By Richard Larsen

Some fear it, while others extol it. The quantification of demographic information is perhaps the most mundane thing the government does, but don’t let that mundaneness fool you. Its results are at the heart of the politics and federal funds allocation for the next several years which makes it even more imperative that the decennial census be accurate and reliable.

Many have fears of the census gathering process. People who are here illegally fear discovery of their status which will lead to deportation (which it cannot, by law) and some fear the data will somehow be used to curtail or abridge their constitutional rights. Yet neither fear is justified as long as the constitutional intent and the US Code upon which the census is based are followed.

Authorization for the census comes from the Constitution itself. Article I, Section 2 of our constitution reads: “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” Subsequent US Code, Titles 13 and 26, guarantee the private nature of the data gathered, which should mollify concerns of those who have fears about it. In short, census data cannot be used to prosecute, extradite, or deport anyone living in the U.S.

Not only are the quantitative data generated by the census important for providing the demographic composition of the country, but they’re used to determine how many congressional seats, and electoral votes, each state has. It’s also used in the formulas for distributing nearly $400 billion in federal funds each year.

The 2000 census results led to significant changes in the electoral and congressional landscape. Eighteen states changed the number of electoral votes and congressional seats they have. Two states, New York and Pennsylvania, lost two votes each. Four states, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and Florida, gained two votes each. Four additional states gained one vote and eight states lost one vote. Utah was 86 people short of gaining a seat, which led to a court challenge which later afforded them that seat.

Politicians know how important this process is, which is why the White House announced last year they were going to have the Chief of Staff to the president oversee the census, rather than the Commerce Department, where it has been handled since 1902. This was one of the issues which precluded Senator Judd Gregg from accepting his appointment as Secretary of Commerce. A firestorm erupted, exacerbated by the fact that the dubious group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) was slated to be one of the partner organizations for this years’ census. ACORN was dropped from participation last September. And even though the official census form and correspondence identify the Commerce Department as the source of the census information, I’ve not seen any recantation from the White House that Rahm Emanuel is overseeing the operation which is of concern from a manipulation and politicization perspective.

The 2010 version of the census features one of the shortest questionnaires ever with only 10 questions, and should take all of three minutes to complete. There used to be a “long form” with nearly 100 questions sent out to roughly 20% of respondents, but that is being discontinued in favor of continuous data gathering by the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is a nationwide, continuous survey designed to provide reliable and timely demographic, housing, social, and economic data every year. The ACS will replace the long form in 2010 and thereafter by collecting long-form-type information throughout the decade rather than only once every 10 years.

The 2000 census was considered the most accurate to date with 98% accuracy, according to the Census Bureau. Still, with 2% error, that means roughly 6 million people were not accurately tabulated from the most accurate census yet. That equates to roughly $9 billion not properly allocated because of lost head count.

According to my dear friend Rogerio Castro, who works with the Census Bureau, over 2000 people in Pocatello were not counted ten years ago. That represents a loss of federal revenue of roughly $2.8 million annually for infrastructure, highways, community improvements, education, veterans support, senior citizen support, and health services.

The decennial census is constitutionally mandated, and the results are critical to our electoral representation and distribution of funds to Southeast Idaho. Take the three minutes to complete the census. It’s time for all of us to be counted.

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By Richard Larsen

Imagine yourself preparing to pay for your purchase at a local grocery store, and the clerk asks you, “Paper or plastic?” Innocuously, and preferring the diverse functionality of plastic bags, you reply, “Plastic.” Next thing you know your head is being smacked against the scanner and you’re being cuffed by some fearsome-looking officer dressed in green and white, and he declares, “That’s the magic word. Green police. You picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy.”

On returning home you see similarly attired officers scavenging through all your neighbors’ garbage cans, obviously looking for contraband. One officer yells out ecstatically, “Batteries!” at which time a swarm of green and white clad police leap into action and converge on the perpetrator of the heinous crime. What? You missed the crime? He threw away batteries. You can’t be much more egregious in your crimes against humanity and the earth than that!

