(Crossposted at easyVeganInfo.)

The following prose isn’t entirely appropriate for the occasion, but all the tributes to military and working dogs I could find were gratuitously speciesist in nature. The only authentic poem in this genre seems to be the oft-repeated Rags, but…that’s not really Memorial Day fare, either.

So, in lieu of a schizophrenically sentimental tribute to working animals, a tribute to companions everywhere - along with a gentle reminder to love, honor, and cherish them today, tomorrow, and the day after…because you never know when the tomorrows will turn to yesterdays.

For our nation’s soldiers… Bring them home. All of them.

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I Am Your Dog


 
I am your dog, and I have a little something I would like to whisper in your ear.

I know that you humans lead busy lives. Some have to work. Some have children to raise. It always seems like you are running here and there, often much too fast, often never noticing the truly grand things in life.

Look down at me now, while you sit there at your computer. See, the way my dark brown eyes look at yours. They are slightly cloudy now. That comes with age. The gray hairs are beginning to ring my soft muzzle.

You smile at me; I see love in your eyes. What do you see in mine? Do you see a spirit? A soul inside, who loves you as no other could in the world? A spirit that would forgive all trespasses of prior wrongdoing for just a simple moment of your time?

That is all I ask. To slow down, if even for a few minutes to be with me.

So many times, you have been saddened by the words you read on that screen, of other of my kind, passing. Sometimes we die young and oh so quickly, sometimes so suddenly it wrenches your heart out of your throat. Sometimes, we age so slowly before your eyes that you may not even seem to know until the very end, when we look at you with grizzled muzzles and cataract clouded eyes. Still the love is always there, even when we must take that long sleep, to run free in a distant land.

I may not be here next week. Someday you will shed the water from your eyes, that humans have when deep grief fills their souls, and you will be angry at yourself that you did not have just “One more day” with me. Because I love you so, your sorrow touches my spirit and grieves me. We have NOW, together.

So come, sit down here next to me on the floor, and look deep into my eyes. What do you see? If you look hard and deep enough we will talk, you and I, heart to heart. Come to me, not as “alpha” or as “trainer” or even “Mom or Dad,” come to me as a living soul and stroke my fur and let us look deep into another’s eyes, and talk.

I may tell you something about the fun of chasing a tennis ball, or I may tell you something profound about myself or even life in general. You decided to have me in your life because you wanted a soul to share such things with.

Someone very different from you, and here I am.

I am a dog, but I am alive. I feel emotion, I feel physical senses, and I can revel in the differences of our spirits and souls. I do not think of you as a “Dog on two feet” - I know what you are. You are human, in all of your quirkiness, and I love you still.

Now, come sit with me on the floor. Enter my world, and let time slow down if only for 15 minutes. Look deep into my eyes, and whisper to my ears. Speak with your heart, with your joy and I will know your true self.

We may not have tomorrow, and life is oh so very short.

–Love, (on behalf of canines everywhere)

Author Unknown

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Photo via slagheap

Caption:

Lance Cpl. Charles E. Byerly, a 20-year-old dog handler, shows his dog Danny, 10, some love at Camp Habbaniyah, Iraq, Sept. 1. He wanted to care for his four-legged companion before they head back for Danny’s retirement in Camp Lejeune, N.C. Danny has deployed three times in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and one to Djibouti, Africa as a military working dog fighting insurgents with Marines. After the dog’s retirement Byerly will adopt his battle buddy. Byerly is from Mars, Pa., and is currently serving a seven-month deployment with 3rd Battallion, 2nd Marine Regiment in the Habbaniyah area under Regimental Combat Team 5.

Photo by: Lance Cpl. Ray Lewis
Submitting Unit: 1st Marine Division
Cleared for Release

To open your heart and home to a soldier’s companion, start at www.guardianangelsforsoldierspet.org.

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare holidays memorial day working dogs war dogs military dogs working animals pet companion animal dog canine prose literature yesterdays best friends companions mates

MY BROTHER IS considered one of the biggest domestic terrorists in the country. You probably haven’t heard of him, and I think that’s odd. After all, he’s dangerous. He’s trying to overthrow our country. He “doesn’t like our freedoms,” or so President Bush has said of terrorists in general, so I suppose that applies to my brother too.

Let me tell you a little bit about him. He likes the History Channel. He’s a Trekkie. He cried (in secret) at the corny 1980s movie “Turtle Diary.” He’s good at fixing things. And, most important, he has devoted his life to stopping animals’ suffering. To this end, he has broken the law. He crept into animal laboratories to free dogs. He dismantled corrals to release wild mustangs. He impersonated a fur buyer to film the treatment of minks. He put himself between whales and whalers despite warnings that his boat would be impounded and that he would be jailed. And nearly 10 years ago, he burned down a horse slaughterhouse in Redmond, Ore. It is for this final act that the U.S. government considers him among the ranks of Osama bin Laden, Eric Rudolph and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef.

“This is a classic case of terrorism,” the federal prosecutor said earnestly to the judge during a hearing last week in my brother’s case. […]

Anyone who lives in Redmond will tell you how terrible the Cavel West Slaughterhouse was. The horses screamed all day. Their blood clogged the sewage system. The stench was unbearable. The killings, by many accounts, were slow and agonizing. My brother’s sentiments were far from radical, and they had nothing to do with the government. His intention was simple: save the horses.

