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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
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Published Letters: 96 Editor's Choice: 6
When I was a kid we used to feed our cats raw beef hearts that we bought at the grocery store. My dad was a health food nut who owned the entire Adele Davis library, and I guess he figured that was the best thing for the cats. We'd slice it fresh every day. They were healthy, lean, energetic kitties. Then one day when we'd brought them in for their annual exams, the vet asked what we were feeding them. When we told them raw beef hearts he suggested, gently, that this kind of monochrome high protein diet wasn't the best for them and we switched to canned food. They quickly got fat and lazy.
I guess we were idiots but it was the 70s, and none of this raw food stuff was out there and we just figured the vet knew best. I have since been told that the folks at Science Diet develop relationships with vet students and vet schools, donating lots of money to school programs and basically engendering a lot of good will early on that benefits them later when students graduate and start their own clinics. Vets may not be raking in a windfall of cash from the Science Diet folks but there are other ways of showing the love -- donations to an alma mater, perhaps?
Much as I love my current vet, I have to say it's always bugged me that she will recommend a Science Diet product to fix some health problem, but she's never recommended the brand of dog food I actually use -- Nutro Max. Since switching from Science Diet and IAMS to Nutro Max my dogs and cats have much softer fur, the cat poop is less stinky and both species poop less often. The joint problems that forced one of my dogs onto medication have completely gone away. She's off Deramaxx now and hasn't limped in months.
I realize Nutro Max is just a higher quality of kibble and I'm considering playing with raw food, perhaps with the cats. I appreciate this article, however. Good "food" for thought.
Scherer says last night's speech lacked any blockbuster "16 words." Au contraire. I can't believe Bush's handlers let him make this blunt admission of one of the Administration's biggest failures:
"We will not sit back and wait to be hit again."
So there you have it. The Bush Administrationi was "sitting back" when 9/11 hit, despite dire warnings from Richard Clarke, despite FBI agents raising the alarm about people learning to fly planes but not land them and, most tellingly, despite a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Osama Determined To Strike Inside The U.S."
And yet, he still maintains that illegal domestic surveillance without a warrant is the only way to keep us safe? Try listening to your own advisors and reading your own PDBs for a starter, eh? What a fraud.
If you are going to require that all presidential candidates have military experience then you must first remove the ban on GLBT persons serving in the military, otherwise you are by default banning a whole class of people from seeking our nation's highest office.
Also the disabled, since I guess people with physical disabilities do not enlist in the military. So no more Franklin Roosevelts holding office from their wheelchairs.
This would also suck for women who aspire to the presidency, since although the numbers are growing, I think there are still more men than women serving in the military.
I guess no Quaker presidents. No conscientious objectors!
Anyone else I'm forgetting in this shrinking presidential field?
I have to say that for the first time in a long time, I actually enjoyed the Oscars last night. The overwhelming feeling I had was that the entertainment community was issuing a collective protest against the cultural tail waggers and religious moralists who constantly complain that Hollywood is out of touch. George Clooney set the evening's tone in his acceptance speech, admitting to being out of touch--but also said, "but we're right to be, and you're wrong." It was a united front last night. Defensive? Nah. It was, "we're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore!" And about damn time, too.
How refreshing that we didn't have to suffer through an endless parade of bombastic, sugary pop songs sung by Beyonce and Celine Dion. Jon Stewart did an excellent job, his political and cultural references balanced by his venue and the reality that the Oscars play to an international audience.
And as for plunging neckliines: did you see Salma Hayek's dress?
Nope, I normally agree with Salon's reviewers but not this time, not by a long shot.
Regardless of the merits of this case, all I can say to Matt DuBay is: Dude, your timing sucks. Claiming you are exempt from child support payments because women have a plethora of choices to terminate a pregnancy, at the exact moment in history when women's choice is under attack nationwide, seems rather unfortunate. How about this: those men who feel economically oppressed by their biology (whew that's rich!) should work their little tails off protecing women's abortion rights and access to birth control FIRST. Once we've established that women really do have a "plethora of choices," and those choices won't be snatched from our grasp by some Fundiegelical activist judge, then we can begin a dialogue about the larger issues of men's parental rights and responsibilites.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
