Police Pepper Spray Peaceful Protestors

First, if you live under a rock (or another country) and don’t know about the incident of police brutality on the UC Davis campus, then read this and watch the videos if you can stomach them. I almost didn’t. I couldn’t get through the whole thing without working myself into such anger that I had to leave the room. It’s hard to watch. It’s hard to believe something like this would happen in our day.

Why? Maybe I live in a bubble. The Occupy movement here in Austin has been dramatically more civil than in other parts of the nation. While there have been a few arrests, there’s been little to no drama, and the APD has been supportive of the safety of the protestors to the extent that they willingly stop downtown traffic to allow the protestors to parade through the streets. I think this is a direct reflection of the education system in Austin and the high acceptance and tolerance levels in our liberal Texan city. We’re lucky. Some folks, like the students and faculty at UC Davis, are not. The police man who pepper sprayed the young and old who sat on the sidewalk with their arms linked in peaceful protest did nothing but prove that peace and solidarity and the strength of community can and will win out over violence.

It makes me despair in the future of humanity, but gives me hope that there are people out there who will give their all to preserve peace.

The Despicable Actions of the Administration

This arcticle by UC Davis professor Bob Ostertag is the best article I’ve read so far about the protest and why it and the actions of the administration were so horrendous. He mentions to the health and safety hazards of pepper spray and how, days after the brutal attack, there are several students who are still sick and burned from the chemicals.

“As with chili peppers, some people tolerate pepper spray well, while others have extreme reactions. It is not known why this is the case. As a result, if a doctor sees pepper spray used in a prison, he or she is required to file a written report. And regulations prohibit the use of pepper spray on inmates in all circumstances other than the immediate threat of violence. If a prisoner is seated, by definition the use of pepper spray is prohibited. Any prison guard who used pepper spray on a seated prisoner would face immediate disciplinary review for the use of excessive force. Even in the case of a prison riot in which inmates use extreme violence, once a prisoner sits down he or she is not considered to be an imminent threat. And if prison guards go into a situation where the use of pepper spray is considered likely, they are required to have medical personnel nearby to treat the victims of the chemical agent.

Apparently, in the state of California felons incarcerated for violent crimes have rights that students at public universities do not.”

The Shadow was Only a Small & Passing Thing

When using your VOICE becomes a crime so heinous it “forces” officers to use violence on children, my faith in humanity dwindles. My heart breaks. And at the same time, my spirit is uplifted by the community of people, young and old, who refuse to give in, who link arms and raise their voices louder, and who, no matter how many times they are beaten and burned and kicked, refuse to act in kind and instead remain peaceful and connected in their solidarity and beliefs. They remind me that there is still beauty and hope left in humanity and they are the ones that will save us in the end. Thank you to those old souls who know the importance of never giving up for what you believe in.

You may have already heard of The Girl Effect. If you don’t know, it’s “the unique potential of 600 million adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world.” In other words, it’s an organization dedicated to improving the lives of young girls and giving them the means of educating themselves and working towards making the world a better place.

“The Girl Effect is a movement. It’s social change in action. It’s about you using your voice, your talents, and your community to help girls help themselves—and, as a result, everybody else.

Created by people at the Nike Foundation, the Novo Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, its purpose is to spread the word about what girls can do and to recruit other powerful girl champions, like you. Armed with the tools and the network you need to raise awareness—and a little elbow grease—you can change the world.”

I won’t bore you with any more descriptions. Just watch this.

The Girl Effect

It’s a small ripple. Helping just one girl. But that ripple grows and causes more and that one, that one counted. It’s like the Starfish Effect. Every single one matters and it makes an impact on generations. You can make a difference too. It’s our responsibility to make the world a better place and we can do it. This isn’t just about giving one girl a few more years of schooling. This is about the small that makes up the whole. This is about HIV and poverty and it’s about Human Rights and the values we place on people that are seen as different from us. This is about saving a planet before it throws itself off the edge of the universe.

This is about doing what’s right. And it starts with one girl. That’s what the Girl Effect is.

What You Can Do To Help

Raise awareness. This post isn’t just from me. Starting today, bloggers from all over the world are blogging about the Girl Effect. It’s a campaign to make people see that this HUGE issue has a simple solution. Want to help? It’s easy. Write a blog post. You can find more information about what to write and what to include on Tara Mohr’s Girl Effect page, and you can see a lot more blog posts from other folks on the campaign page.

Please join us.

Find out more about The Girl Effect:

• Official Website
• The Big Picture
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

Regardless of how time consuming it is, the project has already proved incredibly worth it. We have already gotten in touch with some fantastic organizations and the amount of positive feedback we’ve gotten has been wonderful. Want to know more about it? Check out the last five posts we’ve done:

• 365DAA Day 36: Spay the Strays, Fix the Ferals
• 365DAA Day 35: Winter Park Lost Pets
• 365DAA Day 34: Petfinder
• 365DAA Day 33: MidAmerica Boston Terrier Rescue
• 365DAA Day 32: Yolo County SPCA

Please take a moment to read more and find out how you can help this project. We would love to hear from your local shelter and share your story. And don’t worry – I’m getting back into the blogging habit and I’ll be back here soon.

