Worcester

Sunday, April 22, marked the beginning of Animals in Labs Week. For more than 10 years InCity Times has tried to enlighten folks about the needless torture of animals, courtesy of the many labs, research institutes and universities throughout the US and the world. So many of these horrific experiments (see below) are unnecessary! So many of the animals (ie chimps) lead deprived, horrific lives for decades – all in the name of industry/science. The cosmetic industry has subjected millions of rabbbits to toxic levels of makeup – pointless “overkill.” Monkeys have been given the AIDS virus and then … at the end of their lives … not even mercifully retired to gentler habitats. Cramped cages, hardened handlers, blood curdling deaths, animals in labs live a kind of hell that we can never imagine. From Harvard University where recently five chimps have died in their research labs, to high school “experiments,” animals in labs suffer … and need your help. Read on to learn more! – Rosalie Tirella

Some animals can use tools? Who cares?

By Kathy Guillermo

Years ago, I had a wonderful companion animal named Angus. He was a remarkable little fellow who loved to greet visitors to my house and snuggle next to me on the sofa. His favorite food was Chinese carry-out, and he went bonkers when he saw the white cardboard containers come out of the plastic bag on the kitchen table. He was loyal and sweet-tempered—probably not so different from your own dog or cat.

Except that Angus wasn’t a dog or cat. He was a rat.

A brown rat with shiny black eyes and a long pink tail. He lived on a table-top in my home, where he never had to be shut in his cage. He liked to cruise around the house perched on my shoulder.

So it was with particular interest that I read a study on rats, which found that rats can be trained to use tools, to understand the tools’ functions and to choose the most appropriate tool when presented with more than one. Before this, the study says, it was thought that only primates and some birds, in addition to humans, were capable of figuring this out.

So here’s my response, and I hope it’s yours too: Who cares?

Should we change the way we view rats because some of them can be taught how to use a little rake to draw food toward themselves? Of course not. We should change our attitude toward rats because they are thinking, feeling, living beings with a sense of humor, an affectionate nature and a capacity for suffering that the human race should stop ignoring.

This study is just the latest in a long line of experiments that should have convinced us of this long ago. Researchers at the University of Berne, Switzerland, announced that rats are influenced by the kindness of strangers. If rats have been assisted by rats they’ve never met before, they are more likely to help other rats in the future. A sort of rodent version of “Pay It Forward.”

Other studies have shown that rats become distressed when they see other rats being electrically shocked. We shouldn’t be surprised—though apparently the experimenters were—that the rats become even more agitated if they know or are related to the rat being shocked.

Scientists with special recording equipment have shown that rats laugh out loud in frequencies that can’t be heard by the human ear. Young rats who are being tickled are the most likely to giggle. Rats have been shown to be altruistic and have risked their own lives to save other rats, especially when the rats in peril are babies.

All of these studies, including the one on tool use, are published in journals, and news releases are sent out, and science bloggers chat online about them, but in the end, what difference does it make to rats? Rats and mice, that other unfairly maligned species, are still used and killed by the tens of millions in U.S. laboratories every year. They are denied even the minimal coverage of the Animal Welfare Act, the only federal law offering any sort of protection to animals in laboratories.

So while it may pique the curiosity of some that rats can be taught to use tools, the more interesting result of this and all the studies that came before it is that experimenters apparently can’t be taught to put the results of studies to good use. If experimenters had this ability—the sort of reasoning that should get one from A to B in a logical way—they’d read the evidence that rats can think, learn, feel, laugh, act altruistically and risk their lives for others, and they’d stop caging and hurting them in laboratories. When a person knows that another being can suffer, and yet deliberately sets about causing that suffering, shouldn’t we worry less about which species can use tools, and more about the callousness of some people?

Kathy Guillermo is vice president of Laboratory Investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the author of Monkey Business, The Disturbing Case That Launched the Animal Rights Movement. Readers may write to her at: PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

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States should give bunnies a break

By Kathy Guillermo

Not so long ago, every pregnancy test performed in a laboratory involved killing a rabbit. Happily, better methods were developed and the old rabbit tests, along with the euphemism, “Did the rabbit die?”—meaning, “Are you pregnant?”—faded into history. The new tests were quicker and easier and represented a big leap forward for lab technicians, as well as for rabbits.

