Yup, I’m out of here, and I’m taking all my old posts with me. If you need ‘em, they’ll be filed under “vintage” over at the new (virtual) digs. They’ll also stay archived at www.kellygarbato.com until we (by “we”, I mean “Shane”) figure out how to set up redirects for all the old URLs. Wouldn’t want to miss out on any misogynistic Duggar trolling, would I?

So anywho, be sure to join me over at www.SmiteMe.net, wontcha?

But before I go, I signed up for Blog Action Day, so I guess I’d best do some green blogging.
 

 
I had a whole shit-you-should-be-doing-to-save-the-environment-but-you-aren’t-because-it’s-totally-inconvenient-and-the-
fucktwits-at-the-sierra-club-aren’t-pressing-the-issue-because-gawd-forbid-they-offend-a-few-liberals-OMG!!! mega-post planned out, but now here it is, 8:30, and I still have a pile of laundry to sort and a sink full of dishes to scrub and my how the day’s gotten away from me! So. In two words: go veg. In spite of PETA, not because of them.

And if you want to donate to an enviro charity…I *heart* Farm Sanctuary.

———————–

Tagged: blog blogging blog action day green environment vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism farm sanctuary moving smiteme al gore

Photo via Michael Heilemann

House, that is. Posts will be sporadic to nonexistent (what’s new, right?) for a few weeks while the furbabies and their harried parents get settled in.

And when I finally return from hiatus…I’ll come and move the blog, too. Happy happy joy joy.

—————-

Tagged: moving star wars postcard flickr admin site admin

Crossposted without commentary…

Note: For similar action alerts and commentary, please visit this site’s Katrina archive (which I’ve obviously expanded to include all large-scale disasters, both “natural” and man-made) or my AR blog, easyVegan.info (hint: start with the Natural Disasters category).

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kinship Circle - kinshipcircle [at] brick.net
Date: Jun 24, 2007 1:39 AM
Subject: Animals ­ Unseen Collateral Damage

RELIEF GLOBAL / KINSHIP CIRCLE ANIMAL DISASTER RELIEF LIST

KINSHIP CIRCLE COLUMN, 6/24/07
PERMISSION TO CROSS-POST

Columns & Articles: www.kinshipcircle.org/columns_articles/

Animals - War’s Unseen Collateral Damage
By Brenda Shoss, 6/24/07, www.KinshipCircle.org

Kinship Circle’s column runs in The Healthy Planet. Ms. Shoss is also a contributing writer for The Animals Voice, Satya Magazine, VegNews, and other publications. To reprint this column, please request author permission at info [at] kinshipcircle.org

LEFT PHOTO: 8/5/06, network.bestfriends.org/middleeast/news/6547.html
— BETA rescued this little kitten, Louli, from the war zone.

RIGHT PHOTO: 6/4/07, from BETA Team, listmaster [at] betabeirut.com — Car bombs and hand grenades went off in Beirut. The first bomb exploded very close to one of our cat shelters in Ashrafieh area…

War devastates. We grieve for soldiers lost and the involuntary destruction of civilian life. But headlines rarely publicize war’s other collateral damage.

Animals, crimeless and naive, dodge mortars and armored combat vehicles. Their lives explode in a flurry of desertion, starvation, injury and death.

A month into last summer’s Israeli-Hezbollah war, bombs rain over Beirut’s southern suburbs. Israel’s military hopes to defuse Hezbollah’s command post, so Lebanese officials can assert autonomy along the border. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launches rocket strikes inside Haifa and northern Israel.

Helena Hesayne, a Beirut born architect, has little patience for the politics behind battle. Her mission is clear: To rescue animals abandoned in Lebanon’s exodus of one million people. In late July 2006, Hesayne and three others from Beirut For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (BETA) navigate smoldering rubble in a small convertible. Israeli soldiers eye their car full of dog and cat food.

Hesayne displays BETA’s accreditation papers. She has no fear, only stark resolve to retrieve four cats and one puppy seen locked inside a pet shop. “These animals are banging against the glass door, trying to get out. They are without food and water. I don’t know how long,” Hesayne recounts.

The women persuade another storeowner to unlock the pet shop for them. They are without crates, so they ferry animals toward their car under a downpour of bombs. “The entire time, this tiny puppy just licks our faces. It is the most amazing thing,” Hesayne says.

(more…)

Sorry for the lack of posts, folks. I’ve been all a-busy getting my AR blog, easyVegan.info, up and running. Hey, it only took 3 1/2 years. If you like the fuzzy wuzzies, go give it a look-see.

Yup, I’m still alive, and as pissed off as ever. So pissed off, in fact, that I decided that a blogging break was in order. Between the Dems shamelessly selling out their base, and the ongoing cartoon “row” (as the BBC so charmingly phrased it), the daily news was starting to crush my spirit. There’s only so much a liberal can take, ya know?
 