That evening, after indulging in one of your favorite fruits, you go to the sink to dispose of the orange peeling in the garbage disposal. Before you even have a chance to place the offending rinds into the sink, a spotlight blinds you from a helicopter circling overhead, and an authoritative voice commands, “Put the rind down.” You should have known, it should have been composted instead of chopped up in the disposal. You abruptly turn and run for your life from the omnipresent green police as you see them swarming up your driveway to arrest you.

You next observe your neighbor doing a “perp-walk” down his driveway, while a live television crew covers the horrific incident. The announcer declares, “Tragedy strikes tonight for a man who has just been arrested for possession of an incandescent light bulb.” The bulb was undoubtedly a 100 watt variety, which is now banned from production and sale in the United States. He should have known better, you think to yourself, and had his incandescent bulbs replaced with those squirrelly mercury-based bulbs that require a HASMAT team to clean up when they’re broken.

You notice a couple of youth nearby being detained by the green police who are ostentatiously pouring the water out of their plastic water bottles, declaring, “What do you think of your plastic water bottles now?” They should have used bota bags, as long as they weren’t made of leather. That would have made them subject to harassment from the PETA police.

The green police have swarmed into another neighbor’s yard where a young couple is relaxing in a hot tub. You notice one officer attempting to place handcuffs on the young man, while another is proclaiming their crime, “The water setting is at a hundred and five.” The young man flees for his life.

These scenarios were played out during the Super Bowl a few weeks ago in an Audi “clean diesel” car commercial. All good humor (if we accept the premise that the ad was designed to be humorous) has an element of truth which provides the foundation for jocularity. The element of truth here is that there are no doubt many who would support such fascistic efforts to protect the environment and “save the planet.”

Those who would dogmatically adhere to such a creed would no doubt like to see legislation and enforcement by “Green Police” supporting their pantheistic pet peeves. Those who either worship the earth on a par with God, or in lieu of God, who believe all the earth’s inhabitants should be forced to abide by their personal pantheistic or environmentally conscious standards. But would not such legislation and enforcement be on a par with their accusations against protectors of the unborn, of “legislating morality”? Would that not that also be on a par with refusing “the right to choose,” which ostensibly is the sacrosanct precept upon which abortion rights are argued? The dichotomy makes for a delicious debate. Based on that value system, it’s okay to choose to kill the unborn, but it’s not acceptable to choose plastic over paper. Now that’s a warped value system!

There are parts of the country well on their way to such “Green Police” enforcement. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom twittered, “Ok. That ‘green police’ Audi commercial hits home.” And no wonder it hits home for him. His city currently requires citizens to compost their food waste, or face a $500 fine for violation. Nationally, President Obama and the majority leadership in Washington want to enact an energy policy (Cap and Trade) that will impose punitive fines for what they deem excessive carbon emissions, and impose drastically higher electricity costs and lower standards of living. New York has its own trans-fat police forcing restaurants into municipal ordinance compliance. That’s just a tip of the iceberg.

Freedom has a price, and part of it is vigilance by the citizens to prevent fascistic and tyrannical coercions of do-gooders who seek to impose their extremist environmental morality on the rest of us. While intended as humor, the Audi Super Bowl ad can serve as an awakening to the intentions of such extremists. Heaven forbid that the ad should serve as a portent of things to come.

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By Richard Larsen

When our nations’ founders drafted the Bill of Rights, comprising the first ten amendments to the Constitution, they spelled out rights that are to be extended to all citizens. Not just those who are privileged, or those who have money, or even those who don’t have money. Not just those who belong to select organizations or groups, but to all citizens. Consequently, when they penned “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” those were rights to be universally enjoyed and protected.

Contrary to the assertions by recent Journal columnists, one a retired physician and the other a government professor at ISU, the recent Supreme Court decision on campaign finance reform was a resurrection and reaffirmation of freedom of speech for all citizens whether they work for a labor union or a corporation. Their homilies predictably denounced the decision, based not on constitutional grounds, but on ideological grounds.

