I was threatened with arrest on Sunday by a member of a private security force. 'You're going to jail' he screamed at me numerous times, while I was on the phone to the Albany Police asking for them to send an officer so that I could be assured that some goons could not deprive me of some pretty fundamental rights. 'Get off the phone' he yelled, which to be quite honest made me madder. My dogs sat quietly in the car, panting in the sun.
The long story of Golden Gate Fields Racetrack which straddles the Berkeley/Albany city lines and has been a dominant fixture of the east shore of the San Francisco Bay since the 1940's, is complex and filled with all the elements of a modern day 'land use battle' potboiler: the changing needs of an urban population, the collapse of horse racing as a viable entertainment business, corporate greed, exploitation of the lowest paid workforce, conflicts with their neighbours, dark, disturbing coalitions with certain environmental groups, political alliances, campaign donations and corruption.
The vast piece of land on which the racetrack sits is the site of a former munitions and dynamite factory, which sat on a bluff overlooking the Bay right next to where dumping of industrial and architectural debris would begin in the 1930's. The destruction of the Berkeley shoreline, in fact the whole shoreline from Emeryville in the south to Richmond in the north is one of those jaw droppingly shocking abuses of municipal and corporate power which we hope could never happen now.
Fast forward decades - not because the intervening story is at all uninteresting, but simply because I'm sure you wanna know why I almost got arrested.
The ownership saga of the racetrack is also convoluted - but one family, that of patriarch Frank Stronach, and their myriad of shell corporations, failed business deals, Chapter 11 bankruptcy (of one of the corporations) is central to the continuing battle over what will or won't happen to this land which environmentalists drool over but which will inevitably be sold to whichever bidder can put up the money and at the same time twist the arms of Albany City Council enough to obtain the zoning adjustments necessary to put new, profit making ventures on this piece of California land.
The latest (and it looks like possible successful) bid is from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) which is proposing to build new Science Research Labs along with a hotel and conference centre, and to make 50 acres of the site public land. It is far more complex a deal than my two line description, but at this point, with Albany in deep debt and flailing around to pay blls and keep their much heralded school system functioning, this looks like a done deal.
I don't actually care. What I care about is that the Stronach family is all about greed. What I care about is that corporate contributions to certain environmental groups and candidates have soiled the public discourse (how else to explain the local Sierra Club's willingness a few years ago to support a shopping mall on the site). The racetrack has a history of labor and workers rights violations at the stables which sit on the Berkeley portion (how ironic that in progressive Berkeley we hear nothing of this). What I care about is that this massive nasty corporation controls vehicle access to a public beach.
See, my needs are pretty simple. Most days I drive my bunch of exuberant and amazing canine companions to the Albany Waterfront (if you want confusing land rights issues, the story of this land is, if anything, more convoluted than the racetrack). There is a short row of parking spaces on a rutted piece of road just north of the fence of the racetrack property.
Probably as few as 20. There are signs saying that parking is limited to park users. But on event days at GGF, those customers wishing to avoid the $4 parking charge so they have more to bet on the fillies, use 'our' parking spaces. Leaving us nowhere else to park because even the free spaces on the main road are taken by racetrack visitors.
But, lo - just a short two hundred yards away, across the 15 acres of their 5,000 space parking lot (which usually has a grand total of a coupla hundred cars in it) the public beach sits, with a large muddy parking area next to it.
Empty, except for a few vehicles whose drivers are able to persuade the guys in the toll booth to let them drive across GGF property and go to the public beach for an innocent romp with their kids or dogs. On days when there is no event at GGF, there are no tolltakers and you can drive across the parking lot to your hearts content. In fact, one of the favorite sports of idiots in low slung red sports cars is to come and do wheelies, or speed up to 60 miles an hour before making last minute turns at the edge of the lot. They are no doubt practising so they can come to my neighbourhood at night and do the same thing.
But the point is - when there are no events, there is plenty of parking in 'our' parking area. Duh. Over the years, I have felt that unless the City of Albany is willing to police and enforce the parking restrictions, the GGF owners should be good neighbours and let those of us who want to use our public park, drive across the parking lot, out through another chain link gate, and plonk ourselves by the beach. And through the years, I have exerted what I consider my right of way. And security goons have descended on me to threaten me with car impoundment and fire and brimstone. We have usually talked it out and last year, the security chief made it very clear - 'Jill, just stop at the toll booth, be friendly, tell them what you need to do, and I promise you, they will be nice back.' Sounded great.
So, yesterday after I waited a futile 20 minutes waiting for a space to open up in our measly lot, and my dogs were panting in the sun, I decided to drive through the GGF parking lot. I stopped, I smiled, I was polite and the guy tried to grab my door. Are you kidding me? I pulled away from him and called the Albany Police and requested an officer. Somehow I thought mediation might be necessary. At the other gate, a man was running across the parking lot trying to get to the gate before I did, to close it in front of me to contain me on GGF property. Really? Are you kidding me? Again. There was plenty of room for my car to slip by him and I did. As I parked at the beach and was still on the phone to the police, two truckloads of goons descended, yelling that I was going to jail. 'You are going to jail lady'. Who are you calling a lady was my first thought. My second was to call Susie to head down and retrieve my dogs and car in case I did indeed get hauled off to jail.
There were other cars parked nearby. Park users who had entered by a different toll entrance but whose toll taker was clearly in a better mood than the one I encountered.
Cut to the chase Jill. The police came. They talked to us all. The police asked the GGF goons why, if I was being stopped, the other vehicles were not and they had no answer the that. The police sergeant said 'well, the GGF customers always use the park users parking spots but we have been told by the city not to enforce'. And then the young cop turned to me and said ' next time they stop you, don't just pull away, call us, we'll come down and sort it out'
That's all well and good I thought. But how about we get some handle on corporate greed and naked abuse of power by a bunch of private security? How about that as a freakin' solution? Because we have become docile, we refuse to stand up for the small stuff, and when we fail to do that, we lose control of being able to change the big stuff. At it's best the Occupy Movement is that seed. This isn't about a parking space. It is about a corporation saying 'we can' so 'we will.' It is up to us to say 'no.'
Troy Davis will probably be put to death tomorrow by the state of Georgia for a crime he says he did not commit. I do not know, nor does anyone other than Mr Davis and/or another killer truly know whether he shot a Savannah police officer to death or not.
Meanwhile the Supreme Court has enacted a third stay of execution in the case of Cleve Foster in Texas, for a brutal killing of a woman he met in a bar. He says he is innocent, and in fact another man was convicted of being the shooter in the awful crime but Mr Foster was convicted of aiding him in the murder. The other man died in prison last year.
Alabama is holding off on killing Cory R. Maples, who had been sentenced to death in Alabama for killing two people, after the New York law firm representing him mistakenly sent back unopened copies of a ruling sent from an Alabama court.
And on Monday, the Supreme Court delayed the execution of Daniel W. Cook, who is on Death Row in Arizona. Daniel Cook has the blood of innocents on his hands, but it is common practice in legal defense these days to consider 'mitigation'. The death penalty must not be allowed to deprive a convicted person of the mitigation process that a newly convicted murderer would be the beneficiary of.
