AG Design site has some kick-ass tutorials
January 5, 2009
Check out the excellent design tutorials on the AG Design site, here.
Dogfighting in Afghanistan “Even if people are starving, they’ll still keep dogfighting.”
January 5, 2009
“The interest of the people is increasing day by day,” said Sher Mohammad Sheywaki, 50, who was standing on the edge of the fighting pitch. “Even if people are starving, they’ll still keep dogfighting.”
For the complete New York Times article, go here.
Good Newz from the Bad Newz Kennels: 47 out of 51 Dogs Saved
January 5, 2009
Sports Illustrated has done an excellent follow-up article written by Jim Gorant on the the rehabilitation of the pit bulls confiscated from Michael Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels, read the complete piece here. You should also check out the Photo Gallery link, too. Tell me if you see any monster dogs there.
PETA and the Humane Society argued that this was a misuse of resources, spending so much to save these ‘celebrity’ abused dogs while millions of adoptable dogs await their own death sentences in our nation’s shelters. PETA has no credibility on any issue whatsoever in my view, they are extremists and perennial publicity sluts.
I think it was important, especially given the immense amount of bad publicity this breed has gotten over the last 30 years, to make the point that these dogs could be saved. That’s a message that America needs to hear, while breed-specific bans are considered proper legal responses to the ‘innate viciousness’ of pit bulls. It sounds simplistic but it is nonetheless true: there are no inherently bad dogs, there are only bad, uneducated dog owners.
For the recored the $928,000 that went to evaluate and place these dogs came from the Michael Vick’s pocket and 47 out of 51 dogs were saved. 2 died in shelters, 1 was euthanized for medical reasons and only 1 was destroyed because it was considered ‘too violent.’
In other news a 12 year old boy in Douglas, AZ shot his 34 year old mother 8 times last August 1, after arguing with her over chores. (Source). Where are the calls for a ‘breed specific’ ban on 12 year old boys? I’m just saying, is all. . .
Free Public Domain Images from your pal, the Government
January 5, 2009
Thanks to the great guys at Design Tools Monthly for this wonderful list of free image resources that you’ve already paid for with your tax dollars. Save the money you’d normally spend on quality pictures for your design projects and spend it on non-essentials like food, gas and shelter in 2009.
http://phil/cdc.gov/Phil/home.asp
www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html
www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/multimedia.aspx
www.nps.gov/pub_aff/imagebase.html
www.photolibrary.fema.gov/photolibrary
www.nih.gov/about/nihphotos.htm
Why hasn’t a Chiropractor won a Nobel Prize?
December 9, 2008
Is this a legitimate question: why hasn’t a chiropractor won a Nobel Prize?
M.D.’s have won them. Mathematicians have won them. Physicists have won them. Professors, academic and medical researchers have won them. Even lawyers have won Nobel Prizes. So, really, how stringent must the vetting process be?
They gave Henry Kissinger half of a Nobel Peace Prize (one he shared with Le Duc Tho, the Communist leader of North Viet Nam) in 1973 for negotiations over a war that didn’t end until 1975.
How come no acupuncturists have won a Nobel Prize? How come no reflexologists have won a Nobel Prize? Why have no homeopaths won a Nobel Prize?
Are these legitimate questions? Does the lack of recognition by the Nobel Prize committee mean that there’s been no benefit, no advance of human knowledge in these fields?
I know what my answer to that question would be. But what do you think?
Inside Dogfighting Culture
December 9, 2008
Over 17 months, the agents from the Texas state police penetrated a murky and dangerous subculture in East Texas, a world where petty criminals, drug dealers and a few people with ordinary jobs shared a passion for watching pit bulls tear each other apart in a 12-foot-square pit. . .Besides a cadre of older, well-established dogfighters, officials said, the sport has begun to attract a growing following among young people from hardscrabble neighborhoods in Texas, where gangs, drug dealing and hip-hop culture make up the backdrop.
—from the New York Times, complete article here.
This was described as one of the country’s largest dog fighting operations; 187 pit bulls were seized and 80 of them have already been euthanized.
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around this. What could possibly drive this need for such cruel entertainment? Have we made no progress at all from the days of the Roman coliseum? Or England in the 1600s?
Shakespeare’s Globe Theater was in a London district that included brothels, taverns and ‘bear gardens’ where a staked and chained bear was set upon by hunting dogs, the precursors of today’s pit bulls. King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I were great fans of ‘bear baiting.’
At the Paris Garden in Southwark, London’s most famous bear garden, a pony with an ape tied to its back was once baited as a ‘novelty.’ A Spanish nobleman reported that “. . .the screaming of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable.” Source.
Isn’t it crazy that in the 21st century some of us still consider watching canine gladiators mutilate and kill each other a ‘sport?’
Our lifestyle is so privileged. Our need for sensation is so raw and hungry. We turn dogs into killing machines without understanding that we are the ones who are debased by this, not the pit bulls.
What can explain this?
The majority of the American public has been coerced? seduced? into a child-like state where critical thinking and responsibility are shunned and consumption is the ultimate value. Rational discourse is limited and the public debate is conducted in sound bites and dominated by shouting extremists.