New Jersey and California have embraced a similar kind of progress by passing laws that prohibit product tests on animals when a federally approved alternative exists. Every state should follow suit and mandate the use of available non-animal tests instead of live animals. Every manufacturer—not just those in New Jersey and California—should use the non-animal methods available, whether or not such a law is in place.

Here’s one reason why: Companies have tested chemicals for corrosivity by locking rabbits into full-body restraints and smearing a chemical onto the shaved skin on their backs. A chemical is considered to be “corrosive” if it eats through the skin, burning away several layers of tissue. No painkillers or anesthetics are used. At the end of the test, the rabbit is killed or “recycled” into other tests.

Chemical corrosivity can now be evaluated using a “human skin equivalent” test called Corrositex, approved by federal officials, which uses a protein membrane designed to function like skin. The results are accurate, it’s quick and no one gets hurts.

There are a surprising number of sophisticated non-animal tests now in use and in development. Unlike Corrositex, not all of them have been given the thumbs up by government officials, but that hasn’t stopped scientists here and around the world from recognizing that these new methods are faster, cheaper and a whole lot kinder. PETA has contributed more than $760,000 so far to the development of these superior test methods.

Many researchers also understand that humans differ from animals in their metabolism, biochemistry, physiology, genetic makeup and gene expression and that this means that studies on animals can mislead us. This is most obvious in the pharmaceutical arena. Nine out of 10 drugs that test safe and effective on animals fail in human trials. Adverse reactions to prescription drugs that do make it to market—drugs successfully tested on animals—kill 100,000 people in the U.S. every year, making it one of our country’s leading causes of death.

We don’t have to choose between animals and people. It is really a choice between effective and ineffective science.

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A terrible waste of money and lives

By Kathy Guillermo

Are worms gay? If they are, what does that mean for humans? Such questions may sound entirely irrelevant to anything in our lives, but some scientists, including Erik Jorgensen at the University of Utah, have apparently received money to study these questions. The worms—nematodes, really—are tiny, 1-millimeter-long creatures who live in soil. Most are hermaphrodites, which means that each worm produces both sperm and eggs. The Times of London reported that Jorgensen activated a gene in the hermaphrodite worms’ brains, which apparently convinced them to try to mate with other hermaphrodites rather than just with the male worms.

The conclusion, according to Jorgensen’s quote in the Times: “We cannot say what this means for human sexual orientation, but it raises the possibility that sexual preference is wired in the brain.”

Hey, there’s something no one ever thought of before.

This study serves as a reminder that there are only so many research dollars available, and most of it comes from your taxes. Do you want to foot the bill for experiments that don’t have anything to do with preventing or curing illness? Or for studies that are obviously redundant or pointless? Or for experiments that are so cruel that whatever is learned from them simply isn’t worth the cost?

I’m opposed to using animals for experimentation on ethical grounds, and I also believe—as science frequently shows—that most studies on animals aren’t particularly relevant to humans. But even those who support research on animals should be careful about accepting the experimentation industry’s claim that the use of animals in laboratories will help find cures for Alzheimer’s, AIDS, Parkinson’s, cancer and other diseases that are frightening just to contemplate. Consider first what some experimenters get paid big money to do.

Johns Hopkins University announced that it was attempting to create a “schizophrenic” mouse by inserting a gene from the DNA of a human family with schizophrenic members into a mouse. Yet a diagnosis of schizophrenia hinges on the patient hearing voices that aren’t there and seeing things others don’t see. How exactly does an experimenter know if this is true of mice, even if a gene has been inserted?

At Oregon Health & Science University, experimenter Eliot Spindel injects the fetuses of pregnant monkeys with nicotine and then gives the mothers vitamin supplements to see if that makes it “safer” to smoke while pregnant. Yet we’ve known since 1972 that smoking is harmful to human fetuses. Spindel’s money would have been better spent convincing pregnant women not to smoke.

Under the guise of studying fetal alcohol syndrome, David J. Earnest at Texas A&M Health Science Center examined sleep problems in baby rats who were force-fed alcohol. Perhaps Earnest is unaware that human infants don’t binge-drink after birth.

