Dogged Blog

Damn you, Obama..

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way.... this is a clip of a spoken word performance by Darren Dauchan at the Urbana Slam Finals at the Bowery Poetry Club in May of 2007.

Updated with the words under the jump....

No words. Really.

I know the Republicans want to bring back the Reagan years... you know, those good times when AIDS spread like wildfire across America and the president never even said the word? Ah, good times.

So it looks like McCain really is the right candidate to do that. From beholderseye on Daily Kos:

Reporter: "Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?"

    Mr. McCain: "Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it."

    (Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

    Mr. McCain: "I haven’t thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it."

    Q: "What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?"

    Mr. McCain: (Long pause) "Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy."

    Q: "So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?"

    Mr. McCain: (Long pause) "You’ve stumped me."

    Q: "I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?"

    Mr. McCain: (Laughs) "Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it."

    Q: "But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?"

    Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) "Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before."

Whole thing here.

Just a little more for Obama. Like, 100 percent more.

It seems I wasn't optimistic enough when I set my fundraising goal for Obama, because I exceeded it. So I decided to go for double.

Thanks to those who have given, and for those who haven't, or who want to give again... it's in the left hand column, or you can visit my fundraising page here.

Why should you give? Well, there are two reasons. One is the speech in the video clip I've embedded at the end of this post. If you haven't heard it, listen to it.

The other? He wrote it himself.

United Airlines, Part 2

So, thanks to those who tried to assure me that United Airlines won't ask my friend for my credit card when she tries to check in -- but they will. When she tries to use the Easy Check In machine (or whatever United calls theirs), it will tell her she needs to see an agent. And that agent will ask for the credit card or the credit card information, including account number, billing address, and security code... depending on who you talk to.

I have no problem with giving this information to this particular friend, but what if I were an employer buying a plane ticket for an employee, or it wasn't such a close friend, or it was my deadbeat kid or something? And don't I have the right to buy a ticket for, well, anyone I want to, without having to give them enough information to use my credit card? It boggles the mind.

Under the jump, my correspondence with United Airlines.

Oh, the American corporation and its mysterious ways

Seriously, how do companies stay in business?

Let's try even to look at a company I love, Amazon.com.

I recently got a new Visa card after some child attempted to purchase $400 worth of games at a gaming website using my account. I forgot all the 34789647 places I had my old number stored, and one of them was my "One-Click" settings on Amazon.com.

So I downloaded the mp3 of Martha Wainwright's new album, and was happily listening to it when Amazon sent me a note saying my purchase was canceled because I'd used an invalid credit card.

Oooops, I thought, and thus began my attempt to pay for my download.

I updated my credit card number. I emailed them using the contact system on the website. I got a couple of polite but non-responsive answers, and finally used their callback system, where a representative told me to enjoy my free download, because they had no mechanism in place to charge me for it. She was very nice, agreed it was something Amazon really needed to fix, and laughed with me at the complete ridiculousness of the situation.

But still, WTF, Amazon? Are you insane?

Now on to a story with less laughter.

I bought a plane ticket for someone else at United.com. I've done this before, at United and elsewhere, for various people and for various reasons, recently and over the years. I'm going to guess I'm not the only person on earth who has purchased plane tickets for other people. Perhaps I'm wrong.

They told me that when she checks in, she must have the credit card used to pay for the ticket.

I was perplexed. I emailed. The email I got in response didn't answer my question, instead addressing a completely different issue. Okay, they accidentally used the wrong form letter, I thought.

I emailed again, asking for the answer to my actual question.

In response, they said I should phone. The whole reason I didn't want to phone is that United puts you into what has to be the stupidest, most endlessly frustrating, totally aggravating automated phone system on earth, and no matter how you try to game it, it's almost impossible to manipulate the little robo-man into putting you through to a human being. But I persevered and eventually, a human came on the line.

I asked her what to do about the situation.

She told me to give my credit card number, expiration date, billing address, and the security number to the person checking in.

I was speechless. "So, why should I do that?"

"To protect you from fraud."

I laughed. "You mean to protect United from fraud, since I'm not liable for fraudulent charges to my credit card."

"Well, ma'am, I've already told you what the reason is. I understand your concern, but you must understand this is to protect you."

"No, what I understand is if I, say, want to buy a plane ticket for my kid, I'd have to give him my credit card information, which I might not want him to have and which is far more risky to me than using my credit card to purchase something online or over the phone from a corporation, something that, by the way, I do all the time without them getting upset that I can't physically show them my card."

