Year: 2005

The last to be rescued

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 16, 2005

Excerpted from the Humane Society article After the flood, animals find way to survive in the Big Easy.

Adrift in this floating living room, the golden-coated pit bull found shelter in the only place the water couldn’t reach: a black-metal frame encasing the air conditioning unit in a nearby window. At least that’s where the rescue team found the frightened animal. He had somehow clawed his way through the accordion wing on the left side of the AC unit, and squeezed himself between the air conditioner and the metal bars.

Despite his dire predicament, the frightened dog was not about to leave his metal perch—at least not with strangers. Growling, barking and inching further back into his self-imposed jail, the dog fought every attempt by rescuers to grab him with a control pole, but the animal had literally backed himself into a tight spot, and the team was able to quickly collar him and pull him from the inhospitable house.

…

And yet, the hold on life for these animals who rely on the milk of human kindness for their survival, remains tenuous. Teams are already finding animals whose skin looks painted onto a skeleton. One, four-person team this week discovered, much to its horror, a dead bull dog in an upstairs bathroom. The owners, apparently thinking they would be gone for days and not weeks, locked the white-coated creature there, with limited food and water. He died beside the bathroom door, obviously hoping for an escape.

…

Team members heard the Jack Russell yipping as they walked along Monticello Avenue, near the canal that drains into Lake Ponchatrain. They chased the dog, white with a dashing brown patch over his left eye, under the brick house, where he refused to budge for minute after agonizing minute under the broiling Louisiana sun.

The rescuers mapped out their strategy on the fly. Earnest staked out the right side of the house, Moore and Anderson the left, and HSUS volunteer Jane Garrison monitored a small boxy hole in front of the house, through which the rescuers hoped to flush the terrier.

“Go the other way, Jack,” encouraged Anderson, in a tone meant to send the dog the opposition direction. “This is not the best way to go…It’s very bad for a Jack.”

“Go on, Jack,” yelled Earnest from the other side of the house. “Go through the hole.”

“I’m your best hope, Jack,” Garrison cooed at the animal, looking to entice him to her waiting leash.

For whatever reason, the dog followed orders. He eventually peeked his head through the boxy hole, just enough for Garrison to place a leash on him and hold on for dear life.

New Orleans resident Eugene Kaufman, re-united with this 20-year old blind dog, Samantha. At this time, the HSUS has rescued 2783 cats and dogs, 121 horses. and over a thousand other animals, mainly farm animals. But there are thousands more still to be rescued, and it could be weeks, even months, before these animals have a home again. (See slideshow of effort.)

You’re all tired out from giving: to the Red Cross, the United Way, so many other good and helping organizations. All I’m asking is that you give 5.00 to the Humane Society to help care for these animals. Just 5.00, that’s all I’m asking. But if you want to give more, I won’t argue with you.

I am donating 2 dollars for every picture pledged by the folks who volunteered for the Critters for Critters campaign–including this timely and charming picture of a dog dressed for Mardi Gras, donated by Neil at Life With Dogs and these lovely pictures from Baldur–in lieu of running the auction. I wish it could be more.

And if you have a pet or pets, now is the time to think about their care if you’re faced with a disaster. Remember, the rule of thumb is to have at least three days of supplies (a week is better) on hand for all living creatures in the house; have pet carriers within easy and quick access; and if you have to evacuate, evacuate early rather than late, and always assume it will be weeks before you can return.

If you don’t have a pet, you have a friend in need just waiting for you at your local shelter.

I have a difficult time going to the HSUS site and reading the stories anymore. As positive as so many are, others break your heart. There’s the one where the sherrif’s department searched a home for survivors and found two people dead, but the couple’s shepard was still alive, standing guard over their bodies. Chances are they did not evacuate because of their dog, and the bitter-sad irony is that the dog was the only one to survive.

The HSUS is pushing now to make pet rescue incorporated into all local, state, and federal evacuation procedures. There’s a petition you can sign at the site, as well as letters to send to Congress, FEMA, and your local government. You should also check your own state’s policy in this regard; several states include animal evactuation because they know that many people will put their lives at risk rather than leave their pets.

Another thing to consider is having microchips inserted into your cat or dog, just in case. Regardless, have a plan in place; don’t leave your pet behind.

Bid on the original artwork for a Mutts comic strip being auctioned by the cartoonist, Patrick McDonnell to raise money for the HSUS rescue operations.

Media

Serenity Countdown

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 14, 2005

As I was fortuitously reminded, Serenity opens up in a few short weeks: September 30th. I and my roommate have decided we both wanted to see it on the day it comes out, but the where is still open. I also found out that Archon 29 the big St. Louis Fiction and Fantasy convention is going on at the same time, and I considering attending it and the showing there.

For being a big science fiction and fantasy fan, I’ve never been to any kind of convention. Not a Star Trek convention, or one for Dungeons and Dragons and any of the generic fandom type of events. The one at St. Louis promises multiple tracks of presentations, and features some rather fascinating sounding events.

For instance, on Friday night the convention is featuring a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean, inviting all comers to dress like pirates, and then shout out favorite lines from the movie. The convention is hiring pirates and providing all sorts of goodies to make the event one of a kind. I loved Pirates of the Caribbean — did I happen to mention that I adore Depp?–and oddly enough for being a retiring subbie, this party appeals. If the showing is at the Holiday Inn, we can bring our pints o’ rum. Otherwise, we’ll have to settle for the more sedate refreshment at the Convention center.

Outside of the movies, I’d like to attend the event and take photos of people. I think that would be much fun, and add a little variety to all my shots of flowers, birds, bees, etc.

