e-mails from people across the country offering to donate puppies.

But Feuling said she and her family are still grieving the loss of the dogs and aren't ready for new pets.

"At this point, I'm just going through the motions," she said. "I've cried all I can cry."

An assistance fund has been set up for the family at Eastwood Bank in Winona.
___
Information from: Winona Daily News, http://www.winonadailynews.com

AFP reports ...

Feb 15, 2008
By Chuck Flagg

While taking some visiting family members to see San Francisco around Christmas, we saw a billboard in the Muni Metro Powell Street station which caught my attention. It read, "Is God keeping you from going to church?" and was sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association.

This provocative question is part of an unusual advertising campaign from a religious group that isn't noted for its proselytizing. (Similar messages have appeared in such publications as the local Sierra Club newspaper.) Although the group has existed in various guises for centuries, it has a low profile in modern American life. Perhaps it is best known for an oft-repeated joke poking fun at them: "Christians have their cross, Jews the the star of David, Muslims have the crescent and Unitarians have the question mark."

The Unitiarian-Universalist Association is a nationwide body which includes some 1000 congregations with more than 200,000 members, perhaps 3500 of them in the Bay Area. The institution was formed in 1961 by a merger of Unitarians - Congregational Christians who rejected the "Trinitarian" doctrine that God has three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit - with Universalists, who taught that salvation is for everyone and no one will be damned for false beliefs.

UUA congregations participate in many efforts for economic justice, such as operating homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and tutoring programs. Through the denomination's Boston headquarters, Unitarians operate the Holdeen India Program which "works with organizations of India's most excluded and oppressed peoples to support their efforts to participate fully in the social, economic and political life of India.

"Unitarians reject all dogmatic tests of membership. They emphasize humanitarian social and ethical values, the goodness and dignity of the human person, and freedom of religious belief. American history is full of famous Unitarians: political figures like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Adlai Stevenson; a long list of artists and literary figures like Ambrose Bierce and Louisa May Alcott.

Every other Sunday morning a small group of South Valley residents gather to practice this liberal religion born of the Jewish and Christian traditions. Seeking to act as a moral force in the world, they believe that "ethical living is the supreme witness of religion." They treasure a rich pluralism that includes theist and atheist, agnostic and humanist, pagan, Christian, Jew, and Buddhist.

This local expression of Unitarian-Universalism has been meeting at various locations in Gilroy and Morgan Hill for over 15 years. They have no professional minister; members take turns facilitating the biweekly services which meet in members' homes for the time being. As one longtime member explains, "We would rather save the money which would be used for rent to do good in the community," pointing out that the group sponsored three scholarships during the past year.

Each meeting has a theme. It begins with a reading appropriate to its topic, a song, followed by a speaker, often a guest authority. Then participants take part in a spirited discussion of the week's theme. Speakers/discussions have covered a wide range of topics during the past year: things like a member's recent trip to Jordan, conflict resolution, meditation techniques, women's history, evolutionary psychology, the logic of human destiny, fair trade practices and global warming.

Ed Nauss, who has attended the South Valley Unitarian Fellowship for several years, points out that each individual Unitarian Church is autonomous , and customs can differ from place to place. Having attended churches in Poughkeepsie, New York, Aptos and Los Gatos, he mentions that some have ordained ministers, more elaborate rituals, and even feature candle-lighting ceremonies. "What they all share, though, is a non-authoritarianism which encourages people to think for themselves about religious matters."

Some may be trained to help, but really it's in these beloved companions' nature to save us in ways big and small.

By TIM BUGANSKY for the StarTribune
Last update: February 16, 2008 - 4:53 PM


The selfless action of two dogs in Winona, Minn., gripped the nation recently. Bella and Maddie alerted their sleeping owners to a house fire. Sue Feuling and her 9-year-old daughter, Mckenzie, managed to rush out of the house before it was destroyed. The dogs perished.

When I was a boy and my own dog was dying -- we had, in fact, decided to have him put to sleep -- my mother and I went back to the woods to dig his grave. Rickey had been stranded overnight in the yard behind our house, his hip dysplasia having taken a sudden and irreversible turn for the worse. Before being helped up to the house, he had been stuck in a wet, low-lying area; flies had swarmed about him; his hind legs were infested.

There is a quiet nobility about dogs and their unspoken pact with the human race. I am reminded of it vividly when I see or read of heroic dogs like the ones in Winona, guide dogs, therapy dogs or search-and-rescue dogs. But your run-of-the-mill dogs, too, are really anything but.

I think dogs possess a profound wisdom about the nature of mankind, a wisdom that can elude us amid our busy lives, a wisdom we can cloud with grudges, biases and presumptions. They sense the inherent, simple goodness -- the potential -- in people, and they strive to bring it out, to nurture it. Dogs are accepting, trusting, selfless -- and I believe they, in their manner, understand that humans can be the same.

