Peace Begins Now by David Krieger December 20, 2012

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This article was originally published as an interview in The Moon.
Given the history of military spending and engagement on the part of the United States, it may seem naïve to think that Americans are ready to change course—or begin again—on issues of peace and disarmament.  But as I write this, there is promising political support to put military spending on the table in order to move toward balancing the federal budget. Even more important, the public is realizing that nine years of war in Iraq and eleven years of war in Afghanistan have accomplished very little for the cost of the lives lost and destroyed and the trillions of dollars spent. We’ve tried controlling the world through military means and it has failed. 
Failure forces us to find new ways of resolving conflict—by turning enemies into friends. We need to apply the example of a conscientious adult who tells a frustrated child to “use your words, not your fists,” because any war in the Nuclear Age has the potential to become a nuclear war with uncertain, but surely catastrophic, consequences. 
As humans, our primary responsibility is to pass this beautiful planet on intact to new generations that will follow us. Hopefully, it will not require an apocalypse to move humanity toward creating a saner and more just world. This is why we have imaginations. We don’t need to experience a nuclear war or the melting of the Arctic ice to understand that the consequences would be catastrophic.
The threads that humanity might use to create a more peaceful world are our desire for justice, our love of beauty, our appreciation for our planetary home. There can be no peace without justice, and there can be no justice in a world divided between the very rich and those too poor to enjoy even the necessities of life. All human beings, regardless of borders, are entitled to the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  These cannot be relegated to historical values or aspirational values; they must be values we live by now.
We must repudiate the so-called “realists” who have led us to the brink of disaster through strategies and technologies of mass annihilation. We must reclaim the power of choice: we can follow these realists over the cliff, or we can step back and assert our humanity. We can stop basing our perceived security on the threat to murder hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people.
We have seen the face of absolute war – war from which there is no recovery, no survival.  Is that the world we wish to pass on to our children and grandchildren?  Surely most people would say No, and rebel against the path we are on. This will not be easy, but it is certainly possible. All it requires is awakening to our nuclear dilemma – one in which we are both potential victims and executioners. 
Our challenge is to find our way out of the Nuclear Age. We need leaders who can help us find a new path to a better world. Each of us has the potential to be such a leader. Peace leaders use the tools of persuasion and nonviolence. They lead with discipline, but their power derives from the heart and is based upon empathy, compassion and love. 
Although new beginnings can arise from the ashes of bad endings, where nuclear war is concerned, it would be far preferable for a new beginning to arise from new wisdom. I agree with Albert Einstein, who warned, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”
Where better to find new wisdom than in the hearts and voices of young people?
I’ve always thought that if the young were to take up the cause of ridding the world of nuclear weapons, they would be successful where adults have failed. Too many adults believe that nuclear weapons are tied to peace and security. Young people can more clearly see that nuclear weapons undermine security for all—and particularly for those with longer future horizons. If enough young people were to raise their voices for the abolition of these weapons, I think that the public, political leaders and the international community would have no choice but to listen and act.
Success will require far greater public engagement, political will and international cooperation than we are accustomed to, but the alternative is unthinkable. That’s why I believe the beginning of peace is near…in fact, is now.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

The Seattle Times, November 26, 2012
California farmers want orcas taken off endangered-species list
California farmers have filed a petition to take Puget Sound's killer whales off the endangered-species list, arguing they are not a separate population.
By Lynda V. Mapes

