Animal Rights

FOR 14 YEARS I've carried the label "HIV positive" and all the baggage that goes with it. But through the darkest of moments I could always depend on one symbol to lift my spirits -- the tiny red ribbon worn by compassionate people throughout the country, but especially by Hollywood celebrities. To me, the ribbon -- worn as a sign of compassion for people with AIDS -- had always been a reminder that when much of the world turned its back on those suffering from the disease, or simply lost interest, Hollywood opened her arms and kept the world's attention focused on this terrible plague.

Students who don't want to cut up animals for class shouldn' have to, say animal-rights advocates at the University of Maryland at College Park.Animal-rights advocates will ask the College Park Campus Senate today to change its policy and have instructors offer alternatives to students who object to working with animals."

Students who don't want to cut up animals for class shouldn't have to, say animal-rights advocates at the University of Maryland at College Park.Animal-rights advocates will ask the College Park Campus Senate today to change its policy and have instructors offer alternatives to students who object to working with animals."

On February 21, 2009, JAMES C. STRANEY; beloved husband of Stephanie C. Straney (nee Warfield); devoted father of Dawn Straney Tesar and her husband Raymond; the family dog Duke, and the late James Carroll Straney; dear brother of Paul C. Straney. Also survived by four grandcats, Drano, Tiger, Tiny, and Toby. A Funeral Service will be held at the family owned Leonard J. Ruck, Inc. Funeral Home, 5305 Harford Road (at Echodale), on Thursday, 10 A.M. Friends may call on Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M. Interment Gardens of Faith Cemetery.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - It isn't a mainstream life but it's the right life, the compassionate life. Animals are worth going to prison for, worth risking death for. A life for a life. All lives are equal, Dawn Ratcliffe says.A roach on the kitchen counter? Go, be free. Huge spider in the bathroom? Live long and prosper. Even a gnat feels pain. Oysters, clams, they can't scream, but that doesn't mean they can't feel. Who knows whether clams feel pain? You'd have to be a clam.Ratcliffe sighs. She is a young woman, 24. When she's not working in the recycling center at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, she travels all over to demonstrate for animal rights.

Pit bull owners and animal rights activists assailed the Annapolis city council last night for proposing a law that would make it more difficult to own that breed of dog in the city.Introduced last month by Alderman Cynthia Carter, the bill would allow the city to track all pit bulls through the Police Department and require pit bull owners to be at least age 25 and to carry $500,000 in liability insurance. Under the bill, owners would have to pay registration fees and report the birth of puppies.

Doris Valentine Chambers Wendler, a retired medical secretary, died of complications from heart medication Thursday Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore. She was 83 and lived in Hamilton.Born in her family home in Baltimore's Loudon Park Cemetery, where her father was superintendent, she graduated from Forest Park High School in 1932 and completed a two-year stenography course.She was a secretary in New York and, in 1939, returned to Baltimore. She was a medical secretary in a private clinic for two years before she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and hospitalized in a Baltimore sanitarium for three years.

An article and caption in yesterday's editions of The Sun incorrectly identified the owner of Bullock's Country Meats in Westminster. The owner is Robert L. Bullock.The Sun regrets the errors.Bullock's Country Meats in Westminster is usually a place people go to buy T-bones and sirloins. Yesterday, Abdoulaye Mbaye and his family came up from Baltimore to celebrate the Islamic holiday of Eid-ul-Adha by buying two lambs.Though it was overcast and drizzling, the mood was jovial at the animal pens behind the Bullock's store as the Mbayes picked out the lambs, which would be sacrificed to commemorate the obedience of the prophet Ibrahim to Allah.

TIRED OF turkey? Looking for something a little different to serve up this Thanksgiving?How about a 12-pound water rat that culinary experts say tastes somewhat like a beaver, is less greasy than a 'coon but is not quite as good as possum?Hold the green bean casserole, ma, I'm comin' home!America's latest taste treat is called nutria and comes to us courtesy of the good citizens of Louisiana, who, apparently, will eat almost anything.The decision to market nutria as a food source is not due to its wonderful taste (the smell of cooking nutria has been compared to that of Sarin gas)

An article and caption in yesterday's editions of The Sun incorrectly identified the owner of Bullock's Country Meats in Westminster. The owner is Robert L. Bullock.The Sun regrets the errors.Bullock's Country Meats in Westminster is usually a place people go to buy T-bones and sirloins. Yesterday, Abdoulaye Mbaye and his family came up from Baltimore to celebrate the Islamic holiday of Eid-ul-Adha by buying two lambs.Though it was overcast and drizzling, the mood was jovial at the animal pens behind the Bullock's store as the Mbayes picked out the lambs, which would be sacrificed to commemorate the obedience of the prophet Ibrahim to Allah.