Since becoming a dog owner as an adult, I am less interested in material things, more aware of the basic but fundamental necessities of life: food, water, fresh air, shelter, someone to care about who also cares about you.

My dog intervenes in household arguments, planting himself between the disputing parties, diverting our attention, defusing our frustration. He is neutral yet, at the same time, on everyone's side. When I am stressed, he plants his head -- sometimes his whole body -- on my lap, shielding me from myself. This is fleeting, he seems to say; this will pass.

At night, he rises from his slumber and makes rounds, checking the windows when sudden noises catch his attention, occasionally blocking the bedroom door with his body. He wanders to the bed, sniffing, taking attendance. Sometimes I watch as he glances from the window, back to the bed, and back to the window.

Sometimes our eyes meet, and I wonder. Who knows what he knows? Who knows what he understands from his -- our -- ancestral past?

Dogs recognize people at their essence: not as builders of skyscrapers or makers of deals or earners of dollars. They see us as kind, concerned, vulnerable, human. And I think that we understand this, know that their presence in our lives can actually make us more human. Which is why stories like that in Winona demand our attention, occupy our thoughts. Which is why Sue Feuling's tale has resonated throughout the Internet and why she has been deluged by strangers with offers of new dogs.

Dogs see the best in us. We would do well to try to meet their expectations, just as they will strive to the end to protect us, preserve us, as best they can.

As my mother and I dug the grave of my childhood dog that summer day so many years ago, we heard a familiar jangling, echoing erratically down the forest path. Looking up we saw Rickey, hauling his massive body with his two front legs, his back two dragging limply behind. Having traveled a quarter of a mile, he lay down beside us, beside what was to be his resting place, watching over us one final time.

The Sunday Times reports:

February 17. 2008
Nicola Smith in Brussels

THE growing popularity of lapdogs and the abolition of European Union border controls have caused a boom in the cruel smuggling of puppies from eastern Europe.

Customs authorities and animal rights groups have warned that rogue breeders are exploiting the demand for small “handbag” dogs, used as fashion accessories by celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

Breeds such as chihuahuas, Yorkshire terriers and golden retrievers are being bred in filthy conditions and then transported in cramped cages and cardboard boxes to street markets to be sold at cut price.

Often they are crammed 30 at a time into car boots in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland for a painful journey to Germany, Austria and as far west as Holland and Sweden.

read more ....

Newsday and the Associated Press report:

4:15 AM EST, February 15, 2008
NEW YORK

A neglected poodle that was found unable to stand under the weight of her matted, filthy fur is headed for a new home.

A retired couple is adopting the 6-year-old dog, known as Miss Bea. Grandson Sal Mellone says the poodle will get "a lot of attention" with the couple, Gabriele and Giovanna Sorci of Dingmans Ferry, Pa.

Animal rescuers said last week they found Miss Bea in an East Harlem closet, weighed down by three pounds of gnarled, dirty fur on her roughly 6-pound frame. Her former owner faces animal cruelty charges.

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Senior Vice President Gail Buchwald says the agency's staff has grown so fond of the dog that "it's going to be bittersweet to see her go."

Mutts, a blog by John Woestendiek of The Baltimore Sun reports ...

Happy Valentine's Day
to the 47 dogs that survived.

All the dogs pictured here were once were part
of Michael Vick's illegal dogfighting operation in Virginia.

What's happened to them since -- between the work of the courts, the outpouring of public support, the efforts of the eight rescue groups
that took them in and the nurturing foster parents helping to rehabilitate them --
may be the greatest love story of the year.

If you'd like to send a Valentine's Day greeting to them, they can be reached through the following organizations:

Best Friends Animal Society, 5001 Angel Canyon RoadKanab, UT 84741-5000

Recycled Love, P.O. Box 6476, Baltimore, MD 21230

Animal Rescue of Tidewater, PO Box 11535, Norfolk, VA 23517

Our Pack, 708 Blossom Hill Road, #128Los Gatos, CA 95032

SPCA of Monterey County, 1002 Salinas Highway, Monterey. CA 93940

BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls), PO Box 320776, San Francisco, CA 94132

Richmond Animal League, 11401 International Drive, Richmond, VA 23236

Georgia SPCA, 1175 Highway 23, Suite 109, Suwanee, GA 30024

from the GazetteExtra.....



EDGERTON — They say cats have nine lives.

But dozens of puppies are starting at least their third lives this week after being rescued twice in three days.

The dogs were on their way to Minnesota from an animal shelter in a southern state, where many of them probably would have been euthanized.