California farmers want to take Puget Sound's killer whales off the endangered-species list, arguing they are not a separate population and that protecting the fish they eat is hurting business.
The listing of the animals as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2005 caused cutbacks in irrigation to protect fish, and that's made it harder to get loans from banks, pay help and expand their operations, argues a petition filed by Empresa de Bosque and Coburn Ranch. The two farms raise a variety of crops, from cherries to almonds, melons and tomatoes, using irrigation water from several California water districts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The listing of Puget Sound's orcas has affected farmers in California because the southern resident orcas travel the outer West Coast in winter, and are known to feed on salmon as far south as the Sacramento River.
The petition to delist was filed on the farmers' behalf by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit based in Sacramento that has built a $25 million business fighting endangered-species listings, environmental restrictions, Title IX funding for high-school sports, affirmative action in public-sector contracting and more.
The foundation, with its motto "Rescuing liberty from coast to coast," operates regional offices in Bellevue, Hawaii and Florida. It is funded with individual contributions and awards of attorneys' fees.
NOAA Fisheries announced Monday it had accepted the petition and would finish by August a status review of the southern resident population of killer whales to determine if listing is still warranted.
Donna Darm, assistant administrator for protected resources at NOAA, said new science, including findings published in peer-reviewed journals since the orca was listed, warrants a new look at the listing. The decision to consider the petition does not indicate what the outcome of the review will be, she noted.
If the animals were taken off the endangered-species list, designation of critical habitat for them would disappear, but other protections under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, including a requirement the animals not be harassed or harmed, and that whale-watch vessels keep 200 yards away, would remain in effect.
NOAA Fisheries' listing of orcas as endangered came a year after it listed the animals as threatened in 2004. It had decided in 2002 not to list them at all. The agency initially determined the southern resident killer whales of Puget Sound, in J, K and L pods, were not a distinct population segment.
That finding was set aside by a U.S. District Court judge in 2003, who ruled there was enough uncertainty in the science to give the matter more study. The agency convened a science task force that eventually found the southern resident killer-whale population to be a distinct population, resulting in the 2005 listing.
Since then, the agency has designated 2,560 square miles of Puget Sound critical habitat for killer whales; required whale-watch vessels to keep a longer distance from the animals; and produced a recovery plan. But the southern resident population remains quite small, with only about 86 animals.
Fred Felleman, of Seattle, who in 2001 advocated for the original petition for listing, said the petition now to delist the orcas is a distraction from the necessary work of rebuilding orca populations.
"Oh great, here is a chance to biopsy them and tag them and chase them all over town until we don't have to worry about them any more," Felleman said.
To him, the distinct behavior of the southern residents sets them clearly apart from other orcas. They eat only fish, while other orcas eat seals and other mammals. They have distinct family groups, dialects, greeting ceremonies and migratory patterns.
"If there was ever a poster child for this type of subspecies, it's the killer whales," he said. "It's not just their genetics, it's culture. These clearly are the tribes of the sea, and if you extirpate that population not only do you lose the genetic code, you lose a unique brain trust."
In its petition, Pacific Legal Foundation stated there are about 50,000 killer whales roaming all the oceans of the world. Puget Sound's J, K and L pods comprise less than 0.2 percent of the species and, being such a small part of a larger population from which they are not distinct, protection is not warranted, the firm argued.
Miyoko Sakashita of the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued to get the animals listed, said the petition to delist is just a rehash of old arguments. NOAA's decision to list was right, she said. "I am sure when they take another look at the science they will affirm protection."
Seattle Times news researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report. Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com.
Copyright ©2012 The Seattle Times Company.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Man Reunited With Beloved Shih Tzu After 5-Year Search

• by Piper Hoffman
• December 21, 2012
• 6:00 am

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A Shih Tzu named Bandit disappeared five years ago. But he wasn’t gone forever.
Bandit’s person, Mike, and Mike’s nieces kept looking for the dog, whom Mike had fought to keep in his divorce settlement. But it turned out that Bandit found him.
Bandit somehow wound up at an animal control facility, and from there he went to a shelter called reTails Indy, which later posted Bandit’s story on its website.
The shelter scanned him for a chip, and lo and behold, he had one. Somehow animal control had missed it. The shelter staff were even more surprised to find that the phone number registered with the chip was still current. Mike lived right nearby. Within 10 minutes he was at the shelter, ready to reunite with his long-lost companion.

“This is my little buddy,” Mike said, holding Bandit close and fighting back tears. “This is my best friend.”
Bandit had run out an open door five years earlier and was seen being scooped up by a stranger in a car. Someone got the car’s license plate number, but Mike says the man refused to return Bandit despite his repeated attempts.
Mike was often out of town doing construction work; it was lucky that Bandit happened into the shelter when he did, because a week earlier Mike would not have been home to take the call and pick him up.
Without a microchip, Bandit and Mike never would have found each other again. Time Magazine writes that “approximately 10 million pets that have been chipped over the past 15 years.” They “have helped reunite more than 600,000 pets with their owners,” reports Petside.com‘s Lavanya Sunkara. For a FAQ about microchips, visit the Humane Society‘s website.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/five-years-of-reasons-to-microchip-your-pet-2.html#ixzz2FnzBBEXP

