November 29, 2008
Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN and ANGELA MACROPOULOS


The throng of Wal-Mart shoppers had been building all night, filling sidewalks and stretching across a vast parking lot at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y. At 3:30 a.m., the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control, and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.

Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. Someone taped up a crude poster: “Blitz Line Starts Here.”

By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.

Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.

Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive Mr. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.

Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene “utter chaos” and said the “crowd was out of control.” As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. “I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”

But even with videos from the store’s surveillance cameras and the accounts of witnesses, Lieutenant Fleming and other officials acknowledged that it would be difficult to identify those responsible, let alone to prove culpability.

Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

Wal-Mart security officials and the police cleared the store, swept up the shattered glass and locked the doors until 1 p.m., when it reopened to a steady stream of calmer shoppers who passed through the missing doors and battered door jambs, apparently unaware that anything had happened.

Ugly shopping scenes, a few involving injuries, have become commonplace during the bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The nation’s largest retail group, the National Retail Federation, said it had never heard of a worker being killed on Black Friday.

Wal-Mart declined to provide details of the stampede, but said in a statement that it had tried to prepare by adding staff members. Still, it was unclear how many security workers it had at the Valley Stream store for the opening on Friday. The Green Acres Mall provides its own security to supplement the staffs of some large stores, but it did not appear that Wal-Mart was one of them.

A Wal-Mart spokesman, Dan Folgleman, called it a “tragic situation,” and said the victim had been hired from a temporary staffing agency and assigned to maintenance work. Wal-Mart, in a statement issued at its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., said: “The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this tragic time.”

Wal-Mart has successfully resisted unionization of its employees. New York State’s largest grocery union, Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, called the death of Mr. Damour “avoidable” and demanded investigations.

“Where were the safety barriers?” said Bruce Both, the union president. “Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner? This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart.”

While other Wal-Mart stores dot the suburbs around the city, the outlet at Valley Stream, less than two miles from New York City’s southeastern border, draws customers from Queens, Brooklyn and the densely populated suburbs of Nassau County. And it was not the only store in the Green Acres Mall that attracted large crowds.

Witnesses said the crowd outside Wal-Mart began gathering at 9 p.m. on Thursday. The night was not bitterly cold, and the early mood was relaxed. By the early morning hours, the throngs had grown, and officers of the Fifth Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department, who patrol Valley Stream, were out in force, checking on crowds at the mall.

Mr. Damour, who lived in Queens, went into the store sometime during the night to stock shelves and perform maintenance work.

On Friday night, Mr. Damour’s father, Ogera Charles, 67, said his son had spent Thursday evening having Thanksgiving dinner at a half sister’s house in Queens before going directly to work. Mr. Charles said his son, known as Jimmy, was raised in Queens by his mother and worked at various stores in the area after graduating from high school.

Mr. Charles said he had not seen his son in three months, and heard about his death about 7 a.m. Friday, when a friend of Mr. Damour’s called him at home. He arrived at Franklin Hospital Medical Center an hour later to identify the body. Mr. Charles said he was angry that no one from Wal-Mart had contacted him or had explained how his son had died. Maria Damour, Mr. Damour’s mother, was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but was on her way back to the United States, Mr. Charles said.

About the time that Mr. Damour was killed, a shopper at a Wal-Mart in Farmingdale, 15 miles east of Valley Stream, said she was trampled by a crowd of overeager customers, the Suffolk County police reported. The woman sustained a cut on her leg, but finished her shopping before filing the police report, an officer said.

Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting.

By MOTOKO RICH


For the book industry the question for the forthcoming holiday shopping season may be whether more people are like Francisco Clough or like Jacqueline Belliveau. Both were browsing in the Barnes & Noble on Union Square in Manhattan late last week, but Mr. Clough only looked, while Ms. Belliveau bought her second book in two days.

Dressed in a black suit and carrying a zippered leather portfolio, Mr. Clough, 36, said he had quit his job at a small brokerage firm on Wall Street six months ago. Fresh from a job interview, he flipped through a “Green Lantern” graphic novel but didn’t buy it. “There were probably five books I would have bought if I were not unemployed,” he said.

Ms. Belliveau, on the other hand, bought Carole Walter’s “Great Cookies,” just a day after purchasing Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food.” An architect who was laid off recently, she has turned down invitations to travel and downgraded her gym membership. She has found another job, but Ms. Belliveau, 40, is still being careful about expenses — except books. “I like to have a collection of the history of what you read,” she said.

Like many businesses across the retail sector, the publishing industry has been hit by a raft of doom and gloom in the past few weeks. Leonard S. Riggio, chairman and largest shareholder of Barnes & Noble, said in an internal memorandum predicting a dreadful holiday shopping season, as first reported in The Wall Street Journal last week, that “never in all my years as a bookseller have I seen a retail climate as poor as the one we are in.”

