Various dog related booths at
the Kirkwood Farmers Market. START will be there.
Saturday, September 22, 9:00 am to Noon.
2b. Elephant
Appreciation Day Demo at St. Louis Zoo,
Noon to 2:00 pm, organized by
ClarasVoice.org. Meet
at the south entrance, at Noon. If you can't make the demo, why not do
something else to honor elephants, like introducing a young friend to
the
Official Elephant Appreciation Day website, filled with
loads of activities and educational fun. Also, check out
Elephant Voices.
You can write a letter to the editor
about the suffering of elephants in captivity. Write a letter
to the zoo, letting them know you want big changes made, like
letting Pearl go to a sanctuary, for starters. (Go to
ClarasVoice.org for
addresses.) Another great idea is to write to the USDA about
poor Tina and Jewel, stuck in one rundown place after another.
Get the details on the
PETA
Circuses site.
3. Mastiff Day at the Dog Museum
Booths and presenters with
information on properly caring for large and giant breed dogs.
Information on rescue and adoption of Mastiffs and similar breeds, with
booths from some unusual breed rescues.
START will be there. Sunday, September 30, 1:00 to 4 or 5:00 pm
(to be determined), at the Museum of the Dog in Queeny Park.
4. Canine Carnival
Hosted by the
APA,
this annual doggy event will take place in Tilles Park on Sunday,
October 7, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. There will be games,
contests, information booths, and rescue groups. START will be
there. Let us know if you'd like to help with our booth.
5. START Monthly Meeting for
October
Tuesday, October 9, 7:00 pm, at the
Brentwood Community Center. Humane Investigator, Bob Baker,
will talk about his former undercover work while a member of the
Humane Farming Association.
He will also discuss his work investigating puppy mills for the ASPCA.
Please bring an Auction item to donate to our two theme baskets.
See #7 below.
6. Halloween Costume Party for Dogs
Booths with information and games for the dogs.
Prizes for best costume. Hosted by the
Gateway American Pit Bull Terrier Club. Sunday,
October 14, 3:00 to 5:00 pm, at the Museum of the Dog in
Queeny Park. Cost is $5 per dog. Games are
free. START will be there. Let us know if you'd like to help with our
booth.
7. An Evening for the Animals Silent
Auction
Saturday, October 27, 6:00 to 9:00 pm, at the Regional Arts Commission
(6128 Delmar). START's biggest annual fundraiser
is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Soooo, WE NEED PEOPLE. The
following is our Wish List for the Auction. We need:
# Volunteers to help
decorate and to set up the tables with the auction items and their bid
sheets
# Volunteers to staff the
admission table
# Volunteers to help serve
the food and clean up tables as needed
# Volunteers to help clean
up at the end
# Donations of gift
certificates, gift cards, gift baskets, etc. Gift certificates, cards,
and baskets could be from restaurants, grocery stores, sporting events,
hair stylists, dog groomers, gyms, movie theaters, video rental, pet
supply stores, maid service, etc. We have a tax-exempt letter you can
give to the businesses if they need one. Just let us know and we can
e-mail/mail it to you or directly to the business.
# Donations of one item
relating to either theme: "A Night at the Movies" or
"Companion Animals." START will put
together two theme baskets to auction, and we'd like members (and
non-members) to donate some item that fits any aspect of these themes.
It could be a DVD or package of popcorn or box of Raisinettes for the
movie night. It could be a dog chew or a bird toy or a bag of cat litter
for the companion animal basket. Use your imagination; it needn't be
expensive. Please bring your item to the
October 9 Monthly Meeting.
There will be a buffet dinner and dessert, drinks, prizes for best
costume, trick 'r treat goody bags, and a whole range of auction items to
fit any budget. Tickets are $15 in advance, or
$20 at the door. Call or e-mail START to reserve your tickets.
B) Ingrid Newkirk
responds to Whoopi Goldberg
Thanks to Dawn for passing along this
PETA blog page, where
Ingrid Newkirk responds to
Whoopi Goldberg's remarks concerning
Michael Vick.
C) Pet-Friendly
License Plate Procedure
For all of you who are interested in obtaining the
new pet-friendly plates, which will help fund spay/neuter services, I have
some advice: Be patient.
It's a multi-step procedure with fees every step of
the way:
1) Go to the
Missouri State Humane Association
(
MoSHA) website, and print out the
Emblem Use
Authorization Statement (
EUAS). Fill out just
the area specifying "Applicant Information." Mail the form along with a
check for either
$25 (1 year) or
$50 (2 years)
to the address on the form. What this form does is ask for permission to
use the official emblem, or design, of the specialty plate. This money
(4/5 of the fee) goes to fund the spay/neuter services, overseen by MoSHA.
In 4-6 weeks you should receive the
EUAS form with the
official signature on it.
2) Go to any MO
Department of Revenue (DOR) office
(license office), and ask for an Application for Personalized and
Special License Plates (form 1716). You can
either stand in line for 45 minutes as I naively did, or you can step up
to the counter (enduring dirty looks the whole time) and ask for the form,
as one smart and brave man did the day I was there. They have them
sitting behind the counter.
3) Fill out the form
1716, making sure to check the boxes next to the type of vehicle
and the type of specialty plate you want. This one is called "I'm
Pet Friendly." Because the DOR does not stock
these plates with pre-set numbers, as they do with some other specialty
plates, you have to choose your own personalization. At
the bottom of the form, they give you space for up to six choices of
personalization. (If you want to find out whether your choices have been
taken already, you can call the number on the form. But, there is no
centralized list you can check yourself.)
4) After spending an
eternity trying to come up with something clever that 5,000 other people
haven't already thought of, you will mail this form
plus a check for $15 plus the EUAS
form to the Jefferson City address on the form.
5) When Jeff City gets
around to sending you notice that your plates are ready, you will head
back to the DOR office to wait in line again. This time
you will need to remove the plates you now have on your vehicle so you can
trade them in for the new specialty ones. If you chose to go through this
bureaucratic nightmare only once every two years, you
will need another $15 to give to the DOR clerk when you
get your new plates.
6) The best part is you get
to do this every time you renew your plates. I have to admit you do run
into some interesting people when you hang out at the license office for
45 minutes. So far, I am between steps 4 and 5, waiting for the
notification. I'll keep you posted on my progress.
D) Ellen Jaffe
Some of you may remember
Ellen Jaffe, who used to be a
St. Louis reporter and then investment advisor. She is now thriving in
Florida, and the latest addition of the
McDougall Newsletter spotlights her success on a low-fat
vegan diet for disease prevention.
E) E-Newsletters and
Alerts
If you don't already receive some of these e-newsletters and alerts, they
are definitely worth considering:
Farmed Animal
Watch Agriculture-based news straight from the mainstream
media and the industry itself. No one can accuse you of fudging the
numbers or exaggerating the horrors when you get your stats from objective
sources.
GM Watch
Keep tabs on the companies that want earth to be one giant genetically
modified organism.
SPEAK
Campaigns Fighting for the animals held captive at Oxford
University.