A new documentary by Michael Webber has been getting a lot of attention at film festivals this year. The Elephant in the Living Room brings the issue of privately owned lions and tigers and bears (and reptiles and other wild animals) to the big screen.
In an interview with CityBeat, Webber said exotic pet ownership may be shocking, but it’s not an obscure phenomenon. “I started paying attention and that’s when I realized this was the elephant in the living room. This big, enormous thing that’s going on in our country and no one is really recognizing it.”
Until now.
It’s no coincidence that the Dayton, Ohio, filmmaker aimed the camera at his own state. Ohio has some of the weakest exotic animal laws in the country, a flaw which gained national attention this summer when a bear killed his caretaker. Despite obvious and repeated negligence on the part of the bear’s owner, Sam Mazzola, authorities’ hands were tied because you can pretty much own whatever you want in Ohio. And Mazzola isn’t the only one whose choice of pets has caused problems.
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The Obama Administration has appealed on behalf of the former Attorney General, shielding him from suit regarding his unlawful arrests of suspected terrorists under false pretenses. ?The Supreme Court intervened on Monday, October 18, 2010, to decide on a lawsuit of Attorney ?General Ashcroft to hold him accountable for the illegal abuses of detainment and torture. ?
The Obama Administration has already refused to convict the numerous abuses of the Bush Administration regarding torture, et al. ?This is why we elected the Campaign for Change. ?This is why and how people lose faith in our government, our leaders, and our politics. ?What happened to the Campaign on Accountability? ?We need to hold these attorneys and former Justice Department officials accountable under the law!
Convict former Attorney General John Ashcroft
Everyone on the planet seems to know Christine O’Donnell’s thoughts on masturbation. She headed an “Anti-masturbation campaign” and spoke about it on MTV in 1996 on the television show “Sex in the 90’s”. Christine – who is running for Senator in the state of Delaware – has been a “gift” to comedians across the country as they debate on stage whether or not she was a “witch” (as she proclaimed on Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect”). As a comic, I am grateful to Christine for all that she has done to create laughs for this great country, but Christine is not the only political candidate in this mid-term election who appears to be more fiction than substance.
Sadly, most candidates are lacking in substance and their campaign ads are more likely to tell what is wrong with their opponent instead of where they stand on the issues. I live in Los Angeles where the airwaves are full of campaign attack ads throughout most of the day. All the commercials show an out of focus bad picture of the opponent with horrible music and a few sound bites with a cheesy voice-over. Missing from all of these ads are the candidates’ platform and their stance on real issues.
The most important issues to voters in these elections are the economy, healthcare and the deficit. Large numbers of Americans are still out of work and it is a daily struggle to put food on the table. People are losing their jobs, their homes and their healthcare in one fell swoop and sometimes it seems like Washington, D.C is “printing money on demand.” I share these concerns with voters but I also have another worry – the wars.
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“Dear ladies, if you’ve had sex before, you can’t be raped! You’re probably faking it anyways because you’re just mad about that abortion you allegedly had. Vote for me, Ken Buck!”
No thanks, buddy.
The upcoming election has brought us some seriously sexist shit, and it looks like the trend is continuing. GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck didn’t say those exact words, but he came close. Buck is in a bit of a pickle over his refusal as a Weld County District Attorney to prosecute an obvious rape case in 2006, along with offensive comments he made about the victim.
The victim had asked a former lover over to her apartment because she was intoxicated and scared. He arrived and raped her while she, slipping in and out of consciousness, said “no” and tried pushing him away. Despite the fact that both the victim and suspect agree upon what happened and police recommended prosecution, Buck publicly called the case facts “pitiful” and claimed that, due to their consensual sexual encounters over a year prior, reasonable juries would see this as a case of “buyer’s remorse.” In a private meeting with the victim, Buck lays blame squarely on her shoulders, telling her, “It would appear to me that you invited him over to have sex with him. Whether that you, at that time, were conscious enough to say yes or no … the appearance is of consent.”
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On the New York City Council, a paid sick leave bill has support from 35 out of 51 council members. That’s not just a majority, it’s a veto-proof majority. Yet the bill still hasn’t passed. Why not? In order for council members to vote in favor of the legislation, there has to be, well, a vote. And Council Speaker Christine Quinn is standing in the way.
As Lauren Kelley writes on Poverty in America, Quinn’s stance means that a bill which could help as many as 1.3 million workers doesn’t get the chance for a straight up or down vote. Quinn says she just wants to wait and see what the results of a Partnership for New York City study. But their studies already seem a little dubious, since they put the number of Big Apple workers without paid sick leave at only 375,000, a quarter of the number put forth by Bureau of Labor Statistics data. What, exactly, is this study going to say to influence her mind? Is this just stalling? And is it really right for one person’s questioning to hold up a bill that has such significant majority support?
Groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice New York, NOW (National Organization of Women), and Planned Parenthood have continued to pressure lawmakers to pass the paid sick leave bill, which NARAL NY President Kelli Conlin points out would allow pregnant women to take days off to receive essential prenatal care. Since women also often hold the position of primary caregiver, lacking paid sick days to take care of a child or other family member hits them especially hard, and a single working mother can frequently ill afford to take an unpaid day off.
