Alabama Shooter Hates Dogs Too

What would the Alabama gunman have done with his pent-up hatred if he didn't have guns? He probably would have just stayed home and seethed. Besides the ten human victims, he shot and killed his mom's three dogs, for god's sakes. The murderer pushed both sets of my buttons: I'm up with dogs and down with guns.
The media doesn't know yet what the teenage German gunman's problem was, but since he had access to his father's 15 guns, we know he was angry.
The guns in both rampages were legal. Ask the NRA, they will tell you we should all carry guns to protect ourselves from other people carrying guns. We could have a worldwide shootout.
The incidence of these shooting sprees come closer and closer together. Both sprees claimed victims in the double digits, and happened only a day apart. Second amendment supporters need to wake up and face reality: guns kill far more innocent people than they ever protect.

Superbowl Ad Hypocrisy

NBC is guilty of blatant hypocrisy in banning PETA's Superbowl ad because the ad is "too sexually suggestive," they say.
In the midst of a bunch of the Superbowl's sexually charged ads, the PETA ad showing a bikini-clad woman fondling vegetables would have have blended right in
With PETA's over-the-top reputation, you might think a PETA ad would show bloody, abused animals to make their point. NBC's ban might have been justified in that case. But the PETA ad's message is Vegetarians Have Better Sex. Subversive concept, right? It's not only the concept NBC doesn't like, it's the organization.
Superbowl ads are all about sex, beer, cars, soft drinks and cute animals. I just watched a trailer for the movie Fast & Furious that flashed a frame of two women kissing. Watch closely at about 28 seconds in.
In the Doritios commericial, a woman's clothes are ripped off by the power of a man biting into a chip. Go Daddy ads are also blatantly sexual with three frat boys watching a woman shower over and over. Sexually suggestive is not a deal breaker for these advertisers.
The PETA ad should have been able to run, just as the catholic vote pro-life ad should have been able to run. NBC should not pick and choose among potential advertisers, especially in these lean times, which would be a little leaner if there were more vegetarians.
If NBC continues to discriminate, they should discriminate against the advertisers who use chimpanzees in their ads. The animal cruelty is not apparent--the chimps look so cute and happy. But chimps in show business are babies taken away from their mothers. They are abandoned or sold when they are too big and strong to perform any longer.

Bacon Explosion Backlash

The popularity of the Bacon Explosion is a backlash to the anti-obesity message saturating the media. Behind every hot trend, a backlash eventually follows. Introducing the barbecue phenomenon, The New York Times says:

For a nation seeking unity, a recipe has swept the Internet that seems to unite conservatives and liberals, gun owners and foodies, carnivores and ... well, not vegetarians and health fanatics.

I object to The Times' implication that only vegetarians and health fanatics will object to this smoked meat monstrosity. "Fanatic" implies over the top, but even folks with a modicum of concern about their health should cringe at this dish.
I propose a backlash to the backlash.
Four pounds of piggy is the nutritional equivalent of running out of numbers on the National Debt Clock. Add in a jar of barbecue sauce and a jar of barbecue rub.
There are about 12,000 milligrams of sodium in the meat alone. The sauce and the rub send the sodium count to the moon. Move over Fettucini Alfredo, there is a new Heart Attack on a Plate.
After eating this, you will feel pork grease coursing through your veins and diluting your blood. The Times' estimate of 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat sounds low. The Burnt Finger BBQ team recommends the pig log be cooked in a smoker, so the extra carcinogens of smoked meat can be sealed in.
There is more than one way to waste food. Don't let a cute, smart pig die in vain.

Stephen Colbert Endorses Cow Tax

Click on the image to view Colbert's take on taxing cows. The animals have been getting away with murder. Or is it us?

Chimpanzees at Tchimpounga Sanctuary

A Day in the Life: Chimpanzees at Tchimpounga Sanctuary from The Jane Goodall Institute on Vimeo.

Alpacas: Cuter Than Snuggles

Who wouldn't want an alpaca? Who wouldn't want several alpacas?

Don't stash your money under the mattress, where its value will erode just as sure as your bedsprings will rust. Join the folks looking for alternative places to put their money. They are investing in hard assets like gold and . . . alpacas.

"Two decades after arriving from South America, alpacas have suddenly become the investment animal of choice by a subculture of doctors, lawyers and other unlikely farmers lured in large part by new tax breaks," according to a Marketwatch article from last year.

Besides being so darn cute, the great thing about raising alpacas is that Americans don't eat them.

Alpacas: The Andy Warhol of Animals

Which one is wearing the wig?