Last week HarperCollins, the books division of the News Corporation, reported that fiscal first-quarter operating income had slid to $3 million from $36 million a year earlier, despite its publication of the Oprah Winfrey-anointed novel “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” by David Wroblewski. A week earlier Doubleday Publishing Group, a unit of Random House, laid off 16 people, a 10 percent cut in staff. At the time the company said the move did not presage further layoffs in other publishing divisions, but industry insiders said they would not be surprised to see more.

Also this month Rodale, the magazine and book publisher, laid off 14 people in its book division, a little more than 7 percent of the staff.

Long before the current financial crisis, Borders Group, struggling against online and big-box retailers, had announced it was looking at a potential sale of itself. Given current economic conditions, publishers are nervously watching to see what happens with the company.

Now, most everyone in publishing is bracing for a difficult holiday season while trying to remain optimistic about the enduring allure of books.

“A book is still this incredibly lovely, respectable gift,” said Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central Publishing, and is “a lot cheaper than the other luxury items that people tend to buy at Christmas.”

“So we could get lucky and see that it really works in our favor,” she added.

Grand Central is enjoying strong sales of titles by the novelists Nelson DeMille and Nicholas Sparks, as well as of “Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World,” but it also is waiting to see how Ted Turner’s “Call Me Ted,” for which it spent more than $5 million, will sell. Ms. Raab said the company had printed 625,000 copies and had shipped more than 500,000.

With several publishers reporting that booksellers were cutting orders for January, Ms. Raab acknowledged that she was concerned about a post-New Year’s downturn. “You know to a certain extent people will be in the stores during the holidays,” she said. “What will happen once there is no reason to be in the stores?”

Booksellers are trying new tactics to help ring up sales. At Book Passage, an independent bookseller in San Francisco and Corte Madera, Calif., Elaine Petrocelli, an owner, said she recently instituted a policy giving priority seating at book readings to those who purchase the book. Last month she sold 160 copies at a reading by Katherine Neville, author of “The Fire,” a thriller about a chess prodigy.

Still, Ms. Petrocelli said she had noticed an overall decline in foot traffic at her two stores compared with this time last year. As a result, she said, she has decided not to hire holiday-season help. Usually she hires three or four people part time.

Not surprisingly, publishers, too, are looking for ways to cut costs. Print runs are being scrutinized, and companies are trying to reduce the number of unsold copies that are returned by booksellers, a painful practice in the best of times.

Some publishers are also looking at their (famously generous) travel and entertainment budgets. Steve Ross, publisher of Collins, a division of HarperCollins, said he recently took a job candidate for a drink at a Midtown hotel and was shocked by the $22 price for cocktails. “I think it will be awhile before I will have the pleasure of meeting anybody there,” Mr. Ross said.

For now, both publishers and agents said the penny pinching was not yet sinking seven-figure book deals. Although some might be cautious about signing a debut novelist, most publishers said they were still aggressively pursuing deals for celebrity books and others with natural best-seller prospects. Last month Little, Brown & Company signed a deal with the comedian Tina Fey for a sum reported as more than $5 million, and Jerry Seinfeld was out with a book proposal this week that some publishers suggested could go for a high seven-figure advance.

“The paradox is we have to continue to acquire books and compete against each other in a tough marketplace,” said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins. “We’re trying to be fiscally responsible about royalty advances, and yet the big books are the books that everybody wants, so we’re still in this climate of having to pay large levels of money in these auctions. You can’t really step away from that.”

Christy Fletcher, a literary agent in Manhattan, said royalty advances for so-called midlist authors could come under pressure. “Something may sell for $50,000 that would have sold for $100,000 a year ago,” she said.

Publishers continue to plan for blockbuster sales of marquee-brand books. Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for example, has shipped 1.25 million copies of “You: Being Beautiful — The Owner’s Manual to Inner and Outer Beauty,” Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz’s next book in their best-selling series of advice titles, which goes on sale on Tuesday. HarperCollins has shipped more than 300,000 copies of “The Hour I First Believed,” the new novel by Wally Lamb. (In March that publisher had announced a first-print run of half a million, though these numbers tend to be exaggerated.)

One silver lining of the downturn: Because many books are not selling as well as they might have in a better economy, it does not take nearly as many copies to have bragging rights about being a best seller.

There still may be something to the theory, much circulated these days, that books can provide an escape from financial misery. When “Gone With the Wind” was published in 1936 during the Great Depression, it sold a million copies in its first year and stayed at No. 1 on best-seller lists for two straight years — before it was a movie tie-in.

Then again, they didn’t have the Internet or television back then. But some publishing insiders suggested that readers might be looking for a respite from the digital world.

“I think that people have not been reading for the past year because they’ve been checking political blogs every 20 minutes,” said Larry Weissman, a literary agent. “At some point I think people are going to say, ‘You know what, this is not nourishing.’ I think and I hope — and maybe it’s just blind hope — I think there is a yearning for authenticity out there, and people are going to go back to the things that really matter, and one of those things, I hope, will be reading books.”