You have to be shrill and outrageous in order to cut through the media clutter. But the audience quickly becomes desensitized and needs an ever-increasing amount of shock value to maintain their loyal attention (and the advertising dollars that flow from that attention).
That’s my opinion. Here are some of the facts.
At 300 million we are 5% of the world’s estimated 6.5 billion population and we consume 24% of the world’s energy resources. 2.8 billion people across the globe struggle to survive on the equivalent of $2 US dollars a day and something like 1.7 billion people don’t have ready access to clean drinking water. Source. Source.
Americans spent $9.63 billion dollars going to the movies in 2007. The average annual outlay per person for entertainment [ broadcast and cable TV, movies, magazines, newspapers, books and Internet service ] is $848.46. Source.
Of course, a small fraction of this figure is for information and that’s not broken out in these numbers. But I think you will agree that the overwhelming majority of this consumption is for entertainment, not education or news.
There’s a classic book published back in 1985 that today seems prophetic: Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. I urge you to get a copy, read it, and then consider how much worse things are now more than 20 years later.
Does any of this explain the dark heart of the desire to see animals fight for our entertainment? Is this ugliness simply a part of human nature? Of course it is, I think sadly. Don’t be so naive, I tell myself.
I’m reminded of the exchange between Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen:
Charlie Allnut: A man takes a drop too much once in a while, it’s only human nature.
Rose Sayer: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
“A Natural History of Seeing” by Simon Ings
December 3, 2008
Light hits a rod in my eye, and bleaches pigment within. A cascade of chemical events shuts down the rod’s ‘ion channels’ — proteins that pass an electrical current around the cell. With its ion channels shut down, production of a chemical, glutamate, is stopped. This sudden chemical ‘silence’ excites a neighbouring nerve sell and sets it chattering. News passes from neighbour to neighbour, from nerve cell to nerve cell: the beginning of vision.
Novelist and science writer Simon Ings has produced a phenomenal book on vision, one that contains gems of information on every page. This is selling science to the public at the highest level; one that is as engaging and compellingly readable as any commercial thriller starring a government assassin named Bourne or Bond. Everyone with eyes should read this book. Get your copy here.
Here’s one example: below is a reproduction of Alfred Yarbus’ record of eye movements while studying a picture of a girl’s face. The jittery line drawing on the right shows how frantic our eye movements are, even when we believe we are taking in an object ‘at a glance.’
“. . .in reality my eyes are never still. Every third of second they jolt or ‘saccade’ moving my gaze from one part of an object to another. My single ‘glance’ is a multitude of little fixations, not unlike the twitching of an insect’s antennae, or a mouse’s whiskers. . .”
Michael Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels — “A heartless enthusiast of barbaric pit bull fights”
November 25, 2008
The US Department of Agriculture released their report this week adding new details to the practices at Michael Vicks’ Bad Newz Kennels in Smithfield, Virginia. Vicks, along with several others, has already pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for running a dog-fighting ring and is expected to plead guilty to state charges, getting a three year suspended sentence. Vicks will be out of Leavenworth in July 2009.
The report shows that after failing an FBI polygraph test in October 2007 the former Atlanta Falcon quarterback recanted his denial and admitted taking part in the hanging of dogs from a nylon cord nailed to a tree and drowning others in a five gallon bucket of water.
Twice Vick put family pets into the fighting ring with pit bulls because he “thought it was funny to watch the pit bulls. . . injure or kill the other dogs.” Vick also admitted watching his friends hang, shoot and electrocute pit bulls.
For the full report go to the Smoking Gun’s site, here.
To learn the details of how Vick went from being the highest paid player in NFL history in 2004, signing a $130 million contract, to bankruptcy while in prison, check out ESPN’s Harper’s Index-style run down on the numbers here.
One bright spot is the $928,073 he was required to give to rehabilitate the 47 pit bulls that survived their time in the Bad Newz Kennels.
Petland stores linked to puppy mills — Must Read!
November 23, 2008
Michael Markarian led a press conference this morning, (Nov. 21) packed with television cameras at The Humane Society of the United States’ headquarters in Washington, D.C., to announce the results of a new eight-month investigation into puppy mill cruelty. The HSUS investigated more than 20 Petland stores and found that these stores, part of the nation’s largest puppy-selling retail chain, are selling dogs from abusive puppy mills in Missouri and across the Midwest, while assuring consumers that they only buy puppies from good breeders with the highest standards of care. Some Petland stores even buy puppies from brokers and middlemen, and may not even know who the breeder is until after the puppy arrives in the store.
Read the rest of this article and see the video here.
LIFE magazine photo archives to go online via Google
November 21, 2008
Google announced on Nov. 18 that it will undertake one of the largest scanning projects ever proposed: putting over 10 million images from the archives of LIFE magazine online.
What’s really striking about this is that 97 per cent of these images have never been seen by the public. So that means that LIFe magazine which was for over four decades America’s pictorial view of the world only used 3 per cent of the work submitted by their photographers. Among the iconic image makers who worked for LIFE are photographers like Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, and W. Eugene Smith.
For more information about this amazing project, go here.