Jane Goodall's Harvest for Hope

In her 2005 book subtitled "A Guide for Mindful Eating", Jane Goodall proves she is more than just the chimp lady.

Goodall's lifelong study of chimpanzee behavior naturally led to her concern about their habitat and their dwindling population. The logging trade and the raising of cattle are causing the disappearance of the chimp's forest habitat. The bushmeat trade is causing the chimp's potential extinction. Chimpanzee meat is a delicacy in parts of the world. Imagine browsing in an African market and pawing through severed chimpanzee hands to find your dinner.

Gentle Jane's early chapters start with easy talk about animal diets and differences in human diets around the world. The reader is lulled by a seemingly basic primer on animals and diet. Chapter 2, "A Celebration of Cultures," is a happy chapter indeed.

Then Jane packs her punch.

Our happy, indulgent cultures encourage businesses to pesticide-proof crops with chemicals. As added bonus, we eat the chemicals too. Plus, we get bigger, stronger crop-eating pests. So now, companies like Monsanto, are modifying the DNA of the crops themselves.

Our lifestyles have also brought about the horrors of factory farms, the modern-day replacement of family farms. You don't need to accept that animals have souls, just that they suffer, to recoil at the treatment of the cows, pigs and chickens in these assembly-line hell-houses.

Chickens are crammed together so they can't stretch their wings, starved and denied water when egg production is down. Cows are branded, castrated, wallow in feces. Tailless pigs are shot up with growth hormones and weakened by lack of exercise. Sometimes their tiny legs break trying to carry their own weight off to slaughter.

If you are callous enough to not care about the animals' suffering, you might care that you and your family eat all the hormones and antibiotics the animals are injected with. (We've learned the consequences of too much antibiotics: super-bugs.)

Jane recalls the farms she knew as a child, where animals were loved and roamed free. Crops were rotated so that the soil remains fertile. These farms were compact ecosystems that worked without wearing out the land.

Jane's message: if you are going to eat meat, eat small-farm, local and organic. Better yet, don't eat meat and let people eat the grain that feeds the livestock.

Can you handle that? If not, then you won't know what hit you when the water crisis lurking around the corner appears.

Big Brown, No Triple Crown

Not all Triple Crown winners get postage stamps, but the legendary Secretariat did.

Secretariat won the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes in 1973, but, like everyone else, he didn't get his commemorative stamp until after his death. (If Secretariat had gotten his first class stamp in 1973, it would have been an 8-cent stamp. Stamps cost 29 cents between 1991 and 1994.)

Secretariat was a more legendary horse than his TC successors, Seattle Slew and Affirmed. Or so it seemed to me, hanging around with a best friend who was a horse nut.

Dee Dee plastered posters of Secretariat all over her bedroom. She also had a collection of plastic horses that sat on a sacred shelf. We lived across the street from the Laurel Race Track in Maryland and sometimes you could hear the track announcers from our apartment building.

By 1978 when Affirmed won, the Triple Crown may have lost some cachet. After all, the Triple Crown saw three winners in five years. But only eight other horses took the Triple Crown since the first winner in 1919.

Odds were a drought was ahead.

Thirty years later, Big Brown seemed destined to take the Crown. The media positioned it as a foregone conclusion. Yet, something was awry and Big Brown came in last. The drought continues.

Goodbye, Washoe

Washoe, 42, died Tuesday night.

The first chimpanzee to learn American Sign Language, Washoe shot to fifteen-plus minutes of fame in the late 60s, early 70s. She lived in more modest limelight at Central Washington University with her family since 1980.

Her sign language skills sparked an ongoing debate in the scientific community: what is language? what syntax is required to be defined as language?

Even scientists can be uncomfortable with the idea of chimpanzees learning skills that are supposed to be reserved for humans. Some of us can accept evolution in theory, but most are squeamish about seeing living evidence of evolution and its future possibilities.

For God's sake, one might have to consider whether chimpanzees and other animals feel emotion or have a soul.

I first heard of Washoe in the short story, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hempel. I'll bet I've read the story, a masterpiece, fifty times.

Here is Hempel's passage that sums everything up:

"In the course of that experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign to her newborn.
Baby, drink milk.
Baby, play ball.
And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug. Baby, come hug, fluent now in the language of grief."

Goodbye, Washoe.

Like a Dog with a Cone

G. and I are subjecting our Yellow Lab, Aimee, to the worst humiliation a dog can suffer--the cone.

Aimee has a food allergy, the vet said. She has red rashes all over her belly that she scratches and two bald spots (perfectly symmetrical) on either side of her back where she has bitten. Therefore, the cone.

The latest cones are clear and seal with a velcro strip. But that doesn't improve the cone experience enough for poor Aimee.