They’re not alone, for even the President in his State of the Union address, lamented the decision, and even he resorted to inaccuracy and misrepresentation to do so. He said, “‘Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the flood gates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.” The case had nothing to do with foreign corporations’ participation in our electoral process, and the Supreme Court ruling did nothing to undo Federal Election Commission restrictions on them. No wonder Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito rolled his eyes and shook his head when Obama said that. He, like the rest of us who knew what the ruling did and didn’t do, was undoubtedly thinking, “And this guy used to teach constitutional law?” Obama was either displaying his ignorance or he was lying. You can take your pick. If George W. Bush had said something that egregiously incorrect, the press would still be buzzing about it. To be precise, foreign corporations were prohibited from participating in U.S. elections before the Citizens United decisions and they still are.

What the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling actually determined was that corporations and non-profit organizations may spend general funds on election-related activity. The ruling means that they no longer have to set up political action committees in order to have a voice in campaigns. They can pay for their own ads, but they still cannot contribute directly to candidates’ campaigns. The ban on such contributions by corporations, originally enacted in 1907 as the Tillman Act, remains untouched.

The ruling slightly negates the advantage held by main-stream media, which can, and do, attempt to influence elections by their stories about campaigns and candidates, by allowing others to counter their assertions. The media have had a monopoly on editorial exegesis couched in the context of “reporting,” but other corporations and nonprofits now will have a voice. Corporations will also be able to speak during the electioneering cycle on a par with unions, who have been virtually unfettered in their support of candidates and causes.

Richard Viguerie, who created direct mail solicitation empowering conservative causes, said of the ruling, that it “ means that the anti-incumbent furor that has been growing is partly released from the shackles created by ‘incumbent protection’ election and campaign finance laws. The dirty little secret about all campaign finance laws passed by Congress since 1972 is that they were designed to protect incumbents by stifling competition. This ruling is especially important for advocacy causes and organizations, which may now more freely express opinions about incumbents.”

This case was based on whether the government could ban a movie about Hillary Clinton before the primary elections of 2008. And what lost the case for Obama’s attorneys was asserting that the government could even ban the publishing of books, even electronic books, if they mentioned a candidate within the election timeframe. All Americans should understand the unconstitutionality of controlling and curtailing free speech by the government in this fashion. Understandably, those justices committed to freedom of speech rights came unglued at the notion that the government could exercise such egregious stifling of free speech rights.

Free speech is fundamental to the construct of the American republic. It should not be favorably protected by the government for mainstream media and labor unions to the exclusion of other individuals, corporations, or nonprofit entities. In short, leveling the playing field with media and labor unions is a reaffirmation of free speech, not a diminution of it. How encouraging that we have at least five justices on the Supreme Court who understand this critical principle.

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By Richard Larsen

I’m genuinely concerned for the health of our president. At least his mental health. With increasing frequency, he evinces signs of delusion. Or maybe he thinks we’re too ignorant to recognize it. Either way, there’s ample evidence of a mental separation from reality that should be of great concern to all of us.

For example, in his State of the Union address last week, he said “Our government is deeply in debt after what can only be described as a decade of profligacy.” This statement immediately brings to mind the editorial cartoon the Journal ran a couple weeks ago where the president was attempting to fly a paper airplane that said “Blame Bush” on the side of it, and a citizen was telling him, “It doesn’t fly anymore.” It really doesn’t, especially as it deals with government spending.

In 2006, the last year the Republicans controlled congress, the federal deficit, which is tax receipts for the year minus spending, was $248 billion. But on the heels of the presidents’ comments last week, he attempts to float a lead balloon of a budget that boasts $3.8 trillion in federal government spending, more than a 50% increase over 2006 figures, and a whopping $1.6 trillion deficit. That’s fully 7 times larger than the deficit was in 2006. If the last decade represented “profligate” spending, what does that make his proposed spending? Profligate times 7? At this rate of spending growth and irresponsible fiscal policy, the U.S. will join Greece, Spain, and Portugal in having its debt instruments, bonds, notes and bills, downgraded and highly suspect to astute investors.

The news about Greece’s likely default on its debt sank markets around the globe this week. Part of the problem is that their deficit is estimated at 12.7% of GDP (gross domestic production), with debt above 110% of GDP. To put that in perspective, the U.S. right now has a deficit which is 10.6% of GDP and total national debt, with this week’s increase of $2 trillion by congress, now standing at 100% of GDP. For those who wish that the U.S. was more like Europe, at least from a financial perspective, you’ve gotten your wish. We’re about to join the ranks of nearly bankrupt countries from Europe!

