Lots of News Today...

Today has been a busy day for the PPP and though I like my posts to have a theme, today we have lots of various news tidbits to share with you.

First, we are very sadden to hear of the lost of Mickey Rourke's dog Loki as he passed away this week from old age. We had just written a post this past Saturday on Mickey Rourke and of his love and devotion to his dogs whom he has credited as saving his life. Loki (named after a god in Norse mythology) was the love of his life. We here at the PPP know the pain of losing a dog who is the love of your life. Mickey Rourke has lost dogs before as our lifespan is not as long as humans so when you love us there is a big chance you will outlive your pets and have to suffer through losing us.

My advice to Mickey Rourke is to take your time grieving for Loki. Then when the time comes, to start celebrating Loki's life. And what a life! He was there for Mickey through thick and thin, poor and rich, happy and not so happy moments. Loki had a very long, adventurous life with Mickey Rourke. Instead of Loki, he could have been named Lucky! He was much loved, cherished and taken care of. At least Loki was around long enough to see Mickey make an amazing comeback in his career and to be acknowledged as one of the reasons why Mickey was able to crawl from the bottom to the top again. Hopefully this coming Sunday for the Academy Awards, Loki will pull some of his Norseman god power and get his master the Academy Award for best actor. Peace out Loki!



My second bit of news today comes from Connecticut. You might have heard of a 200 lbs Chimpanzee going crazy and attacking the owner and critically injuring her friend. The chimp named Travis was eventually shot by local police after he tried to attack one of the police men. He then ran away and managed to find his way back to his house and die in his cage on his bed. This is a sad story on so many levels. The women who he attacked is in serious critical condition and may not make it, the owner is traumatized and Travis has lost his life.

When are people going to learn that some animals are not meant to live domestically with human beings? Travis's owner is also an elderly woman, Travis is 200 lbs, 14 year old and although he had no history of violence I don't understand how she thought she would be able to take care of such a large, undomesticated animal. Travis also was very popular in his town of Stamford, CT as he worked as an animal entertainer and did lots of print work. This alone can be an entirely new post for the PPP of using animals that should be in the wild as creatures of entertainment.

You might ask if I include myself (dog, cats, all domestic pets) in this topic of being exploited by the entertainment industry and living in a domestic setting instead of the wild. Um, I will have to think about that as it can be a black and white answer or all shades of gray. I would just like people to give more thought of animals and letting them reside where they will be happiest and what is closer to their natural habitat (um I guess sleeping in my mom's bed would be a big no-no, but it soo soft).

A few weeks ago I had a website showing the very funny commercial from Pedigree about inappropriate pets for the home showing a rhinoceros running through a woman's living room and smashing down her wall, a women chasing after her pet ostrich who is chasing the postman and some dudes throwing a Frisbee to a water buffalo expecting him to catch it (he doesn't). This commercial hits the nail on the head of what happened in Stamford, Ct.



My third news item today is that North Dakota passed a ban on abortion for that state. It still has to be passed by the state senate but this puts the PPP on RED ALERT as we are adamantly Pro-Choice. We here at the PPP know abortion is not a great thing, nor is it anything that anyone aspires to achieve in their life, but we can't have old, white men deciding this for women. So we have me; a young, white dog fighting for a woman's right to chose. When push comes to shove most women decide to chose life, however what right we have to force a woman to do what she obviously does not want to do? Thank goodness we have President Barack Obama who was previously a professor of constitutional law to help women gain back some of the rights we have lost in the last eight years during the Bush administration. The PPP will advise you more on this topic in the future.



My last item today is about the Democratic Republic of Congo. Last night my mom went to a lecture for "Raise Hope for Congo" at NYU and the topic was rape and violence against the women of the Congo. My mommy said that she actually became physically ill hearing the lecturers tell of the atrocities still being done to the women of the Congo today. I am a little Maltese dog living on the Upper East Side who leads a charmed life, so to hear these stories made the fluffy, white hair on my back stand up. We will be reporting in the future on the PPP all we can do to raise awareness of what is happening in the Congo. I will report what we learned at a future date as we will want to organize events to raise awareness amongst our friends and readers of the PPP. Let me just say this. I will never complain to my mommy again about my food, the clothes that she makes me wear and how long my walks are because as long as there is the suffering that occurs in the Congo on a daily basis, none of us have any right to complain. We are very lucky and should be grateful even in this economic environment. It can always be worse, we could be women in the Congo.

For more information on violence and rape against women in the Congo go to: http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/ Chow for now!