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on November 25, 2008 in Ambigamy

This Thanksgiving I’m conscious of my gratitude for a great many things. My gratitude is deeply biased, however. I’m unconscious of the things I should be most grateful for. As I mentioned in a recent article, the things that are going most reliably well in my life, I’m not going to notice at all. (Search Declaration of Co-dependence ) My grocery store is the example I used. It cradles me so fully in the horn of plenty that I’m able to ignore it even though I’m wholly dependent upon it.

We know our gratitude by differences. We delight in windfalls. We obsess over intermittent reinforcements, the good things that we hope will be there but we know might not be.
We’re filled with appreciation for the things that we almost hold securely, not the things that are always there for us. Falling in love fills us with gratitude because we’re surprised by it and the differences it makes. We obsess. We wonder if they’ll still love us tomorrow. We fear that they’ll leave us. When they don’t, we’re thrilled and grateful. The passion in love songs is fueled by attention to the difference between having and not having: I’d be lost without you. Baby, never leave me. You’re the difference that makes my life worth living. It’s the tremulous tenuous difference that makes us notice and appreciate.

The poet Philip Larkin writes, “He married her to keep her from getting away; now she’s there all day.” What stands beside you steady as can be is what you’re most likely to take for granted. My parents died nearly two decades ago. To this day I dream more about my father than my mother. They both loved me, but my father’s love was less certain. There was more competition for his love. His love was harder to earn and more complicated by standards I had to meet.

My mother held me deep and steady in her affections. She was my free space on the Bingo board. And how do I repay her? With the ingratitude reserved for those who loved me most consistently.

Gratitude takes noticing. Noticing takes difference. We generate gratitude by positing a difference, by imagining the absence. Some absences loom present enough to make the gratitude obvious. Other absences require that we contrive a vision of life without. Where would I be without my mother, my grocery store? Notice the difference; discover your gratitude. In Frank Capra’s movie “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart comes to appreciate his life by imagining the world without it.

And I’m grateful for my ingratitude. Ironically, it’s one of those reliable things I take for granted. But really, where would I be without it? My ingratitude for what comes easily is a gift from mother nature. It’s a highly adaptive trait.

See, attention is finite, and so we invest it most in those things we can improve. If it ain’t broke, don’t waste attention on it. Ingratitude is a prioritizing mechanism. It’s how nature gets us to focus on improving things. We focus on the squeaky wheels, not the ones running smoothly. As a result we can concentrate on fixing the squeaky wheels.

from wikiHow:

You're on the road, and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see that your hotel room has a coffee maker waiting for you. But when you go to brew a cup to enjoy in the privacy of your room, the product is quite...disappointing. Before you speed down to the local coffee shop and squander another fraction of what could be your retirement fund on a latte, try these tips and tricks for better hotel coffee.

from ecorazzi:

So much has been said over the Obama family’s upcoming decision regarding the “first dog” — but long before his road to the White House was clear, the President-elect had already made up his mind to adopt.

Back in 2005, Jana Kohl reached out to Barack Obama regarding dog adoption and her larger campaign to end puppy mills. It was then that the Senator promised Kohl he would adopt if his family ever made the decision to get a dog. In addition, along with 40 other notables, Obama posed for a photo shoot for Kohl’s book A Rare Breed Of Love. His co-star in that photo was “Baby”, a hypoallergenic 3-legged rescue dog and puppy mill survivor. From the release,

Baby, who was rescued from a puppy-mill after nine years of confinement in a cage, cannot bark because her vocal chords were cut and also lost a limb due to maltreatment. Since being rescued and subsequently adopted by Dr. Kohl, Baby spends her time advocating for other abused dogs and animals. Baby’s plight also inspired a Congressional bill that would end the inhumane practice of lifetime confinement of breeding dogs. “Baby’s Bill” was proposed by bipartisan members of the House and Senate and will be voted upon in the next Congressional session.

Great shot of Barack and Baby, right? January 20th 2009 can’t come soon enough. To find out more about A Rare Breed Of Love, jump here.

Photo credit: PRNewsFoto/CBH Communications

By Steven Kotler on November 25, 2008 in The Playing Field

In the past twenty years or so there has been a major revolution in zoology. Older Cartesian notions about animal's being bereft of emotions have been supplanted by newer notions like Jaak Panksepp's groundbreaking work in neuroscience, in which he's found that the same pathways associated with the major human emotions are present in all mammals and birds and, as researchers are now discovering, even in in lizards and snakes.

Along the way, animal intelligence has also become a hot-top, with most researchers in agreement that once language barriers have been removed (as happens when chimps are taught to sign etc.)the difference too begin to melt away. Dogs-for example-are the intellectual rough equivalent of a smart three-year old, capable of skills such as fast-mapping, which is the term used to describe the ability to form quick and dirty hypothesis about the meaning of new words after only one exposure. Dogs have also shown the ability to develop vocabularies of over 400 words (which is roughly the same as a four year old child) and utilize deductive logic among other patterns of associative reasoning.

