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....
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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....
30 March 2008 in Reality | Permalink | Comments (6)
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.
29 March 2008 in Reality | Permalink | Comments (0)
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.
27 March 2008 in Reality | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: Obama
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.
27 March 2008 in This Is What I Think About That | Permalink | Comments (17)
For more than a quarter-century, pet owners have turned to the "Home Veterinary Handbook" series when faced with questions about pet illnesses and injuries.
While the questions are mostly the same today as when the series debuted, the world of veterinary medicine has changed dramatically. New technologies, advanced diagnostic techniques, newly emerging diseases, and recent research on drugs, vaccines and surgeries have made having current information a necessity.
Fortunately, newly updated and revised editions of both of these classic reference books were released in the last few months, authored by a team of four veterinarians led by Dr. Debra Eldredge.
"The goal was to update the books with the wealth of new veterinary information we have had in recent years," she said. And the authors succeeded: From cutting-edge diagnostics to alternative therapies, the handbooks cover it all.
The "Dog Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook
" and "Cat Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook
" (Howell Book House, $35 each) are organized by body system, with a comprehensive index in the back and a handy mini-index inside the front covers. Pet owners can read about the causes, symptoms, prevention and treatment of common as well as unusual animal health problems, from allergies to cancer. Sections are also included on first aid and medication, as well as instructions on how to monitor a pet's vital signs.
There's more than just practical advice on how to cope with health problems, too.
"The books are meant to make pet owners better health advocates for their pets, more informed and better able to communicate with their veterinarians," said Dr. Eldredge.
That's because the authors managed the tricky task of offering pet health information that's genuinely useful but doesn't confuse pet owners into skipping veterinary care when it's needed. Easily followed guidelines tell owners when it's appropriate or even necessary to give immediate aid to a dog or cat, when symptoms require an immediate trip to the emergency clinic, and when the pet can wait until regular office hours to be seen.
Also on the cutting edge are two new books on pet first aid from the American Red Cross. While there's nothing new about pet health emergencies, some recent hurricanes, floods and fires have underscored the need for resources to cope with them. And these two spiral-bound books -- one for dogs and one for cats -- are great resources. Each book comes with a companion DVD that gives step-by-step instructions on how to give first aid to pets. The sections on animal poisoning are particularly impressive, as is the information on what to do in an emergency until veterinary care can be obtained. They cost $17 each and are available online at RedCross.org (click on "Store" and then "Reference Guides"), or by calling 1-866-782-3347.
One more book to round out the pet owner's health library is Eldredge's "Pills For Pets: The A to Z Guide to Drugs and Medications for Your Animal Companion
" (Citadel, $15). It lists drugs by brand and generic names, covers issues including online pharmacies and compounded medications, and gives tips on how to get medicine into the pets -- yes, even those uncooperative cats.
And don't forget the Merck/Merial manual!
Most pet health books are lucky to have one veterinarian listed as an author. "The Merck/Merial Manual for Pet Health: The complete pet health resource for your dog, cat, horse or other pets - in everyday language
" (Merck, $23) offers more than 100 veterinarians, most with advanced degrees and certification, as contributors.
Within each section of this hefty paperback is an encyclopedic listing of disorders and body systems, as well as an overview on routine care and preventive medicine. If it's about animal health, it's almost certainly in this book, often in surprising detail.
Your turn: In this Internet age, what pet-care books do you still value enough to keep on the shelf?
27 March 2008 in Books, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (1)
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?
25 March 2008 in This Is What I Think About That | Permalink | Comments (3)
Last year, a county advisory committee in King County, Washington reported back to the county council that had created it that things weren't going too well at the county shelters:
Far from being a “model animal control program” or a “recognized leader in the animal welfare field,” we foundKing County ’s animal care program to be well beneath the standards that should be expected in a prosperous, compassionate, and generous community such asKing County .
The animals in KCACC's shelters suffer from high rates of disease, improper housing, inadequate exercise and social contact, a lack of basic comforts, and high levels of stress.
[....]