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Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas must be feeling pretty bummed – her proposed $1.5 billion in farm “aid” may be nixed by the White House after all.
Lincoln, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee who is gearing up for a tough re-election battle this fall, has been fighting for the funds since July when they were removed as a compromise deal from a small business stimulus bill. The Obama administration had promised to approve the package, which was designed to provide “disaster aid” to farmers who lost crops in 2009, by Aug. 31.
August has come and gone, and there’s no sign of the package. But before we get all sad for the poor farmers down the street whose crops were ruined, let’s examine this plan. America’s biggest, least sustainable farms — many of them in Blanche’s Arkansas — would benefit most from the plan, while smaller, more damaged farms would be left high and dry. Why? The funds would not be distributed based on losses, but on how much they received or should have received under a federal subsidy program based on farm size. As the New York Times explained last week, it’s an “unjustified” windfall, as farms with as little as five percent loss would receive an additional chunk of 90 percent of the subsidy in aid. Bigger, more profitable farms — the ones least damaged by rains — are far more likely to qualify. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the top 10 percent of wealthiest farmers would receive about two-thirds of the money, and about a quarter of the funds would (curiously) go to Arkansas farms.
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When it comes to the issue of marriage equality, 2010 is going to be an important election, particularly on the state level where a number of states may move forward marriage equality legislation depending on who is elected into office.
Rhode Island, for instance, stands a very good shot at enacting marriage equality depending on who gets elected governor. New York, as well, might see marriage equality hang in the balance depending on who wins both the governor’s office and a number of State Senate seats.
And Minnesota, too. Which is why so much attention has been on this year’s Minnesota gubernatorial race, where candidates have staked out clear positions either in favor of same-sex marriage, or strongly opposed to same-sex marriage.
Both Target and the National Organization for Marriage are supporting a candidate in the race, Tom Emmer, who thinks that gay marriage is not only immoral, but that it should be constitutionally blocked. And both Target and the National Organization for Marriage are throwing substantial resources behind electing Tom Emmer.
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One positive outcome of the outcry against what right-wingers have dubbed the “Ground Zero Mosque,” an Islamic community center a couple blocks from the site of the World Trade Center in a former Burlington Coat Factory, is that it has brought mainstream media attention to harassment and opposition faced by mosques and Islamic centers across the country.
As Laurie Goodstein writes in the New York Times, construction on mosques and Islamic centers in communities geographically far removed from the site of the 9/11 attacks have been met by protests and harassment, in locales from Tennessee to California to Wisconsin. In Temecula, CA, protesters brought dogs because they say Muslims hate the canines — but the bigger impact of this is to increase the intimidation factor against Muslims attempting to practice their faith.
In Murfreesboro, TN, a Republican primary candidate for Congress, Lou Ann Zelenik, has been using criticism against an Islamic community center to drum up support, to which Talking Point Memo’s Evan McMorris-Santoro snarkily responds, “There’s already a mosque in Murfreesboro, so Zelenik is stuck with being outraged over just the after-school programs and classrooms part of the equation here.” Kyle on Right Wing Watch writes about protesters screaming at Muslims coming to prepare for Ramadan at a Connecticut mosque; one of the harassers shoved a placard at a group of young children and yelled, “Murderers.” Police were called to intervene, and Muslim leaders are concerned about escalating attacks during the Ramadan holiday. There was also bombing of a mosque in Florida adds to such worries.
And, of course, the anti-Muslim hostility continues in less direct forms of confrontation, such as designating 9/11 “International Burn a Koran Day.”
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In the game of politics being played around the Gulf oil spill — the cause, the response, who’s the blame, where to drill next — it’s the wildlife that stands to lose the most.
With mid-term elections closing in, politicians are out doing their hand-shaking, baby-kissing thing. They’re also collecting campaign contributions, including nearly $14 million contributed so far, just to the 2010 election cycle, by the oil and gas industry. That kind of money says Don’t forget us when you’re in office. Unfortunately, wildlife doesn’t have the luxury of buying loyalty from representatives. That’s why Defenders of Wildlife is calling on Congress to donate all oil company campaign contributions to help save wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Monday, July 20, was Marine Day in Japan, a national holiday “to give thanks to the ocean.” The holiday was celebrated with an enormous fish tank set up in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district. Small sharks swam around these streetside aquariums for people to admire. The week before the holiday, hundreds of those sharks’ kin were piled up on a dock in Kesen-numa after having their fins hacked off for shark fin soup.
I have no doubt that Japan is grateful for the ocean’s bounty. So grateful, in fact, that the government continually lobbies against international protections for endangered marine species like the bluefin tuna, and flaunts their disregard for international law when it comes to whaling. The holiday not only comes on the tail of the discovery of the shark massacre, but it’s also just days after the start of Japan’s summer whaling mission in the Northwest Pacific ocean, where they plan to kill 100 minke whales, 100 sei whales, 50 Brydes whales and 10 sperm whales.
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