The Harvard researcher Marc Hauser has further looked into the question of morality in animals and has found "mind reading" capabilities and other basic moral structures present in all mammals and most birds. In fact, when it comes to morality, just about the only thing that seems to be consistently missing from animals is an excessive amount of patience-essentially the ability to delay rewards. In humans, delayed gratification in children is a solid predictor of ethical behavior in adults, but Hauser does point out, in his excellent book on the subject "Moral Minds," that this may have more to do with a lack of significant delayed-gratification events in the real world of wild animals than any fundamental difference in underlying neuronal structures.

I mention all of this because one-time Atlanta Falcon, Michael Vick, who is almost halfway through serving 23-months in Leavenworth for the federal crime of dog-fighting and animal cruelty, has begun lobbying for early parole and reinstatement in the NFL. If we now know that dogs share all the same attributes as three year old children, then it seems to me that Vick should be treated as any other person convicted of torturing and murdering small children.

Now, I understand this may seem a fairly radical stance to take when it comes to animal rights, but all the science that currently exists has done much to erase just about every wall separating one species from another (excluding, of course, the fundamental inability to mate and bear offspring) so it seems high time to revisit much of our animal-based morality and the barbaric Vick is a perfect place to start.

My feeling is that his 23 month sentence was far too lenient and the notion of this guy ever playing football again would do much to sully the mostly stellar reputation the NFL has strived to build. In short, let him rot.

Amelia Glynn for SFGate.com

Two weeks ago, I had an accident that left a series of first and second degree burns on my shins. (Ouch.) I had to elevate my legs for the first few days of my recovery, but as soon as I was mobile again I ditched my Vikodin and scheduled a Doone pickup from my ex. I knew some quality dog time was exactly what I needed to get out of my funk and start feeling better. I couldn't take The Doone on our usual long hikes, but just getting out into the sunshine and watching her do her sniff-prance-wigglebutt-tailwagging-run-around routine took my mind off of being hurt (and wallowing in self pity). I took deep gulps of fresh air, laughed out loud at her silliness and felt... happy.

Over the years, a plethora of data has been collected on the larger role dogs and other pets play in the health of people all over the world. According to a New York Times article, one Japanese study found pet parents made 30 percent fewer visits to doctors, while a Melbourne study showed that people with pets had lower cholesterol, blood pressure and heart attack risk compared with people without. Good health is clearly influenced by a number of variables, but many experts believe companion animals help improve our health at least in part by lowering our stress levels.

Dogs, in particular, have been shown to do remarkable things to boost the health of their people, including recognizing oncoming hypoglycemic episodes for diabetics and detecting impending seizures. For example, trained seizure alert dogs are paired with people with epilepsy so they can work together one-on-one. The dog will lick the person's face, block their path when walking, or bark to alert them to the onset of a seizure.


More recently, dogs have been touted as potential cancer detectors. In 2006, the medical journal Integrative Cancer Therapies reported how ordinary house dogs could identify breast and lung cancer patients by smelling their breath. A University of Maine study is currently testing dogs on their ability to sniff out ovarian cancer.

Here are five simple ways animals can positively affect our health and well-being:

* 1. They help stave off depression and loneliness.
* 2. They add levity to nearly any situation.
* 3. They are great cuddlers and love unconditionally.
* 4. They give us hope.
* 5. They keep us fit.

Have your pets helped you (or others, as in the case of animal-assisted therapy) overcome an injury or illness? How do they keep you healthy?

Posted By: Amelia Glynn (Email) | November 19 2008 at 09:05 AM

Ask the Experts - November 12, 2008
Is there really such a thing as a dog that won't cause allergies?

By Jordan Lite

Barack Obama has promised the future First Daughters a dog, and his eldest, 10-year-old Malia, has zeroed in on a so-called hypoallergenic breed to accommodate her allergies. Her top pick is a goldendoodle, a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle, though the future prez has hinted about adopting a rescue dog, noting that "a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me."

We asked Bernadine Cruz, a spokeswoman for the American Veterinary Medical Association, to explain the hypoallergenic concept. Cruz is a veterinarian in Laguna Hills, Calif., and in 2006 was also a paid spokeswoman for Allerca, a company that claimed to have bred a hypoallergenic cat. For an update on Allerca and its research, see this story in The Scientist.

This is an edited transcript.

Why are some people allergic to dogs?  

For many people, being allergic to dogs is a matter of having a sensitivity to a protein in their saliva which also exudes through their skin.

Would a hypoallergenic dog be a good option for people who are otherwise allergic to pooches?

There is no such thing as a hypoallergenic cat or dog. One cat has been bred that's considered hypoallergenic: A company called Allerca in San Diego found a line of cats considered hypoallergenic because of a naturally occurring divergence (mutation) of the protein Fel d 1. The protein is (normally) found in cat saliva, urine and exudes from their skin. I've found people who are extremely allergic to cats who are able to play with them and not have the sneezing. But in dogs, a mutation in any similar protein has not been found.

What types of dogs might be better for allergy suffers?

