Dogged Blog

Friday iPod Challenge, the VIDEO EDITION, because I'm COMPLETELY INSANE

I have no spare time on my hands at all, and yet.... I did this. Enjoy. A whole new kind of random iPod ten.

I did what I always do, and set my iTunes to randomly shuffle my music -- and then this time, I posted each song with a video clip!

The list:

1. Melissa Etheridge and Jewel, "Foolish Games"
2. Marianne Faithful, "As Tears Go By"
3. Leonard Cohen, "Suzanne"
4. Kristine W, "Fly Again"
5. Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"
6. Everything But the Girl, "When All's Well"
7. Dolly Parton and Melissa Etheridge, "Jolene" (Live)
8. Cocteau Twins, "Pearly Dewdrops Drops"
9. Caterina Caselli, "Perdono"
10. Erasure, "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A man after midnight)"

This is frighteningly addictive. Don't try it at home. Videos under the jump.

More common ground: Ending the "adoptable" debate

Crossposted at Pet Connection.

My SFGate.com column yesterday, about the common ground between those who support and those who oppose mandatory spay/neuter, drew a lot of comments that reminded me of something that happened back in the dawn of time — excuse me, in the early 90s which for many of you is the same thing. That’s when the San Francisco SPCA did something most people considered completely outrageous: They decided to stop doing animal control for the City and County of San Francisco, and to put into place an innovative program whereby they’d stop killing cats and dogs.

Back then, there were no seminars on the “No-kill Nation,” no other towns, communities, and even states that had begun going down that same road, no organizations like Maddie's Fund, financing community programs to work towards a “no-kill” goal, nor any successful implementations of a program like this for SFSPCA to model itself on.

People who ran or worked in many other shelters in the region — and let me remind you I live here; this is all coming from my own personal experience and things said directly to me or in my presence — ranted and raved that SFSPCA wasn’t actually “stopping the killing,” they were just letting someone else do it, by which they meant them — other area shelters, or the newly-built San Francisco Animal Care and Control Center. SFSPCA doesn’t even take in strays or owner surrenders, they’d add. They just cherry pick the best of the best and stand around being proud of not killing. And we get stuck with the “unadoptables” while SFSPCA looks good.

And they were right. They were absolutely right.

And yet today, San Francisco — not the SFSPCA, but the entire county — sends more dogs and cats alive out of the shelter system (86 percent) than all but one other county in the United States (Tompkins County, New York, which releases 91 percent of its dogs and cats).

Again: Not that one shelter. The whole county.

So you’d think everyone would be happy about that, and say wow, why do we need punitive and intrusive breeding bans and mandatory spay/neuter? Why don’t we just do what San Francisco did?

“What worked in San Francisco can’t work anywhere else,” they said gloomily. “San Francisco is special.”

Then when other communities did what San Francisco did — communities in rural areas, in the South, communities with lots of pit bulls and poverty — they said it was just a numbers game. Definitions of “adoptable” and “unadoptable” and “treatable” and “healthy” were being manipulated to make the numbers look good. San Francisco and these other communities, they said, are just lying. They say they don’t kill treatable animals, but they do.

And I know a lot of you, like some of the people who commented on my column, are sitting there now going “GOTCHA!” You’re wondering how I’m going to argue my way out of that one.

But I’m not. Because you’re absolutely right. While there are certainly definitions of “healthy” and “adoptable” that almost everyone will agree on, they are still ultimately subjective terms and thus, subject to interpretation and “spin.” And do they get “spun”? They sure do.

And so I say, let’s not define them, argue over them, or debate their meaning. Let’s stop using them.

See, I don’t give a damn about how the animals in a community are categorized or defined. I just want to know one thing: How many leave your shelter system alive?

Unlike words, numbers tend to be hard to spin. Not impossible, of course, but much more difficult. So if you focus on the live release rate, what happens to the whole argument over definitions of “adoptable” animals? Poof. Gone. Everyone won.

The No Kill Advocacy Center suggests the goal live release rate should be over 90 percent for a “no-kill” community. This basically means that the only animals killed by a shelter system would be those animals that any loving owner would euthanize for reasons of severe illness, injury, or aggression.

Will there still be some treatable animals, those who with some care could have their illness, injury, or aggression resolved, wrongly put to sleep? Yes. But I see loving pet owners wrongly putting pets to sleep every day, because they couldn’t afford their vet bills, or their vets were unaware of possible new treatments, or because the owner had a prejudice against a certain kind of treatment, such as amputation. We might like to daydream about a perfect world in which no mistakes are made, but that’s not the world we live in. Arguing about that ten percent is a tactic meant only to divide, to divert attention from an achievable, meaningful and relatively objective goal.