She had nothing to say to that because there is nothing to say to that, other than to repeat: How do companies stay in business?

Pet Food Recall, One Year Later

I'm back from SXSW, and I spent most of the last three days sleeping and trying to find some tiny little spark of energy. So far, not so much, although I got the dogs out for a long, long walk yesterday -- the first since I came home. I guess tramping all over Austin wore me out, along with the massive sleep deprivation and oh yeah, did I mention not being able to get or stay online? /whine

This is nothing, of course, compared to what happened the day after I got home from Austin last year, which was the first in what turned out to be dozens of pet food recalls due to contamination with melamine and cyanuric acid.

My article on this for SFGate.com actually ran in the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday, and now it's on their site in two locations, which is a bit confusing, even to me. But here it is:

I didn't guess when I began covering this story with Gina Spadafori at Pet Connection that it would turn into the largest consumer recall in history, trigger an international trade scandal, launch congressional hearings, spur proposed legislation on food safety and get both American and Chinese businesses owners indicted. I couldn't have foreseen that the incident would put a spotlight on Chinese imports which would eventually reveal lead in children's toys and toxins in toothpaste, and prompt the recent recall of the drug heparin.

But it's equally hard to believe that after all that, the answer to the question "Could it happen again?" is probably "Yes."

Full story here.

My Pet Connection colleague Kim Campbell Thornton also did an excellent story marking the sad anniversary on MSNBC.com:

One year after contaminated pet food killed potentially thousands of dogs and cats, few safety measures have gone into effect.

While pet food safety legislation has been passed and an industry commission has made recommendations to improve the safety and quality standards for pet food, some critics say the efforts, even when they are fully implemented, may not amount to much more than the fox guarding the hen house.

Full story here.

Back from Austin

I got home this morning from Austin. I had four hours of sleep last night, and had to leave for the airport at 5 AM. I'll have a lot to say later, but for the moment, I'm going to echo what I said on clubkingsnake.com:

If the film Body of War is opening anywhere near you, go see it. Just go.

More on that, on music, on coffee, on Austin, on SXSW, and on geek everything.... later. After I repair the synapses of my brain with sleep.

LOU REED!

I'm liveblogging Lou Reed's keynote address at SXSW in the morning, but this afternoon I not only saw the U.S. premiere of Julian Schnabel's film of "Lou Reed's Berlin" here in Austin, but I sat three seats away from Reed!

My impressions of the film and my notes on the Q&A with Reed and Hal Wilner over on club kingsnake!

Oh, Austin I wish I knew how to quit you...

I have two things I haven't had since I got to Austin: thirty free minutes and a stable internet connection.

Apparently all the Twittering and blogging and streaming video and bandwidth-hogging internet junky behavior has not only the Austin Convention Center's amped-up SXSW wireless overloaded, but all the local hotels, cafes, and T-mobile hot spots. Half the time I can't get online at all, not even with the hotel's ethernet connection, and the rest of the time I can't stay online for more than ten seconds before the connection drops.

Now, you're saying, well, Christie, hey, take this as an opportunity to stop and smell the roses! But number one, I'm an addict, number two, I'm working, so I kind of need to get online and blog at Pet Connection and club.kingsnake and PetHobbyist (you know, the people paying me to be here?), and three, I had to file my SFGate.com column yesterday and not only did I need to submit it via email, I needed to do a little research on the web and apparently to get on the web, one needs an internet connection.

This year, SXSW has taken a stand on making the conference "greener," and included tips on how to reduce the environmental impact of the conference and festival. And then they gave us three bulging bags full of useless crap, nearly all of which is filling and overflowing the trash cans of the hotel, convention center, and streets of Austin. I'm sure some of it ended up in recycling bins, but what a waste.

In addition to our panel on pet blogging, which I'll write about over on Pet Connection, I attended a panel on gossip sites. Since I write for AfterElton.com/AfterEllen.com and have been known once or twice to indulge in a bit of celebrity gossip over there, I thought I might learn something. The panelists included a guy from TMZ, the founder of Twitter, and a New York Times reporter, as well as a blogger from Valleywag.com, a site that covers Silicon Valley gossip for the six people outside of the tech industry who give a damn about it.