Three volunteers from Safe Hands Rescue, a foster-based animal group headquartered in Minneapolis, were transporting the dogs Sunday on Interstate 90/39 when their cargo van hit a patch of ice. The van fishtailed and struck a guardrail under the Highway 59 overpass near Edgerton.

“My first concern was for the dogs,” said Janine Campbell, who was driving when the van crashed around 7:45 a.m.

Edgerton firefighters found more than 60 scared, cold dogs—mostly puppies. Some of the kennels had broken, but most of the animals were too scared to leave their cages, Campbell said.

One puppy, Sunshine, was missing. Firefighters found her half an hour later, frozen to the side of the driver’s-side wheel well. A broken water jug had spilled on her fur.

“She could barely move,” said Lynne Bengtson, a Safe Hands volunteer. “I thought there was no way she was going to make it.”

But she did, along with the 65 other dogs.

A tow truck moved the van with the dogs to Hillside Springs Hunt Club in rural Edgerton. Owner Andy Walton, whose son Adam is an Edgerton firefighter, didn’t hesitate to take in the animals.

“There was no question,” he said. “They needed help, and we had a place.”

Walton loaded the puppies into the club’s kennel building and called his veterinarian, Terry Johnson, to check them out.

Some of the dogs were dehydrated, and one had a bruised leg, but they’re all going to be fine, Johnson said.

Johnson brought food and supplies for the dogs. A Madison rescue group, The Twig Project, donated more supplies and took in some of the puppies that needed extra care.

The Waltons called in friends and family members to help.

“People just started showing up,” Bengtson said. “They fed, they watered, they comforted these poor animals.”

They also comforted the human volunteers, offering food and lodging.

Monday, the puppies appeared good as new. Some slept, some yelped and some wiggled as humans cleaned their kennels, took them outside and fed them. An adult beagle named Judy looked on placidly from a blanket she’d claimed in the corner.

A second van was on its way from Minnesota late Monday morning to take the group home.

Tears spilled from Terrilea Holm’s eyes as she spoke of the Edgerton community’s generosity.
“I feel like I have a whole new extended family,” she said.

The story couldn’t have ended happier for Sunshine. Johnson and his wife adopted the puppy, and she’s doing great.

“She’s like a new dog today, a normal puppy,” Johnson said Monday. “It’s unbelievable.”

Mutts, a blog by John Woestendiek of The Baltimore Sun


Both Democratic candidates have demonstrated compassion towards animals, but Hillary Clinton gets higher marks than Barack Obama on "The Humane Scorecard," the Humane Society Legislative Fund’s (HSLF) annual look at the voting records on animal welfare issues in the House and Senate.

As a U.S. Senator, Clinton received a 100 percent ranking by the HSLF for the 108th Congress and “100-plus” for the 109th Congress.

She has co-sponsored legislation dealing with horse slaughter, animal fighting and to crack down on abusive puppy mills. Obama scored 20 percent on the 2005 Humane Scorecard, 60 percent in 2006 and was expected to rank even higher in 2007. Since being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama has co-sponsored legislation to upgrade the penalties for dogfighting and cockfighting, and to ban the possession of fighting dogs.

As an Illinois state senator, Obama supported measures to allow the creation of pet trusts to provide for the long-term care of companion animals, ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption, upgrade the penalties for cruelty to animals, require psychological counseling for people who abuse animals, and require that veterinarians report suspected acts of cruelty and animal fighting.

In response to a questionnaire sent out by HSLF, Clinton says she has supported every major animal protection bill in Congress and says she will work with executive agencies to implement humane policies and adequate funding and enforcement for animal welfare laws.

“I believe animal welfare is an important issue to Americans, and I would work to address these problems when I am president, as I have during my time in the Senate,” she wrote. “From preventing dog fighting to preventing horse slaughter to addressing global warming, I will work to ensure that these issues get the attention and support they deserve.”

In his questionnaire response, Obama pledges support for nearly every animal protection bill in Congress, and he says he will work with executive agencies to make their policies more humane. Obama also commented on the links between animal cruelty and violence in society:

"I've repeatedly voted to increase penalties for animal cruelty and violence and, importantly, to require psychological counseling for those who engage in this behavior as part of the punishment. In addition to being unacceptable in its own stead, violence towards animals is linked with violent behavior in general, especially domestic violence … As president, I'd continue to make sure that we treat animal cruelty like the serious crime it is and address its connection to broader patterns of violence."

While Clinton scores higher on the "Humane Scorecard," Obama comes out on top in the Animal Welfare Institute's "Compassion Index"

This year Clinton scored 33 percent, down from 67 percent last Congress. Obama scored 67 percent this year, up from 33 percent last year.