Every person will have his or her own degree of reactivity to certain dogs — their saliva and proteins in their bodies. Those dogs that are more universally less allergenic come from more specific breeds such as Poodles, Kerry Blue Terriers, Schnauzers, Bichons and Lhasa Apsos. [They] don’t shed a lot or they go to the groomer frequently and by getting their hair washed and trimmed, get the allergens off their skin. When those dogs mate purposely or accidentally with breeds outside of those breeds, their offspring may be less allergenic.

But some people can have allergies to a Poodle and then be playing with a German Shepherd and have no problem.

What about the Peruvian Hairless Dog, which that country has offered to the Obamas? Is it better for allergy sufferers?

They're not going to be shedding a lot, but (allergenic) proteins will exude through their skin so that’s not always going to be the answer.

Are purebred dogs healthier than other dogs?

There's no difference.

Are purebreds available at shelters, or only through breeders?

Many times you will find them in shelters. Going to shelters or breed rescues is a great way for the Obamas or anyone to get a pet.

By: Dr. Dawn Ruben

Overview

What is Reverse Sneezing?

Reverse sneezing, also known as the "mechanosensitive aspiration reflex" is a common phenomenon in dogs. In a regular sneeze, your dog pushes air out through the nose; however, in a reverse sneeze, air is pulled rapidly in through the nose producing a noisy inspiratory effort.

What a Reverse Sneeze Looks Like

During a reverse sneeze, your dog will make rapid inspirations, stand still with his elbows spread apart, extend his head, and his eyes may bulge. He'll make a loud snorting sound, which might make you think he has something caught in his throat. Many dog owners think their pet is suffocating during a reverse sneeze episode. Each reverse sneezing occurrence generally lasts for less than a minute up to two minutes.


Reverse Sneezing Video
Look at this video for an example


Reverse Sneezing Video
Look at this video for another example





Causes of Reverse Sneezing

The exact reason for these reverse sneezing episodes is unknown but may be related to allergies, nasal irritants, or nasal inflammation. Any age, breed or sex can be affected.
A reverse sneeze may look disturbing – many people fear that their dog is not breathing during these episodes – but it is not a harmful condition and there are no ill effects. Reverse sneezing attacks are generally quite brief and not life threatening. Between episodes, the dog acts normal.

In some situation when reverse sneezing is frequent, a more serious condition may be the underlying cause. In those situations, testing for nasal mites, nasal cancer should be done.

How to Stop a Reverse Sneezing Episode

An episode can be stopped if the dog is stimulated to swallow by either massaging the throat or briefly pinching off the nasal openings. Sometimes opening the dogs mouth and gently pulling on the dogs tongue or giving the dog something to eat and drink can also stop the reverse sneezing episode. Some dogs have reverse sneezing episodes so frequently that various medications may be needed to reduce their frequency.

What to Watch For

If the revere sneezing occurs frequently (daily or several times a day) and is associated with other clinical signs, then further evaluation should be completed by your veterinarian.
Watch for other abnormal signs that may suggest a more serious problem including nasal discharge, epistaxis (bloody nose), sneezing, difficulty breathing, abnormal facial deformity over the nose area, decreased appetite and/or lethargy.


Legal Disclaimer

If your pet is showing any signs of distress or you suspect your pet is seriously ill, CONTACT YOUR VETERINARIAN immediately.

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY -- Georgia, Handsome Dan, Curly and other pit bulls rescued from Michael Vick's dogfighting operation are getting a shot at fame as stars of a line of boutique red wines.

The Vicktory Dogs Wine Collection features colorful portraits of 22 dogs confiscated from Vick's Bad Newz Kennels that now live at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in southern Utah.

"As a signature collection, it's through the roof," said Matt Hahn, co-owner of Carivintas Winery, a Southern California company that combines wine selling and philanthropy.

Each bottle includes a portrait of one of the dogs on the label. On the back, instead of a description of the wine, there's a brief story about each four-legged friend.

Read more ...

by Paula Poundstone



Morning Edition, November 12, 2008 · People still seem full of hope after the historic election of Barack Obama. This is America, though, it can't last. Pleased and proud as we are, Obama hasn't been on American Idol, so we're bound to lose interest soon.

That's why President-elect Obama needs to waste no time in harnessing this feeling and ask something of us. We'll spend. We'll save. We'll do laps. We'll wear sweaters.

My parents are a part of the "Greatest Generation." They pulled our nation through the Depression and World War II, and when they heard the call, they collected rubber.

My generation rode out the Beanie Baby crash, ran up both credit card debt and the nation's weight, and brought us reality TV and the SUV, but it's not all we can do. We've grown up collecting box tops and shoes. We've earned free doughnuts by getting our cards punched with every dozen purchased. We're the "a-thon" generation. We've jogged, walked and pedaled thousands of miles because someone said it would cure cancer.

It's our turn now. Just ask us. We've adopted freeways and been up all night with night feedings. We'll bring an unwrapped gift. We'll bring canned goods. We'll collect flip-tops. Yes, we will.

