From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:
Charlton Heston, 84, died at home in Beverly Hills,
California, on April 6, 2008. Heston had disclosed in 2002 that he
had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease. An avid hunter in
boyhood, Heston from 1941 until late in life was chiefly an actor,
except during service in the Army Air Force, 1943-1947. Except for
several late-career cameo appearances, Heston played mostly starring
roles in 126 feature films made between 1941 and 2001, including Ben
Hur, The Ten Commandments, El Cid, Planet of the Apes,
Earthquake, and A Touch of Evil. Heston became involved in civil
rights activism in the 1950s, and later served as president of the
Screen Actors Guild and chair of the American Film Institute, but
had his biggest influence on public affairs as president of the
National Rifle Association, 1998-2003. Heston personally led the
aggressive NRA campaign against Democratic U.S. presidential
candidate Al Gore in 2000, after Gore expressed support for gun
control. Wrote Calvin Woodward of Associated Press, “As he had once
lifted Moses’ staff in The Ten Commandments, Heston held a musket
above his head and dared Gore from afar to pry it ‘from my cold dead
hands.’ Gore lost blue-collar votes to Bush in an election so close
any setback was perilous. The key finding: About half of voters
were from gun-owning households, and they voted for George W. Bush,
61% to 36%. Voters from households without guns backed Gore 58-39.
Ever since, Democrats in presidential and many Congress-ional and
governors’ races have scrambled to establish their bona fides as
hunters, if they can, or as admirers of firearms or the Second
Amendment if they can’t.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:
Windchill, 9 months, a mix of Appaloosa and Tennessee
Walking Horse, died on February 29, 2008, 20 days after he was
found suffering from starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia in
the barn of Pam Javenkoski, of South Range, Minnesota. He was
discovered by Theresa Farmer of South Range, who had boarded him
with Javenkoski since September 1997 as part of a deal by which
Javenkoski was to acquire another horse from Farmer. Rated only a 1%
chance of survival by the first veterinarian who examined him after
his rescue, Windchill was taken to Kathi Davis and Jeff Tucker of
Raindance Farms. Tucker told Duluth News Tribune reporter Will
Ashenmacher that a blog about Windchill’s effort to survive had drawn
2.9 million hits in two weeks, plus 40,000 more after his death.
Javenkoski, 47, and Shane Edward Javenkoski, 33, identified as
her ex-husband, on March 10 pleaded not guilty to failing to feed a
confined animal. Equine Allies, a Duluth group that collected
donations for Windchill, but split with Davis and Tucker over the
treatment protocol, told Aschenmacher that the money would be
returned to the donors.

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