These and other challenges to the death penalty underscore what really goes on with the way in which the death penalty is applied in the United States. It is a penalty applied most often to poor people lacking good legal representation, and it is carried out in the most arbitrary fashion imaginable.
Progress is just that - a moving forward, however slowly, to a more moral, more ethical state of law, of justice, of elections, of healthcare, of social justice. Regardless of how lacking in moral progress our own species may be....
There are thousands and thousands of murderers, rapists, child killers, serial killers, and torturers sitting in prisons across the country serving life sentences without parole, and we never hear a word about them. Their lives are lived in mundane repetition until they die. It costs the taxpayers of states millions and millions of dollars to feed, house, clothe and keep these people healthy and safe.
But those costs pale compared to the cost of a death penalty case and the appeals associated with it. It costs more to kill than to keep alive. And the cost to a civilized nation of killing even one innocent man is beyond any comprehension.
I understand exactly how people feel when a man like Richard Allen Davis is allowed to see the sky when his victim Polly Klaas cannot. But we must not be a nation which takes revenge. Those days surely ended when the US stopped allowing mobs throwing a rope across a tree branch in the rural South and hanging men from their necks in front of a crowd of baying bystanders.
Abolish the Death Penalty Now - Life Imprisonment Without Parole instead.
The title of my very first blog, on December 13th 2005, was 'Another Death In Paradise'. It was the morning that Stanley 'Tookie' Williams was put to death by the state of California, and one more killing would follow in January 2006, before a moratorium took effect.
There are tons of statistics relating to crime rates - but for me, two stand out. Between 2006 and 2009 (which are the stats I could find) the population of California has risen every year, and the murder rate statewide dropped each year.
No politician who has even the slightest grasp on reality can believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. But regrettably, no politician who has the slightest grasp on electoral success can afford to oppose this American lifestyle, which we share in common with some countries we wouldn't even want to have dinner with.
At the end of August, three innocent men were released from prison in Arkansas, one of them from the isolation of Death Row. They had been incarcerated since they were teenagers for the horrific slaughter of three small boys whose bodies were found in a wooded area near their homes. Known as the West Memphis 3, these men were released after tireless efforts on their behalf, but the state of Arkansas still had one more cruel trick to play on them before they could walk free. The men agreed to a plea agreement in which they could maintain their innocence while still agreeing that the state had enough evidence to have convicted them.The other part of the deal was that they could not sue the state for wrongful imprisonment.
Damien Echols sat on Death Row for 18 years, as inmates were taken past his cell to their executions.
And the brutal murders of three young boys snatched from the living are as yet unsolved.
Executions (aside from federally imposed ones, as in the case, for example, of Timothy McVeigh) are a state's rights issue, though it is beyond me how anyone can discuss 'America' as if it were somehow a united country when Capital Punishment exists in any one of the 50 states. And that brings me to my point. It would seem now that the Republican Party will be stuck with a deeply conservative candidate for President, and if it does miraculously end up with the more moderate candidate, Mitt Romney, that he like McCain before him will be forced into a Palin like choice for VP. That is the depth of the polarity and division this country now faces.
Obama, through his own actions, and through the determined efforts of the rightwing, has become the most polarising President in memory. But as Rick Perry's star keeps rising from the drought and destruction of the state of Texas, the prospect of a Death Penalty fanatic as a Presidential nominee becomes more real by the day. In fact, it could be that only Sarah Palin's entry into the race could eclipse him. It will be a great day in these un-United States when a national politician can say 'I oppose the Death Penalty' and get elected. Meanwhile, let me leave you with Perry's view on the subject:
“If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas.”
Rick, I won't come to Texas if you promise not to leave.
That is far too grand a title for this little butch tale, but couldn't come up with anything else. For my entire life, once some sort of gender consciousness was thrust upon me - the first time I was expected to wear a dress and not jeans or shorts (maybe at age 7), the first time some unknowing visitor brought a doll for me to play with and had to watch while I buried it right in front of them (age 7), the first time my mum suggested I let my hair grow a bit longer (maybe age 10), the first time I realised that boys didn't just see me as 'one of the gang' (maybe age 7), the first time my body betrayed me completely and I bled profusely, in terror and in anguish, (at 11 in the misery of a girls boarding school) - I have known that something was unusual about the interior and exterior workings of this humble soul. Because, let me tell you, the world as currently constructed will humble a butch woman at almost every turn as she makes her way through life.
A state of constant vigilance, an awareness of the looks, the snickering insults, the feeling of competitiveness from men, the threat of physical violence, the actual physical assaults, the disdain from some women, the fear and loathing, the rejections, the sense of eternal otherness, the ready for a fight sprung coil that unleashes when pushed.
Then there's the sense that some women look at us as if were an ageless Peter Pan, the smiles and glances of approval at our T shirts, jeans and Doc Martens, the flirtations, the joy of that hand in our back pockets as she takes ownership, the pure unadulterated pleasure of a woman in love with us, the pride in seeing gender barriers falling like dominos, the knowledge that truly, time is on our side.
For most butch lesbians, the convoluted contradiction of public invisibility (unless of course a beautiful femme is on our arm, in which case apoplectic men notice us like never before), and public visibility which means public danger, is a lifelong battle - fought as much within ourselves as in the world.
So, when a man walks towards me, spit forming in the corners of his mouth, his eyes blazing with hate, and makes sure I know he is taller and bigger than me, I am all too familiar with this act of misogyny. Been here before dude, will undoubtedly be here again. It is only his own arrogance that stops him putting a fist into my face. Because he wants to. And it isn't because we have had a fight over his damn dog lunging at one of mine. It is because - as he so succinctly puts it 'You wanna be a man, Jill?' Or I should say 'YOU WANNA BE A MAN, JILL?'
I once, when I was very much younger, dated a woman who forgot to tell me that she was a hooker! That's ok, these things happen. But when we accidentally ran into a client of hers, in a bar in Islington and he wouldn't take my 'please leave us alone' comment graciously, he told me to step outside. I didn't, but he waited on the sidewalk and took a swing at me when we came out. 'You fucking freak', he said, 'you wanna be a man?' What is it with that timeless phrase? The jolt of the fist was shocking, I had never been hit like that before. I got up. He hit me again, and I dropped. And got up. I'm not sure how many times I hit the replay button, but it wasn't till a friend of his pulled him off that the beating stopped. He kept telling me to stay down, but that is the nature of a butch, and a Leo, that we will not get beaten by this hatred.
Look, I know I'm in combat mode. I know it. No surprise there. I have tried, as I head into what can only be called senior status, not to be triggered by ugly men. But I don't always succeed. Because I do not like bullies. I so do not like bullies. And bullies, like the small pathetic man who stuck his middle fingers in the air as he took his arrogant steaming face away down the trail and yelled over his shoulder 'Youre not a woman,Jill', or I should say 'YOU'RE NOT A WOMAN,JILL', really piss me the fuck off. Do not pick a fight with me. I won't be pushed around.
No, I'm not a woman in any traditional sense. I'm distinctly not a man in any traditional sense. I am another. It has been and will be a battle, I imagine, for life. I am not miserable about my state of being, but I am and will continue to be proud, angry, subversive, combative, protective, defensive, joyous, excited, happy. And exuberantly butch.