Most of our federal government debt is financed by selling treasuring bonds, notes, and bills. The Chinese government currently owns about 23% of all the outstanding U.S. debt. With all this spending proposed by Obama, the assumption is made that China, and investors around the world, will be willing to buy our paper (debt). But a Chinese official said a few weeks ago, before Obama rolled out his new spend-thrift budget, that there is not enough money in the world to buy all the U.S. treasuries needed to fund Obama’s spending.

Obama also said last week, “We can’t simply move beyond this crisis; we have to address the irresponsibility that led to it, and that includes the failure to rein in spending….” While castigating a previous administration with a fraction of the deficit that he’s proposing, and a budget a third smaller than what he’s proposing, he has the audacity to claim that he’s “reining in spending?” He’s not reining in anything, but kicking and spurring the federal spending stallion into a full gallop, and he’s heading for a cliff.

The president also said, “It would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today….” Yet that’s exactly what he’s proposing. His new budget calls for an astonishing $1.7 trillion in new taxes, including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. We will not be paying for his full $3.7 trillion budget even with all those increased taxes…our children will be. Didn’t Bernie Madoff just go to prison for doing the same thing? What the president is proposing is multigenerational larceny and a federal government Ponzi scheme.

He also made a big deal in his State of the Union address that he would freeze discretionary spending, which is about 7% of the federal budget, for three years…starting next year! That’s after he already boosted discretionary spending by 20% his first year in office. So his proclaimed “spending freeze” is no more than a façade, where the 20% increases from this year are locked into place, starting next year. Discretionary spending typically increases about 3% per year, so he’s proposed “reducing spending” growth by only locking in discretionary spending by twice that amount!

When there is such a detachment from what one says versus what one does, it moves beyond cognitive dissonance, and into the realm of detachment from reality, which is associated with a number of mental disorders. We truly hope he isn’t smitten with any of these, but the evidence is increasing daily.

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By Andi Elliott

Just wondering… what does it take to get animal cruelty charges filed in Jefferson County?

I can tell you what it doesn’t take. It doesn’t take allowing your dog with multiple broken legs and laying in your yard for almost 5 days without medical care. It doesn’t take half starving your horses winter after winter until the horses are stunted. And for sure, it doesn’t take throwing a Chihuahua puppy against the wall and breaking its shoulder.

The 7 hounds in Menan will tell you that though they were starved to mere skeletons… it wasn’t enough for animal cruelty charges to be filed until public pressure forced authorities to act. Ask the old horse who made it through one more winter and come spring, looked like “hide stretched over bones”. That wasn’t enough. When she could no longer stand…that wasn’t enough either.

According to Idaho Codes Chapter 25-3511…it takes “allowing animals to needlessly suffer”. It takes a veterinarian’s statement of condition. But also, it takes a sheriff who will enforce the law. It takes county commissioners who refuse to look the other way. Sometimes it takes an irate public.

I have learned that you can have “the law”, and a vet’s statement”, and you can have incomprehensible cruelty but what it really takes is a sheriff with compassion. One who is willing to utilize the resources offered for help. But above all, it takes a sheriff who realizes that he may be the only hope to end an animal’s suffering.

Andi Elliott
Hamer, ID
For the Love of Pets Foundation
President
Petango.com/FTLOP

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Radio can always be unpredictable, but internet radio seems especially prone to glitches. Unfortunately, phone problems prevented the airing of Friday’s interviews with Janet Trujillo and Dr. Don Schanz.

Janet, candidate for Bonneville County Treasurer, has agreed to another interview on Monday’s Halli & Friends show. She is a principle-based conservative, and you will want to hear her views on county government.

Tune in Monday, 1-2pm MST, on BlogTalkRadio.com/Idaho Talk. Call in at (917) 889-3946 with question and comments for Janet.

Constitutional expert Bob Webster will also be a guest on Monday’s show.

I also hope to reschedule Dr. Schanz in the near future.

Thanks for your patience as I try out this new medium!

