- Besides this morning's sentencing of Michael Vick, there were other impressive victories for the Humane Society of the United States in 2007:
- The last two states -- New Mexico and Louisiana -- outlawed cockfighting, and Congress passed a seminal law strengthening penalties for animal fighting. HSUS supporters also pressured Nike to drop a multi-million-dollar endorsement deal with Vick after his role in illegal dogfighting was uncovered.
- Horse slaughter was finally eliminated on U.S. soil when Texas and Illinois shut down the last remaining slaughterhouses in the nation.
- Animals were rescued from natural disasters, and HSUS provided care for hundreds of pets and farm animals threatened by California's recent wildfires.
- Some of the worst cruelties of factory farming were stopped when the largest veal and pig producers committed to abandon the use of tiny crates and cages, more companies and consumers switched to cage-free eggs, and Oregon's legislature made history by passing legislation outlawing the use of gestation crates to confine breeding pigs.
Loudon Wainwright and opener Amy LaVere put on a wonderfully intimate show last night at the Clifton Center near historic Frankfort Ave. in Louisville, Kentucky. It was my first time seeing either of the musicians, and it was an enjoyable experience of musical uppers and downers.
LaVere opened with a few notes on her stand-up bass, comically plastered with a bass-fishing sticker. I liked the girl right away :) She and her high-pitched, almost cartoony voice, her twangy guitarist, and drummer belted out some rockers, some downers, and some hard-to-explain tunes (Gypsy/latin/polka-inspired? This blog has a more detailed description.) No matter what you'd call them, she played some songs that might make you want to dance, cry, or dance and cry at the same time.
Wainwright followed LaVere with quite the one-man show. I'd seen him act, albeit briefly, in The Aviator and Knocked Up, but neither prepared me for his rubbery expressions. They don't seem forced, and I sure did get a kick out of them. His music was excellent, too. I'm not generally a big fan of one-man/acoustic-guitar shows, but Wainwright's songwriting, strumming, and obvious love of performance kept my attention throughout the ~90-minute show. He enjoyed a beer onstage and won me over with songs that made me want to laugh, cry, or laugh and cry at the same time.
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LaVere opened with a few notes on her stand-up bass, comically plastered with a bass-fishing sticker. I liked the girl right away :) She and her high-pitched, almost cartoony voice, her twangy guitarist, and drummer belted out some rockers, some downers, and some hard-to-explain tunes (Gypsy/latin/polka-inspired? This blog has a more detailed description.) No matter what you'd call them, she played some songs that might make you want to dance, cry, or dance and cry at the same time.
Wainwright followed LaVere with quite the one-man show. I'd seen him act, albeit briefly, in The Aviator and Knocked Up, but neither prepared me for his rubbery expressions. They don't seem forced, and I sure did get a kick out of them. His music was excellent, too. I'm not generally a big fan of one-man/acoustic-guitar shows, but Wainwright's songwriting, strumming, and obvious love of performance kept my attention throughout the ~90-minute show. He enjoyed a beer onstage and won me over with songs that made me want to laugh, cry, or laugh and cry at the same time.
Television might be the worst thing to happen to civilized society. Too many Americans rely on it for their political opinions, and taking political stances based on superficial exposure is a dangerous thing.
Take a look at pictures of the presidential candidates, and you'll see there's not an ugly, disfigured freak amongst them (although one of them is awfully elf-like... or leprechaun-like?). Not that it would necessarily be a good thing if an ugly, disfigured freak (like the hunchback in 300) were to lead our country, but it might be a good thing: it could show the world that we aren't nation comprised only of self-absorbed, gas-guzzling, overweight, narcissistic, plastic-surgery-obsessed nation-rebuilders (no offense meant to those of us that are any of the aforementioned.) It would also show that we're more concerned with what candidates do and say rather than how they say it.
My point is that people, in this country and others, rely far too much on what they see on TV for their information, political and otherwise. They tend not to read and do investigative research when making important decisions like who they'll vote on to be president, and that's unfortunate. They're likely to take what they see on TV at face value, especially if it's a pretty face saying some pretty things. McInformation is too ubiquitous in our culture and thus too easy to digest.
If Abraham Lincoln were to run for president today, he'd need an awful lot of makeup -- kinda like one of the last guys who ran for president.