On February 21, 2009, JAMES C. STRANEY; beloved husband of Stephanie C. Straney (nee Warfield); devoted father of Dawn Straney Tesar and her husband Raymond; the family dog Duke, and the late James Carroll Straney; dear brother of Paul C. Straney. Also survived by four grandcats, Drano, Tiger, Tiny, and Toby. A Funeral Service will be held at the family owned Leonard J. Ruck, Inc. Funeral Home, 5305 Harford Road (at Echodale), on Thursday, 10 A.M. Friends may call on Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M. Interment Gardens of Faith Cemetery.

Anne Pearson gives her collie, Siri, the run of the fenced-in yard. She says she always keeps watch from the window. At night, the dog sleeps in her bedroom. But in the eyes of Anne Arundel County's Animal Control, Pearson was a menace to her pet. And they threatened to take the dog away - unless she agreed to buy Siri a doghouse. "Siri is very upset, and it will take weeks, if not months, to retrain Siri so that he is calm when visitors come to see us," Pearson said yesterday. Now, she has taken her fight to the County Council, saying that a law requiring dog owners to provide shelter for any unsupervised pet goes too far. At least one lawmaker agrees that animal control should be leashed, and he has introduced a bill designed to do just that.

Finally, an answer for that age-old question: What part of the chicken does the nugget come from? Answer: maybe not from a chicken at all. The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is offering a $1 million prize for laboratory-produced meat that tastes like fried chicken. Of course, there's a lot of fried stuff that tastes like chicken, but PETA is quite firm on the laboratory bit. They expect scientists to grow the meat in vitro - without killing any animals.

Taking aim at one of the last bastions of live-animal training for medical students, a physicians' group that champions animal rights has called upon the Johns Hopkins University to stop using live pigs to teach operating room techniques. Calling the practice inhumane and unnecessary, the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine notes that Hopkins is one of just two top-tier medical schools still convening live-animal labs. "The ethical argument is that you should not use sentient creatures to our purposes unnecessarily," said Dr. John J. Pippin, a Dallas cardiologist affiliated with the group.

The seared something balances atop a scallop, the quintessence of culinary refinement and elegant dining - and the cause of so much trouble. It is foie gras, a velvet-textured delicacy loved by some gourmets. And it presents a provocation to certain animal rights activists. Only days ago, it brought a dozen yelling, sign-wielding protesters to the doorstep of Kali's Court, a Fells Point restaurant that features it on its menu. The taste of foie gras - "fat liver" in French - isn't the problem.

LONDON -- A letter bomb exploded at Britain's drivers' licensing agency yesterday, extending what the police depicted as a coordinated series of attacks that has troubled the nation's leaders and inspired comparisons with the Unabomber in the United States. The blast at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which slightly injured four people, was the third in as many days, striking mainly at institutions and companies involved in regulating motorists and automobiles. The licensing agency, located at Swansea in south Wales, collects automobile taxes as well as issues drivers' licenses.

Ann E. Jensen, a homemaker and animal-rights advocate, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at Keswick Multi-Care Center. The Evergreen resident was 86. Born Anna Elizabeth Trabert in East Baltimore, she was a 1938 Seton High School graduate who earned an associate's degree in journalism at the old Mount Saint Agnes College in Mount Washington. She also attended Strayer Business School. Many years ago, she worked for developer James Rouse at his Moss Rouse Co., a mortgage business.

Richard John De Angelis, an actor who played police Col. Raymond Foerster in The Wire, HBO's gritty crime drama set in Baltimore, died Wednesday at his Silver Spring home of congestive heart failure and complications from prostate cancer. He was 73. During a 35-year career begun at age 38 after working as an accountant for 14 years, Mr. De Angelis appeared in more than 55 plays, 200 TV and radio commercials and 19 television programs and movies. His appearances included roles in Homicide: The Movie and in the John Waters film A Dirty Shame.

Site du jour Green Friends greenfriends.com This site claims to be the largest in the world for progressive single vegetarians to meet and share their interests in environmental protection, peace and animal rights - good things, all. Membership is free, but you must register. You'll find chatting, blogs, a green forum and an almost infinite circle of friends. --Knight Ridder/Tribune Events Italian Christmas Eve -- Learn to make Italian holiday dishes at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 14 at Donna's in Columbia, 5950 Waterloo Road.

An animal rights group sued in federal court yesterday to prevent Maryland wildlife biologists from shooting up to 2,000 swans over the next two years, a move state officials say is designed to preserve Chesapeake Bay. The Fund for Animals contends that the state's plans to shoot the mute swans will increase the likelihood that their Eastern Shore members will see "the killing of birds, or dead, wounded or dying animals." The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, asks the judge to reverse an administrative decision allowing the state to shoot the birds by exempting the swans from protections granted other migratory birds.