So how about we stop wasting time, and diverting attention and energy, with pointless, unresolvable debates over categorizing animals? Let’s focus instead on one more patch of common ground: Sending almost every animal who comes into the shelter system out alive.

Saving a pet ' s life: Can you go too far?

When my deerhound Raven was diagnosed with bone cancer, I knew it was a battle we'd ultimately lose. The number of dogs who go into genuine remission from osteosarcoma is very small. But she was young and strong, and, well, I loved her. So we fought.



I've never regretted amputating her leg, because despite the dire predictions of many people, unless a dog already only has three legs, he or she will probably do fine after the surgery. Raven did; she was running up and down stairs before her staples came out.



After the surgery, we began an aggressive course of chemotherapy, and I also took her to a holistic veterinarian for supportive care. Every night Raven jumped up onto my bed and slept next to me. And every morning she opened her eyes, her face lit up and her tail thumped, and she gave me a big kiss.



We only had four and a half months. It cost me $14,000. She died nearly two years ago, and I'm still paying off her vet bill.



I'm also still paying off the $10,000 I spent trying to save my dog Bran from acute renal failure three years ago. I first cashed in my 401(k), and then borrowed on my charge card and then from family, to take him for dialysis at UC Davis. But he was only four years old, and you know -- I loved him, too.



In the current issue of Newsweek, Frederick R. Lynch tells about his fight to save his cat, Fritz:

I recently paid $11,000 in veterinary bills for my cat, Fritz. I've been hesitant to tell friends about this expenditure, which I know seems extravagant. But after hearing a radio financial guru answer questions from two callers about tapping their 401(k) accounts for veterinary bills, I realized I am not alone.



[....]



Fritz's rear left leg was amputated at a California veterinary cancer center. The cost was about $4,300. He rebounded just fine, only to be struck two months later by severe pancreatitis—a potentially lethal affliction that required extensive diagnostic tests and a one-week stay in intensive care. He also needed round-the-clock medications—including an expensive anti-emetic drug originally developed for humans undergoing chemotherapy. The bill was $3,250. A second, less severe attack two months later cost an additional $1,250, and follow-up visits and medications racked up $2,200.

"That's what credit cards are for," I said when preauthorizing treatment. But an agent from my bank called the day after Fritz came home. "Is this 'veterinary services' charge for real?" he asked.

[....]

I admit sometimes questioning the reality of spending $11,000 on my cat when there are greater human needs. I am fully aware that Fritz is not a person. But I have to believe that as a society, we're a long way from 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes, who claimed that animals have no right to humane treatment because they have no souls. Today, I'm one of many who think that higher mammals are self-conscious, spiritual creatures.

Do I have doubts about Fritz's extensive, expensive treatments? Sometimes—mainly insofar as they caused him pain. But as I watch him romp around the house, those doubts fade and should dissolve altogether if, in October, we beat that 600-day average prognosis.

I wasn't so lucky with Bran, who I lost after a ten-day battle. Raven didn't even make it to the six months most dogs get with amputation alone, let along the year they get with chemo. If I'd known Bran's ten-day fight would end in death, I'd have put him down the minute he started to suffer. But it wouldn't have had anything to do with the money, it would have been about the quality of his last days.

And I'd fork over $14,000 tomorrow with a smile on my face to have Raven back again.

So I guess, as the headline on Lynch's story reads, for some things, no price is too high.

Quick note about comments

I don't know if some of my filters were disabled after the Big Power Failure yesterday or if it's just random, but I got hit by a lot of spam in my comments section last night. I'm going to turn on comment moderation for the rest of the day -- I'll turn it off tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Common ground in the spay/neuter war

I'd have posted this sooner, but apparently San Francisco exploded or something and all the power went out in the part of the City where all the Internets are, and Six Apart went down -- taking it with it Typepad, Vox, Word Press, and LiveJournal. Also taken were Craig's List and Technorati. It wasn't pretty, and in fact, it's still not pretty, because only around half those things are back, even though the power's been on for a while now. There would be widespread rioting in the streets, if everyone wasn't catatonic for lack of access to their blogs and stuff.

The power stayed on in my part of the City, but I wasn't able to get here to tell you that, as promised, I have something doggish (and, in this case, cattish). My column at SFGate this week:

Take two groups of people who mistrust and dislike each other. Take a law that one side wants and the other side hates, about an issue they don't even agree exists, or if it does, what defines it.