There was a woman in the audience who booed the Valleywag panelist, and pouted and flounced around about how persecuted she was, and tossed her hair and acted victimized. So of course, she gets invited to sit with the panelists and proceeded to dominate the panel by whining about how gossip sites have no right to cover the private lives of nobodies like her.... but she, my dears, works for Star Magazine (yeah, the tabloid gossip rag) covering Britney and Paris and their ilk. Why is that different from someone blogging that they saw her (who I've never heard of) having dinner with some tech star (who I've never heard of)?

Her rationale? Because Britney et al have staffs of handlers and publicists to deal with all that attention, and "ordinary people" like her and whoever it is she was dating don't.

I didn't come to the panel to see her. I have no idea who she is, she was acting victimized and like an attention seeker, two behaviors I loathe, and then she objected to someone who characterized what she did as "crashing the panel." But that's exactly what she did. I was bored and aggravated, and probably should have left, but I really couldn't believe the moderator would allow her to stay up there the whole time and dominate the panel the way she did.

It's also funny being here as a "pet blogger," which in case you're wondering gets you zero respect among the uber-cool SXSW crowd, even though virtually all of them have pets and will happily talk to you about them for hours in the hallways. It's very amusing. Especially when a story I blogged on Pet Connection got picked up in USA Today this morning:

The outbreak of contamination in pet foods that killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of cats and dogs last year in the USA wasn't the first such incident, veterinary pathologists have determined.

An outbreak in 2004 that also involved pet foods contaminated with industrial chemicals sickened more than 6,000 dogs and a smaller number of cats across Asia.

Kidney failure in the animals was linked to Pedigree dog foods and Whiskas cat foods manufactured in Thailand by Mars Inc. Thousands of pets died, according to Asian media reports at the time.

The Asian outbreak was little-known in the USA until it was reported last week by the blog Pet Connection. In the American public's view, the U.S. outbreak several years later appeared to be the first of its kind.

[....]

The Georgia paper was published last fall in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation but largely went unnoticed until it was picked up by the blog.

Story by Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit here.

In other news: The true highlight of my journalistic career, at least after interviewing Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor, was  my coverage of Project Runway over on AfterElton.com. Yes, it's true, I got to interview winner Christian Siriano (who was happy, funny, and adorable) and runner-up Rami Kashou, who was charming, thoughtful, and much warmer than he seemed onscreen. I also gossiped about both of them in the interviews. Mea culpa.

Today I'll be liveblogging (if, that is, I can get online) Moby's keynote address at SXSW over on club.kingsnake.com. Tomorrow is music doc day: I start with Daniel Lanois' new film at noon, then the Joy Division documentary at 1:30, followed by "Lou Reed's Berlin" at 4 PM. I'll be catching The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello's political/folk persona), and then being torn between seeing REM at Stubb's or Martha Wainwright at Club deVille.

Thursday morning, I'll liveblog Lou Reed's keynote address, also on club.kingsnake.com, before seeing Billy Bragg on the day stage at the convention center, and then heading over to the premiere of the film "Body of War." Bragg, Morello, and other artists from the film's soundtrack will be doing a showcase at 7 PM, and Clint and I will be covering that for club.kingsnake.com, too.

If REM won the tossup on Wednesday night, I'll try to catch Martha Wainwright Thursday at 11 PM, but since I'm leaving Friday morning at 7, I suspect I'll be packing and sleeping instead.

Despite how exciting that all sounds, I think I'm a little old to keep up this pace. What can I say?

And oh yeah, I miss having an internet connection and I miss my dogs.

Pet blogging: Not a fluffy puppy story

I'm heading out for Austin not, like Gina, to visit a cattle ranch, but to lead a discussion on "Pet Blogging: Not a fluffy puppy story" at the South by Southwest Internet, Film, and Music Festival. (I'll also be covering the Internet and Music parts as part of my other life.) Joining me will be my friend and PetHobbyist.com colleague Therese Kopiwoda, who did such great work on the pet food recall at PetSitUSA.com and thepetfoodlist.com.

The talk will, of course, discuss last year's pet food recall, but it's mainly going to be on the diversity and depth of blogging about pets. There was a time when Gina and I weren't really sure that we could find enough hard-hitting subjects to blog about, but with all the international trade scandals, food safety issues, medicine and science stories, puppy mill rescues, pet sterilization laws, and the growing movement for shelter reform and no-kill, that certainly hasn't turned out to be the case.

I can't liveblog a panel I'm actually on, but I'll certainly write about it after the fact. I also believe a podcast will be available on the SXSW website, and if so, I'll link to that, too.

And if you're in Austin, come by! The discussion is on Sunday, March 9, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM. More info here.