On the upside, I’ve been hard at work on updating and improving the site. I’ve got some new features in mind, some minor tweaks here and there, and of course the eventual upgrade to WordPress 2.0 (which will in all likelihood will take place roughly three weeks before the release of WP 3.0, Gawd love technology). The best part - I plan on moving the blog and related features to a brand spanking new domain. Now that I’ve been doing the blog thing for upwards of eight months, I have a better feel for what works and what, well, sucks. As much as I love the design of KellyGarbato.com, it’s just not right for a blog - way too cluttered and slow, not at all practical. So as soon as Shane and I can find some free time, we’ll migrate the blog and related materials over to their new domain, SmiteMe.net. Much easier to remember than KellyGarbato.com, no?
 
Until I get back, mosey on over to Flickr and see what I’ve been up to. I finally set up an account, and have been loving it! So far I’ve only added personal photos, but I hope to use Flickr to manage my blog pics in the future as well. WP just doesn’t cut it as far as photo management goes. Feedback is welcome! (Doubly so before I shell out $25 for a Pro account.)   
 
Anywho, I’ve got two sets up there. You might recognize some of the kiddie pics from my current photo album - I replicated the Toeheads album on Flickr and added a ton of pics to the set. Also did a fun series of Bushisms, which I’m still in the process of adding to. Just click on the pictures below to get the sets, or jump directly to my photostream.

Oh, and do check out the latest incarnation of the God or Not carnival, to which Shane contributed a piece on prayer and the Sago mining tragedy.
 
 

Kids Say the Dirtiest Things

 
 
Bush Babies

 
 

The AR/AW organizations Kinship Circle and DawnWatch distributed Katrina-related alerts this weekend; I uploaded them both to my Katrina page at www.kellygarbato.com/katrina. I’ll continue to add new material to the site as I receive it, so please check back every day or two.

Currently, the most pressing need seems to be money, followed closely by bodies - money to fund the rescue efforts and bodies to actually care for all the displaced and abandoned animals. So dig down deep in your pockets and give locally. Better yet, offer to volunteer in some way if you’re able.

Additionally, for those who’d like to speak on behalf of the voiceless, Kinship Circle and DawnWatch have provided a number of petitions, sample letters, and writing alerts.

Although I thought that the authorities were now allowing animals to evacuate the city along with their humans, there seems to be conflicting reports on this point. Over the weekend, for example, CNN interviewed a community of NO residents who were living in a mausoleum, with no way of escaping on their own (all the blocks surrounding them were flooded with sludge water). Although the police (FEMA?) were pressuring them to evacuate, the residents refused because they did not want to leave their dogs behind. Of course, rather than providing safe passage for people and pets, the authorities just keep bitching at ‘em to leave.

For fuck’s sake, these folks have already been through hell and back, risked their lives in order to save their beloved family members, and now the authorities have the gall to tell them to leave their animals behind? Priorities, people! They should all get fucking medals. C’mon, you just know they would if they were safeguarding toeheads instead of miserable, lowly canines. Sheesh.

- K

Speaking of treating animals better than people, yesterday I logged on to Pet Boulevard - in order to waste money lavishing gifts on my lowly dogs when I should be spending it on more deserving creatures (i.e., humans) - and was pleasantly surprised to see that, through the month of September, Pet Blvd. is donating all of its profits to the American Red Cross. Animal worshippers, you can now spoil your companion animals with a clear conscience, since a chunk of your cash will make its way to an anthropocentric charity. Seriously, though, I’m a compulsive comparison shopper, and Pet Boulevard has the best deals on pet supplies (well, dog toys, at least) that I know of. If you need to stock up, now is the perfect time.

Little Miss O-Ren is eagerly awaiting her supply of red Kongs. If they don’t get here soon, she’s gonna have to open up a can of whoop-ass. Good thing I sprang for overnight shipping.

Also, Best Friends (whose site appears to be down for the time being, go figure) has some information on how we humans can help Katrina’s (gasp!) non-human survivors. There’s an urgent need for foster homes, but obviously, most potential foster parents don’t live in the immediate vicinity of the Gulf Coast. Best Friends is based in Utah - pretty darned far away from the area - and can hook up fosters with animals. Shane & I are still debating whether to foster or not (at this point, it primarily depends on what our landlady has to say about it!), so I haven’t yet contacted Best Friends, but I am assuming that it works something like this: you volunteer to foster, Best Friends accepts your offer, and you foster one of the animals they rescued while they work to place him/her. Maybe they’ll even be able to get him or her (or them!) to you, if you live somewhere en route from UT to LA. ‘Course, this is all conjecture on my part, but either way, you can email Best Friends if you’d like to help. Details and contact info is available on their web site…well, whenever they get it back up.

Kinship Circle’s also on top of things, with a Hurricane Katrina email campaign, copied verbatim here.

Additional resources:
The Louisiana SPCA - www.la-spca.org/
The Houston SPCA - www.spcahouston.org/
The American SPCA - www.aspca.org/
The US Humane Society - www.hsus.org/
The Humane Society of Missouri - www.hsmo.org/
Best Friends - www.bestfriends.org/
The American Humane Association - www.americanhumane.org/
Noah’s Wish - www.noahswish.org/
Pet Finder’s Hurricane Katrina forum - www.petfinder.org/disaster/

Some of these sites are temporarily unavailable due to heavy traffic. Guess that’s probably a good thing…

Finally, check with your local humane societies - they may be involved with the rescue efforts as well.