At universities and primate centers across the country, experimenters are still tearing infant monkeys from their mothers to observe the detachment and psychosis that result from this trauma. These are variations on the dreadful experiments conducted by Harry Harlow more than 40 years ago. How often do we need to prove that taking love and comfort from a baby monkey will destroy the animal’s happiness and ability to cope with life?

I could go on and on—monkeys who have the tops of their skulls removed, electrodes stuck in their brains and wire coils implanted in their eyes to look at the connection between eye movement and the brain; birds whose testicles are sucked out so that experimenters can examine what happens to their songs; cats who have their backs cut open and weights attached to their spinal tissue and are then killed, supposedly to study lower back problems in people. The list seems endless.

These animals are caged for their entire lives, traumatized, physically and emotionally damaged, killed and cut up for experiments that don’t even pretend to be about saving humans. Whether or not you agree with me that it’s unethical to do this to animals for any reason, surely it’s obvious that much experimentation on animals is a terrible waste of money and lives.

Kathy Guillermo is vice president of Laboratory Investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the author of Monkey Business, The Disturbing Case That Launched the Animal Rights Movement.

StopEconomicCrime.org, new video shine a light on State Street’s “economic crimes against the 99%” on eve of annual shareholder meeting

 BOSTON – MASSUNITING today launched the Economic Crime Unit (ECU) [homepage screenshot attached], a new initiative that will shine a light on the abuses of major corporations and Wall Street banks. ECU investigations will employ a creative mix of video, online ads, new media tools and in-the-streets action to expose what it calls “economic crimes against the 99%” – a set of offenses which may be legally undefined, but are no less harmful to our communities. ECU’s inaugural investigation, targeting Massachusetts-based State Street Bank (NYSE: STT), comes on the eve of the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Boston.

View the Economic Crime Unit’s “State Street” video here.

Though it has managed to avoid the intense scrutiny applied to other big-name corporate offenders, State Street Bank has engaged in many of the same “economic crimes” as General Electric, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – exploiting loopholes to avoid taxation, killing thousands of jobs through outsourcing and offshoring, and investing tens of millions of dollars in private, for-profit prisons and detention centers. In addition, State  Street Bank has been investigated, sued or fined by the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators for allegedly misleading investors and defrauding pensions – including a recent $5 million fine from Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, William Galvin.

A group of State Street shareholders has attempted to raise and demand action on these issues with company executives and board members in advance of the annual shareholder meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 16. After weeks of no response, a delegation was invited to meet with State Street staff, who offered neither apologies nor redress for the serious concerns raised by shareholders. Left with few other options, the delegation will take their demands directly to fellow shareholders at Wednesday’s meeting – in addition to the public investigation launched by the Economic Crimes Unit.

“State Street’s business practices have harmed our community and our entire economy for far too long – and it’s time they were held accountable,” said Chandra Richardson, a State Street shareholder from South Boston. “From job killing to tax dodging to prison profiteering, State Street Bank has committed serious economic crimes against the 99%, and we won’t be silent anymore.”

Discovery Days: Worcester in the 1960s

Wednesday, May 16

1:00 PM-4:00 PM

Free

Bring in your memories, photographs, artifacts, and other treasures from the 1960s. As part of the preparation for Worcester Historical Museum’s 2013 exhibit, Worcester in the 1960s, WHM is hoping to fill in the blanks with your history.

More info

Worcester Wonderland blogger Will WW is really this dork, pictured above: Claude Dorman, 57 years old. (The photo was taken in 2005 – folks say Claude/Will WW has aged badly/stupidly)

Years of Will WW’s/Claude’s creepy/toxic/underhanded/police-calling/court-hassle-ing ways have resulted in this photo!

Top Uses for Claude/Worcester Wonderland blogger photo:

1. The obvious: Print out this Wonderland/Claude poster and use it as toilet paper

2. Print out this poster and Gorilla Glue it to: lamp posts, telephone poles, bathroom stall doors etc.

3. Print out and tape  inside your car’s windows, home windows … any window really!

4. Print out this poster – make very large – and send it to: CLAUDE DORMAN, 38 Sever St., Worcester, MA 01609. Address it to: Worcester Wonderland blogger/Will WW/Claude Dorman!

5. Print out and make flyers and hand out to passersby!  But first, on the other side of your Wonderland/Claude leaflet, print the ENTIRE WoMag piece on Claude and his evil website and police-calling (74 times in one day on nearby Becker College students!) ways.