This beautiful 3 month old lab pup, RIVER, is going to survive parvo virus - unlike, INCITE, the sweet pitbull mix we had to euthanise last Friday who lived on the streets of Berkeley with his young homeless owner. The difference between the two same age pups? One was given urgent and intensive care early in the stages of the disease, and one - putting it bluntly - lived and died according to the financial restraints of the owner and dare I say it a lack of care - not that the owner did not care, but he was not equipped emotionally to deal with the collapse of his dog, and the vet who first diagnosed the parvo virus cared also, but in the absence of any money from the owner or a 'pet wellness safety net', there just weren't the resources for the hospitalisation this pup desperately needed.
And at the core of this problem is that in the East Bay, we are ten years behind the system of care that the amazing VetSOS has put in place in San Francisco, where a pup like INCITE would have been admitted to the SF SPCA and given the care he needed, and then his owners would have been required to make a contribution, however little, to pay back some if not all of that cost. We have huge, wealthy animal non-profits in this area and not one of them offers a true community medical resource. My tiny non-profit PAW FUND did what we could for INCITE as soon as we found out about him. We obtained bags of fluids and showed the owner how to administrate them subcutaneously, we worked together with the local vet to get injectible antiobiotics and nausea medications to him every day and in the end, when INCITE's body could do no more, we paid for him to be humanely and gently released from his awful terrible disease. He died at the same vet office which diagnosed him with parvo, and the same vet gently eased him into death. He was loved. Very much.
RIVER meanwhile was cared for early and intensely by women who rescued her from a backyard situation and called PAW FUND for help. We hospitalised her, and paid for her treatment. And she will live a long and happy life. RIVER & INCITE - two young pups - worlds apart. Please help us pay for RIVER's treatment and save the next INCITE.
If I hear those words one more time I'm likely to slap someone.
Perhaps you're one of those good Bay Area liberals that donates to every animal cause that throws a photo of a pretty kitten in your face, or gives to the large local animal organisation because after years of giving to them they are like a comfortable relative you never see but feel an odd primal connection to. Perhaps it's that dog with the droopy, almost tear filled eyes peering out through the kennel bars in an animal shelter in a state aross the country and you grab your credit card and donate. Perhaps every time you read the words 'rescued from a high kill shelter', or 'about to be euthanised' or 'on his last day' you feel that wrenching sting in your gut you reach for your smartphone and 'share' on your Facebook page. And maybe you go a step further and volunteer at your local shelter, knowing that any one of the dogs or cats you have given your valuable time to, might be dead tomorrow. If you do any of the above, you are a damn good person.
You see an old dog on the concrete floor in a shelter, barely able to walk, with cataracts and fur falling in clumps out of her aged body and you feel inflamed. How could ANYONE DO SUCH A THING you wonder aloud, and your fellow volunteers nod in agreement. 'Dumped in the night kennel', someone says and you feel the heat of indignation rising. The numbers of sick, injured and old dogs and cats arriving in the shelters is rising and it feels lousy. I get it. I'm with you. In your mind you create the backstory. All the dog ever did was love their owner and THIS is how they are repaid, by being abandoned in the twilight of their lives without any information in an after hours Drop Box. And because the animal has entered the shelter they have to undergo a 'stray hold' which can vary from shelter to shelter but depending on the day of the week the animal came in, can be up to 10 days. And then, on the appointed day, unless one of the amazing 'rescue groups' has stepped up to take the broken pet into their system, the animal will be taken into a room where a life ending cocktail will enter her veins, and, out of the presence of an owner or guardian, the dog will die in the company of strangers. Sometimes it is a more gentle end than others.
If they can't afford to kill their pet, they shouldn't have one.
A couple of pups, drooling, thin, lethargic and oozing blood from their rear ends sit in a plasic laundry basket while the man who has found them, staggering on the sidewalk at one of Berkeley's busiest intersections, in one of Berkeley's more vulnerable neighbourhoods, enters the shelter to tell staff he has them in his car. The symptoms are damn obvious but without a test for parvo virus there is a faint chance it could be a combination of other debilitating conditions - worms, de-hydration, starvation perhaps. The staff member with latex gloves takes the swab from the anus and in ten minutes the confirmation. A strong positive for one of the nastiest viruses affecting dogs. It attacks the intestine and bone marrow and untreated will almost certainly result in an unpleasant and assaultive death. Even treatment is no certain cure. And just as bad, there is the possibility that the infected pups have been shedding virus which is so resilient it can live up to 9 months or more in soil and can be carried on the soles of shoes from one place to another and infect another set of pups. The two pups in the plastic bin are euthanised right there in the car of a good samaritan whose car is now covered in contagious blood.
If they can't even afford vaccinations for their pups, they shouldn't have them.
The phone rings with a call from a woman in Richmond, a city which has far greater probems than pet overpopulation, in a county which has one of the highest rates of foreclosed homes in California. Richmond sits just two small cities north of Berkeley, and is even closer to genteel Albany, where the schools are rated among the best in the region, and the streets of well groomed cottages and mid size homes are among the most sought after for Silicon Valley workers who can't afford San Francisco prices. The woman has a chihuahua, in fact as it turns out later, she has four chihuahuas, and one of them has given birth and is sick and the puppies are dying, and one more is pregnant, both by the one male in the house who is related to both of them. She is overwhelmed and regretful. She did not realise that dogs do not control their reproductive urges the way humans do (or can). How many times have I explained that canine brothers and sisters or mothers and sons will mate, and been met with an almost unbelieving stare.
If they can't afford to spay or neuter their pet they shouldn't have one.
In fairness to those who make those comments, they are the some of the same people who say similar things about people having children. As if there was something original or clever about suggesting that that there should be a good citizen testing station where prospective parents go to take their roadworthiness exam. But one of the most insidious suggestions made is that money is in indicator of the ability to be a good parent - to a child or to a domestic animal companion.
If they can't afford to get their dog to a vet, how can they afford to have puppies?
Yeah, money makes it easier. I can attest to that. I most certainly was not born into poverty or into a home of suffering. And while we did not have much, I don't ever remember a day when we did not eat, or when I did not sleep in a bed. Except by choice. There were years, after my parents divorce when my mum and I lived horribly close to the edge. And mealtimes were a repetition of beans on toast, or pizza dough out of a packet with some tomato sauce smeared on it. I found some carpet remnants at the back of a carpet store in town, and nailed them to the floor of our rented flat to keep the wood plank floor warm. But I went to decent schools (or I should say I went on occasion), my mum went without in order to buy curtains for my room, and I always knew inately that the middle class core of my family would win out over the temporary veneer of under-funded fallen on hard times divorcee and kid.
And we always had cats. Who ate before we did. And when one of them leapt onto the windowsill of our third story apartment and fell right through an open window and into the flower beds below, she was not taken to a vet, which would have completely out of our reach, but was placed in a box with a soft blanket and a bowl of warm milk, and we hoped for the best. 24 hours later, she hopped out of the cardboard box and came, purring deeply, into the living room where we were watching the telly with dinner on our laps in front of the blazing gas fire (which was coin operated), and jumped up and nuzzled into my armpit. Then in an instant she grabbed my toast and sardines. What my beloved cat did not survive was my mother sending me back to my father in one of the stealth moves she made when money worries and anger towards him precipitated a sudden change of scenery. One morning, a woman arrived and asked me to put my cat into a cage she gave me, and she walked out of the door with her. That moment was a defining one for me. I would never abandon an animal again.
