Memphis Animal Shelter
Thanks to Bianca Phillips for her story about the Memphis Animal Shelter (“Sheltered Life,” November 22nd issue).
While Lisa Trenthem’s case is extreme, many times the shelter staff has euthanized healthy animals even when they knew someone wanted to adopt them. Rescuers have not made waves because they felt that complaining would result in retribution, and they wanted to continue to get other animals out before they were destroyed. Decisions about the health of an animal are based solely on subjective opinion. No diagnostic tests are conducted. The euthanasia rate at the Memphis Animal Shelter for 2007 is 83 percent.
Regardless of how many animals enter the facility and never get out alive, the willful killing of adoptable animals when the staff knows that one or more persons have told them that they intend to adopt those animals is totally unnecessary and cruel.
The mission of the new citizens’ group, Change Our Shelter, is to document incidents of unnecessary euthanasia at the Memphis Animal Shelter and to work with the city to make significant, permanent changes to the operation of the facility. Send an e-mail to changeourshelter@gmail.com for more information.
The public and/or rescue organizations should be treated with equality and respect at the Memphis Animal Shelter, and the animals that people have expressed an intention to adopt should get that second chance.
We hope that all Memphians who are devoted to or concerned about the humane treatment of animals will come together to make a difference in our city shelter and our community.
Sylvia Cox
Memphis
Old Age of Aquarius
Bianca Phillips’ story on the Farm (“The Old Age of Aquarius,” November 22nd issue) was so interesting to me.
Way back in the day, I hopped on one of the Farm buses when Stephen Gaskin and company passed through southern Missouri. I spent three happy (hippie) months with some of the most gentle and giving people I’ve ever met. I left because I wanted to go back to college, and I don’t regret anything about my life. But sometimes I wonder about what my life might have been like if I’d stayed.
Thanks again for a great story and cool photographs.
Lawrence B. Charles
Carbondale, Illinois
Republican Politics
GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson says he would have sided with Terri Schiavo’s parents and kept their brain-dead daughter alive. Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee doesn’t believe in evolution, the basic principle in nature. Front-runner Rudy Giuliani says if he were president he would select anti-abortion Supreme Court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts. Candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain are now anti-abortion and as pro-war as ever. What an oxymoron: save the fetuses and squander adult lives.
Ron Lowe
Grass Valley, California
Needs Assistance
I wish to seek your assistance for the transfer of U.S. $25 million depository made by a foreign investor for an investment program that has remained dormant for years now. I discovered that the account holder died without making a will on the depository.
This money cannot be approved to a local bank account holder but can only be approved to a foreigner. If you will stand as next of kin to the fund, it will be shared 50-50, as this is a TWO-man business deal transaction.
I shall then provide you with more details and relevant documents that will help you understand the transaction. I need your assistance and cooperation to this reality as I have done my homework and fine-tuned the best way to create you as the beneficiary of the fund. My position as the branch manager of the bank will be used to advance this deal.
I will like you to provide immediately your full names and address, date of birth, occupation, telephone and fax numbers so that an attorney will be able to prepare the necessary documents and affidavit which will put you in place as the next of kin.
If this proposal is acceptable by you, I expect that you will not take undue advantage of the trust I will bestow in you. I await your urgent response.
Nicholas Isi
Lagos, Nigeria
Editor’s note: Sounds Great!! Thank you so much!
