THE PART WHERE A LOBBYIST FOR DOG ABUSE COMPARES RACETRACKS TO NURSING HOMES AND FOSTER CARE: The Florida Greyhound Association and its affiliate, the National Greyhound Association, are defending the treatment of the racing dogs in response to an article in the Sunday Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times that reported that 74 dogs have died on race track property since the state started keeping records in May. For the first time in the 80 years dogs have been raced for profit in Florida, the state began requiring that track operators notify the state within 18 hours of a greyhound’s death at a track or racing kennel in Florida. The law was approved by lawmakers in 2010 only after some track owners had concluded that they wanted to reduce the amount of racing because it was no longer profitable. The rule didn’t take effect until May 31. Jack Cory, lobbyist for the Florida Greyhound Association, acknowledged in a press release that there have been racing-related deaths but blamed track owners for the track conditions as the cause. Cory also sent an email to greyhound breeders that called the Herald/Times report ‘hysterical’ and noted that since the article appeared ‘Tracks have been inundated by TV Cameras.’ ‘One early death of a Greyhound is to many, BUT unfortunately accidents and illness happen with death resulting everywhere in Day Care Centers,'' Cory wrote. "Nursing Homes, Hospitals even at DCF where 432 Children died from Abuse and Neglect in 2012. I am not comparing a Greyhound to a Child but accidents and illness do happen with death resulting! They are unfortunate and many could be stopped with our 3 point safety plan!’” (via Tampa Bay Times)
ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN:
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OUR SISTER IN BALTIMORE JUST GOT, UH, ADOPTED AND PEOPLE VERY SIMILAR TO ME ARE UNDERSTANDABLY FREAKED OUT: “Van Smith, 48, is the senior staff writer at the Baltimore City Paper. He started freelancing for the scrappy alt-weekly in 1987, worked on staff from 1994 to 1998, bolted and returned in 2002. He’s been there ever since. Soon he’ll be terminated from the employment of Times-Shamrock Communications, the Scranton, Pa.,-based outfit that is selling the paper to the Baltimore Sun Media Group. Then the Baltimore Sun people will decide whether he and other Baltimore City Paper staffers will find work under the Sun’s roof. “There are no guarantees and surely there are redundancies given the Sun’s a large newspaper company,” says Smith, who has sweated out the uncertainty ever since the paper’s owner announced last August that it was putting Baltimore City Paper on the block. ‘This is the only thing I’ve ever done,’ says Smith. ‘I have sources and a body of knowledge built over a period of time that doesn’t go anywhere else very easily. If I’m out of a job, I guess I’ll have to find another career.’” (via Washington Post)
WE’RE ALL LISTICLES NOW. OR ‘APOCALISTICLES’ IF YOU’RE IN KIEV: “Ukraine has never been a country that attracted mainstream media interest. The tens of thousands of people viewing, sharing and posting photos of the Eastern European state likely had little knowledge of what Ukraine looked like before the violence—protesters are now claiming at least 100 people have died in the latest clashes—took place. The fascination of the photos is not that Ukraine no longer look familiar, but that it finally does. Ukraine looks like a movie set, like World War II, like the apocalypse. It spurs the imagination because it is real. Ukraine looks like nothing is really supposed to look, and so no one can stop looking. What does it mean for Ukrainians? Few apocalypsticle authors pose the question, because the only relevant question is what it means for them: traffic. Ask not what Buzzfeed can do for Ukrainians, but what dying Ukrainians can do for Buzzfeed. (Among the things Buzzfeed could not do: caption the photos or spell “Ukrainian” correctly.)” (via Politico)
THERE ARE ACTUALLY PEOPLE IN TALLAHASSEE LOBBYING TO FIND YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PASSWORDS SO THAT THEY TOO CAN FULLY UNDERSTAND THE BOUNTY OF YOUR PRESENTATIONAL LIES: “Two of Florida's largest business lobbying groups think employers should be able to ask employees to divulge the passwords for their private Facebook accounts. Or at least, they are opposing a bill that would make it illegal for employers to demand employees' private Twitter, Instagram or any other social-media passwords. Since private social-media passwords aren't a big deal to these guys, I asked Associated Industries of Florida President Tom Feeney and Florida Retail Federation President Rick McAllister if they would disclose their own passwords. Feeney didn't answer. So I'll take that as a no. McAllister, through a spokesman, declined. Why, then, would they expect others to surrender something so private? So personal? A boss asking an employee or prospective hire to turn over passwords to social media is like asking employees for a key to their house so they can occasionally stop in to root through their drawers and peek under the bed. It's an outrageous violation of privacy.” (via Orlando Sentinel)
WHO’S WATCHING ME?:
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