We never fixed our animals. Did I already tell you that? Judy, our very first dog, had pups 2 or three times and we gave them to friends at school. My mother flushed down the loo the ones that seemed weak or were born struggling. I wasn't in the room. Kittens seemed to be running around all the time. And our preferred method of birth control was to get the hose turned on quickly when Judy, in heat, was being mounted by every Tom Dick and Harry in the Guillemard Valley Road neigbourhood of Kuala Lumpur, where a lot of the Europeans lived. 'Mummy, get the hose' became a familiar cry during those inexplicable times when Judy was crying in anguish and behaving strangely for two weeks. Sex Ed in our house.
If they won't spay or neuter their pet, they shouldn't be allowed to have one.
I didn't even know about spay or neuter surgery until I was in my late twenties in London when I took my cat Clara to the PDSA (People's Dispensary For Sick Animals) for the first of many UTI's, the first clues to the kidney failure to which she would eventually succumb. But by then, I had moved to San Francisco and Clara was living happily with my former roommate Sibyl.
And then it began. There was the small red pit pup chained in a yard next to our Bernal Heights building and I would watch her for hours crying for some attention, and receiving none, until one day I saw she was no longer on the chain and ran around the corner to knock on the offending door in case something terrible had happened, and there she was, loose and unattended on the street. Before I knew what I was doing she was in my arms, and in short order Rosa was into the home she lived in and was adored in until her death well over a decade later.
Given my reputation as someone who 'doesn't like' pitbulls (not my words) it might come as a surprise to people that my first dog rescue in America, in 1989, was a pit, and actually, so was my second. Driving along 3rd St in Bayview Hunters Point a black and white dog shot into the roadway in front of us, and stopped. I opened the passenger door and she leapt in. I took her to San Francisco Animal Control, where I learned a useful lesson. I brought her in and said 'I found this pitbull running loose'. They responded 'That's not a pitbull, it's a lab'. This started a five minute debate during which I insisted that this was indeed a pitbull and I knew the difference. It was then that one of the officers came around to the other side of the counter and gave me the unvarnished truth. 'Yes, of course it's a pitbull. If it comes in here, defined as a pitbull, it will get put to sleep. Call it a lab and it might have a chance at survival'. I thanked him and left. Little, as the dog was named died 16 years later, as beloved an animal as any animal could be, in the home of Julie, the sister of my then partner Susie.
There were the sick and dying cats and kittens in the yard directly behind ours, and the vet who shall remain nameless but is one of my great heroes, who came to the house and helped me trap them and literally neutered the boys on a kitchen table and took the females to the SPCA for spay and the kittens for adoption.
These are the formative and transformative moments in the life of an activist. Until there is education and information there can be no real understanding of an issue. Until there are obvious and available and accessible services there can be no solutions to problems of this kind.
Spay/Neuter should not be something out of economic reach. It is life saving. Vaccinations against deadly diseases are a social necessity. Euthanasia to end the suffering of a beloved but desperately ill or injured companion animal is not a luxury item. It is our compassionate obligation.
FREE PET VACCINES / FREE SPAY & NEUTER / FREE HUMANE EUTHANASIA FOR PETS
Just don't get me started on men who say 'I wouldn't cut my own balls off, why would I do that to my dog?'
PAW FUND FACEBOOK PARTY! ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL WERTZ, the artist generously sharing his time talent and passion - http://wertzateria.com/ Click on the link below to get to the Facebook Event.
The news yesterday of the closure of The News Of The World, Britain's most notorious tabloid newspaper (if one can call it that) is cause for huge celebration. It is also at least 40 years overdue. No-one who has ever worked for a British tabloid can be in the least surprised by the revelations about Rupert Murdoch's flagship muck-raking rag in a wide ranging phone hacking, bribery and corruption scandal. The arrest of the editor Andy Coulson who was recently the Conservative Prime Minister's Communications Director, leads to a small glimmer of hope that Murdoch's 'Fox News' and 'News Corporation' may finally be exposed for the dangerous political sledgehammer that it is.
Murdoch, who was once merely an Australian media baron will go down in history as one of the most influential and destructive public opinion makers of the late 20th century and early 21st. Hopefully, by the time this man dies, his empire will be so discredited, and his sons so incapable of making the secret payoffs that News Corp depends on to keep the lid on the slime and sleaze, that this murky ship will sink along with News Of The World. It is hard to describe just how filthy this tabloid was. But no self respecting Fish & Chip shop ever used their pages to wrap the steaming fish dinner, you never knew what you might catch.
Hacking into the voice mails of the rich and famous, or the royal family or political enemies of Fox News and Murdoch's other media outlets was just the newest form of invasive predator journalism that has been the hallmark of the British tabloid press for decades. Before hacking, there was scanning the analog airwaves and capturing Prince Charles declaring his quirky desire to be a tampon in Camilla's vagina, or Diana making plans for an assignation with a lover. And before that was the infamous long lens, attached to a Nikon resting on the windowsill overlooking the site of a secret meet between a politician and his favorite hooker, or the football player smoking crack with a wasted fashion model on the deck of a yacht at Cannes.
This is relevant to me personally because for a short time I worked for a British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which in spite of its Labour Party affiliations was also decried by progressives as one of the front runners in smut and smear journalism. It was known as a Page 3 paper, a reference to the topless bimbo photo they ran every day on Page 3 which according to the editors I worked with, was an important part of the identification of the paper with its working class roots. Blue collar workers, the argument went, fancied a bit of crumpet with their PG Tips drunk out of a chipped mug, on their lunch break in the factories of northern England.
It is interesting to wonder whether Murdoch, who took junk journalism to undreamed of heights, would have been so successful had the owner of The Daily Mirror, Robert Maxwell, (not his real name) not fallen off his luxury yacht for no aparent reason in November 1991. Maxwell was a Czech Jew, a survivor, and a bare knuckle bruiser in the world of international media, espionage and business. Unlike Murdoch, he fostered a left of center editorial tone in his newspapers. Neither of them could be said to have a 'free press' at the forefront of their concerns, both saw the ability to control vast tracts of unformed and uninformed voters through easy to read banner headlines and enjoyed the sense of power that came with being able to punish celebrities, politicians and the rich for their private pratfalls. Like any great competition, Maxwell, operating in the same seamy sewers might have kept Murdoch's ambitions slightly in check. Or not.
Between the years 1979 and 1982 I thought I almost had a career in photo journalism. My postcards of feminist graffiti brought me attention from publications, journals and editors around the world, the National Enquirer came calling, and I was threatened with legal action by a male model in an ad which had been re-faced. That story landed me in the pages of the Evening Standard, New Musical Express and Advertising Age. Sounds newspaper used my image of Poison Girls lead singer Vi Subversa on their cover, Tom Robinson wrote a song about me called 'Right On Sister', and I got a call from a senior editor at The Daily Mirror inviting me to join a brand new publication called Picture Mirror which was to re-create the glory days of the photo news magazines like Picture Post and Life. I was giddy.