What do you need us to do, President-elect Obama? We could form a bucket brigade to bail out the banks. We could collect Band-Aids, not the useless little ones, for the health care system. We could take shifts forming human pyramids to hold up our crumbling bridges.

The entire country could hold a progressive dinner party to feed the homeless. We could all commit to wearing the same clothes two days in a row to save water, energy and time. I'll go three, because I care more than the others. We can carry road-mending materials in our cars and fill pot holes during traffic jams. We can put a wishing well on Wall Street.

Our leadership has told us that we have a long, hard climb before us, which I would welcome, because I love the outdoors, and I could use the weight loss, but I have a bad feeling it has nothing to do with climbing.

I'm waiting. I'm punching my glove. It's oiled and ready. Pitch it in here, sir.

Commentator and comedian Paula Poundstone is a regular on NPR's game show Wait Wait Don't ... Tell Me!

New tag monitors dogs and connects pet owners using the latest in social networking technology


BOSTON, Nov 10, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- SNIF Labs has unveiled a pet accessory, the SNIF Tag, that combines wireless sensing and social networking technologies to give dog owners peace of mind to supervise their dog's activities plus a means to socialize and develop relationships online with like-minded owners.

Customizable, the SNIF tag is available in a range of colors and patterns. The small, stylish and comfortable tag attaches to a dog's collar and records its daily movements and social encounters and then uploads them to the Internet. A secure area of the SNIF website then allows the dog owner to monitor if their dog has had a walk, played and/or napped while they are away from home.

Combining radio, software, Internet, and social networking technologies, the information recorded by the Tag is sentwirelesslyto the SNIF base station and then uploaded to the SNIF website where users can securely log in.

The SNIF Tag compiles data on the dog, building a pattern that allows the owner to compare their dog's activities, health and habits with other dogs of the same breed or dogs in their neighborhood. Owners can also contrast and compare activity level with the dog's diet so owners can tweak their pup's diet accordingly to ensure optimum weight and size for breed.
Founded in 2005 by four MIT Media Lab graduates, SNIF Labs designed the SNIF Tag with the focus on beloved dogs, their activity level and how they help their owners socialize. Through the SNIF Tag, dog owners have an opportunity to learn more about their dog's behavior in real-time and track it over a period of time as well as be a part of an online dog community based on their pups acquaintances.

Tap into your dog's canine connections and of course their owners. When dogs wearing SNIF Tags meet, the Tags record the encounter. The Tag allows users to make new friends, expand their social networks, and stay connected with other SNIF Tag owners.

The SNIF Tag allows dog owners to do the following:

-- Monitor, review, compare and track activity levels of their four legged friend

-- Meet new people while their dog is out and about through wireless technology built in the stylish tag which is collecting data of other dogs wearing SNIF Tags.

-- Hang out with friends both on and offline by reviewing online profiles and photos of people the owner and the dog have met through the SNIF Tag. Browse groups to connect with dog owners in a specific neighborhood or with people who own same breed dog.

-- Show off photos of the top dog, with the SNIF Tag pet parents can create an online photo album of the beloved member of the family

"We loved the idea of using real-world social networking to let your dog do the relationship-building work and act as a kind of social catalyst," said Noah Paessel, CEO and co-founder of SNIF Labs. "SNIF Tag not only gives dog owners peace of mind, it also offers a non-threatening way to meet new friends and companions via their dogs' encounters."

"The SNIF Tag has been a tremendous benefit to me since I recently moved to Boston. The monitoring aspect of the SNIF Tag helped me feel I was still connected to what was going on with my dog while I am at work," said Hillery Lee, SNIF Tag beta tester. "In addition, the SNIF Tag provides me with an opportunity to meet new people. It was important for me to meet new people when I moved to the city. More importantly, I also wanted to meet others who shared similar interests, such as my love of my pooch and dogs in general. Staying connected to other dog owners could provide me with insight into the best local dog boutiques and parks where I could take Twix, my Airedale Terrier."

The SNIF Tag Starter Kit costs $299.00 and includes one year's PREMIUM subscription to the online pet activity monitoring service and social site. A SNIF Tag Starter Kit is comprised of the SNIF Tag, the SNIF wireless Base Station (which charges the Tag), additional customizable lenses and rim, and connection cables.

More details can be found at www.sniftag.com

---

November 9, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Barack Obama’s
election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most
remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just
picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing
intellectual.

Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the
anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life.
Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen
recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise
and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.

We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to
polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying
saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that
the sun orbits the Earth.

Almost half of young Americans said in a 2006 poll that it was not
necessary to know the locations of countries where important news was
made. That must be a relief to Sarah Palin, who, according to Fox News,
didn’t realize that Africa was a continent rather than a country.

Perhaps John Kennedy was the last president who was unapologetic
about his intellect and about luring the best minds to his cabinet.
More recently, we’ve had some smart and well-educated presidents
who scrambled to hide it. Richard Nixon was a self-loathing
intellectual, and Bill Clinton camouflaged a fulgent brain behind
folksy Arkansas aphorisms about hogs.

