“Dog” is “God” spelled backward

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

 

The animal dimensions of the September 11 terrorist
hijackings of jetliners and mass murders at the World Trade Center,
the Pentagon, and Somerset County, Pennsylvania, were as evident
as the search-and-rescue dogs sent to each scene to help find
survivors and remains, the bomb-sniffing dogs at airports whose
numbers suddenly seem all too few, and the many pets in transit who
were held overnight in air terminals when their flights were grounded.
Many stranded people probably wished they could hug a dog or
cat during the 30-to-48 hours before air travel resumed, and many of
the animals would have welcomed the attention, but there was no way
for anyone to make pet-sharing arrangements.

Read more

No bullfight in Moscow

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

 

MOSCOW–Known for hardline positions against prostitution,
public begging, and other activities he considers offensive,
nine-year Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov on August 29 signed a decree
forbidding a two-day exhibition of Portuguese-style bullfighting that
was to have been held during the second weekend of September.
Luzhkov called bullfighting “an unacceptable display of violence.”
The 13 bulls imported for the event were not to have been
killed in the ring, although they reportedly were to be killed for
beef afterward, but would have been tormented with banderillas by
Portuguese matador Victor Mendes, French matador Marco Antonio
Romero, and Russian female bullfighter Lidia Artamanova, who had
apparently done all her previous bullfighting abroad.

Read more

Battles loom in Africa over hunting and vivisection

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:
NAIROBI, HARARE, JOHANNESBURG–The humane movement in
Africa may presently be going to the dogs, because the street dogs
are the most ubiquitous and vulnerable animals, but the battles of
the future are forming over sport hunting and vivisection.
With the use of animals in European and American laboratories
increasingly under activist scrutiny and restricted by law,
vivisectors are looking toward Africa as a potentially congenial new
home.

Read more

Bloody business goes to the California governor’s mansion

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

SACRAMENTO–California Governor Gray Davis, who signed more
animal-related bills in 2000 than any other governor, signed another
pair in August and September 2001, but allegedly broke his streak of
endorsing legislation strongly favored by animal advocates by using
his influence in the state legislature to kill a bill to legalize
possession of ferrets.
An aide to California state senator and ferret bill sponsor
Maurice Johannessen (R-Redding) told Los Angeles Times staff writer
Jennifer Warren that after the bill cleared the senate, Davis
prevailed upon the state assembly committees on water, parks, and
wildlife and appropriates to keep it from coming to a floor vote.
The aide reportedly said Davis opposed the ferret bill because the
California Department of Fish and Game considers ferrets a
potentially invasive species.

Read more

September 11 brings sounds of silence to animal & habitat activism

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

WASHINGTON D.C.–Activism for animals and habitat is abruptly
quieter after the September 11 hijackings of four airliners that left
an estimated 6,333 people dead at crash sites in New York City,
Washington D.C., and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Both the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense
Council immediately hushed criticism of the policies of U.S.
President George W. Bush–even on Endangered Species Act enforcement
and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where their
views and those of the Bush administration are polar opposites.
“In response to the attacks on America,” said a Sierra
Club internal memo disclosed by Counterpunch columnists Alexander
Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, “we have taken our ads off the air;
halted our phone banks; and removed any material from the web that
people could perceive as anti-Bush. We are taking other steps to
keep the Sierra Club from being seen as controversial.”

Read more

Why animal advocates must organize politically now!

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

Why animal advocates must organize politically now!
by Julie E. Lewin, President & Lobbyist, Animal Advocacy Connecticut

Political axioms:
* An organized minority can drive public policy, because
every legislator knows that an organized minority can swing elections
in his or her district.
* To achieve in the legislative arena, an issue group must
have either corporate power or an organized grassroots which uses the
power of the vote.
* Grassroots power comes from enduring accountability,
facilitated by at least one full-time lobbyist in the statehouse who
reports back to constituents in each district how their legislators
vote. Many legislators openly champion the causes of animal
exploiters, confident that humane voters in their home district will
never know.

Read more

The Witness

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:
The Witness
Tribe of Heart video (P.O. Box 149, Ithaca, NY 14851), 2000.
43 minutes. $20.00 + $4.00 postage & handling.

In the year-plus since The Witness debuted at the Animal
Rights 2000 conference in Washington D.C., it has become the screen
production most raved about by activists since The Animals’ Film,
narrated by Julie Christie in 1981. Mainstream critics praise it;
activist publications gush.
Unlike The Animals’ Film, which played at off-peak hours in
some major theatres, The Witness is not as demonstrably reaching the
general public–and probably no documentary could in today’s much
more competive screen marketplace.

Read more

BOOKS: Best Friends

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

Best Friends by Samantha Glen
The True Story of the World’s Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary
Kensington Books (850 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10022), 2001.
284 pages, paperback. $15.00.

Like every successful institution, the Best Friends Animal
Sanctuary has a few critics–but most have never been there. They
just have difficulty believing, based on their own experience, that
any no-kill sanctuary can accomplish what Best Friends does.
Somehow, they insist, there is trickery involved. Best Friends,
in their view, must be some kind of weird desert cult, fooling
everyone and getting away with it because the site is so remote.
If you cannot visit, as thousands actually have, to see for
yourself why Samantha Glen calls Best Friends “the world’s most
beloved animal sanctuary,” her book Best Friends is the next best
thing.

Read more

1 2