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For holiday pets, think adoption first
No, you haven’t accidentally stumbled across the Pets Blog. If you had, you’d instead find lots and lots of cute animals and Samantha Stiles’ clever quips.
No such luck here — just a thinly veiled PSA.
Bear with me.
The kittens pictured above were at Petsmart last night and available for adoption through the Grand River Humane Society. If you don’t think two little 13-week-old cream-colored kitten-sisters are adorable, your heart is two sizes too small.
I’m not the first to advocate for pet adoption of late. Ralph D’Andrea adopted Skip from Petsmart and gave a touching testimonial at Junction Daily Blog.
But because the Davises are a family of pet-lovers (well, four out of five of us are — majority rules — and I carry the checkbook), I spend plenty of time in pet stores, and I also noticed a “think adoption first” sign at Petco over the weekend. Right in front of a cage of little baby gerbils.
And they looked perfectly normal, which would raise the pet-normalcy ratio at the Davis Ranch(ette). Our selection of animals over the years is more akin to the Island of Misfit Toys.
Our pets have included a hermit crab with anger-management issues, a three-legged cat, a parakeet with the nervous constitution of an inbred Chihuahua (“I’ll just close my eyes and shake and maybe they’ll go away”), a horse that would only turn in one direction and a stinkin’ smelly African frog the kids won at a fair that lived for years and years and years.
Anyway.
We made a donation, took two gerbils home, and named them Snoopy and Pepe. One promptly went to the wheel and hasn’t quit running yet. The other prefers an Emily Dickinson-like existence curled away inside a gerbil hut. They fit right in.
When you’re thinking of adding a pet to your family, think adoption first. There are plenty of wonderful ones out there looking for a home.
I’ve already adopted the weird ones.
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Gray Friday is the new Black Friday
Doesn’t that rain smell good? Sure my neurotic dog’s left about a dozen muddy trails in and out of the house, but that’s a small price to pay for a good cleansing of the great outdoors.
The clouds and drizzle have softened the effect of Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving that signals the official launch into holiday shopping — into a mellow Gray Friday.
My consumerism foray consisted of two stops on the way in to work this morning. At both stores I got right in and out, found exactly what I needed, nobody elbowed me, and the clerks were still friendly, after what I’m sure was a mad rush in the early morning.
Contrast that pleasant shopping experience with this mob scene at a New York Wal-Mart.
No big-screen TVs and $7 jeans are worth getting killed over.
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Send in your veteran’s photo for free ornament
This is a nice way to thank and remember a veteran near and dear to your heart this holiday season.
Grand Valley Blue Star Mothers are inviting all Grand Valley military families to submit a photo of their soldier/veteran to be made into a keepsake ornament and displayed on the Hero’s Christmas tree near J.C. Penney at Mesa Mall.
Blue Star Mothers is a non-partisan, non-political organization of mothers who have or have had children honorably serving in the military. Grand Valley Blue Star Mothers is a local chapter.
Photos will be copied and laser-engraved on a blue acrylic star that looks like this:
Send photo, along with soldier’s name, rank and in which conflict he or she serves/served, along with the name, address, phone number and email of the person submitting the photo to:
Grand Valley Blue Star Mothers 2139 N. 12th St., Unit No. 10-135A Grand Junction, CO 81501
For more information: info@gjbluestarmothers.org (970) 242-3845
Ornaments and photos can be picked up between 1 and 4 p.m. on Dec. 29 at the Hero’s Tree, or you can include $1 with your submission to have them mailed to you.
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What does a million look like?
This pallet of advertising inserts in the warehouse is not quite to the seven-digit mark, yet, but by Thanksgiving it will be:
For the first time in The Daily Sentinel’s history, we’ll be delivering to a driveway near you and stacking up in racks a total of 1,000,000 pieces of sales advertisements stuffed into the Thanksgiving newspaper.
Any year, those sales are a big help to thrifty holiday shoppers. This year, even more so. So, come Thursday, enjoy your turkey dinner, keep up with the news and plan your holiday shopping.
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Thank you, School District 51 lunch ladies
They took this:
And this:
And made a delicious pre-Thanksgiving meal for students and their visiting parents today. I’ve had this annual turkey-gravy meal with my kids since I was balancing a tray on those spindly legged mini chairs in my kids’ kindergarten classroom.
It was fun to look around the lunchroom and see so many parents. It’s a big enough job cooking for kids every day, but to invite family to eat, too, had to make everyone’s job exponentially harder at schools today.
This pre-Thanksgiving guest appreciates those extra efforts.