Lunch with Keith Waterhouse and other Mirror glitterati followed where rack of lamb and red wine seemed to emerge on an unending conveyer belt from the kitchen at a Fleet Street hangout. I bumped into Anne Robinson, then Features Editor at the Mirror who suggested I do a photo story for the Music section, and after lunch that first day, without any contract in place, I was told to go to the account window on an upper floor with a sheet of paper given me by an editor and pick up a wad of cash to help me on my way. Just bring interesting pictures, I was told. Lots of them. Oh and Jill, never mind the quality, our photo retouchers can take care of that.
For a few months I was in a dream. My lesbian feminist friends wondered if I had lost all sense of propriety, how could I work for Maxwell, the Mirror, the tabloids. Through it all, I insisted I had the beast under my thumb. And for a while, I did.
In the first issue of Picture Mirror in 1981 a huge two page spread of my political graffiti images ran. Under the title 'Scrawl Of The Wild'. The captions were a little corny, a little sexist, but I felt the impact of those pictures in a major nationwide publication more than offset my nagging doubts. Walking into the back entrance to the Daily Mirror and up to the Features Department for a meeting with my editor or to drop off dozens of rolls of Ilford HP5 for the photo lab to develop, I felt close to being a real journalist and for the first time I could see myself on a different side of the barricade. And heading up the the Accounts window for the wad of cash to cover expenses, well that was just - freakin' sexy.
I came up with an idea to cover the Womens Conferences of both major political parties, and headed to Brighton for the Labour Party conference where I felt at ease with the union members, social workers, and progressives who made up the body and soul of the party. The Conference was loud, raucous, good humoured, diverse, filled with passion and laughter. I found it hard to take any photo which might show these women in a bad light. The Tories made it easier for me. A sea of blue rinsed ladies with stern faces meeting at a large hall in Westminster where Margaret Thatcher came to give a rousing 'cut spending, get off your backsides, hang 'em high, stop immigration' speech, and photographing these women as caricature was simple. And after all, I worked for a rag which always endorsed Labour. Some of them, seeing my Press credentials, turned away in disgust.
For six months, I was ecstatic. I bought another Canon A1 (the luscious black painted brass bodied camera I have etched onto my upper right arm), Anne Robinson, the famed editor (and later TV hostess of The Weakest Link) asked me to come over to her office where she dropped a hint that she was looking for a new editor for their Music column and could I please come up with 10 good photo stories for the page. I managed a meagre two stories. I just didn't have what was necessary for tabloid journalism. 'Quantity, not quality Jill' she told me. 'Just turn 'em out', they said. Shoot fifty rolls of decent stuff, not two rolls of good stuff. 'Whatever needs to be done, our photo guys can take care of the problems'. My visits to the cash dispensing window became fewer as they saw that I didn't have the right stuff.
But one senior editor decided to give it one last try. He took me to lunch to talk about a story that was gaining attention in the midday newpapers, the Evening Standard and Evening News, and he had an idea that I would be perfect to give the Mirror an edge. Over the steak and scotch (him not me), he outlined what the paper needed from their foot soldier. There were an increasing number of lesbian women getting pregnant through AID - Artificial Insemination By Donor - and outrage was growing among the conservatives that this procedure might be getting taxpayer money through the National Health Service. Never mind that queers shouldn't be having kids at all. Hostility towards AID children reached the point where women felt for their safety and that of their kids. Would I, my colleague (and now pimp) was asking, use my connection to this sub-culture, to take genuine candid shots of the women and their babies for use in a story in the Mirror. Up to that point, the newspapers had depended upon long lens stealth attacks on these alternative families, ambushing them as they left home, or picking their child up from kindergarten. The stories were among the worst type of gutter journalism, women were having to conceal their identities, cover their faces and those of their children, run from the front door to a waiting car and here I was, being asked to wipe my own lesbianism in feces for the privelege of being able to cash in on the 9th floor of the Mirror Building. My heart and my hopes cracked. Really.
I retreated back to the safety of being broke. Years later, as feminists stormed the citadels of Fleet Street, as lesbians became editors across the industry and as our revolution became co-opted by the lure of the glass ceilings across all industries, I looked back on that moment as a defining one. The moment I really did see as my decision to stay firmly on the outside. Was it a real choice though? I still don't know.
My disillusion with radical feminism, my rejection by revolutionary feminists, my being on the sex positive side of the Sex Wars, my being a butch in a movement which rejected all conceivable forms of masculinity, my torment with gender issues, my innate distrust of money and those who wield it, my complete empathy with those who are victims, with those who have no voice, my growing up (half) Jewish in Germany, my lack of any grandparents (except for my adored Granny who died when I was 15), my sense that there had been sexual boundaries crossed in my family but without the memory to back it up, my fear that I had bullied and abused my little brother, my terror of being left behind, or of leaving someone precious behind, or the animals, when we left one home after another, and my fathers sense of disconnectedness to his own history as a Jew in Germany, and my mothers visceral dislike of Germany and her strange dependence on her abusive older brother - all these things, or none of them - are the elements of outsider thinking. To be asked to betray my community, to invade privacy, to trade loyalty for cash - these were just not part of my make-up.
So the story of the News of the World making use of new technology to pursue the powerful and to embarrass the famous, to stick it to the celebrity makes me think of my brush with scum. And as Andy Coulson isn't able at the moment to bribe the Scotland Yard detectives he once hung out with, he may have to consider giving up a few names of 'higher ups' at News Corp. Working for the tabloids is like stepping in dog shit every morning, as you go to work.
I once had an amazing rejection letter from Forbes Magazine to whom I had sent some portraits for consideration. The Photo Editor wrote back that she didn't feel I could be objective enough in my photography. That my portraits, though beautiful, showed far too much empathy for my subjects to be considered journalism. I'm fine with that.
Geez, I'm having some difficulty working out which way to turn my overactive mind today, which overblown story to dissect, which irritability to address first. Palin and Revere, Kucinich and Boehner voting yes on the same resolution, or the Maddies Fund million dollar adoptathon waste.
But when I heard that the White House official response to yesterdays War Powers Resolution was that is is 'unhelpful', I just flipped. What was really unhelpful Barry was that you entered into a military action in Libya without first obtaining any congressional permission and then found that you had just stuck us with another middle eastern travelogue which we can't easily disengage from and which gives future Presidents like Prez Trump, or Prez Palin or Prez PizzaMan the rationale for invading Cuba, or Venezuala or wherever. I dislike John Boehner as much as I dislike any partisan Republicon (to borrow from Norman Goldman), but dammit, even Kucinich and new house member Cathy Hochul voted for the resolution rebuking Obama's negation of congressional oversight and constitutional procedure. The fact that the majority of Dems voted against Boehner's resolution simply shows that they will put party politics first over principle.
Good grief. Now there's the blogosphere trying to make hay with Palin's halting and folksy recounting of the Revere story. Look, she did not say Revere warned the British (instead of the colonists). She said that Revere warned the British that the colonsts would be armed and not to think it would be a pushover. Look, I despise Palin. It's incredible to think that she is even under consideration for a Presidential run. But I think we all look like petulant children when we make stuff up. By the way, is Todd going to live in Arizona also?