This does not mean arson was the right thing to do. If you call my brother a lawbreaker, I won’t argue. But labeling him a terrorist dilutes the meaning of terrorism. And you demean all the Americans, and all those around the world, who have died in real terrorist acts.

Go read the whole thing. Via Green is the New Red, which should be on every activist’s blogroll. Ahem.

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare Jonathan Paul war on terra terrorism animal rights terrorist eco-terrorist first amendment aeta animal enterprise terrorism act

You know, I meant to blog this way back when, but was just too upset at the time. Seriously. So upset I was shaking. No joke.

So I took a few screenshots of NBC’s SVU episode summary page to augment the planned post, uploaded ‘em to Flickr, and…nothing. Never came back to it. That is, until a fellow Flickrite (and feminist, from the sound of it), asked for an explanation. Knowing full well Flickr/Yahoo’s propensity for randomly deleting photos (and the pic’s comment threads, along with ‘em), I thought I’d copy the exchange here.

That, and I’m short on original material. What can I say, closing is less than two weeks away!
 

According to NBC, this is the face of a woman who was "asking for it."

 
Esabeau says:

I’m not sure if I get what you’re saying… “according to NBC?” While there are characters on the show (the abusers or criminals, usually) who might say that a woman is “asking for” this type of thing, every episode of this show I’ve ever seen has a very strong “the victim never deserves this sort of treatment, no matter what” message. This is often expressly stated by the detectives or other characters on the show. I haven’t seen this particular episode, but I’d be very surprised if it deviated from this general message– nothing in the other two screenshots indicates otherwise. Misogyny from characters within the show, yes, but hardly from the creators of the show or NBC.
 
smiteme says:

Esabeau - Actually, I’ve always been a huge fan of Law & Order: SVU, for the reasons you’ve stated. However, this particular ep. involved a woman who made a false accusation of rape against her husband in order to gain the upper hand in their divorce (and the ensuing custody dispute over their daughter). The detectives (and the audience) believed the woman - the "so-called victim" - throughout most of the hour. However, in the last ten minutes or so of the program, the husband made bail on the rape charge, confronted the wife in the street outside court, doused her in gasoline, and set her on fire. She subsequently admitted to the detectives in the ER that she made the whole thing up. Right before dying.

The implication - both implicit and actually stated (though not in so many words) - was that the lying slut pushed an otherwise nonviolent and decent man too far - she was "asking for it". A false rape charge apparently justifies murder. And a grisly one at that.

I was especially offended that the victim-blaming took place in the context of a "ripped from the headlines" show - remember the case of Yvette Cade, whose estranged husband burst into her workplace, threw a 7UP can full of gas on her, and topped it off with a lit match? AFTER Douchebag District Judge Richard A. Palumbo refused to extend the restraining order she had against him? AND made belittling remarks to her? I usually enjoy the "ripped from the headline" shows, but this was beyond tasteless. A woman who was abused by the court system, set on fire by her batterer, and is now disfigured for life….fodder for NBC’s shitty misogynistic fairytales? Talk about adding insult to injury.

And this seems to be the general direction in which the Law & Order franchise is headed. A few weeks ago, they aired a show based on the Shawn Hornbeck case…only this time, Ben Ownby wound up dead, and ("so-called") victim Shawn was later discovered to be his killer. Because Ben was competition for pedophile/kidnapper Michael Devlin’s attentions (!). Talk about blaming the victim. Bill O’Reilly ain’t got nothing on Law & Order!

Sorry, I meant to write a blog post about this when it happened (hence the screenshots), but I was just too upset. Worst. Episode. Ever.
 
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By the by, NBC invites viewers to leave their feedback here. Not that they give a shit what we wimmins think, being the misogynistic pricks that they are, but still. Blaming the patriarchy is fun!

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Tagged: feminism feminist law & order law and order law & order svu law and order svu special victims unit nbc misogyny blaming the victim rape murder pop culture shawn hornbeck ben ownby bill o’reilly the o’reilly factor flickr

An elegant-in-its-simplicity statement as to why fundies should be dead set against mixing church and state:

“It seems like a church has invaded our school system — and it’s not my church!”

Nah, it wasn’t a member of the vegnautic sect of the IPU who said it, but rather a deacon at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Odessa, Texas.

That’s karma, baby. Err, if I believed in such a thing.

Still pissed at the ACLU, btw.

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Tagged: religion godbaggers bible study public school aclu church karma first amendment

(Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!)

…and don’t fool yourselves, fundies, neither are you.

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Tagged: jerry falwell good riddance

Kaylee the dog, that is.

Miss Kaylee is the only one of my three girls who’s birthed a litter.

Several, actually, judging from the size of those nips:

In fact, when we first adopted her and Jayne, we (well, the rescue group) thought that they were a mother-daughter pair.

I highly doubt it, though.

No, I can only wonder where her puppies are; what they look like (and if any of them have her snaggle teeth!), whether any of them managed to stay together, if they’re even still alive. I hope they were all adopted into good homes, and that their families love and adore them as much as we do Kaylee. Above all else, I hope they’re free from the abuse and exploitation that Kaylee and Jayne endured before they found us.

To Kaylee and all the other sweeties out there, Happy Mother’s Day.

Photo via Matt McGee

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Tagged: holidays observances animals animal rights animal welfare mother’s day may 13 flickr dog canine my furbabies rat terrier Jack Russell terrier Kaylee mother children ducks babies

My crush of the week.

(Via.)

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare action alerts dawnwatch activism activist Carri Lucas San Francisco humane domestic violence animal abuse animal rescue animal cop