Aimee's equilibrium has always been off and the cone makes her balance worse. Misjudging distance, she walks into doorways and furniture with her cone. She needs help jumping on the couch.

Earlier I posted that Aimee weighs 57 pounds. Correction: she weighed in last week at 86 pounds. G. says he and the vet were holding her on the scale and they probably got a misread. Aimee doesn't look any fatter to me.

(Artwork courtesy of Gene Cawley)

Polly Wanna a Craker?

The best dystopian novel, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, moved into second place in my opinion after I read Oryx and Crake. Surprise -- O & C is also by Margaret Atwood.

I was inspired to read Oryx and Crake after the recent death of Alex, the "thinking" African Grey parrot, who makes a cameo in O&C. Alex, like most parrots, talked. But his handler and many others argued that he didn't just parrot; he reasoned. When presented with an new object, an almond in a shell, Alex coined a new word for it: "corknut". Makes sense to me.

The protagonist of Oryx and Crake is a bit of a corknut himself. Jimmy/Snowman, apparently the world's sole human survivor, is the guardian of the creatures created by the genius-mad scientist, Crake. The offspring are known as Crakers.

Snowman, like Alex, got pleasure from making up words. Snowman snuck his invented words into advertising copy. (His job before everyone else went bye-bye.)

But the award for clever, linguistic hi jinks by an animal goes to Washoe, the famous, ASL-signing chimpanzee. An example: Washoe saw a swan and identified it by signing "water" and "bird" in American Sign Language. That's one smart chimp.

Orvis's Gargantuan Dog Bed

When you order stuff from the Internet, pay attention to the size.

I ordered this dog bed in Extra Large from Orvis, remembering that the largest size dog clothing rarely fits 57-pound Aimee. (Weight at her last weigh-in, not necessarily current.)

But I didn't process the 50" diameter specification. Think about 50 inches, take a tape measure to the floor area and see how it fits before you buy.

Aimee looks downright petite on her king-size bed. She reminds me of Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann in her oversize rocking chair.

Aimee sure is happy though. And that's the truth!

Let's Put a Few Horses Out of Work

How many marriage proposals do you suppose have been made while riding through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage? Its so romantic and reminiscent of a bygone era.

But these carriages are dangerous and should be a bygone practice. New York City streets are not a safe place for the animals.

Last week, a carriage horse was tragically killed. A pedestrian beating a drum startled the horse. The horse ran up on the sidewalk and the carriage he was pulling got stuck between two poles. He died trying to pull the carriage through. A second horse ran into the street and landed on a car.

The graphic New York Times photo accompanying the story is wrenching.

Want a romantic ride in the open air? Give a pedicab some business.

And sign the petition to ban horse-drawn carriages in New York City.

Water for Elephants

Animal lovers, Water For Elephants will break your heart.

Set during the 1930s Depression, the novel takes you to the the gritty side of a struggling circus. The bosses are cruel, the performers are exploited and the workers are sad and broken. But belief in the circus illusion still survives and the characters have their decent sides too.

The circus animals show the complexities of their characters as well. They can be vicious, like the hungry big cats or like Queenie, the clown-dwarf's companion. They are capable of mischievousness, loyalty, sadness and love. Like humans, they are emotional beings.

But the most tender moments are Rosie's, the Polish elephant. The author gets me right here when she describes a big tear welling in Rosie's eye after the circus trainer throws a lit cigarette in her mouth.

Throws a lit cigarette in her mouth!

It makes me shudder. Poor Rosie suffers her share of beatings too. I almost had to stop reading.

But this is a story of hope and perseverance and readers who persevere to the end are rewarded as are Jacob and Marlena.

Jacob, the hero and circus veterinarian, falls in love with Marlena, a performer who unwisely married the circus trainer. They band together against her husband's cruelty. Besides sleeping together, they are guilty of some pretty awful dialog. The dialog is awkward throughout the book but that is my only real criticism.

Dogs: Obsessive, Compulsive and Proud

Dogs, by nature, are prone to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Who hasn't seen a dog circle a specific number of times before they sit? I don't know if vets diagnose OCD as a disease the way psychiatrists diagnose it in humans (or how people self-diagnose OCD and label their neighbors with OCD).

Dogs embrace their OCD. Their behaviors bother only their human caretakers, not them. I think dogs are comforted by their tics and quirks.

Meet Aimee. She is our five-year-old Yellow Lab and she is classic OCD. She paces in the elevator. She can only eat treats in her special spot. She licks obsessively. She licks her paw and then changes position slightly and licks some more.