Then there would be Serenity. The people attending Archon are planning on dressing up as their favorite characters in the movie, which I imagine could pass fairly easily for dress on the street. Still, there promises to be a sea of brown.

So, any of you going to see the movie, and if so, are you making a special event out of it?

Critters

Small moments

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 13, 2005

My roommate came home this afternoon and asked when the bush on the corner had been removed. I had just been downstairs and when I looked out the window, the small, sickly bush on the corner of the dirt in front of our place was still there; still stubbornly hanging on, even if the management had taken no care of it this summer. We’d watered it, but it never looked great. The birds like it, though, as well as the squirrels.

I was surprised and said I’d just seen it when I came upstairs. “No, not the small plant. The big one on the side of the building.”

I was suprised, shocked really, and ran downstairs and outside. Where once was a big bush, three formed into one covering the cable box and overlapping the corner, there was now stubs cut low to the ground. It was awful, but what was worse were the few finch standing on the stumps looking bewildered. When I came out they took off, one female flying in circles in confusion before making a beeline for a car and hiding underneath it.

This was the habitat for our finches, those we had been feeding for over a year now. This was their home and their protection from hawks and other predators; their sanctuary. The only reason we felt we could feed the birds was knowing that they had the safe shelter of the bush in case of danger or dog or people walking by.

It was also a sanctuary for the rabbits as they made their way up the lawn from the street below, and provided a dark green accent to the brick of the building — about the only one this summer since the lawns died from the drought.

I came storming into the house and called the management office and asked why they removed the bush. The young woman who answered didn’t know but checked and came online to tell me that the maintenance was ‘removing some of the older, bigger bushes’, why she didn’t know. Maybe there was a paranoid idiot who was afraid of the shadows, because lord knows Americans jump at shadows, and hack and pick at nature until there is nothing left unknown, uncontrolled, and free.

I am ashamed to say I yelled at that young woman, though this is something I rarely do. I am a quiet person by nature, regardless of what you might think from these pages. But I yelled at her. I told her about the generations of finches who had made their home in the bush, and since they had removed the shrubs in front of our place last year, all that’s left now for shelter is the big trees–home to the hawk and the eagle. I yelled at her and said that all they do is cut down and take away.

Later I called to apologize–yes, I apologized. If I were made of the same cement that seems to pass for ‘ground’ in America nowadays, I may not have gotten so upset when I went out and saw the birds unsure of what happened to their home. Perhaps someone got annoyed because the birds shit on their cars. They rarely did, though; they were content to hang around the corner, safe in their bush. When I apologized and tried to explain why I was upset, I could hear the girl think, “they’re only finches”. Common as dirt, small, brown; you never see them unless you really look; or hear them unless you listen.

But this summer I found out that finches are a wonderful little bird–rich with personality and spirit. I could go out on a sunny morning and stand by the door and listen to the birds in the bush, and no matter how sad, feel uplifted by their sound. We had created a living, viable space in this little corner; filled with simple lives and simple sounds. And now it’s gone, and all that’s left is dead stumps and dirt.

Social Media Weblogging

Define Noise

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date September 12, 2005

This is a test as well as a story. Scoble is very excited about a new service, Memeorandum, that ‘floats’ most linked stories to the top in two specific categories: technology and politics/current affairs. Contrary to some others who have been critical of the UI, I found it clean and relatively simple to comprehend.

I would tend to think of the service as something similar to Daytop 40 or Blogdex, but highlighted by topic and with a few more goodies, such as links to the other search services. Cool enough, except that Robert mentioned a couple of things in his post that got my attention:

… he doesn’t look at all of the blogs in the world (unless you hit preferences and start using the blog search services he’s linked in). Huh? How cool can that be if it doesn’t include your Uncle Joe who wrote code one time back in college?

It’s very cool, because it has very low noise. In fact, I’ve been visiting this 10 to 50 times a day for the last few months and I’ve never seen something that I would call noise or spam.

Define ‘noise’, Robert? Anyone that doesn’t rank? This does lead to an interesting new definition for the semantic web: a web of means, rather than a web of meaning.

According to Gabe, the site developer and architect, the goals are memeorandum are:

1. Recognize the web as editor: There’s this notion that blogs collectively function as news editor. No, not every last blog on Earth. Tapping the thoughts of all of humanity uniformly would predictably lead to trivial, even spammy “news”. But today there are rather large communities of knowledgeable, sophisticated commentators, (and yes) even reporters writing on the web, signaling in real time what’s worthy of wider discussion. I want memeorandum to tap this signal.

2. Rapidly uncover new sources: Sometimes breaking news is posted to a blog created just to relate that news. Sometimes the author of the most insightful analysis piece at 2PM was a relative unknown at 1PM. It happens. I want memeorandum to highlight such work, without delay.

3. Relate the conversation: Communication on the web naturally tends toward conversation. It follows from human nature plus the Internet’s immediacy. Blog posts react to news articles, essays reference editorials. And links abound. Yet most news sites do very little to relate the form of conversations unfolding in real time. Some seem to deny that a conversation is even occurring. I want memeorandum to be a clear exception.

This confirms that only certain weblogs are canvassed for links. In Robert’s post, I asked Gabe to provide a listing of the weblogs he canvasses for both politics and technology.

We’ll see if this shows up in the service. If not, either I don’t rank, or if I do, I don’t rank as a technology blog. Stay tuned…

I did show up, quite quickly. I feel all red carpety and gold starred. I also showed up, as quickly though, in the IceRocket list for Scoble’s link. Another question I had for Gabe was if he originally pulls lead stories from the canvassed weblogs, and then uses the search engines to pull additional links as they come available.

I also wonder if his bot is the one that signs itself “Mmm…. Brains….”