6. Print out and make into Tee-Shirts and sell them in the Elm Park neighborhood. Everyone there hates their neighbor Claude/Will WW. They want to see him move out and (thankfully) he has put his house up for sale. 

7. Don’t print this pic out but BUY CLAUDE’s house at 38 Sever St. Here’s the listing: http://www.massrealty.com/worcester/worcester/home/38-Sever-St,-Worcester,-MA-01609/71364362   Do Worcester a huge favor!

Good luck!

Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin

By Frank Bailey with Ken Morris & Jeanne Devon

Reviewed by Steven R. Maher

I almost feel sorry for Sarah Palin.

Palin has been bashed since John McCain made the questionable decision to make her his Vice Presidential running mate in 2008. Then there was Joe McGinnis’s book “The Rogue: the Search for the Real Sarah Palin”, the recent HBO movie “Game Change” depicting her as a total airhead, and now Frank Bailey’s “Blind Allegiance.”

Bailey’s book is far superior to McGinnis’ book or the movie. McGinnis was on the outside looking in; much of his book was questionable speculation. Bailey was with Palin from the start, an insider in her 2006 race for Governor, director of boards and commissions in Palin’s brief two year administration, and a Christian evangelical who was a true believer in Palin’s platform of fiscal conservatism. His account of her is therefore all the more damaging.

The book is based primarily on 50,000 emails Bailey saved over the years. The emails between Palin, Bailey, and other Alaska political figures are quoted at length. This technique can try the reader’s patience. This book is overwritten from the perspective of someone who reads for enjoyment, but it will be a valuable resource for historians. It speaks to Palin’s own inexperience and lack of judgment as a political operative that she put so many highly revealing remarks, quoted by Bailey, in writing.
Reagan on high heels

Palin became renowned in Alaska when she resigned a $124,000 a year job on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and exposed the corruption of fellow commission member Randy Reudrich, who was also Chairman of the Alaska Republican Party. Palin launched an insurgency within the Republican Party against Republican Governor Frank “Murky” Murkowski, a Nixon-style figure known for his corruption and nepotism. Murkowski actually had the nerve to appoint his own daughter to fill his vacant U.S. Senate seat. Palin alleged that Murkowski was “shafting” Alaska taxpayers by favoring breaks to large oil companies.

Bailey saw Palin as a “Reagan on high heels” and called her at home to offer to work in her campaign. After an exchange of emails, he attended in November 2005 a Palin fundraiser in Wasilla, the town where Palin was Mayor.

Bailey introduced himself to Palin and said, “I can paint. Clean floors and toilets. Wash windows.”

“[M]y sincerely naïve offer struck the right cord,” recalled Bailey. “With little more than this brief introduction Sarah invited me inside the campaign. As I’ve learned since, only in Alaska is it possible to be invisible one day and in the middle of a political movement the next.”

Republican revolt

Bailey’s book describes an insurrection within the Alaska Republican party led by Palin. It was a real grass roots rebellion by fiscal conservatives, “a seat of the pants operation” micromanaged by Palin. Bailey describes how the campaign purchased a machine to make their own campaign buttons, and searched through sofa cushions for coins to put in parking meters, rather than paying for more expensive garage parking. “Literally, we were a campaign for which a $100 outlay might require the attention of Sarah, me, and as many as three or four others,” said Bailey.

“However, our seat-of-the-pants operation suited us,” continued Bailey. “I believed that the we operated was how government should be run and would be run under Sarah Palin: cutting waste and chopping expenses to the bone; fiscal conservatism at its finest. Sell assets, reduce government, and simply do more for less.”

Disillusionment set in. Palin turned out to be quite the diva; she was given to rages against subordinates, friends, and above all, political enemies. She was ultra-sensitive to any form of criticism, whether it was coming from newspaper editorials, talk show hosts, or Internet bloggers. Bailey spends much of this book relating how Palin would order her subordinates to respond through surrogates to political criticism, no matter how minute or inconsequential.

Bailey himself appears like a cult member, blindly obeying and doing Palin’s bidding, no matter how distasteful he found it. Reading between the lines, one gets the impression that Bailey was in love with Palin and found himself being led around like a lovesick puppy.

