Month: December 1997

BOOKS: Molly

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

Molly
by Joseph S. Bonsall
Illustrated by
Erin Marie Mauterer
Ideals Children’s Books (1501 County
Hospital Road, Nashville, TN 37218),
1997. 32 pages, hardcover, $14.95

Country singer Joe Bonsall of the
Oak Ridge Boys ought to set Molly to music.
Dedicated “To my lovely wife Mary, who
taught me all about cats and their love,” it’s
a beautifully produced but quite conventional
story of how a kitten finds a home. There are
lots of similar children’s stories, but so far
nothing like it on country radio stations, to
tell cowboys and truckers that it’s okay to
love cats as well as dogs, diesel, and departed
women. Taken to the right audience in the
right medium, this sort of thing could even
start folks to rethinking rodeo and eating
meat––especially if Bonsall’s projected Molly
series were to include an item about the waif
kitten making friends with a steer.

BOOKS: Rescue Swine 1-1

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

Rescue Swine 1-1
True Stories and Poems About
Life at an Animal Sanctuary
by Steve Lawrence
Misty Valley Publications (2650
Spencer Road, Spencer, NY 14883),
1995. 84 pages, paperback, $9.95.
Audiocassette version $7.95.

Books about animal sanctuaries
authored by the sanctuary management are
typically directed at prospective high donors.
Thus when the Rescue Swine 1-1 book and
audiocassete arrived two years ago, we mistakenly
sent the book to a succession of adult
reviewers, none with young children, none
of whom got around to reading it.

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BOOKS: Dogs Never Lie About Love

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

Dogs Never Lie About Love:
Reflections on the
Emotional World of Dogs
by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Crown Publishing Group (201 E. 50th St.,
New York, NY 10022), 1997.
304 pages, hardcover, $24.00.

Pyschologist Jeffrey Masson,
through largely anecdotal evidence, assures us
here that dogs have complex emotional lives.
One need only observe any canine species for
a while to be convinced of that. Anyone who
has had a dog has experienced, for instance, a
dog’s unmitigated delight when “the master”
comes home at the end of the day—or just
ducks back in to retrieve some forgotten item.
It’s all the same to the pooch—you’ve been
gone forever, and is he glad to see you again!
Not that this isn’t an interesting
book. Dog lovers will read it wreathed in
smiles as they identify with one situation after
another. Those who haven’t had the pleasure
of sharing their lives with dogs may decide to
give it a try. The book is irresistible that way,
recounting stories and observations of canine
owners and trainers from the world over.

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OBITUARIES

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

William “Sonny” Allen, 53, vice
president and general curator of Marine
World Africa USA, died after a brief illness
on September 2 in Vallejo, California. As a
psychology student pursuing a career in helping
the mentally handicapped, Allen studied
operant conditioning. “After serving in the
military,” his professional biography stated,
“Sonny became a diver for the Philadelphia
Aquarama, 1964-1968, and started applying
his knowledge of psychology to sick and
injured pilot whales and dolphins. He trained
these animals to allow medical procedures to
be performed on them without the use of
restraints.” Allen began a longtime close
association with the orca Yaka shortly after
becoming head trainer of marine mammals
for Marine World in 1969, just before her
arrival from Puget Sound. He briefly left
Marine World in mid-1974 to become head
trainer at the New England Aquarium, but
returned as director of marine mammals later
that year. Allen was a founding member of
the International Marine Animal Trainers
Association. Also a seventh degree Kempo
Karate black belt, Allen taught self-defense
for more than 30 years, and throughout his
life volunteered for organizations helping
disturbed children and battered women.

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Children

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The Royal SPCA and
British Customs are struggling to
intercept imports of “squish”
videos , in which models typically
wearing spike heels crush animals.
“It is of particular concern,”
RSPCA inspector Martin Daly told
Cassandra Brown of the Sunday
Telegraph, “that many videos
apprehended by Customs have
belonged to people who were [also] found to have tapes containing child
pornography.” Jeff Vilencia of
Calfiornia-based Squish Productions
told Brown, “I tell the models they
can squish anything in the pet shop
as long as it is part of the food chain
of another animal.” Vilencia said
he had about 600 customers, 38 of
them British. Similar material is
sold via the World Wide Web.

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HINDI HEADS TOWARD HIGH NOON IN LAS VEGAS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

WOODSTOCK, Illinois––Facing up
to five months in jail for alleged contempt of
court in connection with 1996 protests that eventually
closed the Woodstock Hunt Club, Chicago
Animal Rights Coalition cofounder Steve Hindi
on November 14 won a continuance of his appeal
until December 19––and that means he’ll have
plenty of time during the second week of
December to haunt the Professional Rodeo
Cowboys Association finals in Las Vegas.
“We have extensive footage of not only
PRCA rodeos, but also International Professional
Rodeo Association and independent rodeos actually
shocking animals in the chutes to make them
perform,” Hindi told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
“While we have sent a couple of these videos to
the PRCA, no one has contacted us to let us
know what, if anything, will be done about these
clear violations of the PRCA code of ethics,”
which explicitly forbids using electroshock to
provoke bucking.

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RELIGION & ANIMALS

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops Pro-Life
Committee on November 11 called for a return to meatless Fridays as a
token of opposition to abortion, human euthanasia, war, violence,
drugs, and other “attacks on human life and human dignity.” Perhaps
not noticing that three of the four ranking Catholics quoted in
Associated Press coverage spoke for eating fish instead, which causes at
least as much animal suffering, In Defense of Animals president Elliot
Katz on November 14 endorsed the proposal. Katz is Jewish.
The men of some Orthodox Jewish sects mark Yom
Kippur, the Day of Atonement, by swinging live chickens over
their heads. Reported Melissa McCord of Associated Press from Israel
on Yom Kippur 1997, “Many Jews, including those belonging to other
streams of Orthodoxy, reject the practice. Rabbis have ruled that cash
or even credit cards may be used in the atonement ritual,” which ends in
either the chicken or the money being given to the poor.

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Hunting and serial murder

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

CADIZ, Ohio––Hunting season is
when perversely slain bodies are found, and
not just the bodies of animals.
Danny H. Jenkins, 51, of East
Akron, was charged on October 8 with shotgunning
two of his bowhunting buddies,
brothers Duane and William Lockard, 60 and
61, of Suffield.
Jenkins’ alleged motive, the
Harrison County Sheriff’s Department told
media, was robbery. Both Lockards were
known to carry large sums of cash.
Drifting between Ohio and Florida
for many years, Jenkins was within days of his
arrest also questioned in connection with the
November 19, 1993 buckshot murder/robberies
of Florida deer hunters Don Hill, 63,
and Gregory Allen Wood, 35, in the Osceola
National Forest.
All four victims were shot at close
range from behind.
A search of local newspaper archives
for background on Jenkins discovered that in
November 1994 he claimed to have been
among the hunters who discovered the skeletal
remains of a still unidentified teenaged girl
beside the Berlin Reservoir in Deerfield
Township––but Portage County prosecutor
Victor Vigluicci said Jenkins was not among
the hunters who reported the find.

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Activism

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The U.S. Supreme Court o n
November 3 affirmed a 1994 Federal Court
of Appeals ruling on behalf of the Animal
Legal Defense Fund that proceedings of the
National Academy of the Sciences are subject
to the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee
Act. This means meetings of Academy committees
must be open to the public, makes
documents accessible under the Freedom of
Information Act, and means committee meetings
must be attended by a federal government
representative. Observed New York Times science
reporter Nicholas Wade, “Officials of
the Academy say that subjecting it to the law
would undermine its independence from the
government and the credibility of its reports.

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