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AWOL Iraq War Vet Went ‘Hippy’*
Yeah, it’s easy to put on weight when you’re not getting put through your physical paces with the Semper Fi crew. Running from the law apparently just isn’t the same workout.
*(Online headline about the Marine who faked his disappearance while rock-climbing near Boulder in 2006. Judging by the facial hair that ran with the story, I’m guessing they meant “hippie.”)
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Cassie’s got her MoJo working
Reporter Cassie Hewlings is a hardworking, creative and reliable reporter. She has a regular seat in the audience of school board meetings. She also writes the very popular Student of the Week profiles that publish every Monday on the Homework Page. Her work life is busy — and predictable.
This week, however, Cassie is at-large, reporting as a mobile journalist for GJSentinel.com. We didn’t see her in the office all day, and we might not see her all week.
So what does she do? Well, check it out. Monday was MoJo Day One. Cassie’s only direction was to stay out of the office — to look for those stories that we’re not otherwise telling. She filed photos and stories about the new steeple being built at St. Joseph Catholic Church, the mural on the climbing wall at Broadway Elementary, two guys flying model airplanes at Canyon view Park, and the “Get on Your Soapbox” rant-a-thon at Mesa State College.
If you remember Al Franken as the one-man mobile uplink reporter on “Saturday Night Live,” you get the general idea. Only Cassie doesn’t have to wear a satellite dish on her head.
Watch Cassie’s work all week at Mobile Junction.
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Whither Ratherisms on Election Night 2008?
Well, you can listen for his folksy phrases during Dan Rather’s live HDNet broadcast from the Newseum in Washington, D.C., tonight, but for the full flavor of the days when TV networks ruled the airwaves during elections, check out some of Rather’s homespun metaphors from 2000, 2002 and 2004 compiled by Daniel Kurtzman at About.com.
Some of my favorites: “His lead is as thin as turnip soup.” “This race is shakier than cafeteria Jell-O.” “He swept through the South like a tornado through a trailer park.”
*AP photo of Walter Cronkite, left, and Dan Rather at a Feb. 15, 1980, news conference announcing that Rather was succeeding Cronkite as CBS News managing editor and anchorman.
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If only it were this easy to cover elections
Westword writer and ex-Grand Junctionite Michael Roberts wrote at his Latest Word blog about the Denver Post getting a four-day jump on elections coverage by posting “results” online last Friday.
“In all likelihood, the figures represented a test that the average web surfer wasn’t supposed to see,” Roberts wrote.
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It’s the scaring season
Wall Street. Declining home values. Paranoid partisanship. We don’t need Halloween to scare us this year. Someone in a Jigsaw mask isn’t nearly as frightening as a talking head using the “R” word.
Taking the digital temperature for current fears, I did a quick Google search for “people are really scared of.” These are some of the results, in all of their randomness:
That McCain is gaining, Obama, Change, Hillary Clinton, Bees and wasps, A fixed election, Debates, Needles, Death, Sarah Palin, Dolphins, Dying, People, Killer robots
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Christian Science Monitor to cease daily printing
Part of my job is taking calls from people who have complaints (and the occasional compliment) about The Daily Sentinel. People have strong attachments to this newspaper, and therefore they have strong opinions. That speaks to the relevance of what we do. Usually this feedback is valuable.
(Just yesterday my high school yearbook adviser called to critique the design of the previous week’s papers. What other field engenders that kind of engagement?)
One recent reader discussion went to favorite sources for international news. On this we agreed: The Christian Science Monitor. For 100 years the Monitor has dug up the stories behind the stories, both in the United States and through its enviable nine foreign bureaus.
That’s why today’s news of the Monitor scaling back from printing papers every day to just one day a week starting in April likely will be jarring to its loyal readers.
But they can still read the Monitor every day, they’ll just be reading it online. Like many newspapers, the Monitor is focusing its efforts at its Web site.
The costs of producing, printing and delivering a newspaper in an increasingly fragmented market have forever changed this industry, even for a subsized paper like the Monitor, which also is challenged with minimal advertising-sales efforts and a national circulation mission.
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Getting it right after you got it wrong
It’s deflating in a newsroom to hear we got something wrong in a story. Our policy is if it’s wrong, we’ll correct it. I have a correction running tomorrow for a column I edited.
It’s always a challenge to provide enough context for a correction without doing more damage by repeating the original error. And a correction for a correction? That’s the worst.
Our corrections, which typically run with a Getting It Right heading tend to be pretty straightforward. These corrections, in a Craig Silverman column for the Columbia Journalism Review, are much funnier.