The Crossroads shelter is unsuitable for the sheltering of animals, while the Kent shelter has been badly neglected for many years, and is plainly inadequate to provide for the animals’ most basic needs.... The facilities at the Kent shelter are also unacceptable for the humane housing of animals, although it is likely that the most pressing issues can be resolved through a remodeling and some basic maintenance. The shelter is run down, and does not appear to have been kept up over the years. As noted in the subcommittee’s discussion about health protocols, the Kent shelter has no isolation for dogs, and inadequate isolation for cats. Sick cats are housed outside without proper shelter and inside next to the dogs, where they experience severe stress.
Among his findings:
• Some of the sickest animals didn’t receive food or water for up to four days.
• High rates of disease among animals were caused in part by a lack of vaccinations, inadequate medical care, and repeated instances of animal waste in cages.
• Many cages in the adoption viewing area were empty, despite the availability of adoptable animals.
• Mismanagement of animal cruelty investigations have resulted in a 0.5 percent conviction rate for these offenses.
• Repeated attempts by partners and private businesses to offer financial and volunteer aid have been rejected or gone unanswered.
"It is unacceptable for this county, which models itself on innovative and cutting edge performance, to have an agency in such deplorable condition," said Councilmember Jane Hague.
“It’s critical for the council to act with urgency on the issues raised in this report about conditions in King County’s animal shelters,” said Councilmember Larry Phillips. “These are matters of life and death to the vulnerable animals dependent on our care. They are voiceless, so we must speak loudly on their behalf.”
“The lack of improvements to our animal control system, in spite of months of warnings and promises, is a clear indicator that King County staff’s oversight of facilities, operations and customer service is entirely inadequate,” said Councilmember Kathy Lambert. “This scathing report should serve as a catalyst for reorganization of the service delivery system, and perhaps even a charter amendment providing the Council a role in holding department heads accountable, so that we can prevent this kind of failure from occurring again in the future.”
“The inadequacy of care at animal shelters is an embarrassment,” said Councilmember Bob Ferguson. “Today’s scathing report shows the County still has not reformed its efforts to provide humane care to animals under its control.”
Our goal is to find homes for all healthy or treatable animals.... With these values in mind, we retained Mr. Nathan Winograd to provide an expert consultant review of shelter operations and, like you, were were very distressed to hear his direct observations of current conditions. The findings in his final written report, which is being released today, are in many respects consistent with those made by your own KCACC Citizens Advisory Committee and with other reports we have received.
We have asked to meet as soon as possible with the County Executive so that we can move forward with the many urgent reforms that have been identified in these reports.
While I haven't read the entirety of the final report by Nathan Winograd, I AM APPALLED BY THE BLATANT ATTEMPTS TO ADVANCE HIS "NO KILL" AGENDA and SELL IN HIRING THE NO KILL ADVOCACY CENTER.
(T)he consultant, Nathan Winograd, is not a neutral observer but a strict anti-euthanasia advocate who seeks to stir up public sentiment for his point of view, a [County Executive Ron] Sims spokeswoman said Thursday.
"We're being painted as bad guys when we're not," she said.
25 March 2008 in No Kill, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (84)
In our syndicated feature, I wrote that the most striking feature of the recent Western Veterinary Conference, held in Las Vegas, was the focus on improving quality of life for pets. But that wasn't quite accurate.
The most striking feature was the wall-to-wall corporate sponsorship of everything from the lanyards holding our name tags to the shuttle buses that took us to and from our hotels. That's not unusual, of course. Sponsorship is the name of the game at every convention I've ever attended.
But sitting at a series of seminars about veterinary health and nutrition, led by researchers and veterinarians working for big drug and pet food companies, and sponsored by those companies, too, gave me something of an ethical headache.
I'm not naive. It's like this on the human side, too, where I got my start as a health writer in the early 90s. I know that the revolving door between industry, academia, and government spins at a dizzying pace, and the ties between the people investigating new drugs and foods and those regulating them are close ones.
This is certainly not news. For years, editors of scientific publications have been campaigning for better disclosure of conflicts of interest, with varying degrees of success. More and more attention is being paid in the scientific as well as the popular press about this issue, and multi-million dollar judgments have been made against companies for unethical practices involving scientific research and publication.
