creiter's blog

‘My name is Crabby Appleton,
I’m rotten to the core
I do a bad deed every day,
and sometimes three or four.
I can’t stand fun for anyone,
I think good deeds are sappy,
I laugh with glee, it pleases me,
when everyone’s unhappy!’

Everyone knows someone that fits this description. The song is from the old “Captain Kangaroo Show,” sung by the villain on the Tom Terrific cartoons.

I am a native Californian. My dad was a native Californian, and so was my grandmother and my great-grandmother. In fact, my nephews are both natives too, so that makes those two boys fifth-generation Golden staters.
Most of those folks were born in the San Joaquin Valley. My dad and my nephew were both born in Oakland, but the rest of us claim good old Fresno County as our birthplace.
So I can pretty much say that I know what I like about this area, and what I don’t like. I’m not going to make a list or anything--just bring up one thing that’s been bugging me.

It’s April, and we’re looking at another dry year as far as rainfall, and snow in the mountains, goes.
You might be thinking right about now, Hey, I don’t care, I’m not a farmer. I just turn on the faucet and, bingo, there’s water anytime I need it.
Well, stop and think the next time you turn that faucet on: What would happen if nothing came out? For a lot of the world, that’s an everyday occurrence. I recently did a story about Dr. Hanimireddy Lakireddy, a local cardiologist who goes to his hometown in India and helps the poor. And one of the most important things that he did was to put in wells, so the people could have water when they turned on a faucet.

This week on the Oprah show, the talk show hostess did a piece on puppy mills.
She had horrifying videos of the way that puppy mills operate, and vowed never to ‘buy’ another animal from any type of breeder.
To legitimate dog breeders, those puppy mills are not the way dogs should be bred. Good, honest breeders do a lot of work before ever breeding their dogs, including making sure that the dogs have no conformation or personality problems, and do not have any inherited diseases.

Where do religious practices and the health of a child meet? In Wisconsin, an 11-year-old girl recently died because she had Type 1 diabetes. Her parents, instead of getting medical help for the child, prayed for her instead.
The little girl laid for a month in a coma, getting sicker and sicker, until finally the parents called for help.
It was too late. The child died, and now the parents are claiming religious freedom. They say that their right to practice religion gives them the authority to do what they want with their children.

Last year, all of the horse slaughterhouses in the United States were closed. The folks who think that slaughtering horses for food, to be shipped overseas, is barbaric and unnecessary had their way, and there is no slaughtering of horses in the United States.
Has that stopped horse slaughter? No. In the Journal of the American Veterinary Association an article pointed out that since the ban, horse slaughter in Mexico has jumped 312 percent.