…because a lot of dogs are getting sent there right now. Somewhere in doggie heaven Hoover is obsessively licking a celestial carpet and wondering why everyone is speaking Chinese. This week, a gov’t-sanctioned mass slaughter of dogs to curb rabies in a Chinese province had police officers yanking dogs from their owners and beating them to death in front of them. Care2.org has a petition urging our Ambassador to take action for a humane solution to the crisis.
· While dogs aren’t getting rounded up like common criminals in America, they’re not exactly living the high life: an estimated five million dogs and cats lose their lives each year in shelters due to overpopulation. The Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs has a very intriguing idea, one that I’m surprised never crossed my mind before: non-surgical sterilization. Imagine how many lives would be saved if strays and low-income family pets could be sterilized in a cheaper, easier fashion. The ACC&D has experimented with screening Ann Coulter videos to kill the sex drive, but it doesn’t work on more hotheaded, reactionary breeds... (Jesus, that’s my second Ann Coulter reference in one day. Can you tell I’m depressed?) Anyway, they’re behind a push for signatures (along with ASPCA and Petfinder.com) to make further research a priority.
· Yes, there are places in this world where people actually eat horses. Unfortunately, America has found the profit potential of this too tempting to pass up – thousands of horses are exported to other countries to end up on a plate of horse tartar. But the unmistakably titled American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act wants to put an end to that. Sign the petition.
· The wonderful League of Conservation Voters, known mostly for making enviro-voters well-informed, has a new call to action: demanding global warming leadership on Capital Hill. Urging a dialogue about climate change in the upcoming elections, the petition simply makes it clear that this is a defining issue for the American people, and we’ll be paying attention. It’s hard to pierce the comfy, satin bubble that cocoons the Beltway, but if any issue could break down the walls we’ve grown accustomed to, it’s this one. Whether you burn our flag or patrol our borders, you’re still a citizen of the world who needs a world to be a citizen of.