More animal brutality in Puerto Rico

My wife tells me it must come from my side of the family. But I would guess it comes from her only having negative experiences with animals and me having only positive experiences. Of course, growing up in the heartland of the United States probably had a lot to do with that. With annual trips to the 4H county and state fairs, I've always enjoyed animals.

When I was about the same age as my middle daughter, I wanted to be a veterinarian, so it's no real surprise that she wants to be one too. Her favorite animals are horses. I also have a cousin who loved animals even more than me. But of all animals she loved, like my daughter, horses the most. She would compete in those fairs riding horses. Heck I would even sometimes go horseback riding with her. As an adult she's stopped riding, but she still owns 6 horses. What do you think, does it run in the family?

When I originally saw this story, I was of course outraged and saddened at the waste, but it wasn't until I shared the story with my daughter and heard her indignation and fury, that I knew I had to share the story. Apparently, owners of losing racing horses are having them killed, many of which are perfectly healthy. As one owner justified it:

"If it doesn't produce, after a while I give it away or I kill it," said Arnoldo Maldonado, 60, a businessman who races about five horses a year. "It bothers me, but it has to be done because there is no money to pay for them ... I'm not going to keep losing."

More than 400 horses are killed each year by lethal injection at a clinic tucked behind the Hipodromo Camarero racetrack, chief veterinarian Jose Garcia told The Associated Press after checking clinic log books going back seven years. According to the article, about $210 million a year is bet at the Hipodromo and at off-track betting booths.

Regardless of how insensitive, and inhumane this treatment might sound, veterinarians say they would rather see unwanted horses destroyed humanely than given away or sold to somebody who cannot afford to feed and care for them. Some horses wind up fending for themselves. Emaciated thoroughbreds, marked by tattoos from the track, have been found among the "chongos"- stray, mixed-breed nags - chewing grass by the roads, according to Amigos de los Animales, an animal sanctuary.

I've been searching for a point to this post, something positive to take from this, like turning horse manure into fertilizer, but I can't seem to find one. To be fair, this happens probably everywhere they race horses, and some places save more horses than others. But it continues to be a challenge to find hope for our beautiful island when it's an unending stream of news that makes us look so bad. What will need to happen for positive change to sweep over Puerto Rico?

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor Today: Kvetina-Marie

Grand Opening = Grand Success

Well I'm about down from the sugar high I got this morning after over-indulging on Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Yes, I was one of the crazy people who lined up this morning to be one of the first people to taste their delicious sweetness here in Puerto Rico. Before I go on, and before I share what the scene was like I just have one thing to say. Somebody owes me some doughnuts.

Believe it or not. The line to buy doughnuts started forming Monday afternoon around 1:00 p.m. and continued growing through the night. So even though the Krispy Kreme management extended the free doughnuts for a year give-away to the first 100 customers instead of the first 50. I was still way too late to get one of the precious free-doughnut cards. Ahh my precious.

I pulled out of the house a little later than I hoped for around 4:49, and was waiting in line by 5:00 a.m. Then after waiting for three hours and as I was nearing the front door they ran out of t-shirts too. So, I got bumkiss. Ahh, that's the breaks when you live in the big city, right. They did give everyone who came in the door a free doughnut, so I guess that's something.

All in all I'd have to say that it was a very successful grand opening for Krispy Kreme, and I bet the results exceeded their expectations. The whole thing went down, I'd say, without any problems. The crowd was well controlled and everything was very organized. They had a portable large screen television, which was showing Alvin and the Chipmunks as I showed up, and then was used to broadcast the event to everyone throughout the rest of the morning. They also had Reggaeton 94.7 broadcast live from the event. The Despelote crew, Rocky The Kid, Tony Banana and Billy Fourquet entertained the crowd throughout the morning and was even able to successful give-away $1,000 to a lucky member of the crowd. Plenealo was also in the house and kept the crowd bumping.

I'd say, in total about 1,000 people showed up for the grand opening. From the looks the majority were around 20, but there were some older folks, and some families with young babies. With each customer buying about 2 dozen donuts each, I'd say they sold a shitload of doughnuts. It was a really good time, despite having to be standing for a few hours. The weather was comfortable, and the crowd seemed to be in a really good mood. I think only here in Puerto Rico has the Krispy Kreme organization seen anything like what they witnessed this morning. I mean where else in the world would you get so many people lined up at 5:00 in morning, ready to spend their money, moving and shaking to loud music, and generally having a blast?

I hope that Rosana Vázquez Medina doesn't mind, but I snagged the photo above from the "LLega Krispy Kreme a Puerto Rico" Facebook group. And speaking of Facebook, apparently it continues to grow in strength and popularity here in Puerto Rico. That people who were at the event have already posted photographs from the event shows how, that the behavior that Facebook receives is drastically different, and more like the rest of the world, than the any other Web 2.0 application used by Puerto Ricans.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor Today: aerodesign.pl

Unexploded Bombs Detonated in Puerto Rico

Yesterday it probably sounded and felt more like Iraq in Vieques, than the island paradise it really is. That's because the contractor, Pika International, in charge of removing munitions from the island was detonating some of the live ordinance left after the U.S. Navy ceded the Vieques Naval Training Range back to Puerto Rico back in 2003.

The United States has pledged $200 million for the abandoned bombing range, which according to a news report and an interesting collection of photographic images from Fox News, about 775 acres have been cleared since the cleanup began in 2005.