That describes the recent battle over AB 1634, which would have mandated the sterilization of all California dogs and cats over the age of 6 months with the goal of reducing the number of these animals euthanized in state shelters. But what might surprise you if you take a closer look at those two diametrically opposed groups of people is that both are motivated by the same thing: A tremendous love of animals.

So despite the gaping chasm between us, I can't help but wonder if we aren't missing a pretty amazing opportunity to huddle together on the little patch of ground we share. Because let's face it: Both sides of the mandatory spay/neuter war share the goal of reducing the deaths of dogs and cats in animal shelters. In other words, we want the same thing.

In a previous column, I outlined all the reasons I don't think the proposed law would reduce shelter deaths, and how I thought in some ways it might even make things worse. But I very much do want to see the number of dogs and cats who end up in shelters, or who are killed in shelters, to be reduced.

Because AB 1634 was withdrawn by its author at least until January, I'd like to ask everyone who cares about this issue to pretend for, oh, the 10 minutes it will take you to read this column that legislation is off the table, and you still have to solve the problem.

How about starting not with any particular action or strategy, but by trying to think about the issue in a different way? Forget all the rhetoric on both sides, and just keep the goal clear in your mind: Reducing the number of dogs and cats who die in California shelters.

Read the rest here, and remember: You can post comments on my my articles there now!

More common ground: Ending the " adoptable " debate

My SFGate.com column yesterday, about the common ground between those who support and those who oppose mandatory spay/neuter, drew a lot of comments that reminded me of something that happened back in the dawn of time -- excuse me, in the early 90s which for many of you is the same thing. That's when the San Francisco SPCA did something most people considered completely outrageous: They decided to stop doing animal control for the City and County of San Francisco, and to put into place an innovative program whereby they'd stop killing cats and dogs.



Back then, there were no seminars on the "No-kill Nation," no other towns, communities, and even states that had begun going down that same road, no organizations like Maddie's Fund financing community programs to work towards a "no-kill" goal, nor any successful implementations of a program like this for SFSPCA to model itself on.



People who ran or worked in many other shelters in the region -- and let me remind you I live here; this is all coming from my own personal experience and things said directly to me or in my presence -- ranted and raved that SFSPCA wasn't actually "stopping the killing," they were just letting someone else do it, by which they meant them -- other area shelters, or the newly-built San Francisco Animal Care and Control Center. SFSPCA doesn't even take in strays or owner surrenders, they'd add. They just cherry pick the best of the best and stand around being proud of not killing. And we get stuck with the "unadoptables" while SFSPCA looks good.



And they were right. They were absolutely right.



And yet today, San Francisco -- not the SFSPCA, but the entire county -- sends more dogs and cats alive out of the shelter system (86 percent) than all but one other county in the United States (Tompkins County, New York, which releases 91 percent of its dogs and cats).



Again: Not that one shelter. The whole county.



So you'd think everyone would be happy about that, and say wow, why do we need punitive and intrusive breeding bans and mandatory spay/neuter? Why don't we just do what San Francisco did?



"What worked in San Francisco can't work anywhere else," they said gloomily. "San Francisco is special."



Then when other communities did what San Francisco did -- communities in rural areas, in the South, communities with lots of pit bulls and poverty -- they said it was just a numbers game. Definitions of "adoptable" and "unadoptable" and "treatable" and "healthy" were being manipulated to make the numbers look good. San Francisco and these other communities, they said, are just lying. They say they don't kill treatable animals, but they do.



And I know a lot of you, like some of the people who commented on my column, are sitting there now going "GOTCHA!" You're wondering how I'm going to argue my way out of that one.



But I'm not. Because you're absolutely right. While there are certainly definitions of "healthy" and "adoptable" that almost everyone will agree on, they are still ultimately subjective terms and thus, subject to interpretation and "spin." And do they get "spun"? They sure do.



And so I say, let's not define them, argue over them, or debate their meaning. Let's stop using them.



See, I don't give a damn about how the animals in a community are categorized or defined. I just want to know one thing: How many leave your shelter system alive?



Unlike words, numbers tend to be hard to spin. Not impossible, of course, but much more difficult. So if you focus on the live release rate, what happens to the whole argument over definitions of "adoptable" animals? Poof. Gone. Everyone won.



The No Kill Advocacy Center suggests the goal live release rate should be over 90 percent for a "no-kill" community. This basically means that the only animals killed by a shelter system would be those animals that any loving owner would euthanize for reasons of severe illness, injury, or aggression.



