BOOKS: Over the Side, Mickey

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Over the Side, Mickey by Michael J. Dwyer
Nimbus Publishing Ltd. (c/o Word Play, 221 Duckworth, St. John’s,
Newfoundland, Canada A1G 1G7), 1998. 185 pages. $14.95 paperback

It should be said at the outset that
Michael J. Dwyer’s first-hand account of his
season on a Newfoundland sealing ship is not
an animal rights book. A sense of animal justice––or
even compassion for his hapless victims––is
the furthest thing from Dwyer’s mind.

BOOKS: Girl On A Leash

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Girl On A Leash:
The Healing Power of Dogs
by Betty Lim King
Sanctuary Press (1114 Applegate Ct.,
Lenoir, NC 28645), 1999.
224 pages, paperback, $19.95.

“Every religious, racial, age, ethnic,
and gender group builds a wall to protect
what it believes sets it apart from other
groups and makes it superior,” Asian scholar
and dog rescuer Betty Lim King observes
toward the end of her memoir Girl On A
Leash. “Unfortunately, such verities and
myths not only exclude but often demean
those who are different.”

In a place where they said it couldn’t be done

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

ROSARITO, Mexico– – Disting-
uished since 1926 by the presence of the landmark
Rosarito Beach Hotel, one of the first
facilities built to draw tourists to the Baja
California coast, Rosarito recently acquired
another landmark: the first no-kill animal
shelter serving northern Mexico.
But the Baja Animal Sanctuary isn’t
yet a visible landmark, and that is perhaps the
biggest problem the two-and-a-half-year-old
shelter has. To get there from Boulevard
Benito Juarez, the main street of Rosarito,
you have to cross the tollway to Ensenada,
turn a tight hairpin turn at the old town graveyard,
and follow the bulldozed but otherwise
unimproved future route of a long-rumored
four-lane highway out through three miles of
developments that don’t yet exist. You turn
off in the middle of nowhere, continue past a
bankrupt and unoccupied condominium complex
whose scenic vistas of sea and mesa evidently
couldn’t compensate for inaccessibility
and lack of water, and descend a steep hill
down a road that threatens to become a gully. Read more

Chicken stuff

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Joseph Kia, 44, and his son Josiah
Kia Jr., 23, both of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii,
were charged on May 13 with allegedly kidnapping,
threatening, robbing, and beating at gunpoint
two other men in a dispute over a cockfight.
Four alleged accomplices were at large.
The Louisiana Senate Agriculture
Committee on May 18 killed a bill by state senator
Paulette Irons (D-New Orleans) which would
have banned the use of sharpened gaffs tied to
cocks’ feet in cockfighting. Cockfighters testified
that the gaffs are humane because they allow the
birds to kill each other faster.

Missing the link in Georgia––and Wisconsin, and Washington, too

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

ATLANTA, EVERETT, MILWAUKEE––T.J.
Solomon, 15, who wounded six fellow
students with gunfire at Heritage High School in
Conyers, Georgia on May 20, and threatened to
shoot himself, “was a trained marksman who often
went hunting with his stepfather,” a family friend
told New York Times reporter David Firestone.
ANIMAL PEOPLE has now logged 12
mass homicides or attempted mass homicides by
teenaged hunters and/or animal torturers in recent
years, including the April 20 killings of 15 people
at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
Yet no other major news media discussed
Solomon’s hunting background.

Eastern Europe and Southern U.S. cities share animal control crisis

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

WARSAW, Poland; Southern
states, U.S.––“A series of articles in the
nationally circulated newspaper Zycie
Warszawy about the Paluch animal shelter
[recently] shocked the public” with allegations
of “horrible sanitary conditions, lack of care
and rigid treatment of animals, widespread
disease, and extensive animal killing,”
Warsaw Committee in Defense of Animals
members Aniela Roehr and Anna Chodakowska
charged in a globally distributed May
17 e-mail, seeking help from the international
animal protection community.
Managed by a foundation set up in
January 1997, subsidized by Warsaw and surrounding
suburbs, the Paluch shelter reportedly
has the same conflicts of history, mission,
and public expectation as the animal care-andcontrol
apparatus in Kiev, Ukraine (page
13)––and as do the animal care-and-control
agencies in much of the U.S., as well.

Animal testing and experimentation

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Four months after PETA began
a campaign to reduce animal use in connection
with the High Production Volume chemical
safety testing project undertaken by the
Environmental Protection Agency,
Chemical Manufacturers Association, and
Environmental Defense Fund, at urging of
U.S. vice president Albert Gore, PETA
declared on May 4 that “The EPA has conceded
that some of the planned animal tests
were not necessary. At a recent meeting in
Fairfax, Virginia,” PETA said, “EPA officials
announced their intention to remove a
requirement for genetic toxicity tests on animals,
allowing non-animal tests instead. The
EPA also announced at the meeting that it has
agreed to pull requirements for terrestrial toxicity
tests that would have meant intentionally
poisoning birds. A giant rabbit has followed
Gore to 22 cities,” the PETA statement finished,
“with a sign that says ‘Gore: burn
bunnies, lose votes.’”

KIEV SPA FIGHTS CITY HALL

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

KIEV, Ukraine––The future of animal
control in Kiev might have hinged on the
May 30 city election, but the results––and
consequences for animals––were unknown as
ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.
Three-year incumbent Oleksandr
Omelchenko reportedly trailed Dynamo Kiev
football club president and member of the
Ukrainian parliament Gregory Surkis by five
percentage points in the last polls before the
vote, with 40% of the electorate undecided.

BULLFEATHERS & SUCH

June 1, 1999 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Told that as a shareholder
he would be given three minutes at
the May 5 annual PepsiCo shareholders’
meeting in Purchase, New York,
to tell fellow PepsiCo shareholders
about Pepsi advertising in bullrings,
SHARK founder Steve Hindi allowed
PepsiCo executives to read his speech
in advance, as required, and travelled
from Chicago to the meeting after getting
purported final approval––but on
arrival was told by PepsiCo associate
general counsel Lawrence Dickie that
he would not be allowed in because
PepsiCo had received an anonymous
call which included a bomb threat.
Recounted Hindi, “Dickie said PepsiCo
had ‘consulted the authorities,’ who
agreed I should not attend. I called the
FBI, the New York State Police, and
the White Plains and Harrison police
departments,” which have jurisdiction
in Purchase. “None of them knew anything
whatever about PepsiCo getting a
bomb threat. There was no report on
file. If PepsiCo feels it cannot defend
its relationship with bullfighting,”
Hindi added, “and I agree it cannot, it
should end that relationship. Meanwhile,
PepsiCo shareholders have a
right to know what PepsiCo is doing.
Barring me was just one indefensible
act concocted to cover up another.”

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