Here’s a sample, correcting an error that was in a gossip column in the New York Post:
THE source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too. Bread and water would be too good for such disinformation.
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Time to catch up
That’s the menu board on the wall of the Davis Ranch(ette) dining room. Normally, I write something like “meat loaf” or “spaghetti” in the mornings so that everyone in the family knows what the plan is for dinner. But we’ve all been a little heavily scheduled lately, and planning has gone by the wayside.
(That’s my daughter Piper’s handwriting, I can tell by the loopy A’s.)
So I’m taking the next few days to vote, attend parent-teacher conferences, can apples, clean carpets, organize closets and generally get the house ready for the next four months of indoor living.
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An 11-year-old’s take on the war in Iraq: ‘I Am’ poem by Jack Mayne
Nothing I could say today would be as powerful as what my 11-year-old nephew, Jack, wrote in his “I Am” poem and what my brother said in response, so this space is theirs.
My brother, Jerry Mayne, today sent the following email and his son’s attached poem to colleagues, friends and family. Jerry is a Salt Lake County firefighter, hence Jack’s reference to his dad being someone who “saves lives.” My sister-in-law, Chris, is as “funny” as her son says. She’s also smart and compassionate. Jack has an older brother, also named Jerry. Jack and Jerry are beloved cousins of my kids.
My apologies for stating the obvious to astute readers, but at the risk of being condescending, I’ll be clear: I don’t have the exact same opinions as my brother. Some things we agree on; others we don’t. In my day job, I get paid to set aside my own opinions and communicate the best-available facts.
My brother gets paid to fight fires and rescue people. When it comes to the military, he’s earned the right to have strong opinions.
This poem was written by my 11-year-old son as part of a class project. The teacher provided the “I am” portion and the kids finished the line with whatever came to their minds. I was proud but a little shocked by what my son has going on his mind.
His words reminded me of my thoughts when I was deployed during the Gulf War. One of the things I remember most about my experience overseas was all of the letters written by schoolchildren in support of the troops. The letters and wishes of the children helped me to make sense of the war and to keep going. My motivation was not for cheap oil or even to liberate Kuwait. I decided that I was there to help clean up that mess so those kids wouldn’t have to know war. Unfortunately, the leaders of our nation and the coalition forces listened to the United Nations and stopped short of defeating the Iraqi army completely and marching into Baghdad. Right now a lot of those kids who wrote those letters are serving in the armed forces fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can only hope that our government will not repeat the same mistakes. I can only hope that we will finish the war this time. Now it is my kids who are writing those letters. Now it is my kids who might end up fighting.
After you read this poem I hope you will consider for a moment what your kids are thinking about.
Jerry Mayne (USAF Gulf War Veteran)
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Announcing a Wiki for the West Slope
You no doubt noticed this icon on our home page at GJSentinel.com:
If you’ve come to rely upon Wikipedia as a resource for general knowledge and inroad into sources of additional information, you’re going to take to our GJSentinel.com regional version like a duck to water.
Our wiki works the same way as Wikipedia. It’s “an online encyclopedia written and edited by the community that uses it.” That means anyone can add to it, and the information is available to be used by anyone.
Everyone’s an expert on something. Now here’s a place to publish your expertise. We’re just getting started, but with your help we’ll make this a centralized resource for information about all people, places and things in our community.
Check it out.
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It’s beginning to look a lot like … winter
From Kent Warner of Kay Family Vineyards on Monday:
I was watering my vineyard at 34rd and Grand Valley Canal rd and this morning I awoke to the North Pole. It’s great to be a farmer in the Grand Valley, you never know what to expect. I thought you might be interested.
Thanks, Kent Warner, Kay Family Vineyards
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How to survive financial turmoil? Eat more squirrel
With the stock market collapse of the last few weeks, it’s an easy mental leap to go back to the dark days of the Great Depression, even for those of us separated from the 1930s by a generation or two.
I don’t remember Grandpa rooting around for squirrel brains at the dinner table, but there is enough Scotch-Irish in my background to make for a pretty frugal legacy, regardless.
For instance, my mother always washed bread bags to use as free Baggies, and my seamstress-extraordinaire grandmother used every tiny fabric scrap in crazy quilts. I was thinking about this legacy Sunday while I ratcheted off the knob on an old dilapidated cabinet door before discarding it. (Who knows if you’ll have the money to buy a knob when you need one? Better to have it on hand.)