And, whatever you do, be sure to give your furry friends a big wet kiss tonight.

- K

Someone pinch me. Is it seriously September already?

I haven’t had the time or resources to post much lately. We’ve been having a ton of trouble with our connection - first the router, then some flooding damaged Road Runner’s equipment, yada yada yada. Our connection is still a bit spotty, but I suppose the upside is that I can give myself the day off when we get bumped.

Of course, it could always be worse; I could be huddled atop my roof right now. I’ve been trying to avoid coverage of Hurricane Katrina - the situation is so grim that it’s painful to dwell on, if even for a moment. I’m subscribed to dozens of animal rights lists, though, so the reports of displaced and abandoned animals arrive in my inbox hourly. Thoughts of poor Snowball keep haunting me. I haven’t stopped snuggling my furbabies all weekend, and every half hour I’ve gotta go get my fill of Peedee kisses.

What’s that again, Randi? Animals are treated better than humans? Please, the people of New Orleans were evacuated, while their animals were denied safe passage. I couldn’t imagine ever facing such a choice, and it certainly speaks volumes about our attitudes towards non-humans that the refugees were forced - literally - to leave certain family members behind. They’d have to pry my babes off of my cold corpse.

If anyone out there would like to help the animal victims as well, Kinship Circle has an ongoing series of Hurricane Katrina Animal Relief alerts; I was unable to find them archived on Kinship Circle’s site, so I’ve uploaded them here. Our next paycheck is going straight to the Louisiana SPCA (care of the Houston SPCA). Also thinking about fostering some canine refugees, just not sure if any have made it as far as Kansas yet…

Unlike the Raving Atheist, however, I’d like to urge you to please - whatever you do - direct your donations to secular charities whenever possible. Catholic Charities might spend your cash on something stupid, like crates of Bibles.

Well, I was going to launch into a tirade about all the race-baiting and Bush-bashing that road in on Katrina’s coattails, but I just don’t have the energy (especially after formatting all 20+ pages of Kinship Circle’s emails!). So I guess that’s it for today. And, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…there’s another vacancy on the bench. Great.

- K

Sorry for the leave of absence, folks. Your featherhead has been a bit preoccupied as of late. Shane & I are finally thinking about buying our own place, and rather than staying in Kansas, we’re considering moving out of state. It’s just too damned humid here - we could both use some nice dry desert air. Maybe then I could actually leave the house in the summer without developing some kind of hideous skin condition. I mean, really, how many times can one shut-in get poison ivy in a month? If there were a God, I would be cursing him right about now.

Anyway, the second “relocation” was mentioned, of course I got a bit overzealous and ordered every state/travel guide I could find at the library. Obsessive, yes. If I were a guy, I’d probably get a semi-erection at the mere thought of moving. And, I never thought I’d say this, but Texas seems to be the leading contender. Hell, I already live in a red state with possible ID curriculum and mega-churches galore - how much worse could Texas be?

Getting back to the topic at hand, in all my fixation on travel guides and Chamber of Commerce web sites, I’ve kind of been slacking on the blog front. Bad Kelly, bad!

First, a word on a few site updates, then on to the news. As many of you’ve already noticed, I uploaded a number of sample letters to the Get Active section of the site. Currently, these are all focused on animal rights/welfare topics, but I hope to tackle some other issues in the distant future. Also, I’ve added a number of articles that I’ve been hoarding. Cannibalism, incest, Nigerian scams - lotsa interesting stuff up there. And…guess that’s it for now.

Well, August 15 came and went, with no Iraqi constitution to be seen. The deadline was pushed back to August 22 - so looks like the women of Iraq get one extra week of freedom. Better party it up while you can, girls.

The chief point of contention is cultural differences between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority; the Shiites want the right to self-govern according to the rules of Islam - and they want to exercise their autonomy in the south region of the country, which coincidentally (or not so) has the richest oil deposits. Interestingly, most media outlets have overlooked the dire consequences this could hold for Iraqi women, instead preferring to focus on the deliciously addictive black gold. If the Shiites get their way - a prospect that’s more likely than not - then the US will be indirectly responsible for massive human rights abuses and religious oppression. So it seems a bit queer that only the NY Times has consistently covered the plight of Iraqi women.

Elsewhere in updates, looks like those morons who “claimed” the items from Kris Bryan’s house could - theoretically - be charged with theft, despite their dubious excuse of the classified ad. Bryan also reached a settlement with the paper, although the details have not been disclosed.

Newspaper Settles With Woman Who Got Robbed After Error in Ad

A newspaper has settled a complaint with a woman who came home to find her belongings being taken away because her address was mistakenly listed in a legal ad. […]

…others had already made off with an estimated $3,300 worth of possessions — everything from a TV and a DVD player to video games and Bryan’s 7-week-old kitten.</