Vote Again!

But it’s not over! Now that we’re in the final four, how about trying to get us to #1? I know we here at ILRA would be absolutely estatic if we managed to take the top spot, and we feel that with your support, we have a good chance.

So please take a moment to vote for iloverescueanimals.org in the “Best Cause Related Blog category. If you support what we do and what we stand for, this is a great way to show how much you appreciate it. With a few clicks, you have helped us take one step forward to getting our message to a bigger audience.

Thank you so much for getting us this far! Feel free to share this with friends and family. We could use all the support we can get it. Voting ends on August 20th so please get your votes in!

If you haven’t noticed, I Love Rescue Animals is bursting with brand new content in our blog. Not only do we try and have a blog a day up now, but we’ve also got four, count them – FOUR, different series going on that I wanted to take a minute and showcase here. AND we’ve welcome on a new member of the team! How awesome is that? Check out what we’ve been up to!

• Shelter Sketches: I’ve talked about them here before. This is a project that came from the lovely Chelsea Conlin, who is now an official member of the ILRA crew. She gets artists from all over to take part in this weekly project to save pets in need.
• Product Reviews: With the help of our fuzzy puppy product testers, this is a series we’ve started to show our readers what we use, what we like, and what we’d recommend to everyone else. Sometimes they’re sponsored reviews, but more often it’s just because we want to.
• The Truth Behind TFM: By now you should be familiar with my comic The Family Menagerie. At ILRA, we’re going to be writing up and sharing with you the real story behind each comic, sometimes this will even include pictures and videos. This just proves that almost everything you see in the comic is at least slightly true.
• Pet Parent Files: I consider this to be the most important and the most helpful to all of our readers. We have a lot of pets, if anyone has guessed, and while this doesn’t qualify as to be vets, it does give us something of an expert status on how to deal with certain things. These videos are going to be thorough and hopefully helpful to everyone who needs them.

That’s just some of the stuff we’ve been doing at I Love Rescue Animals. Don’t forget to check out our blog and make sure you follow us on twitter: @RescueAnimals. Is there something else you want to see on ILRA? Let us know!

Ash and I have been super busy the last few weeks putting more and more content up over at I Love Rescue Animals, and the blog is becoming a virtual hothouse of information for any and all pet lovers. Our newest project: Pet Parent Files! This is the start of our video blogging journey – Ash has started creating videos (with me helping as the cameraman), giving tips from one pet parent to another. Whether it’s about giving panicure to dogs or feeding medication to rats, saving baby birds or talking about kittens, we are going to try and cover it all. Have a question? Please ask and we may do a video for you! Our menagerie currently consists of dogs, cats, ferrets, rats, a snake, a leopard gecko, and some fish (at the moment), so our experiences are varied and we may have an answer for you. Go check out our new Pet Parent Files!

Recently, I Love Rescue Animals was approached by Great Nonprofits to partner with them on their newest project: The 2010 Animal Welfare Campaign! Of course, we said yes, and we are busy promoting this new resource for animal nonprofit groups.

Please check out our blog post about the campaign to find out more about what we need you to do to make this a success! Please pass on the message – the more people who take part in this campaign, the better!

We used to have to struggle to find content for our I Love Rescue Animals blog, but lately, it has come alive with entries not just from us, but from a couple of other people as well. One being the awesomely talented Chelsea Conlin who has taken it upon herself to do, what we like to call, Shelter Sketches. Check out that series – it’s cute and it’s helping animals.

We’ve also started doing Pet Parent Files where Ash and I do a video with tips on taking care of our many animals (if you lost count, we’re up to 23 now, two of which are fosters). It’s crazy, but we figured with our experience, people might be interested in what we do on a daily basis.

Even with the sudden influx of content, we’re always looking for guest posts. Want to tell a story about your rescue animal? Have a great rescue story you heard and feel we should discuss? Let us know and we’ll post it! Head over to ILoveRescueAnimals.org and fill out the content form telling us what you’re like to do or how you’d like to contribute. We look forward to hearing from you!

Keeping you in hearts and minds on this day. Happy Memorial Day!

If you haven’t been paying attention, I Love Rescue Animals has recently begun working with talented artist Chelsea Conlin to bring our readers something called “Shelter Sketches” every Saturday. Here’s how it works: Chelsea chooses a dog in any shelter and brings him or her to life in a sketch which we post on our blog, along with all the information about the dog. It is in this way that we hope to give these pups an even better chance at being adopted and finding their forever homes.

Check out the ILRA Blog and visit Chelsea’s sketchblog for more information and more awesome art.