By Richard Larsen

Ralph Waldo Emerson penned the “Concord Hymn” in 1837, citing a “shot heard round the world.” The shot he so eloquently referred to was the opening salvo fired in 1775 in the Massachusetts townships of Lexington and Concord. Those shots marked the fiery inception of the American Civil War as American colonialists began their revolt against financial and political oppression imposed by the English Crown.

More than 230 years later, a similarly astonishing “shot” has been heard, if not round the world, at least across the land and hopefully echoing loudly in the halls of Congress. This shot was fired collectively by the bluest of blue electorate of that same commonwealth, and catapulted a relatively unknown state senator, Scott Brown, into the U.S. Senate seat held by John Kennedy, and then Edward Kennedy, since 1953.

The “shot” metaphor may not fully capture the significance of the election of a Republican Senator from a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1. Throughout his campaign, Brown consistently and convincingly articulated a conservative message of returning to common sense and true fiscal responsibility. In short, he ran against Obama’s agenda in the bluest state in the union. And won.

Exit polling conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates, an independent polling firm, was precise in its conclusions that “Obamacare” and the way the congress was ramming it down the nations’ throat was the reason for Brown’s victory. Their data indicated that “fully 48% of voters say that health care was the issue deciding their vote. When combined with their second choice issue, health care mentions reached 62%. Brown’s health care position/opposition to Obama health care plan was the top reason for voting for him by wide margin. A plurality of voters said their vote was a vote to stop the President’s health care plan – more than those saying it was a vote against his policies in general. A majority of these voters oppose the President’s health care plan and disapprove of the job he’s doing on health care.”

These conclusions echo the sentiments expressed in an email forwarded to me by dear friend in California. It was originally sent to him by a family member who lives in Massachusetts. The family member said, “As a Conservative Democrat, (not yet an Independent) I want Washington to wake up, toss out Pelosi, arrogant politician that she is, who will still try to ram through decisions Americans do not want… but yesterday, again, Massachusetts ‘fired the shot heard round the world.’ Independence began here and it is still here. Walking by the Old Granary Burial Ground here this morning, I thought I heard the voices of Paul Revere, John Hancock and Sam Adams whispering: ‘Well done, Massachusetts sons and daughters.’”

As the American Thinker published earlier this week, “Sure, Martha Coakley ran a horrible campaign. But Democrats win safe seats with horrible campaigns all the time. Brown ran a great campaign, but good candidates lose uphill battles all the time in places like Massachusetts.” To put this in perspective, Obama won Massachusetts by 26 points just a year ago.

While reasons for Brown’s victory may be many, there is clearly a change of mood throughout the nation as more and more citizens become disenchanted with the direction Washington is taking the country. “Buyers’ remorse” is common in a retail setting, and it appears obvious that what we are witnessing is political buyers’ remorse by many who bought into the “hope and change” mantra.

Such buyers’ remorse was evidenced this week by Mort Zuckerman, former Harvard Business School professor and current editor of the U.S. News and World Report and an Obama supporter. He admitted on CNBC this week that he sees nothing in the Obama economic agenda that makes sense and predicts Massachusetts-like electoral reversals across the country in November leading to a Republican landslide if Washington leadership continues unabated on their populist anti-capitalism agenda.

In his acceptance speech to supporters Tuesday night, Brown declared, “Across this country — to all those folks who are listening, if you’re covering me — we are united by basic convictions that only need to be clearly stated to win a majority — and if anyone doubts that in this next election season that’s about to begin — well, let them take a look at what happened here in Massachusetts. Because what happened here in Mass can happen all over America.” How we pray he is right!

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Miracle in Massachusetts

The election of Scott Brown yesterday to the U.S. Senate is nothing short of a miracle. History buffs tells us that it has been some 60 years since a Republican was elected to the Senate from that bastion of liberalism. But that is the least of the historic indicators.

Start with the fact that this was “Ted Kennedy’s Seat”. Add the overriding dynamic of federalized health care, purported to be Kennedy’s dying request of the Democrat establishment, and you have a pretty large barrel of political gun powder. The people of Massachusetts took the dare and lit the fuse, providing real hope that ObamaCare is so much scattered debris laying about the White House.