Bailey does clear up some misconceptions about Palin, He wrote that the rumors that Palin’s youngest child, Trig, was actually the daughter of Palin’s daughter Brisol, are completely false. McGuiness in his book gave this canard some credence.

Writing about Palin’s famous stumble with Katie Couric, Bailey said that Palin read Alaska’s daily newspapers every day and received a summary report on what was said by other media outlets. But Palin, demonstrating an understandable inferiority complex about relying on Alaska’s local media, made the disastrous decision to evade the question rather than answer it truthfully. If Palin had told the truth, the entire matter would have been ignored.

Intellectually unqualified

There are some good things that can be said about Sarah Palin. She had the courage to lead a successful insurgency against a corrupt political establishment dominated by her own party, speaking out when others remained silent. Finding out during her pregnancy that the child she was carrying had Down’s syndrome, Palin made the courageous decision to have the child instead of aborting it.

But she clearly is unqualified intellectually and temperamentally to be President of the United States. Which is to bad for the Republican party, because America as a whole would benefit if someone with Sarah Palin’s charisma would lead fiscal conservatives to take back the Republican party from the warmongers and deficit producing supply-siders who have hijacked it.

Friends,

Here’s a free song for you.

It’s my contribution to “Occupy This Album”, a compilation CD (99 songs!) featuring David Crosby & Graham Nash, Steve Earle, Tom Morello, Willie Nelson, Ani DiFranco, Third Eye Blind, Immortal Technique and Jackson Browne to be released Tuesday, May 15th. All proceeds from this album will go to fund the Occupy Wall Street movement (all the musicians and songwriters have donated their time and music).

They asked me if I’d like to record a poem or maybe make a music video of some of the songs. I said, “I could just sing a song.”

When the laughter died down, I recorded this.

I hope you enjoy my first try at this new profession (though I have no intention of giving up my day job).

And thank you, Bob Dylan, for your contribution, and for approving this, my debut.

Enjoy!

Michael Moore

By Paula Moore

Imagine if someone invaded your home, tore you away from your family, drove you hundreds of miles away and then let you go. You don’t know where you are, and you’re desperate to get back home. You’re surrounded by hundreds of strangers, all as confused as you are. You’re scared and hungry and must fight to stay alive through all weather extremes. Some of the others succumb to exhaustion or starvation. Some are killed by hunters or predators. It may sound like a plot twist from The Hunger Games, but it’s real.

This is the fate of birds who are forced to fly for their lives in the abusive and often illegal pastime known as pigeon racing. That the victims of this cruel sport are animals and not humans should not make their suffering any less appalling.

PETA recently completed a 15-month undercover investigation into some of the largest pigeon-racing operations in the U.S. PETA’s investigators documented massive casualties of birds during races and training, rampant “culling” (killing), abusive training and racing methods and illegal interstate gambling.

In many of the races—which can be up to 600 miles long—more than 60 percent of the birds become lost or die along the way. Because these birds were raised in captivity and cannot fend for themselves in the wild, those who don’t make it home will likely starve to death. Pigeon racers even have a name for races that are particularly lethal: “smash races.” Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

Wow! What a loser! Tall dufus on the left – that’s Claude Dorman,  our “anonymous” Worcester Wonderland blogger. Could he look any worse?! He’s got an I’m-so-full-of-myself, shit-eating grin on his puss … the kind of  facial expression that repels children and small animals. Wonderland (Will WW)  pokes fun of everyone’s looks but, truth be told, he is the unhippest cat in town! My God! Look at that outfit! He’s wearing a Rick Santorum vest! He looks like Rick Santorum!!!!

Funny … Claude had dumped Paulie’s head into a trash can and photo shopped everyone to death – yet take a good look at this cyber bully! He’s just a big nerd! This is a 2005 photo of  Will WW. People in the know say Claude has aged poorly – he looks really crappy these days. Wifey Cigran is to the left of him.

The Wizard of Claude! Remove the curtain from Will WW, author of Worcester Wonderland blog, and what have you got? Just some BIG NERD who looks perfectly … Claude Dormanish!

What a hypocrite! What an opportunist! Please, DO NOT vote for incumbent “US Senator” Scott Brown (see nude center fold pic below!). Let’s not lose important programs because Brown is pandering to Independent voters! This guy will do/say anything to get elected, even vote “no” THREE TIMES for a program his family takes advantage of!