As for President Bush, he adopted anti-intellectualism as
administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East
experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr.
Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I
can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared
so uninterested in ideas.

At least since Adlai Stevenson’s campaigns for the presidency
in the 1950s, it’s been a disadvantage in American politics to
seem too learned. Thoughtfulness is portrayed as wimpishness, and
careful deliberation is for sissies. The social critic William
Burroughs once bluntly declared that “intellectuals are deviants
in the U.S.”

(It doesn’t help that intellectuals are often as full of
themselves as of ideas. After one of Stevenson’s high-brow
speeches, an admirer yelled out something like, You’ll have the vote of every thinking American! Stevenson is said to have shouted back: That’s not enough. I need a majority!)

Yet times may be changing. How else do we explain the election in
2008 of an Ivy League-educated law professor who has favorite
philosophers and poets?

Granted, Mr. Obama may have been protected from accusations of
excessive intelligence by his race. That distracted everyone, and as a
black man he didn’t fit the stereotype of a pointy-head ivory
tower elitist. But it may also be that President Bush has discredited
superficiality.

An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with
complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is
looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and
Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions,
and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders
self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the
fumes of moral clarity.

(Intellectuals are for real. In contrast, a pedant is a supercilious
show-off who drops references to Sophocles and masks his shallowness by
using words like “fulgent” and “supercilious.”)

Mr. Obama, unlike most politicians near a microphone, exults in
complexity. He doesn’t condescend or oversimplify nearly as much
as politicians often do, and he speaks in paragraphs rather than sound
bites. Global Language Monitor, which follows linguistic issues,
reports that in the final debate, Mr. Obama spoke at a ninth-grade
reading level, while John McCain spoke at a seventh-grade level.

As Mr. Obama prepares to take office, I wish I could say that smart
people have a great record in power. They don’t. Just think of
Emperor Nero, who was one of the most intellectual of ancient rulers
— and who also killed his brother, his mother and his pregnant
wife; then castrated and married a slave boy who resembled his wife;
probably set fire to Rome; and turned Christians into human torches to
light his gardens.

James Garfield could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and
Latin with the other, Thomas Jefferson was a dazzling scholar and
inventor, and John Adams typically carried a book of poetry. Yet all
were outclassed by George Washington, who was among the least
intellectual of our early presidents.

Yet as Mr. Obama goes to Washington, I’m hopeful that his
fertile mind will set a new tone for our country. Maybe someday soon
our leaders no longer will have to shuffle in shame when they’re
caught with brains in their heads.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.

It
may be hard to believe, but you can actually change the physiology of
your dog's brain. You can make it larger and more efficient simply by
providing certain experiences for your pet. The same process will make
your dog more intelligent and give his personality an added degree of
stress resistance.

The research which supports these startling claims began in
the 1940's when Canadian psychologist Donald O. Hebb took home a few
lab rats and gave them to his children to keep as pets. The children
played with these animals and let them run around and explore much of
Hebb's family home. Obviously the life these rats were leading, and the
environments they were getting to explore, were much more complex and
stimulating than the standard barren laboratory cage, which might
include only some wood shavings to rest on, a water bottle and a food
tray. When these animals were later tested for their ability to learn
complex mazes (the rat equivalent of an intelligence test) they proved
to be much smarter than their littermates that had been raised in
boring cages where they had little to do or explore and where there
were no problems or interesting situations where they could exercise
their minds.

Shortly after this first set of tests on the pet rats, some of
Hebb's research associates repeated these experiments using dogs. They
compared the learning ability of pet reared dogs (who received all of
the stimulation and varied experiences that a typical family dog
normally has) with that of dogs reared in the usual barren kennels in
the lab. They found that the dogs reared in the more complex home
environment not only learned faster but seemed to be less fearful and
considerably less stressed in the testing situations.

By Jesse Bering, Ph.D. in Quirky Little Things


It's a good thing I'm not a clinical psychologist, because try as I might to be nonjudgmental there are a lot of things about other people that make me uneasy. There are a lot of things about myself that make me uneasy too, so don't think I'm being elitist. I'm not talking about any big ticket moral issues like whether someone's had an abortion or committed adultery. Those are just conversation starters for me. Rather, it's the little things that have me recoiling. Men with long fingernails have always been off-putting, as have sandal-wearing women who've grown out their toenails. And the sight of a grown man displaying affection towards his cat is also unsettling.

What motivates this post is my curiosity about why I feel embarrassed
to be seen being affectionate to Tommy. It's not that I'm ‘ashamed' of
our relationship -- that would be too strong. It's just that I'm
somewhat reluctant to display affection in public, at least compared to
the pride and affection I show more or less unreservedly for my dogs.
There's some voice in my head telling me grown men shouldn't love cats.
Of course I don't believe this and I should say Tommy gets plenty of
serious cuddling time most nights. But somewhere along the way I must
have been infected by this gender-based stereotype, since my public
behaviour and my slightly negative attributions toward other men with
their own cats betrays my acceptance of this unspoken social norm.