As of this writing, the White House has not issued a public reaction to the explosion. No doubt the spin masters are earning their checks. Yet one can safely predict that any form of denial or minimizing of what happened will only further diminish Obama. He ought not try a replay of his phony answer for the huge Republican wins in New Jersey and Virginia. Hopefully, he will take the public rebuke like a man and hold himself accountable to this blatant expression of public disgust with his plans to nationalize health – particularly his immoral drive to expand abortion through public subsidy.

But there is such an irrational obsession with “passing health care reform” that one can’t predict the official Democrat reaction to Brown’s victory.

As we await their response, we can do so with renewed hope for our country. It seems that the Lord has once again extended His mercy to America.

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By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, Published 01/17/10

I can’t help but think that Martin Luther King, Jr. would not be very happy with us today. After all, so many of the principles that were dear to him and gave his life purpose are not held with the same regard that they were when he was enlightening a divided culture.

He taught, for example, “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” He wasn’t all that keen on welfare programs, and yielding our personal responsibility and accountability to the state.

He probably wouldn’t have been too supportive of the identity politics going on these days, either, where politicians sell out to special interests for votes, rather than doing what’s best for the nation. For as he said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” And as if to underscore this notion, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

I think he would be supportive of the peaceful and principled “Tea Party” revolts against a government seeking to diminish individual liberty and exact oppressive taxation on the productive members of society. As he said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Certainly those are wise words of encouragement to those of us who object to the direction the country is headed now.

As further evidence of his support for the “Tea Party” cause, he once said, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.” Individual and universal freedom was everything to him, without regard to ethnicity, and advocated freedom, as opposed to government programs that diminish the freedom to build, achieve, be rewarded for those achievements, and succeed.

On another occasion he said, “I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be as a people, our destiny is tied up in the destiny of America.”

Echoing those immortal words of the father of the modern conservative movement, Edmund Burke, who said “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” King said, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

King was a highly principled man, driven by truths and fundamental values. He referred often to those values. “If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.” Some of those values were the very foundational principles upon which the nation was founded, that he found lacking in their application to all American equally. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

I think Martin Luther King would have concurred with Morgan Freeman a few years ago in a “60 Minutes” interview with Mike Wallace. Wallace started out, “Black History Month, you find…”, Freeman interjected, “Ridiculous.” The interview continued.

WALLACE: Why?
FREEMAN: You’re going to relegate my history to a month?
WALLACE: Come on.
FREEMAN: What do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month? Come on, tell me.
WALLACE: I’m Jewish.
FREEMAN: OK. Which month is Jewish History Month?
WALLACE: There isn’t one.
FREEMAN: Why not? Do you want one?
WALLACE: No, no.
FREEMAN: I don’t either. I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.
WALLACE: How are we going to get rid of racism until…?
FREEMAN: Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You’re not going to say, ‘I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ Hear what I’m saying?”

That sounds a lot like what Martin Luther King said, that his children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” And for that, we honor you and your work, and strive to that end.

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Humane Society of the Upper Valley

There it is again…the desperate, heartbreaking howl. She’s been there over a year. When they moved in last winter, she was chained to a stake. I didn’t notice her until the first snowstorm. For 5 hours I waited for someone to return home. She remained curled in the snow with no shelter. I called the Sheriff’s Department. They located the family and shortly, a doghouse arrived. I wondered what type of people these were that had to be forced to provide shelter for the animal.

As time passed, I would watch as their son would go out to feed her. Often he would kick the dog to the ground before feeding her. I spoke with the father… a useless endeavor.

They erected a 10 x 10 chain link kennel at the back of the property. She’s been there a year now. We built a structure for shade to give her relief from the hot doghouse, but it was refused. “She’s a cow dog,” he responded, implying that she was meant to suffer.

Twice now, I’ve seen the kids let her run and her joy is boundless…running in wide circles but obediently coming when the kids call to return her to “the prison”. But that was last summer. Weeds have now grown up around her wire cage. She’s only visible when she stands on her hind legs desperately trying to catch sight of her family.

The howl comes more often nowadays…you can hear her growing desperation. Her loneliness is becoming unbearable.

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