Will there still be some treatable animals, those who with some care could have their illness, injury, or aggression resolved, wrongly put to sleep? Yes. But I see loving pet owners wrongly putting pets to sleep every day, because they couldn't afford their vet bills, or their vets were unaware of possible new treatments, or because the owner had a prejudice against a certain kind of treatment, such as amputation. We might like to daydream about a perfect world in which no mistakes are made, but that's not the world we live in. Arguing about that ten percent is a tactic meant only to divide, to divert attention from an achievable, meaningful and relatively objective goal.



So how about we stop wasting time, and diverting attention and energy, with pointless, unresolvable debates over categorizing animals? Let's focus instead on one more patch of common ground: Sending almost every animal who comes into the shelter system out alive.

The Hot 100 Thing

AfterEllen.com thought these women were hot... I'm getting old, I didn't know who half of the "Hot 100 Women" were, but Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor were there, as was Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff at EIGHTY FOUR? WTF, lesbians? Are you out of your minds? See photos, kthnx.

Over on AfterElton.com, where the boys did their nominating and voting for the "Hot 100 Guys," Gale Harold (there go my blog hits) was number 4, with a pretty lame bio (she says, hoping her editor is NOT reading her blog), and at number 34 is his former co-star on Queer as Folk, Randy Harrison. I mention him here because his hair in that photo? Perfect. And you know, for me, it's all about the hair.

And don't tell Gina, Ginger, or my mom, but George Clooney? Barely there at 92.

[Update:] A reader just emailed me that Queer as Folk's Robert Gant is number 14. In this case, it's not the hair. It's the dog in the photo, under the jump.

Friday iPod Challenge, on Saturday: How songful

I was ranting the other day on AfterElton.com that I have a thing against artsy films that don't tell a story or have compelling characters. I feel the same way about books. I certainly think filmmakers and writers should create whatever they want to create, and not worry about what I think; I'm all about the freedom of expression. But me and art films and literary fiction, not so much.

Along with liking stories, I like songs. When I interviewed him, I had to admit to Stephen Kijak, who made a brilliant and not at all "art film" biography of musician Scott Walker, that I, like other heathens among Walker's fans, don't care for his more experimental recent works. I suck. I freely admit it.

So, I have a playlist on my iPod called "Just Sing." It has a lot of songs that I love because they're, well, songful. So I set iTunes to randomly shuffle just that playlist, and here is a songful random ten:

1. Don't Let the Teardrops Rust Your Shining Heart by Everything but the Girl (ever so slightly biographical although I'm the "you"):

I used to drive all night for you
While the children were asleep
And as the dawn broke on your room
Back into my house I'd creep
Where my husband slept alone
Of course he must have known
But we always hide the truth
For fear of losing what we own

2. Deeper Well by Emmylou Harris (from the incredibly brilliant Wrecking Ball, an album Stephen Kijak turned me onto, so maybe he won't hate me forever):

I went to the river but the river was dry
I fell to my knees and I looked to the sky
I looked to the sky and the spring rain fell
I saw the water from a deeper well

3.  Angel of Harlem by U2:

Blue light on the avenue
God knows they got to you
An empty glass, the lady sings
Eyes swollen like a bee sting
Blinded you lost your way
Through the side streets and the alleyway
Like a star exploding in the night
Falling to the city in broad daylight
An angel in Devil's shoes
Salvation in the blues
You never looked like an angel
Yeah yeah...angel of Harlem

4. Hunter's Lullaby by Leonard Cohen

Your father's gone a-hunting
Through the silver and the glass
Where only greed can enter
But spirit, spirit cannot pass

5. Valentine's Day is Over by Billy Bragg

Thank you for the things you bought me
Thank you for the card
Thank you for the things you taught me when you hit me hard
That love between two people must be based on understanding
Until that's true you'll find your things
All stacked out on the landing
Surprise, surprise
Valentine's Day is over

6. Breakdown by Melissa Etheridge (lesbian couples never break up, we  just call each other at 3 am):

So you're having a breakdown
So you're losing the fight
So you're having a breakdown
And you need me tonight
I found my place in this downtown
Salt air and yellow street lights
So you're having a breakdown
And I'm driving and crying
Unraveled and flying
I'm coming to your breakdown tonight

7. The Moon and St. Christopher by Mary Chapin Carpenter:

Now I've paid my dues because I have owed them
But I've paid a price sometimes
For being such a stubborn woman in such stubborn times
Now I have run from the arms of lovers
I have run from the eyes of friends
I have run from the hands of kindness
I have run just because I can

8. Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you're smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

9. Crying by Roy Orbison and kd lang

I thought that I was over you
But it's true, so true
I love you even more than I did before
But darling, what can I do?
For you don't love me
and I'll always be
Crying over you, crying over you

10. A Rainy Night in Soho by the Pogues (I have never listened to this without crying. Never):

I'm not singing for the future
I'm not dreaming of the past
I'm not talking of the first time
I never think about the last

Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there's a light I hold before me
You're the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams

Okay. Ten songs. Not just music. SONGS. Gimme.