Read more ....

Seventy stray dogs intended to be killed and sold as meat were recovered by police authorities.

At 9 p.m. Sunday, the Quezon City Police Department (QCPD) anti-carnapping unit and non-government organizations (NGO) halted an Asian utility vehicle (AUV) along EDSA-Timog avenue containing 70 stray dogs.

The dogs are staying temporarily at the Philippine Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA), where concerned citizens can adopt and take care of them.

"Some people abroad think that all Filipinos are this brutal to animals," said Edgardo Aldaba of PSPCA.

According to QCPD, the dogs came from the CALABARZON provinces in southern Luzon and are set to be transported to Baguio city to be sold as delicacies. They added that syndicates purchase batches of dog meat which range from P100,000 to P200,000.

Enrique Pallasque was arrested by police authorities for trading dog meat. According to Mel Alipio of the Network for Animals, Pallasaque has already been arrested several times for the same offense.

According to the Republic Act 9482 or the Anti-Rabies Act of 2007, a person found guilty of trading dogs for meat shall be fined not less than P5,000 per dog and will be subjected to imprisonment for one to four years.--With a report from Doland Castro, ABS-CBN News

Jennifer Viegas in Born Animal for Discovery News


Barack Obama made history last night when he was elected as the first African American U.S. president, but he may have also made history in yet another way when he said, "I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation's next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House." That brief puppy mention may represent the first time that an animal has been referenced in a presidential victory speech. If not, use of the word "puppy" would certainly seem to be a rarity.


(Credit: Robert Sebree / reprinted from A Rare Breed of Love: The True Story of Baby and the Mission She Inspired to Help Dogs Everywhere (Fireside Books)


The above photo shows Obama with "Baby," a three-legged dog that lost its fourth limb following years of mistreatment at a California puppy mill. The toy poodle spent much of its life locked in a small wire cage. The breeders cut out Baby's vocal chords so that they would not have to hear her cries. In cages next to her, other dogs literally went insane, spinning repetitively with blank stares. Still others were gravely ill, maimed and had filthy, matted coats. A number was tattooed on the inside of Baby's ear, marking her as just one of many dogs at the mill.

When Baby got too old to produce enough puppies, the mill breeders planned to kill her. A passing stranger noticed the little dog in her wire cage and rescued her. Through a pet rescue web site, Baby was then adopted by psychologist and animal welfare advocate Jana Kohl, who previously worked for the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

Kohl recently traveled around the country with Baby, lobbying politicians and inspiring an entire movement to end the kind of animal abuse Baby suffered. Many of the cute dogs that you see in pet store windows come from puppy mills like the one that housed the now-famous toy poodle.


Baby, an unofficial spokesdog for The Humane Society of the United States, stopped to pose with many high profile supporters, including our new president. The images were compiled in Kohl's book A Rare Breed of Love: The True Story of Baby and the Mission She Inspired to Help Dogs Everywhere (Fireside/Simon & Schuster; June 3, 2008; $25.95/hardcover; 1-4165-6403-9).



Gloria Steinem wrote an essay about her love of animals for the book.
(Credit: Gerri Hernández)


And Baby also posed with the Chicago White Sox.

(Credit: Jamie Slade)

 

Please watch the below video to see additional photographs from the book including, towards the end, more memorable images of president elect Barack Obama and Baby.

Sydney Morning Herald
The plop thickens: gelato tests 'inconclusive'

Arjun Ramachandran
November 6, 2008 - 9:41AM


Tests on whether the faeces in gelato served to a family at the Coogee Bay Hotel came from an animal or a human have come back inconclusive, the food safety watchdog says.

The results mean the NSW Food Authority must do further tests on a second sample of the ice-cream, prolonging the unsavoury scandal into another week.

Initial tests by the Food Authority last week confirmed that the complimentary gelato served to the Whyte family on October 5 had contained faecal matter.

But more detailed DNA-based testing was needed to determine if the matter came from an animal or human, and the sex of the "provider".

"But our lab wasn't able to get any good quality DNA material from the sample supplied by the Whytes," Food Authority spokesman Alan Valvasori said.

The sample being tested had been only a "tiny smear on a tissue paper", he said.

"What we have to do now is get a second sample that the Whytes had independently tested [by the National Measurement Institute] in Melbourne."

The Food Authority had yet to obtain the second sample, he said.

"It's going to be at least another week before we find out the results," he said.

Police and investigators were understood to be waiting on results from the DNA tests before deciding on the next step, he said.

AAP reports: The hotel has repeatedly denied the allegations and has refused to apologise to the Whyte family since the story emerged a week and a half ago.

A legal mediation between the parties has been tentatively brokered for tomorrow.

Ms Whyte said on Sunday she was looking forward to the meeting and an apology was more important to her than compensation.