The Animal Welfare Institute is an international non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the pain and fear inflicted on animals by humans.

Mutts, a blog by John Woestendiek of The Baltimore Sun

Among the Republicans still in the race, John McCain, as you might expect for a guy with 22 pets, emerges as the leader of the pack when it comes to animal welfare issues.
As a senator, he has earned scores as high as 75 percent on the Humane Society Legislative Fund's "Humane Scorecard."

McCain voted for and helped sponsor legislation to stop horse slaughter. He has co-sponsored bills to stop the interstate shipment of birds for cockfighting and the poaching of bears, and he voted to eliminate a multi-million dollar subsidy for the mink industry.

He opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to many wildlife species.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, enjoys little support among animal rights types – partly because of his record, partly because of reports that he strapped the family Irish setter’s carrier on the roof of the car – with the dog in it – on a 1983 vacation. At one point during the 12-hour drive, he stopped to hose down the dog, then pushed on.

The Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF) says he also received criticism when, as chief executive of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he allowed a calf-roping exhibition.
HSLF, which lobbies for animal welfare legislation and works to elect humane-minded candidates to public office, said that when he was governor of Massachusetts many of Romney’s appointments to a state wildlife board were deemed animal-unfriendly.

Romney did leave office on a high note, HSLF points out – signing a bill to strengthen the Massachusetts animal fighting law and prevent a convicted animal abuser from getting the animal back.

Mike Huckabee’s animal welfare record as Arkansas governor was dismal according to the HSLF.

During Huckabee’s administration, he failed to support an effort by lawmakers to pass legislation upgrading the state’s anti-cruelty law from a misdemeanor to a felony offense. Arkansas is now one of only seven states that consider deliberate, malicious acts of cruelty to animals a misdemeanor offense. As Michael Markarian, president of the HSLF, puts it, setting fire to a painting of a dog is a more serious crime in Arkansas than burning the dog himself.

In 1998, according to published reports, Huckabee’s 17-year-old son, David, was fired from his job as a counselor at a Boy Scout camp after he and another teen allegedly killed a stray dog by hanging it and slitting its throat. The teens were never charged, and according to Newsweek, allegations were raised that the governor tried to stop the state police from investigating.

In his blog, Animals and Politics, Markarian also says Huckabee, a lifelong hunter, is viewed by some as overly influenced by hunting lobbies.

“During a speech to the NRA in September, Huckabee sounded almost giddy when he talked about shooting a bullet that was guided by angels to pierce an antelope,” Markarian wrote. Huckabee’s remark – “I’m pretty sure there will be duck hunting in heaven, and I can’t wait,” later showed up on The Daily Show.

People reports ...


Dr. Phil, move over. There's a new advocate for tough love on the circuit: Natalie Cole.


The multiple Grammy winner – her first win, in 1975, was for best new artist of the year – told PEOPLE at Sunday's Warner Music Group post-Grammy party that she took a dim view of Amy Winehouse's awards sweep at the Grammy ceremony earlier in the evening.


"I don't think she should have won. I think it sends a bad message to our young people who are trying to get into this business, the ones who are trying to do it right and really trying to keep themselves together," said Cole, 58. "We have to stop rewarding bad behavior."


read more ...

Thanks to the efforts of his grandson, Private Harry Lamin's stories from World War I are being brought back on line. Watch the story here ... and then check out Private Lamin's blog here: WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier

The Associated Press reports ...


By KEN THOMAS The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Growing up, Peter Neesley was an animal lover who always took in strays around his Michigan home. So when his family heard that the Army sergeant was taking care of two dogs outside his Baghdad military base, no one was surprised.

In e-mails and phone calls from Iraq, Neesley talked about how he came across Mama, a black Labrador mix, and Boris, her white-and-brown spotted puppy, while on patrol in a Baghdad neighborhood.

One of Mama's puppies was later killed by a car, so Neesley and his friends built a doghouse to shelter the animals. Photographs show Neesley feeding the dogs, kneeling next to the red-and-white doghouse and Boris walking along the cracked sidewalks of Baghdad.

"He was determined. He had already been sending us e-mails about how when he came home in July, he was going to find a way to bring them with him," said his sister, Carey Neesley.

Neesley's family was devastated when they learned Christmas morning that the 28-year-old had died suddenly in his sleep. The Army said his death is still under investigation pending an autopsy.

Still grieving, the family decided that they would honor Neesley's wishes and try to bring the dogs home to Michigan.

"To have something that they can hold and touch and care for that Peter cared about, that's the whole thing," said Julie Dean, his aunt.


Read more ...

... is this guy. Hey, the article is funny, but "poodles are asking for it"? Gimme a break, Jake ...