Breaking: Christie ' s head explodes. FDA not involved.

So, this morning I woke up and walked the dogs and looked at my email, and there was a little back and forth between Gina and Luisa over at Lassie Get Help. It went something like this:

Luisa: OMG, Gina, look at this.



Gina: OMG, Luisa, that must be a spoof. No one is that evil stupid.



Luisa: OMG no, Gina, it's real. I swear. See proof attached. Check the link: It's their new home page.



Gina: (stunned silence) OMG Christie please blog this immediately.

So I am:







And I have one question: Has Lloyd Levine sold his soul to the devil lost his mind?



Unlike HSUS, who, okay, may have exploited the Vick dogfighting case to raise some money, at least actually has a longstanding anti-dogfighting campaign and has actually done things to eradicate the practice.



If Levine seriously thinks his proposed law requiring that every dog and cat in California be spayed and neutered by the age of 6 months will stop dogfighters, I need him to sit down and take a few deep breaths while I explain to him slowly in words of one syllable that dog fighting is already against the law, Lloyd. Really, it is. Not to mention things like limit laws and animal cruelty statutes and all the forty bazillion existing laws in California that would prevent this kind of thing from happening if the people doing these things gave a damn about the law.



Which they don't.



Yeah, I can see it now. Dogfighter A comes into the warehouse where their dogs are chained. "Hey, Dogfighter B, did you see this? All our dogs are supposed to be spayed and neutered now. It's the law!"



Dogfighter B responds, "Oh, wow, I didn't know that! We'd better run right out and get them all fixed, even though I can sell the puppies from my big winning fighting dog over here for a few thousand dollars. Because you know me, I'm a law abiding kind of guy."



Wake up and smell the offensive self-serving crap coffee, Lloyd. Of all the half-truths, false impressions, and genuine differences of opinion that have been taken out for a spin since this battle began, this is without question the most egregious example of opportunism I've ever seen.



And I'd feel the same way even if I thought AB 1634 was the best idea since drive-thru espresso stands.

Falling for Grace

I feel something doggish coming on, I really do, but before that, yes, it's another movie review.

I saw a sweet, funny little romantic comedy Tuesday night that opens tonight here in San Francisco, and next weekend in Washington DC. It's probably the most heterosexual movie I've ever reviewed other than Princess Bride,  which might make you ask, okay, so, exactly why did you review it, and for whom, oh Miss Lesbian/Gay Media Hack?

Trust me, darlings, I can can gay up ANYTHING -- although it wasn't really all that hard with this:

For a totally conventional hetero Cinderella romantic comedy without even an Obligatory Gay Best Friend, Falling for Grace, which opens this weekend in San Francisco and next weekend in Washington, DC, is kind of a who's who of the queer and near-queer.

It stars Queer as Folk's Gale Harold as the JFK Jr-esque Andrew Barrington, Jr. He's vying for the affections of Grace Tang (Faye Ann Lee) with Steven, played by gay actor B.D. Wong (M. Butterfly, Law & Order: SVU). When Grace, who has been mistaken for a Hong Kong heiress by a group of upper-crust New Yorkers, falls for Andrew, Steven turns his sights on her best friend, Janie, brought outrageously to life by every gay boy's best friend, Margaret Cho.

Speaking of Steven and Janie:

(T)he film's best couple is B.D. Wong and Margaret Cho's Steven and Janie. From their first date at a performance of Mamma Mia -- where Janie's tight yellow mini-dress and go-go dancing win Steven's heart and, I confess, mine -- to the pivotal scene at the Gatsby Ball, where the secondary Cinderella storyline gets resolved, their playful rapport and exuberant campiness dominate every frame. And I'm avoiding the spoiler thing here again, but the scene where Steven leeringly plants a kiss on Janie's shoulder before sweeping her off to get a drink? Totally brilliant. Those two should have their own movie.

Since every time I mention Gale Harold on my blog I get 4568798 hits from Google blogsearch on that term, yes, he was good in it -- charming, sweet, charismatic, and just slightly quirky. The film itself is very conventional and there's nothing "indie" about it other than the small budget and lesser-known stars, but when what you want is nicely-done escapism with a happy ending, Falling for Grace will get you there. Probably the single thing I liked the least about it was the score. Better music would have helped this film a lot.

You can read more of my ponderings on this Chinese-American Cinderella story over at AfterElton.com.