But really, what's giving me a stomach ache today is the million dollar giveaway by the largest animal welfare funder in the United States. Right here in Alameda County. This weekend, June 4/5 pets will be adopted for no fee by participating agencies (both municipal tax payer funded, and non profit privately funded) and for each animal adopted during the weekend, the organisations receive a sweet $500 from Maddie's Fund, unless it's a senior animal in which case the gift is a cool $1,000!
On the surface it might seem like a good idea. A massive publicity and marketing opportunity for Maddie's Fund who seem to have a hard time knowing what to do with it's huge truckloads of corporate money, and easy money for cash strapped agencies. Except. It's really tough knowing where to start with the 'except'...
Did you know that whether these animals stay in their adoptive homes or not, the money is paid out to the agencies? A shelter could adopt out 30 dogs and cats over the weekend and 25 of them could be returned over the next few days, and the agency picks up the $15,000 regardless.
Did you know that some agencies have been 'stockpiling' adoptable animals, discouraging adoptions before this weekend in order to capitalise on the giveaway, therefore encouraging a kind of whacky free for all today when potential adopters are chomping at the bit at opening time, like on sale day at Target?
What is with this anyway. Most of the time there is a moralistic judgemental attitude towards people 'well, if they can't afford to have an animal, maybe they shouldn't have one', but this wekend it's all 'free pups and kittens'. An adoption fee is a real disincentive to people who need to think through the process of having a pet. But with money the incentive for the agencies, are adoption qualifications gonna matter as much?
Last year, Maddie's Fund spent close to one million dollars on the giveaway. And that doesn't include all the promo and marketing money spent to promote this dumb idea. If they want to support agencies doing good work, just freakin' well give them grants. But you know what? City and County shelters don't need this kind of help. Small agencies do, groups like BadRap or Muttville, or to take just one of the hudreds of small rescue groups in the region, Island Cat Rescue needs the help. But the Oakland shelter (run by the Police Department) on a budget of nearly $3 million, or Berkeley Shelter (run by the City Manager) with over $2 million in public funding and currently building a $9 million, no make than $11, no maybe its a $12 million shelter (the budget seems to have gone missing behind a filing cabinet) which is smaller than the one they have now - hell no. And truth be told, most of the agencies play this game with Maddie's with their hand outstretched to receive the check and a deep frustration with the entire event.
What they need is something entirely different. I know, you are all waiting with baited breath. What the state of California needs is to appoint a Task Force headed by someone with real power to dismantle the California Animal Shelter system and put it back together again with major changes in place.
1) The whole system of municipal shelters across county and city level to be integrated under one department at state level (while being managed at local level), with consistent policies, practices, opening hours, fee scales, spay/neuter policies, return to owner policies, adoption and rescue policies, transfer agreements between shelters, euthanasia policies, all managed by civilians instead of law enforcement.
2) All shelters to use the same software. Does this seem like a no-brainer? Yup. Good luck with that.
3) All shelters to have the same working agreements with non profit agencies and so called rescue groups.
4) All shelters to have shelter veterinary medicine practioners on site, and every animal shelter to provide low cost public access veterinary hospitals as part of a city program of preventive care (free and low cost vaccine and flea and worm meds available every day) for owned animals. All counties to have mobile spay/neuter vans and vaccine clinics which are in use throughout the year, run in collaboration with local non profits.
5) All cities/counties to have similar licensing fees, adoption fees, redemption fees, same spay neuter policy about animals returned to owners, bans on pet stores selling live animals (except those with a 'rescue' component).
This is not rocket science people. This is about doing what the Hayden Bill tried valiantly to do in 2000 with the words 'It shall be the policy of the State of California that no adoptable or treatable animal shall be killed'. That bill was gutted because it created so many mandates for the cities and counties which were not compensated for by the state. In fact, try and find some guidance at state level about animal shelters (even though they are mandated and governed by tons of state laws) and you will be referred back to your local shelter, which is probably where the problem started that you are trying to get some guidance about.
Let me give you a couple of small examples of what is wrong. Berkeley Animal Care Services provides animal shelter services to Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville and Piedmont (which is miles away but it's good money, and Piedmont pays for half of an animal control officer which it shares with Emeryville, so no-one wants that contract to go away). Berkeley also provides field services to Albany but not enforcement services which are administered by the Albany PD. So the animal control officer for Piedmont and Emeryville brings strays or dead animals to Berkeley Shelter and provides the field and enforcement services for Emeryville and Piedmont, so even though they use Berkeley shelter, rules governing dogs in Berkeley do not apply in Piedmont or Emeryville. You following along? So, stray dog brought to Berkeley shelter from Berkeley and reclaimed by an owner must be spayed before being returned to owner (unless there is a legal reason why not, like it is a registered and licensed breeding dog). Same dog from Emeryville gets returned intact to the owner because Emeryville does not have same spay law on books. Let's say you find an injured dog on the streets of Berkeley and the shelter is closed. You can take it to the local vet hospital with the city contract for emergency services, but not if you find that dog in Piedmont. So sometimes the staff at the hospital gently prod you saying 'didn't you find that dog in Berkeley?' Berkeley shelter does not have a vet who will oversee rabies vaccines, so most dogs leaving Berkeley shelter leave without a rabies vaccine. But up the freeway at Pinole shelter, the Contra Costa county vet is deemed to sign off on every rabies vaccination whether he is there or on vacation in the Bahamas and staff give the vaccine. Illegal? Or just good freakin' preventive measure?
Most people know full well that in order to ensure the best chance at life for a stray cat or dog you take it to the Berkeley shelter, and lie about where you found it. If you happened to be cruising A Street in Richmond and a chihuahua hops in your car, or if you happen to break into someone's backyard in heels and a boltcutter to restore freedom to a chained pitbull with battle scars, you know full well that Berkeley shelter will probably keep that dog for a year at which point some insane older white middle class lady will determine the dog needs to be rescued again, and arrange with a discredited rescue group to salvage a dog which probably should have been put down a year before. Volunteers, staff members, rescue groups - they've all played that game. And while Berkeley's incredibly low euthanasia rate is a source of local pride, the myopia which doesn't address the regional problem of high kill, uncontrolled breeding, and increasing fatal disease rates creates an isolationist 'I'm alright Jack' mentality. While they are killing huge numbers of adoptable dogs in every other Alameda and Contra Costa shelter, how can Berkeley feel so smug?
Oh dear. Did I really just go on like that? It's pouring with rain, I am mightily pissed off. And the animal shelter system in California is as broken as it was in those heady days at the beginning of the decade...the only good thing is that the rain might prove to be the needed disincentive to Maddie's Free Pet weekend....
I couldn't think of a short pithy title. Opening up my mail today on AOL, which now owns (though I find this baffling) The Huffington Post, the first news item to greet me was that photo of a gorgeous little boy with the biggest baby blues staring out at me. Cute kid, I think, before I look at the headline. The kid is missing. No, the kid is dead, and he does not appear to be missing. He is a 4 - 6 year old John Doe found lying by a roadway in Maine and no-one is missing him? And then I think, oh, they have a family photo of the kid, and then, finally I am fully awake. This is not a family photo because they have no idea who his family is. This is his death pose. Still clothed, with his eyes fully opened as if concentrating hard on his surroundings, I am staring into the eyes of death.
