Technical issues, vegetarian veterinarians and open thread
By Gina Spadafori
May 1, 2007
- If you have a sick pet or a question on your pet’s health, call your veterinarian.
- If you’re new to the site, please check out our general information page (includes information on recalled foods).
- If you want to report a sick or deceased pet, click here.
The Black Dog folks say one of the comments on the live-blogging post has some html coding that’s making IE6 crash. They said some other things, but at that point I had stopped listening. They say it would take hours of looking to find the bad code, and that it looks as if our option on this one is to kill the live-blog post and all the comments in the a.m. and replace it with the news conference transcript. (Note from Christie: I put the liveblogging text on my personal blog, here.)
We’ll make that call in the morning. Geez, this stuff gives me a headache. When it the Internet going to be like a car? I don’t need to know a darn thing about the internal combustion engine to get where I need to go. Just give me the keys!
So … sorry if the post before this one is crashing your Internet Explorer. Use Firefox like the cool kids do and you won’t have a problem.
In other stuff …
I need something silly, and I’m too tired to go to YouTube and look for two cats who kinda don’t like each other. So we’ll have to make do with this story on some goofy thing that is supposed to tell you when your pet is stressed:
There’s a lot of talk about stressed out humans, and now a company in Japan reportedly claims it has a product that can tell if Tabby or Fido are wound a little too tightly.
The Nikkei (nee-kay) Weekly reports the firm, Medical Life Care Giken, has developed a paw patch that it says detects excessive sweat secretion, which is believed to be a sign of stress.
The round, pin-sized patch is applied to the center pad of the animal’s paw and changes color depending on how sweaty the pet is.
Over on Dolittler, Dr. Patty Khuly writes about why so few veterinarians are vegetarians:
As children, future vets my age were raised by meat-eating parents who typically disdained the vegetarian dining practices of the hippie class. Most of us still rebelled in some way—not often with illicit drugs and poor grades (pre-vets have no such luxuries), but in a great many cases through vegetarianism. We tried our parents` patience by cramming the freezer with soy burgers and tempeh, clogging the fast-food drive-through with requests for patty-less burgers, and staunchly refusing all meat-contaminated sides at family dinners. Subway? No way! Their gloves touch the meat AND the veggies.
A handful of us came from farming communities or immigrant households (like my Cuban-American one) where the thought of vegetarianism turned many a conservative stomach. The rest of us had been brought up in true pop-culture style: to love our meat as any red-blooded American would, but with the upper middle class freedom to choose another lifestyle if we so desired.
By the time we got to vet school, this phase had usually come and gone. It was only true die-hards (or meat-phobics—a different breed altogether) that still eschewed a hearty chunk of beef. Why? I can’t speak for other vets (any more than I already have) but here’s my personal veggie story.
So go read. The rest of this mess will still be here when you come back, bad Web coding and all.
Open thread. Please don’t break our Web log.
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I am now a cool kid. Firefox is so much faster! Thanks.
Comment by Shawn — May 1, 2007 @ 7:05 pm
This is a very sad diary from dailykos:
http://tinyurl.com/2cyzsf
Comment by Maureen — May 1, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
So, after seeing the various posts - is Howl911 ok? I am worried.
Comment by Jenny — May 1, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
So I see Wysong took down their Menu recall info page - it’s now under construction.
Guess they must have had enough feedback as to how ridiculous it was.
Comment by Carole — May 1, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
“The Black Dog folks say one of the comments on the live-blogging post has some html coding that’s making IE6 crash.”
Yup… thought it was only me. Hope it was not a hack attack!
Keep up the great work. If only our tax paid employees did so well as this place.
Thanks,
Dennis
Comment by Dennis — May 1, 2007 @ 7:57 pm
Okay we’re starting with the “smoothing over” routine. The tugging of heartstrings.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 2, 2007; Page D01
In Nevada, the chief executive of an import company examines the lawsuit that just hit him, wondering how much it will cost to ensure that his next purchases of pet food ingredients are free of industrial poisons.
In Kansas, wheat growers wonder how China usurped the once-bustling market in gluten, a protein-rich byproduct of those amber waves of grain that once symbolized America’s bounty.
http://tinyurl.com/39j2du
Comment by Steve — May 1, 2007 @ 8:37 pm
New York Times
Published: May 2, 2007
Toxicologists monitoring the American food supply for traces of melamine after it was found in imported ingredients in the contaminated pet food that has killed at least 16 dogs and cats and sickened thousands of others said yesterday that even if there were small amounts of it in the American food supply, it would be unlikely to pose much of a threat to humans.
http://tinyurl.com/3ah2ft
Comment by Steve — May 1, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
FireFox rocks - have been using it for quite a spell. Itchmo’s blog doesn’t like it much tho once they pass the 120th comment or so - least the Mac version. It locks up until I force quit, restart, blah, blah. Safari & Itchmo get along fine tho. Weirdness.
Re: The live blog comments
Sure would be a bummer to see them go.
There was some great snarks in that bunch.
*cackle*
Comment by Ally — May 1, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
I read Khuly’s column. Don’t understand her position on eating meat vs. not wearing leather, though. Why is it acceptable to eat part of an animal than to use all of it?
IIRC, many indigenous cultures believe animals they eat are sacred. In response, they try to use ALL of the animal they kill as a measure of respect.
That’s how I feel about it, too. If you’re veggie, I completely respect that. But if you’re going to be a carnivore, then why refuse to wear the skin of the animal you’re eating? It doesn’t make you moral, just wasteful.
Comment by Laura — May 1, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
There are folks in my department from all over the world. One thing I’ve found is that vegetarian is no longer black and white, not like it used to be.
I have folks who are vegetarian but still wear leather. I have folks who won’t eat beef or pork but will eat chicken, and wear leather. I have folks who because of cultural reasons don’t eat certain animals but still wear leather.
I have folks from the same country and their beliefs are different.
Comment by Carole — May 1, 2007 @ 9:08 pm
Yes and Bill Gates believes millions of consumers worldwide would live better if a sea of music, movies, video games and television shows were piped into their earphones, laptops, cell phones, cars and living rooms.
Let’s see - more “music” (what, hip-hop?), more bad movies, and more TV (beyond “bad”). All beta wave stuff. Note that “reading” was not included on the list.
Comment by Steve — May 1, 2007 @ 9:18 pm
This looks new:
FDA Finds More Contamination in Animal Feed
http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....Id=9946786
“For one thing, the chemical wasn’t considered very toxic. Now, the FDA’s new food safety chief says the agency has learned that melamine’s breakdown products are toxic, causing the formation of crystals in the kidneys. That might explain why older pets with lower kidney function are especially susceptible to melamine effects.”
So the cats and dogs are breaking down the melamine, is that it?
Won’t we break it down, too, then?
Comment by Peggy — May 1, 2007 @ 9:34 pm
Steve, good Wash Post article. My husband and I frequently say ‘you get what you pay for’. I think it is a lesson to consumers as well - cheap isn’t always good.
Comment by Jenny — May 2, 2007 @ 3:10 am
Oh - I realized my comment ‘you get what you pay for’ might be taken wrong. I in no way was referring to pet food buyers - just that we may have to pay more going forward and need to remember this.
Comment by Jenny — May 2, 2007 @ 4:14 am