5 Reasons Not to Buy a Puppy for Christmas

• by Joel Boyce
• December 13, 2012
• 4:00 pm

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1) Family members should be adopted, not “bought”: There are enough animals looking for homes in shelters that the idea of encouraging the demand for backyard-bred puppies is difficult to justify. Here’s a cute animal shelter commercial encouraging viewers to adopt:
I’ll also add that some people purchase their animals, particularly dogs, because they are looking for a particular breed. In reality, just abut any mix or breed will come through your local shelter at one time or another. They likely will not come with pedigree papers, but the people for whom that is a priority are probably not my audience here.
One of the things I like about my local shelter is that they treat their animals as individuals, carefully informing prospective owners about energy levels, interests and attitudes. Finding the perfect match is not just about finding a specific breed, but the quirks and particularities of each individual. Mixed breeds are an excellent choice no matter what you’re looking for: you just have to find the one that’s just right for you.
2) Buying animals makes it okay to throw animals away: I believe the commoditization of animals is a huge root cause of animal cruelty. Putting animals on shelves and selling them like cheap, plastic toys makes them a part of our disposable culture. What does disposable mean for an animal? It means that rather than raising and teaching them, as we would our human family members, we play with them until they break or get boring, and then throw them away.
It’s not that I think a lot of people are purchasing pets whom actively abuse their animals (though such sickos exist). Rather, I think this is the type of attitude that makes it okay to buy puppies because they’re cute, not bother training them, and then get rid of them. It’s the animal shelters who now need to find homes for adult, poorly-socialized dogs. Purchasing a pet means tacitly endorsing the idea that companion animals are disposable (and sub-consciously affirming it).
3) Buying animals keeps puppy mills in business: We vote most effectively with our wallets, and if we don’t like the mistreatment and neglect puppies experience in those horrible facilities, we have to stop buying from them. Puppy millers don’t get into it because they actively hate animals. They do it because they’re lazy and greedy. If there’s no money in it, puppy mills will cease to exist.
4) You can’t play matchmaker for someone else: Dogs are as individual as people. Some are couch potatoes; some need to run. Some need a lot of attention; some need their space. And maybe you think you know someone well enough to pick the right dog for them, but even if that’s true, there’s that indefinable, je ne sais quoi, that you just can’t force.
5) You can’t make that kind of commitment for someone else: Adopting an animal is a huge commitment, and nobody can make that choice but the person who will be taking care of it. Even a lifelong animal-lover has to be in the right frame of mind and at the right moment in their lives to take someone new into their home.
Giving someone the wrong animal, or even the right animal at the wrong time, is much less likely to result in a forever home than a person making that decision themselves. As cute as it may seem to wrap up a little puppy or kitten in a bow and surprise someone on Christmas morning, it’s a guilt-ridden and heart-rending experience to be returning that same animal to a shelter in January.
I wonder how much of the income that supports puppy millers comes from well-intentioned but thoughtless individuals buying eight-hundred dollar pet store puppies that end up in a shelter a few weeks or months later. It’s no skin off the breeder’s nose, nor the pet shop owners.’
Having said all that… is there a right way to give someone a pet as a gift? Perhaps. If somebody has already expressed a very clear intention to adopt a pet in the near future, you might take them to a shelter and pay for part or all of the adoption fee. Some shelters also sell adoption certificates for use as gifts. This would probably work best with one’s spouse or (maybe) an older, responsible child.
But if you’re not absolutely sure, you should probably let someone choose their own time and place to adopt, and knit them a scarf instead.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/5-reasons-not-to-buy-a-puppy-for-christmas.html#ixzz2F3O685Nv

ASPCA-CHRISTMAS PUPPY STORY

When Dora was rescued by our Humane Law Enforcement department in December 2011, she was very thin and suffering from a severely damaged tail. But at the ASPCA, she got the care she needed—both physical and emotional—to start over in life.

When one of our supporters heard her story, he was overcome with emotion. He later became her foster parent, then her adopter. Today, Dora is living the good life with three other Shih Tzus, completely pampered and totally content. She couldn’t have it better, and that’s thanks to our members.
Dora is a happy, healthy pup because people like you care about her and the thousands of other animals who experience unnecessary suffering. Please consider making a gift today. For every Dora in a wonderful home, an untold number await our help.

*some may see this dog as not the cutest thing in the world (oddly I do) but all dogs have personality and the want to love you.

TAKE-ACTION TOOLBOX #1: DEFEND THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT

The Endangered Species Act is a remarkable success. A new Center for Biological Diversity analysis of 110 species finds that 90 percent are recovering on pace to meet recovery goals set by federal scientists.

Simply put, it’s the most powerful tool for protecting and saving species at the brink of extinction. Wolves, whooping cranes, panthers, sea lions and species in all 50 states are improving because of the Act. From the Key deer in Florida to the Aleutian Canada goose in Alaska, the Act has saved more than 99 percent of the 1,482 species under its care from extinction.

But some members of Congress have attacked the Act, falsely claiming it’s a failure and using specious arguments to call for gutting crucial parts of this life-saving law.

The Center has been at the forefront of Endangered Species Act protection, petitioning for thousands of species, protecting habitat and filing litigation against those agencies that fail to uphold the Act. Likewise, the Center is dedicated to protecting the Act itself.

Our new report is a science-based rebuttal to attacks on the Act by critics like Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, who says the Act is “failing badly” because only 1 percent of species have been recovered. The report finds that 80 percent of species haven’t been listed long enough to reach their projected delisting date but that, again and again, species are on a positive trajectory toward recovery.

It’s time to celebrate the success of the Act and to defend it from those who want to tear it down. Click here to locate endangered species where you live, and please take a moment to write your senators or a letter to your local newspaper.