People & deeds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

American Humane Association board member
Shirley Jones presented an award at the March 27 Ark Trust
Genesis Awards gala in Los Angeles––reminding A N I M A L
PEOPLE that she still hasn’t answered our June 1998 question
as to whether her loyalties are with AHA or the National Dairy
Council, for which she is most prominent national spokesperson.
The Dairy Council and state affiliates have worked to
exempt agricultural practices from coverage by the humane laws
of 28 states––17 in the past 12 years. The Dairy Council and
AHA also have directly opposing positions on the use of bovine
growth hormone to boost milk production, the use and development
of genetic technology, crate-rearing veal calves, and
humane standards for livestock transport.

Denver psychotherapist Caterina Spinarsis James
tried to buy bus bench space from Outdoor Systems Inc., to
display the Coalition for Non-Violent Food poster “Which do
you pet and which do you eat?” Depicting a kitten and a piglet,
nose to nose, the poster was designed by former New York
T i m e s advertising artist Mark Graham and the late H e n r y
Spira, debuted in 1997 as an ANIMAL PEOPLE ad, and was
displayed without incident by the Margaret T. Kyros
F o u n d a t i o n on the sides of 60 Seattle buses for 12 weeks in
1998––but Outdoor Systems, after accepting ads for a local FM
radio station that starred serial killer Charles Manson and the
assassin of composer John Lennon, rejected “Which do you pet
and which do you eat?” as allegedly being in bad taste. Denver
Post columnists Michael Booth and Chuck Green both took up
Spinarsis James’ cause in their next installments. Booth illustrated
his column with the poster; Green invited Outdoor Systems
manager Steve Richards to take a hike in grizzly bear country.
Robbie, a New Orleans Police Department drug
d o g known as an escape artist, broke out of a locked kennel
inside a locked veterinary clinic on March 4 and vanished,
apparently in search of his vacationing handler. Recognizing
Robbie from a TV all-points bulletin, ANIMAL PEOPLE reader
Odette Grosz found him about 12 hours later.
Peter Raven, 62, director of the Missouri
Botanical Garden, and a member of the National Geographic
S o c i e t y’s Committee for Research and Exploration since 1982,
has been named to head the committee. Raven is also home secretary
of the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of
the President’s Committee of Advisers on Science and
T e c h n o l o g y. The National Geographic Society has sponsored
expeditions by pro-animal scientists including Jane Goodall,
Richard Leakey, Dian Fossey, and Jacques Cousteau.
Raven, however, promised to use his new post “to help advance
public perception of plant conservation and sustainability.”
Translation: scientistis sympathetic toward animals who eat rare
plants, especially feral animals, aren’t likely to find much favor.
Attorney Pam Rockwell, formerly director of the
San Francisco SPCA Department of Ethical Studies, has followed
former SF/SPCA president Richard Avanzino t o
Maddie’s Fund, to take a similar post. Replacing Rockwell at
the SF/SPCA is Nathan J. Winograd, who most recently was a
prosecutor for Marin County, California, but previously pinchhit
for the SF/SPCA when Rockwell was on extended leave to
sail a boat across the Pacific, and earlier represented local cat
rescuers. The SF/SPCA Department of Ethical Studies has been
renamed the Law and Advocacy Department.
Virginia Tech university junior Pierre Grzybowski
and sophomore Dylan Eastman ended a week-long hunger
strike on March 23 after the university agreed to publish a policy
allowing students to opt out of dissection laboratories for moral
or ethical reasons. Tech officials said such a policy already was
in effect; Grzybowski and Eastman objected that because it was
not publicized, students were largely unaware of their right to
opt out, and were subject to heavy pressure to dissect fetal pigs
in freshman biology.