Chris Brown

"Richmond fans show love, forgiveness"
Richmond Times-Dispatch, Monday, November 23, 2009

Let's see...Michael Vick:

• Spent over one year in jail
• Lost over 100 million dollars
• Still faces public humilitation

Wasn't Chris Brown convicted of beating Rihanna?

I'm confused.

I'm left with a very universal sad queasiness.

(AP) WASHINGTON — An undercover video shot by an animal rights group at an Iowa egg hatchery shows workers discarding unwanted chicks by sending them alive into a grinder, and other chicks falling through a sorting machine to die on the factory floor.

Chicago-based Mercy for Animals said it shot the video at Hy-Line North America's hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, over a two-week period in May and June. The video was obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

Hy-Line said in a statement it has started an investigation "of the entire situation," adding that it would have helped their investigation "had we been aware of the potential violation immediately after it occurred."

The video, shot with a hidden camera and microphone by a Mercy for Animals employee who got a job at the plant, shows a Hy-Line worker sorting through a conveyor belt of chirping chicks, flipping some of them into a chute like a poker dealer flips cards.

These chicks, which a narrator says are males, are then shown being dropped alive into a grinding machine.

In other parts of the video, a chick is shown dying on the factory floor amid a heap of egg shells after falling through a sorting machine. Another chick, also still alive, is seen lying on the floor after getting scalded by a wash cycle, according to the video narrator.

Hy-Line said the video "appears to show an inappropriate action and violation of our animal welfare policies," referring to chicks on the factory floor.

But the company also noted that "instantaneous euthanasia" – a reference to killing of male chicks by the grinder – is a standard practice supported by the animal veterinary and scientific community.

According to Mercy for Animals, male chicks are of no use to the industry because they can't lay eggs and don't grow large or quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat. That results in the killing of 200 million male chicks a year.

The United Egg Producers, a trade group for U.S. egg farmers, confirmed that figure and the practice behind it.

"There is, unfortunately, no way to breed eggs that only produce female hens," said the group's spokesman, Mitch Head. "If someone has a need for 200 million male chicks, we're happy to provide them to anyone who wants them. But we can find no market, no need."

Using a grinder, Head said, "is the most instantaneous way to euthanize chicks."

Hy-Line says on its Web site that its Iowa facility produces 33.4 million chicks. Based on that figure, Mercy for Animals estimates a similar number of male chicks are killed at the facility each year. Hy-Line did not comment on that estimate.

Mercy for Animals says it will call on the nation's 50 largest grocery chains to include labels on their eggs that say, "Warning: Male chicks are ground-up alive by the egg industry."

Head called that proposal "almost a joke," saying the group had no credible authority, and had questionable motives. "This is a group which espouses no egg consumption by anyone – so that is clearly their motive." The video does in fact end with a call for people to adopt a vegan diet, which eliminates all animal products – meat, eggs or dairy.

Nathan Runkle, executive director of Mercy for Animals, said most people would be shocked to learn that 200 million chicks are killed a year.

"Is this justifiable just for cheap eggs?" he said.

As to more humane alternatives to disposing of male chicks, Runkle said the whole system is inherently flawed.

"The entire industrial hatchery system subjects these birds to stress, fear and pain from the first day," he said.

The Huffington Post
September 10, 2009

Grateful for the Day

Jack Foco: March 13, 1950 - November 10, 1998

"My artistic purpose is two-fold: first, to make my mark; and second, to live in the creative process. To make my mark in this world I have chosen painting as the medium, and the feeling of grandeur I feel when I finish a piece is priceless. It is like walking among the clouds. My spirit soars like a hawk, and at that moment, I am the greatest artist in the world.

In 1991, I resigned from my sixteen-year employment with a major computer corporation and moved with my wife Jill to Richmond, VA to pursue painting as my work. I would stand outside all day in the hot Richmond sun. It was not unusual for me to work on a piece for over a month, returning to the site day after day. The weather is fairly stable, which meant the scene I was painting stayed the same. I was able to work out my struggles directly on the canvas, scraping, building, and stripping again and again until the piece was done.

In the summer of 1993, we re-located to Iowa. This move had an enormous impact on my creative process. No longer could I stand in one place and paint for very long because the change in the light, the wind, and the terrain was too dynamic. I reduced my completion time from four weeks to one week. In this first series of Iowa works, I completed twelve paintings. I then started a series of fifty palette knife paintings, which helped me to work more directly and spontaneously.

Although the palette knife paintings added a spontaneous dimension to my process, I began to struggle with the challenge of painting a landscape that offers more horizontals than verticals. Looking up, the sky presented me with a solution, and I began to render more and more of the sky and its shifting patterns as a part of each painting. The horizon line became less and less important.

During this time I also came out of my "winter denial." In 1993 through 1996, I painted landscapes in sub-zero degree weather through the windows of our house and the cab of my truck, but mostly held my breath and waited for spring. I also painted interiors. Then I discovered the floral still life as a way to stay in touch with nature while exploring technique, color relationships, textures, and brush strokes in my studio. Having complained about the Iowa winter for three years, this fourth winter actually set me free. This spring when I went back outside to paint, I found my winter work had ripened my vision.

In April I began to experience the first symptoms of my illness, including headaches and an inability to find words to express my thoughts. On June 23, 1996, I was admitted to The University of Iowa Hospital for surgery and was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor. Needless to say, my life and Jill’s life have been torn apart. One day I was healthy, the next, terminally ill.

At first, the outpouring of love and support from our friends and family was enough to carry me; however, acceptance of the prognosis of my illness, that this brain tumor will kill me, has been difficult. I still don’t believe it fully, but tests continue to confirm the tumor’s existence, and so reality prevails.

Regardless, I am still working at my vision. I picked up a brush the first day I was home from surgery, and my painting continued. I find I am now able to use pure color and my paint application is very bold. I think I knew all along in what direction I wanted to take my painting, but for some reason I wouldn’t let myself go there. Now that my time is limited, I am free to do so. Before the tumor, it seems that I was going about from day to day without the sense of urgency one needs to accomplish great things. I felt this urgency in the beginning, but I allowed the "work-a-day" attitude to permeate my creative process. My part-time job to put food on the table began to take time away from my real work, making art.

It takes time to make art, to move in a direction. An artist friend once told me when I first started painting to decide whether or not I wanted to move towards the abstract or the real. I could never decide. Since the diagnosis, I find myself making that decision by using colors and brush strokes motivated by imagination rather than by what I actually see, particularly when it comes to depicting large areas.

Yesterday afternoon, while outside painting, it came to me that I may not even live as long as six months more. And that means that I may not get to where I want to be in my art; I may run out of time. This depresses me. And the question has become "How can I sustain my enthusiasm for my art?" Today’s reality is that I am alive. I’m making art, today. My friends and family love and support me, today. I am actually working as well as I ever have, today. So, despite the fact that life has me pretty well "boxed in," the only way out is for me to continue to use my art as a medium to communicate with others and myself and God."

And with that, I tell myself, "Go on, be grateful for the day! Go out and paint!"

Traveling through the Dark.

William Stafford (1960)

"Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold. I dragged her off; she was large in belly. My fingers touching the side brought me the reason -- her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting, alive, still, never to be born. Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead it's lowered parking lights; under the hood purred the steady engine, I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for all of us -- my only swerving -- then pushed her over the edge into the river."

2 + 2 = 5

How To Stop Worrying And Start Living
Dale Carnegie












"Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? Wouldn't we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of people in this world who make life a
hell for themselves and others by insisting that two plus two equals five-or maybe five hundred!"