My first reaction is one of horror at the release of the photo. Followed fast by my horror that he has been dead for days apparently and yet there are no reports of his absence. And then an assumption that an entire family is colluding in a terrible crime, followed by a sort of realisation 'oh, yes, this is what human beings do on an unbearably regular basis to other human beings'. Just last week a horrific story emerged of a boy being buried in concrete while being kept confined to a dog crate. But you all know the stories as well as I do. We are living now, in a world of unending horror delivered to our morning screens like clockwork and our senses are so dulled by the grime and the darkness of the human soul that we barely blink. After all, tomorrow will bring fresh kill to our doorstep.
It turns out that Stephen Hawking thinks heaven is a fantasy. In the entire universe he just couldn't find space for it. And I agree with him. But that revelation unsettled Glenn Beck today and he said he found Hawking's attitude 'very sad'. 'God Bless America' said Beck and I could only wonder whether he was thinking of the blue eyed boy. Perhaps Glenn knows for sure in his heart that the unclaimed boy is now sitting at the right hand of God in the life hereafter. Because for sure, the one he could rightfully have expected to live here ain't happening. Frankly, I am sick to death of religion/s. All of them.
I am deeply troubled by the boy in Maine. But there is a part of me that wants to believe there is a perfectly plausible explanation for his lack of identification. A part of me that wants to believe that somewhere there are people desperately looking for him. I take that as a good sign that my own humanity is still intact somewhat. If only I were a religious person, I could say a meaningless prayer for his soul. But I do not believe in souls, in an after-life, reincarnation or heaven and hell. I believe the little boy was brutally deprived of the one thing that we have a right to once born into this world - to belong. To life.
Of course I have an opinion or two about the killing of Osama bin Laden. And my opinion is just that and nothing more. I wasn't in the Situation Room with Obama (after a nail biting 9 holes of golf) on May Day while he watched video shot by Seal Team 6 as they swept through that so called 'mansion' in a grotty suburb near Islamabad. I don't have friends in the Intelligence community who may have been tweeting their Hollywood buddies in advance of the raid. I'm just one of the millions whose jaws dropped open as I casually flicked through the channels on Sunday May 1st, the day we used to (when we cared) celebrate the working people of this planet on International Workers Day. The raid had taken place and we were waiting for the President to make his statement, and it was gripping television. Better than anything else that might have been on. There were photos of the recently built three story building in Abbottobad surrounded by high fortified walls (and bin Laden's wives really should have sued the contractor or the builder for some pretty shoddy exterior paint and plaster work), there was the video of dumb amerikans shouting 'We're Number 1' as if they hadn't recently looked at the jobless figures or the state of the US debt. The news anchors recyled the same grainy photos of Mr bin Laden in a cave, Mr bin Laden carrying an AK 47, Mr bin Laden making one of his many threats against the infidel and smiling, always smiling. Strange that.
Obama's statement was necessary. But it was grandstanding and provided the rationale for the USA to be conducting what can only be described as a 'black op', a political asassination, a covert plot, an outrageous negation of another country's sovereignty, a classic example of what most poor people across the world already know - that if Amerika wants to reach out and grab you in your own home, there is no-one or nothing that can stop it. That, along with the thousands of innocent people including non-combatant children, women and innocent men caught up in Obama's favorite sport (aside from golf) of the use of unmanned drones splattering flesh and blood across the Arab world, this most powerful of nations (that cannot feed its hungry or educate its young or protect its children and women from the most heinous crimes) can drop a few well trained men and a dog into a compound across the world and storm in, shooting all in their way.
And then they expect us to believe that Osama bin laden, hearing all the commotion during this 20 or 40 minute firefight didn't grab a weapon and go on the attack, or make a run for it. Instead, we are expected to believe that his beloved weapon was just leaning up against the wall while he waited patiently for his executioner to enter his spartan living quarters? Who the fuck does he think he is? Jesus of Nazareth? But this scenario of bin Ladens final moments is just one of over 40 competing and conflicting stories that have emanated from the White House and the administration's spokespeople.
What do I really think? I think Obama told us exactly what he was going to do during the campaign. In October 2008, to out-muscle decorated veteran John McCain, Obama said "And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out. "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaida . That has to be our biggest national security priority.” At the time, Obama's rhetoric unsettled me. Not nearly as much as his actions on May 1st 2011 unsettled me.
There's no question in my mind that Osama bin Laden was a murderous, ruthless planner of deadly terrorist acts. The debates about the jihad against the west, against all Americans, the calls for the merciless destructon of Israel are based in the complex historical torment or the region and are not the subject of this post. This is about what civilized human beings do when faced with decisions of life and death, when faced with decisions about the need for justice to be seen to be administered with humanity and conscience, with what separates us from the enemies we face every day of our existence.
I believe that giving Osama the code name Geronimo was indeed an insult to native people but when has that ever been a concern to American Presidents? Unlike Osama, Geronimo in fact surrendered to US forces when he was tracked down after carrying out revenge raids against Americans in reaction to the slaughter of many of his tribe. Unlike Geronimo, I don't think bin Laden was given the option of being taken alive. He certainly wasn't read his Miranda Rights. I believe that in order to placate his liberal fans Obama has consistently maintained that the words 'war on terror' have no place in our lexicon, so what were we doing carrying out a covert operation on another country's soil? I believe that Obama's Peace Prize should be returned (shouldn't have been given in the first place), and that his speech in Cairo soon after taking office is a sham of the highest order. I believe that we are no safer and in fact are less safe since May 1st, that Osama bin laden was already discredited across the Arab world and that the democratizing efforts of millions across the region now risk being hijacked by a renewed common hatred of the United States. And that Osama's negligent burial at sea shows that a rush to act facilitated a dreadful vengeful murder followed by a cover up which will have repercussions across the world for decades to come.
Having watched Osama for months from a CIA 'safe house', was it really necessary to act on International Workers day and displace the Royal Wedding as the top story? Just kidding on that last one, in case some of you don't know me well enough....
What do I really think? I think the President of the USA authorised the revenge murder of at least 4 men in cold blood and then revelled in the opportunities to campaign for reelection. Thank goodness we have a real tough guy in the WH. Right?
Yesterday I received my third notification from the City of Berkeley telling me that my term as a Commissioner had ended after 8 consecutive years. This is not news to me, but this, the third envelope with $1.26 of postage on it contained a notifcation that had an edge of urgency to it, as if perhaps I didn't know yet, and they were worried I might turn up with my nameplate and take my place in the tiny room in the North Berkeley Senior Centre on the third Wednesday of the month and try to pass myself off as an important person. The Berkeley Citizens Humane Commisison is about as ineffectual a body as there ever was when it comes to their legal mandate 'to oversee conditions in all animal shelters in Berkeley and to advise Council on the care, control and laws pertaining to animals', and I put in my time because I took seriously the notion that city commissions could move progressive policy forward through this process. In fact, I'm gonna blow my horn just a bit - virtually every piece of progressive change relating to animals over the last 10 years in Berkeley (even before I was on the Commission) is because of my efforts. Such an uncharacteristic lack of humility, Jill.