In fact, while we all might have forgotten it in the focus on how FDA handled the pet food recall crisis, there was another scandal in that agency just a year before. Lester Crawford -- a veterinarian -- resigned as head of the FDA due to undisclosed conflicts of interest:
Lester M. Crawford, who resigned mysteriously last fall just two months after being confirmed as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, will plead guilty today to charges that he hid his ownership of stock in food and drug companies that his agency regulated, his lawyer said.
The Justice Department charged Crawford yesterday with two misdemeanors for withholding the financial information, which included his ownership of shares in food and drink manufacturers Pepsico Inc. and Sysco Corp. and the drug company Embrex Inc.
23 March 2008 in Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (25)
I haven't been feeling well, and slept all afternoon, so I guess I'll be up all night now.
Denise Flaim of Newsday had some thoughts on Nathan Winograd in today's column:
It's the breeders' fault for churning out too many puppies.
It's the owners' fault for lacking the moral fiber to provide a forever home.
Heck, maybe it's the animals' fault, for their persistent fecundity and reliance on we notoriously unreliable humans.
When it comes to the blame game over animal overpopulation, Nathan Winograd has an unusual - some might argue counterintuitive - target: shelters and humane organizations.
A former attorney and founder of the national No Kill Advocacy Center, Winograd is the author of "Redemption: The Myth of Pet Population and the No Kill Revolution in America" (Almaden, $16.95), which advances an almost unthinkable notion: That shelters and humane organizations are complicit in the overpopulation issue because of an institutional bias - imperative, even - toward killing animals.
Winograd exposes the arguably twisted culture that has grown up around shelters and the multibillion-dollar humane groups that advocate for them: the idea that a "good" death is preferable to an imperfect life. In this vein, his deconstruction of the reservations against "TNR" (trap/neuter/release) is fascinating: While this approach has helped stop and manage the growth of feral cat colonies, Winograd points out the roadblocks set up by many humane organizations, from concerns about the humaneness of allowing cats to live in the "wild" (albeit with human caretakers providing for their food and medical attention) to campaigns to euthanize these untamed cats because they allegedly decimate bird populations (a fact Winograd deftly disputes, arguing that no cat is a match for a healthy bird, and that McMansion-fueled deforestation is a far bigger threat).
[....]
"They kill because they make the animals sick through sloppy cleaning and poor handling," Winograd writes of shelters. "They kill because they do not want to care for sick animals. They kill because they think volunteers are more trouble than they are worth. ... They kill because they don't want a foster care program. They kill because they are only open for adoption when people are at work and families have their children in school." The list of self-defeating practices goes on - refusal to work with rescue groups, or walk dogs to prevent "cage craziness."
20 March 2008 in No Kill, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (29)
Pet Connection blogger Kim Campbell Thornton warns that not much has changed since last year's massive series of pet food recalls. In a piece on MSNBC.com about the one year anniversary of the first recall:
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.
The federal legislation, for instance, relies on manufacturers to voluntarily recall contaminated pet food. “As long as it’s voluntary, there will always be breaches,” says Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and author of the forthcoming book “Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine,” due out in September. “There will be breaches anyway, but voluntary doesn’t work as well as regulated.”
Because there is no national tracking system that monitors pet deaths, there is no definitive tally of animals that died from consuming pet food made with imported Chinese ingredients tainted with the chemical melamine.
The full article is here.
And from Dr. Becker, a note that the AP finally -- and hey, just about a year too late! -- acknowledged that thousands of pets died from eating contaminated food. Way to go, AP. /sarcasm
Findings from the investigation into last year's pet food scare, in which the toxic chemical melamine was found in pet food imported from China. Thousands of dogs and cats died, and two Chinese businesses and a U.S. company were later indicted.
Full story, which is actually about a meeting of the Society of Toxicologists, here.
Last, the web interface for citizen comments on the upcoming FDA meeting on pet food safety isn't working. FDA has some tips on how you can make your voices heard:
Please include the docket #2007N-0487 along with your comments. The available means of submitting comments to this docket are:
18 March 2008 in 2007 pet food recall, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (11)
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