Today’s market rebound should easy the economic fear factor a little, but for lessons on surviving the worst hard time (excellent book, by the way) of the Great Depression, check out some of these remembrances.
*Photo from Cox archives.
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Israeli TV station says “feh!” to good news
“Why don’t you ever cover the good news?” is a common criticism of the media as a whole.
We hear it considerably less at a community newspaper like The Daily Sentinel, where our values include reflecting a wide swath of life in our community, not just the aberrant, which is the very definition of news.
But make no mistake, that value comes at a cost. For a medium that is immediately reactive to ratings, the cost of good news can sometimes be too high.
In a column titled “The news you want” by Israeli journalist Yair Lapid, he explains why he abandoned a weekly 2-minute “One Good Person” feature that was a ratings sinkhole.
(Thanks to Poynter columnist Alan Abbey for spotting this item.)
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The Sun sets in New York today
The most recent incarnation of The New York Sun publishes its final issue today after a seven-year run whose history stretches way back to the era of the penny press.
Benjamin Day in 1833 brought newspaper to the masses when he priced copies of his New York Sun for only a penny — a fraction of what other papers charged.
With the tagline of “It shines for all,” the Sun had true populist appeal. Newspapers, subsidized by advertising, were suddenly something everyone could afford, and everyone had in common.
The penny press era dovetailed with other factors that contributed to increased newspaper readership: the Industrial Revolution, in which people had regular income and regular hours working in factories, and became increasingly urbanized as they moved off farms and to cities; and compulsory education, resulting in increased literacy.
Day changed the fundamental business model of newspapers, and broadened their appeal to a mass audience, changing also the kinds of stories journalists wrote. No longer were they only about the rich and for the rich. They were about everyone in the community.
The Sun of today has been losing money and unable to reach an agreement for a sale. In remarks to staff announcing the paper’s closure, Editor Seth Lipsky spoke about the Sun’s financial backers’ belief in the “ideal of the scoop,” a touching tribute to the idealism that drives journalism.
“They invested in the ideal of the scoop, the notion that news is the spirit of democracy, and in the principles for which we have stood in our editorial pages — limited and honest government, equality under our Constitution and the law, free markets, sound money, and a strong foreign policy in support of freedom and democracy. They liked the way the Sun reflected the dynamism of our city and spoke for its interests in the national debate.
They invested, too, in the joy with which you illuminated the cultural life of New York, in our willingness to spring to the defense of so many who are not always defended, in the thrill of our sports coverage, the verve and warmth of our society coverage, and in our efforts to bring together a community and give it voice.”
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Punctuation is delicious
I wasn’t kidding about the cookies. Thanks, Cassie!
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Happy; National, Punctuation. Day!
Newsrooms are one of the last bastions of the geeky grammarians, the wacky wordsmiths, the persnickety punctuators (the loquacious alliterators).
Need proof?
That’s commitment to the lifestyle! That sweet semicolon tat is on the arm of copy editor Cassie. We take our punctuation very, very seriously around here. Debates (read “fights”) regularly break out over when a semicolon, comma or simply breaking into separate sentences would be best.
So today is a special day around here, being National Punctuation Day and all. There will be punctuation mark-shaped sugar cookies and … I don’t know what else. Check out the National Punctuation Day Web site for a quick reference on various punctuation marks, breaking news about the serial comma and even a recipe for the Official Meat Loaf of National Punctuation Day.
Latest comments
Thank you for this wonderful post. There are indeed many excellent cats, dogs, and other creatures in need of homes. Rescued pets can give a lifetime of love and devotion. I’ve also seen the white kittens at PetSmart, and are they ever cute!! Someone
... read the full comment by Rebecca Davis Winters | Comment on For holiday pets, think adoption first Read For holiday pets, think adoption first
“Island of Misfit Toys” … um, I’d say it’s more like the Davis Ranchette of Horrors (but that’s another story).
Yes, adoption first. We just adopted a kitty from Petsmart (Click over to Sam’s pet blog and
... read the full comment by Robin | Comment on For holiday pets, think adoption first Read For holiday pets, think adoption first
Oh yes, Aunt Carol. You bear FULL responsibility for that smelly frog. None of the kids’ Christmas presents better have a pulse!
... read the full comment by Laurena Davis | Comment on For holiday pets, think adoption first Read For holiday pets, think adoption first
Ummmmmm … I think I might bear just a tiny bit of responsibility for that stinkin’ smelly African frog … don’t hold that against me, ‘kay?
... read the full comment by Aunt Carol | Comment on For holiday pets, think adoption first Read For holiday pets, think adoption first