Notification # 3 came with the legally mandated 'Statement of Economic Interest' which every serving City Commissioner must fill in, and which unbeknownst to me has to be filled in by every leaving Commisioner within 30 days of leaving. But you'd think that the City Clerk's office might be aware of when their City Commissioners leave office and in this slightly urgent letter an assistant analyst says that my leaving has just come to her attention and I'd better fill in the form fast or I will be subject to fines and other penalties. Oops. I'm imagining myself shackled as I leave my house to go on my dog walk and a few Berkeley traffic cops spring from behind the bushes.
She also generously lets me know that my dedicated service has been appreciated enormously by the City and in expression of their appreciation please 'accept the enclosed certificate'. And there, instead of the precious waste of paper known as a certificate of appreciation is a yellow post-it with a handwritten note 'Certificate To Follow'.
Quite a few people encouraged me to bend the rules a bit when it comes to the 8 year termination. It's been done before. You quit 3 weeks before your term is up and then another Council member whose agenda you support, appoints you a week after the next meeting. Hey presto, another 8 year term and just one meeting missed, to break the consecutve 8 year rule. Personally, I think that stinks, even though there is currently a Commissioner in Berkeley who I think should be appointed for life because without him the city would be even closer to shoving development and sweetheart deals for the rich down our already congested throats.
But this little example of bureacratic nonsense galls me in light of the amount of my property taxes and especially in light of the fact that Berkeley is a city breathtakingly riddled with cronyism and back room deals. And progressive council members struggle valiantly to keep the University of California and local real estate developers somewhat in check, difficult with a developer in the Mayor's office. The home of the Free Speech movement in the 60's has made alternative speech extremely costly in the new millenium. I have written back to the City Clerk, dutifully sending in my required documents and asking her to please not to waste any more paper or postage on the missing certificate. My message was bluntly 'Stuff It'.
Please read the blog! But I'm going to start with the fundraising stuff first!! If you can give to my efforts to provide low cost and free veterinary care, spay and neuter, vaccines etc to people who cannot afford care for their pets - please click on the link which will take you to my 'About' Page. There you will be able to access the site of my nonprofit sponsor Brighthaven.org and make a tax deductible gift. Don't forget to specify the gift for PawFund (Pets & Wellness).
Also, below this blog is a ChipIn widget. If you don't need, or don't want the tax deduction, or if you just wanna give a few bucks from your Paypal account, you can use the ChipIn feature. I am going to keep raising money for spay and neuter this way. As soon as I raise $1500, we'll start again!!
My phone rings and someone cautiously asks whether I can help with their dog. Zeke has an ear infection and the owner has no money to take him to the vet. The referral has come from one of the major humane organisations in the East Bay. The conversation unfolds and I ask questions like how old the dog is, what breed, what city the owner lives in and whether the dog is neutered or not and what the situation is. I don't ask for any proof of income, no drivers license, SSI card, utility bill, bank statement, proof of disability, residency requirement, or whether they have asked all their family members, friends and neighbours for loans, been turned down by one of the predatory lenders, or whether they 'deserve' this help. Are you poor enough? Low income enough? Struggling enough? Embarrassed enough yet?
We don't like the poor in this society. And we really don't like them if they drive a nice car that they were able to buy when they were working. And we reserve especial disdain for people who think they can keep their animals while being poor. 'If they cant look after themselves, how can they look after an animal?' Ever heard that one? I have. Plenty. Perhaps you've come across 'If they can't afford to take them to the vet, perhaps they shouldn't have a pet.'
Yeah, why don't we just take away the one family member many people have in their lives - their cat or dog. And quite aside from the brutality and disdain evident in our moral judgement, what exactly will we do with those animals whose owners cannot afford the $250 to drain an abcess from the chin of a beloved cat, or treat the yeast infection in the ears of the companion dog? Take them to the overcrowded shelters and kill them, place them in black plastic sacks and dump them in barrels to be collected by the rendering company?
If someone is making a phone call to a complete stranger after pleading for help from a local agency, I figure they don't need to be humiliated any more and neither do they need to hear 'no' one more time. That is my guiding principle. It can be cost intensive and it is definitely labor intensive. And it is worth every penny I can raise from the rest of you, and worth every 7am morning wake up for me to go pick someone up from their home who has no transportation and whose dog must go to the vet for needed care.
Over the last month I have provided the answer 'yes' to Gloria whose cat Casanova needed to be humanely euthanised after disappearing for weeks and re-appearing so severely ill that even after weeks of treatment, Casanova's system could not rebound, to Steven whose sole companion, a chihuahua mix called Katey had a huge bladder stone and the vet estimates for surgery ranged from $1500 to $2800. I called UC Davis who did the surgery under their community surgery program for a fraction of the price, to Jennifer who could not afford the whole cost of getting her cats urinary tract infection treated, to Wade whose neighborhod cat had a terrible abcess on his leg and necrotic tissue causing a raging infection and to Darryl whose dog Zeke also got fixed microchipped and vaccinated while his ears were being treated (although his surgery was more complicated because he only had one testicle descended). I also managed to get two huge mastiff mixes belonging to residents of the Albany Bulb fixed and get their rabies vaccines.
My life has changed. Am I still a photographer with 3 major published books under my belt? Did I win an award for Best Art Book at an alternative Book Fair? Did I really take the photograph that has become an icon in feminist history of a billboard with a car advert subverted by angry feminist graffitists? Did I once think I had a career as a documentary photographer? Sometimes it is hard to let go of very deeply held self perceptions. I wanted so badly to be a visual artist with shows at the best galleries, to be seduced by academia to talk about my work, to be paid as I deserved to be, so that I could at least pay my bills. Reality is, I had those chances. But a deeper urge to redress imbalances, to fight injustice where I saw it, to put my life and my own security on the line where I saw others with no safety net, led me down a different path. And it is hard to let go sometimes. Of my dreams. Of my self image. Learning to not care when visitors to the Albany Bulb think perhaps that I too, huddle up under plastic tarps in soggy sleeping bags, when they see me there with my homeless friends - who I have come to respect for many different reasons and under the toughest of circumstances.
These things are hard. My fantasy still is of a house down a dirt road, a concrete floor and glass, lots of glass because light is the most important thing to me, and music wafting through the house carried on the aroma of a morning cup of coffee, and the dogs just letting themselves in and out onto a meadow as they choose, with cats on the woodpile and the photos strewn about and negatives being scanned and the printer chugging away and the plan for a book spread out over a long table. But my reality is the phone call from Darryl and an 8am pick up, and his hand wiping away tears as he says 'I don't know how to thank you' and my embarrassment at his gratitude, and his dog pees in the back of my car and Darryl insisting that he will detail my car later, he absolutely does insist and he does clean the stain from the backseat later.
So, this blog is both a declaration, a loss of my dream - at least temporarily, and an acceptance of the gift I have been given. Because while it is just too damn easy to condemn, to bring an attitude of self righteous moralism to our relationship to animals, it is far more productive to nurture that bond between humans and their animal companions. That's the side I'm on, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.