The concern about salmonella and peanut butter has widen to include Canada. There have been recalls issued in Canada:
The ongoing Twitter question is “What are you doing?”. In the case of a particular Twitter stream, the appropriate answer to that question would be “surgery”:
Much praise is being directed to Shreve Stockton for her new book about raising a young orphaned coyote. The tributes to her are much deserved and Charlie, the coyote, is a fascinating character. However, I would like to focus a bit on Eli, the cat, and his role in this process.
One of the regular emails that I receive almost daily is a request to publicize that a certain pet shelter is in need of help. The emails come from all across the country. It seems that, as the economy grows worse and people are losing their jobs, more and more pets are turned into shelters. The owners simply cannot afford to keep them. In some cases, the families are going through turmoil and losing their homes. The shelters are seen as a temporary measure until things are less chaotic.
The military is placed in a delicate situation. It knows how important it is for morale that the personnel keep in touch with the people back home. The military also knows that, inadvertently, sensitive information may be disclosed that could compromise operations and the security of their people.
Do you have a copy of PC Magazine? Keep it. Wrap it carefully. Store it is a secure location. It will become valuable. You may want to go to the news stand and buy more. It is guaranteed to become valuable because the print edition will disappear:
I have been experimenting with Twitter. I haven’t decided whether I like it or not. It certainly has enormous possibilities. For example, it can link local area business people, like real estate agents who might want to let their network of people know about a particular property that is a bargain. Today, I received some email from security people asking what I thought of Twitter as an emergency broadcast system. My immediate thought was the Twitter ‘fail whale’. That is the Twitter screen that indicates that there is trouble (possibly an overload) on the system. Perhaps that idea is a future possibility.
Microsoft made a significant contribution in providing children a means of seeking help. The National Society for the prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) will be offer contact through text messaging and the internet:
“…Help to expand the NSPCC services is coming from Microsoft in the shape of a £1.3m donation of software and services from Microsoft. Also included in the donation is space on the MSN homepage through which children will be able to contact ChildLine.
“This is an important partnership for us, and an important issue,” said Akhtar Badshah, Microsoft’s senior director of global community affairs.”
link: Hi-tech help for children at risk
Microsoft should be applauded in this philanthropic effort. And Microsoft is providing some valuable internet real estate on the MSN home page as a means of connecting with children at risk. Kudos to Microsoft.
Catherine Forsythe
Consider it dog politics. From the very first day that you bring pup home to the last day that your senior citizen canine spends with you, there is an ongoing leadership issue. Pup will want to know three things:
These will be questions that pup will revisit for a lifetime. It is in his/her DNA. It is part of the innate programming of that dog whose ancestors survived by being pack animals. Those dogs’ very survival depended on pack leadership and following the wisdom of that hierarchy. The question for the dog owner is ‘are you the pack leader or not?’. There is no ‘in-between’; a relationship with a dog is not an exercise in democratic ideology.
The owner’s pack leadership is challenged constantly - and subtly. Here is an example. Your dog may want to go out. So, the dog goes to the back door and barks. As a conscientious owner, you immediately go and open the door to let the dog go and do whatever bladder / bowel things are necessary. You go back a few minutes later and call the dog. And then you perhaps wait. [By the way, you have just ruined your "come" / recall command.] And you wait. In a few minutes, the dog comes and you go about with whatever you were doing. It is a regular household routine to which you do not give much thought now.
Through the dog’s perspective, you are the ‘door servant’. A bark at the door means ‘open the door for me’. Your call from the door means that you are ready to open the door when the dog decides to join you.
*** At this point, you will be objecting. You will be saying to yourself: ‘Catherine, that is what we want the dog to do. The bark at the door tells us when the dog needs to go outside’.
Let me address that with an imaginary human example. - Your employer wants you in the room. You may be needed. You excuse yourself to visit the rest room. Some time goes by and your employer goes to look for you. You are wandering about, perhaps looking out the window. Your employers tells you that you are needed. You reply that you will be there when you ‘feel like it’. Such behaviour would not be the wisest decision for job security.
However, that is exactly what the dog is doing. The dog is controlling its environment and telling you, in dog terms, who is the pack leader. And, unfortunately, it is not you.
Catherine Forsythe
Part 2 of this series will offer some solutions.
It seems that ‘do you twitter?‘ or ‘do you have a twitter account?‘ are the most frequently asked questions in my email for the last couple of months. The answer is - no, I don’t have a twitter account (or ‘I don’t twitter’ - since it seems ‘twitter’ is becoming a verb.)
There are several reasons that I don’t have a twitter account. I tend to be a bit ‘wordy’, as the readers here and my poor professors have found. Twitter’s a hundred and forty character limit seem a bit restricting. Further, I have no idea what I would want to post on a twitter account. I have spent the last week or so monitoring my day and seeing if there was anything ‘twitterable’ (let’s make the word an adjective too). Fortunately or unfortunately, there was not a moment that I thought ‘hey, that is something that I should put on a mini-blog!’. Some family members and total strangers might like to know. Of course, the sad fact may be that I may be boring mcboring.
In any case, the people who suggest that I do set up an account on twitter are biased. I would like to hear from you and use you as a small focus group. What are the positives and negatives of using twitter? What started you on twitter - or kept you away from the twitter service? I am ‘atwitter’ to know (sorry, it had to be said).
Catherine
