3 cheers for organic chocolate that supports its producers!

I said a few weeks ago no more Hershey’s for me after the last few bars in my freezer disappeared, at least until or unless the company changes over to supporting fair trade and a decent livelihood for the small farmers who source cacao. OK, I’ve been sampling several “qualifying” brands easily available at Whole Foods. So far my fave is the Endangered Species Extreme Dark Chocolate bar, with 88% cocoa content. Sublime! The darker the better!

This company’s philsophical commitment is to Albert Schweitzer, the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner who espoused living with Reverence for Life — a simple motto yet filled with elegance and respect for literally everything that lives. It’s “the first spiritual act in man’s [sic] experience.” That’s special to me for a personal reason:  Schweitzer was one of my gurus during high school, figuring prominently in my graduation speech.  To be honest, I haven’t adhered to his high standards throughout my lifetime, but they’re a worthy goal to keep on striving toward.

Schweitzer wrote that reverence for life is the ultimate, and universal, ethic. “As we know life in ourselves, we want to understand life in the universe, in order to enter into harmony with it.” At a young age he was moved to action by the sight of cruelty to animals, so much so that he composed a short prayer to add to his bedtime prayers:

“O heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.”

Funny how something that influenced me several decades ago as a kid has resurfaced as such a powerful motivator for my interest in animal care and human interactions with animals today.  And it took a chocolate bar to remind me!

Cori’s first successes in humane education

Cori O’Holleran Bugle

For the longest time I’ve been wanting to take my beagle into settings with children where she can set a good example of how to care for an animal and we can show off the human-animal bond. We finally had our first public “appearance” tonight on behalf of the Montgomery County Humane Society, and Cori was absolutely on her best behavior. Despite a few “issues” that prevent her from qualifying for Canine Good Citizen status at the moment, her strong point is that she apparently was well-socialized with children before I adopted her. Just like when we walk around our neighborhood, she sat politely for the kids at the church where the presentation was held. Ages 6-10, the kids all gathered around her, petted her and fed her tiny treats. Nothing particularly unusual about all that, and that’s what makes me so pleased.

Two days later, a small group of special ed kids visited the shelter on site. One boy not only had a learning disability but also was from an immigrant family and didn’t yet know any English. At one point during the presentation he and one of the teachers were sitting on the floor near Cori and me. It was evident he wanted to reach out to Cori but was unsure of himself, so I showed him non-verbally how to pet her, which he then did. I also showed him how to put a treat in the palm of his hand and keep it open for her to retrieve the treat and give him a slobbery lick. He liked that! So we did it again! And I overheard the other teacher comment how good it was to see him focus for a change.

That’s why I’ve wanted to get Cori engaged in some aspect or another of therapy work. Even though she has those issues, she’s just so good with youngsters, and for her, it apparently makes no difference whatsoever what their abilities are. Would that humans were equally forgiving!

I want to say something about the connection between animal care and the environment, since most of my posts to date have focused on the latter. The titles I mentioned in my initial post (see the Archives!) make the connection pretty obvious to me, although that’s not necessarily the case historically. People who espouse one of these causes aren’t always in the same camp as people in the other, for a variety of reasons. But in today’s developed world, researchers seem to be increasingly documenting the interconnections between human health and the environment, and animal health and the environment. It just makes sense there should be a strong recognition by humans that absent a well-cared-for natural environment, there’s a significantly reduced quality of life for all living beings. If we are going to maintain that high quality of life for all living beings, then by definition that care extends to companion animals. We are asking them to adjust to human lifestyles in urban and suburban settings, and that places demands on us to make that adjustment happen in ways that are humane to our pets.

More about this as we continue our adventures in humane education over the next few months.

Electric cars and taxpayer handouts to Big Oil

Can this be a coincidence? GM announces the return of the electric car with its new Volt at the North American International Auto Show on January 7. (Note to Pot: Don’t forget to call Kettle black. Remember the movie last year, Who Killed the Electric Car?)

Next week, on January 15, Congress is scheduled to vote on creating a mega-fund to invest in clean energy by cutting subsidies to Big Oil. According to Environment Maryland, “This new funding will expand the use of clean energy technologies like wind and solar power, while helping reduce our dependence on oil.” You don’t have to be from Maryland to tell your own representive(s) to support this effort!

Time to tighten the screws. With GM at least appearing to respond to pressure from market support of competitors’ cars that are considerably more energy-efficient, and a new agenda in the House, timing looks good to keep the pressure on.

Drugging the water you drink?

I’ve got a dilemma and I bet you do too: Meds, both prescription and non, that you’ve used just a partial supply and the rest have expired or you no longer need the scrip and are now trying to figure out how to get rid of it in an environmentally friendly way. Same goes for totally unopened meds such as samples.

If you flush it down the toilet or run it down the sink drain, guess where it goes? Here in the DC Metro area, right into the Chesapeake Bay! Yuck! And right into the food chain where it can have harmful health effects on both the eco-system and back to you and me! Yuck again!

What to do?

I called the Solid Waste division for Montgomery County, Maryland. If you put medicine in its original container in the trash, it will get incinerated along with the rest of the trash — it will not “live” in a landfill and will not end up in the water supply. That’s better than going down the drain, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s any harm to air chemistry, depending on the particular drug and the quantity.

And it still doesn’t help the dilemma of unopened and therefore unused meds you’re not going to use, you know, like the samples the doc gives you. Seems to me I’ve heard that sometimes local free clinics will accept such items, and some pharmacies have “take-back” days. Anybody out there know of any other ways to dispose of old meds safely, or pass them along safely?

A few possibilities are suggested in some articles from a Google search:

Flushed Drugs Pollute Water, Wisconsin State Journal, 12/11/06

Discarding old prescription medications, HealthForums.com

You are what — and where — you eat

The Silver Diner Restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, is catching the healthy-eating bug. Oversize portions will still be de rigeur, but at least they’ll be trans-fat free, and folks watching their waistlines can still wisely take home what they can’t finish on site.

Besides menu items, restaurants also have an opportunity to green their operations. The Green Restaurant Association offers step by step actions any restaurant can take leading to recognition as a “Certified Green Restaurant” TM, much the same as buildings are increasingly being recognized as certified green buildings. Customers can prod restaurant managers along by giving a suggestion card directly to the owner or manager or enclosing it with payment.

Folks, this is going to take some time — the buzz hasn’t happened yet and if you study this organization’s website, you’ll see that so far only a few restaurants nationwide have stepped up to the plate. So get a move on — print those cards out, stuff ‘em in your wallet, and leave one every time you take out a credit card to pay the tab!

Cloned pets no longer offered

The January issue of Your Dog, a newsletter published by the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts, reports that Genetic Savings and Clone is no more.  Given the excessive cost — $50,000 — and the limited number of pets the company cloned since opening in 2000 — only two (cats) — it’s no surprise.  Not to mention the ethics questions raised by both the process and the source of obtaining a pet this way.

For my dollar, a shelter or rescue pet is in far greater need of the kind of medical care and human bonding we can lavish on our furry friends.

Quick take on the pet cloning issue is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_cloning