 A vote for Brown’s opponent, Elizabeth Warren, is a vote for programs that help all Americans stay healthy and strong – even Scott Brown’s kids. (We are certain Brown could have insured his daughter without the govt footing the bill, but hey, that’s our US Senator – Scotty Brown-nose!)     – R. Tirella

From The Boston Globe:

By Glen Johnson THE BOSTON GLOBE

“U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who won office vowing to be the 41st vote to block President Obama’s health care law and who has since voted three times to repeal it, acknowledged Monday that he takes advantage of it to keep his elder daughter on his congressional health insurance plan.

” ”Of course I do,” the Massachusetts Republican told the Globe.

“Brown is insuring his daughter Ayla, a professional singer who is 23 years old, under a widely popular provision of the law requiring that family plans cover children up to age 26.

“Brown said the extended use of his congressional coverage is not inconsistent with his criticism of the federal law, enacted over his objection after he won a special election in 2010, because the same coverage could be required by individual states.

“On the campaign trail this year, Brown has said he still wants to repeal the law, which he argues is inferior to the health care law enacted by Massachusetts in 2006.

” ”I’ve said right from the beginning, that if there are things that we like, we should take advantage of them and bring them back here to Massachusetts,” the senator said.

“As to whether the federal law should be repealed or rewritten, Brown replied: “I’ve already voted to repeal it. You know where I stand on this. This isn’t news.”

“His political opponent said that Brown is being hypocritical.

” ”Sen. Scott Brown has gone Washington,” said Alethea Harney, spokeswoman for Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

” “He says he likes being able to keep his daughter on the family health insurance plan. What he doesn’t say is that he voted to stop other parents from doing the same.” “

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Brown’s daughter, according to the Globe article, is a “former “American Idol” contestant” who “has worked as a correspondent for the CBS “Early Show” and is a professional singer.”

The Globe states: “Brown’s younger daughter, Arianna, is 21 and graduating after just three years at Syracuse University. She, too, will be able to keep her coverage under the congressional plan through the Obama law.

” ”I’ve always said that I love covering my daughter until 26 years old,” Brown said in an interview … .“

Pathetic.

By Kathy Guillermo

Several years after Eight Belles’ fatal breakdown during the Kentucky Derby, many of us still remember the heartbreak of seeing that beautiful filly lying in the dirt at Churchill Downs, her ankles shattered beyond repair.

The thoroughbred racing industry would have us believe that Eight Belles’ tragic death was a “freak accident,” but it wasn’t. Every single day, three horses, on average, suffer catastrophic injuries while racing and must be euthanized. This is no rare event. It’s business as usual.

Thousands of horses have died on U.S. tracks since the Eight Belles tragedy. And every month, 1,000 racehorses who don’t “measure up” are sent to other countries to be slaughtered for human consumption.

People who care about horses for horses’ sake must steer clear of the Triple Crown races if they don’t want to contribute to this staggering death toll.

In the weeks following Eight Belles’ death, there was much talk about reforming the horse-racing industry. And after being prodded by PETA, the racing industry did make some improvements, including banning steroids from the states in which Triple Crown races are run.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Racing insiders tell PETA that the misuse of legal drugs is still the biggest cause of breakdown and death, and the industry has yet to address this issue in any meaningful way.

Horse trainers have told us that in the days leading up to a race, strong anti-inflammatories, painkillers and muscle relaxants are legally injected into injured, sore horses to make them run when they should be recovering. Some horses are injected with drugs up to 30 times in the week before a race, and it’s all legal.

Then there are stories about the unusual substances, such as cobra venom, that are injected into horses in order to mask pain. There is no drug test for cobra venom. Many horses also undergo what industry insiders call “milkshaking”—forcing a large quantity of sodium bicarbonate and sugar into a horse’s stomach through a tube. This procedure is said to make them run faster during a race.

Drugging animals to make them do what they never would under natural conditions is abuse and must be stopped. It’s not enough to sound upset and make empty promises about reform.

The public deserves to know that the problems with horse racing didn’t end with Eight Belles. Horses are still being run to their deaths on racetracks. Most of them just never make the news.

So here’s my advice to racing fans who want to help push this industry to rein in its worst abuses. Don’t go. Don’t bet. And don’t watch.