The result: she she leaves a perfect ring of saliva on the rug. A crop circle so perfect, you and I couldn't have drawn it with a protractor. (Remember protractors, anyone?)

Maybe Aimee is just trying to tell us the UFOs have landed.

Helmsley Heirs on a Short Leash

Even as an animal lover, I was horrified that the Queen of Mean left $12 million to Trouble, a white Maltese who lives up to his name.

But do the math --Mrs. Helmsley's estate is worth from $4 billion to $8 billion. Her gift to Trouble is at most .003% of her estate. That's 1/3 of one percent. If I left my little A. that percentage of my net worth, she would be begging for Kibble on a New York street corner. And Helmsley left all but $50 million to charity.

See? Its all relative.

Speaking of, Ms. Helmsley's human relatives fare worse. Two of four grandchildren get nothing, and "they know why", Helmsley states smugly in her will. The other two get less than Trouble, but the gift has sticky strings. They must visit their father's grave every year or be cut off immediately.

Shouldn't Helmsley want the grandkids to visit because they care? A forced visit is tainted. Even if they would have paid annual respects without prodding, each visit will reported by the New York Post, positioned as a homage to greed.

They remain under her thumb.

Was Helmsley afraid to stipulate they visit her own grave instead of her son's? Since Harry, Leona and son are all housed in the same mausoleum, a visit to the son equals a visit to Leona.

Ah, but even if the grandkids hit financial skids, they can always move in with Trouble.

Welcome to the Doghouse

Most shelter animals are a victims of circumstance rather than abuse. That is the point of the new ad campaign of Animal Care and Control of New York City.

Go to their adoption page, but I warn you, it'll break your heart.

Orphaned Baby Gorilla Found Alive

What does Connecticut and the Congo have common?

Both were the settings for the cold-blooded murders of innocent families last week.

Friday, four rare mountain gorillas were found shot dead in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Read the NPR story.) This execution-style slaying is a tragic loss to the 700 mountain gorillas left in existence and the conservationists who care about them.

The World Wildlife Fund believes that the shootings were a message to conservationists. Many locals would rather poach the gorillas for their hides, their meat or their babies. They also want to burn the protected trees for charcoal. (Read how this works.)

One of the three females killed was Safari, mother of five-month old baby gorilla Ndeze. Ndeze whose February birth was celebrated by his family and conservationists alike, was found alive today, a small victory in this setback for the gorillas.

Peacock Attacker is a Chicken

Every day I read news stories about violent attacks against human beings and yet, I don't get as disturbed as when I read tales of violence and abuse toward animals. This one is particularly disturbing.

In Staten Island today, in an unprovoked attack, a man beat up a peacock in a Burger King parking lot. See CNN story. When police arrived, the man ran away.

A peacock. Who beats up a peacock? The bird was beaten so badly it had to be put to sleep. The attacker should be tarred and feathered.

I took this photo at a restaurant in the Tarango Zoo in Sydney. The bird wandered in and made himself at home. Good thing the restaurant wasn't a Burger King in Staten Island.

Elwood: No Hair of the Dog Here

Poor little Elwood here has been crowned the "World's Ugliest Dog". He is nowhere near as ugly as Sam, winner from 2006 whose picture is so ugly, I couldn't bring myself to post it.

Elwood is a Chinese Crested and Chihuahua mix. Most of the contestants in the annual contest are Chinese Crested and therefore, are inherently ugly. Don't get me wrong, I love dogs. But the Chinese Crested is the dog for people who don't want a dog.

G. says the CC looks like a combination of a Shetland Pony and a rat. The most obvious feature of the Crested is its hairlessness and if you can't stand dog hair, it might be the breed for you. One of my more uptight acquaintances took the What Dog Breed is Right for You? test and not surprisingly landed on the Chinese Crested. I'm sure she never got one. After all, she didn't really want a dog.

Not Your 1980's Pepsi Challenge

What's wrong with testing Coke and Pepsi on animals? Are soda manufacturers resorting to chimp taste tests because humans overdosed on the Pepsi Challenge in the eighties?

There's a lot wrong with these tests as you can read in the May 30 New York Times. Scientists are cutting open the faces of chimpanzees to see how their nerve impulses respond to sweet tastes. They want find some medical benefit to their brown-colored sugar water to use in their marketing.

You don't have to resort to these tests to answer the questions: we love sweet tastes and, there are no medical benefits. Done.

In the article, one scientist is quoted, “it’s very easy to characterize scientific research like this in a bad light,” but goes on to say it's necessary to test on animals.

It is easy to characterize these test in a bad light, sir, because YOU ARE CUTTING OPEN THEIR FACES.