A quick review of 2011 has left me saddened on this last day of the year. Personally,
I lost my dear friend - Casey, a 12-year- old Samoyed mix who was very beautiful to look
at. She died in July of this year. She was also a gentle and loving dog. Casey began her
first 6 years with someone I believed to be a poor caretaker. One of the first things I had to
do when I got her was to get her groomed. The second was to get her spayed when they
also discovered a cyst on her ovaries and removed it. I wish that I could have done more for
her in her last 6 years, but all I can say is I tried. One very big regret is that -as she loved
to run freely, I never was able to give her that opportunity. The reasons really don't matter
now, though if I had to do it over - somehow I should have found ways for her to do this.
This year I was crushed to find out that our beautiful horses may once again be shuttled
into American horse slaughter houses. In my opinion, we have let these beautiful creatures
down for many, many years. And it seems, that despite the successful closing of American
slaughter houses in 2006, the horrible slaughtering continued in Canada and Mexico, where
especially in Mexico, the slaughtering was particularly crude and cruel. I believe the picture
one horse welfare group sent us showed a man repeatedly striking the back of a horse in
a chute with a long knife. Outrageous and cruel. However, slaughtering horses is usually
cruel under any circumstances because of their size and the inadequacy of humane slaughter
practices in place. One poll said that 80% of Americans are against horse slaughter, and yet
the powerful insensitive 20% it seems will have their way.
For anyone who owns a horse and is experiencing difficulty in keeping him or her fed, please
don't sell to the "meat" people. Your faithful horse deserves to be put down humanely instead
if there is no one who can help. I hope you agree.
Congress, instead of banning ALL horse slaughter with proposed bills H.R.2966 and S.1176,
along with President Obama it appears has c leared the way for horse slaughter again in the
U.S. I can not tell you how disappointed I am in our elected officials and the president. When it
comes time again to vote for a president, I don't know if I will be able to vote. I had so hoped
Obama would be the compassionate, caring president I and others wanted. He has let us down
when it comes to animal and environmental issues.
I also read at the Oped site that the EPA has fallen to Republican demands to allow factories to
once again be allowed to spew h armful chemicals into the air. If Obama is doing this to placate
the Republicans or for whatever his reasons -- what a terrible legacy for him to water down air
pollution practices which will surely endanger the public.
And then AETA -the shameful law used to discredit factory farm cruelty whistleblowers, is
despicable and unworthy of anyone who has the least bit of compassion for our suffering farm
animals. This Act -The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act will always make me realize what an
inept Congress we have. I believe that Rep. Dennis Kucinich was the ONLY one in Congress who
voted against it. Yes, I should do more research on this subject, but then in essence, it only
matters that such an act was ever shamefully passed at all. With this Act - people who are
exposing animal cruelty are being made the criminal instead of the perpetrators of cruelty to our
innocent farm animals. Sadly, I am sometimes ashamed of our country and this is one such
instance.
Thank you Rob Kall for the Quick link - "New Lawsuit Challenges the Animal Enterprise Terrorism
Act as Unconstitutional. I am a praying person and I am asking God that this lawsuit wins.
Anybody else who believes in prayer - please, please join me.
I think I could probably think of more reasons why 2011 wasn't the best of years, but it will only
depress me and possibly you too, the reader.
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