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The other night I was drifting off to sleep with my black lab, Bella, curled up under my arm. Bella had surgery on her cruciate ligament on Monday and like any sick child would do, was looking for a little TLC from her mom.

Combined with the reminder of a horrible incident of animal cruelty in my hometown recently, I was pushed to write this blog. Although I cannot discuss the incident as formal charges have not been laid and I want the individual to receive the worst punishment possible, I can say a small dog was killed in a disgusting way and left outside to rot as though it were trash. Things like this make me angry, upset, and frustrated that I cannot make a difference.

These situations made me think about how often times, people who do not support animal rights say that you cannot compare a dog to a person/child. This is an argument that I do not understand at all. Bella is like a child to me and I would do anything for her, hence the fact that I’ve spent about $7,000 on her since September so that she wouldn’t be in pain and can live a full life from here on out.

When I tell people that Bella is like my child, they don’t get it and often times reply with “it’s not like you gave birth to her!”. This is true, but what about children that are adopted? My little cousin was adopted from China when she was about 13 months old. The fact that my aunt didn’t physically give birth to her doesn’t mean we love her any less. She’s part of our family regardless and is treated the same way a biological child would be.

My point is, Bella and other dogs or animals are more like children than people often wish to believe. A child is able to feel physical pain and no one ever argues this point. Dogs are just as capable of feeling the same pain, which I have witnessed firsthand as Bella has gone through her surgeries. Her physical pain is obvious to me because she cried the first night I had her home.

It’s not okay to physically harm a child. If this were to happen, social services would step in and take the child away, with the parents/caregivers being punished in the highest degree possible.

Since animals are capable of feeling the same physical pain, shouldn’t their abusers face the same punishment? Animal, child, it doesn’t matter because pain is pain.

Another argument that is often heard when discussing animal rights is that animals don’t have emotional feelings. This is completely ridiculous to me. If you have ever looked in the eyes of an abandoned animal, or an animal that has been constantly yelled at and denied human love and attention, you can tell that their hearts and spirits are broken.

Dogs, cats, bunnies, etc. are all capable of loving their owners. At Christmas I had to send Bella to Alberta ahead of me and she stayed with my parents for about a week. Even though they care for her as much as I do, she still missed me. She spent her days (and much to my parents dismay, her nights) whining for me and looking out the window. When I called and they put me on speakerphone, she recognized me voice and would instantly become happy, wagging her tail and knocking things off nearby coffee tables.

A child is taken from their parents when they are emotionally abused, so shouldn’t animals if they are capable of the same suffering?

Children cannot protect themselves so it is the responsibility of the community to ensure that they are treated with dignity and respect. Animals, like children, are also not capable of protecting themselves. Shouldn’t we be responsible for looking after them too, then?

I’m not going to bombard you with photos of the atrocities of what happens to animals every day throughout the world. I can barely look at them without being sick to my stomach.

However, I want you to picture a photo of a child in your mind. The child is small, frail, and you can see every rib in their body. Does this photo make you angry? It should.

Now think about a dog in the same situation. Small, fragile, every rib visible through their patchy, dirty fur. It should make you angry the same way the photo of the child does.

While earning my sociology degree we were taught that a society is judged based on how well they look after the most vulnerable amongst them. If this were the case, our society would be shamefully failing.

Bare feet or furry feet, we need to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

A poll last week by EKOS shows the Liberals have regained some support among voters and are now in a virtual tie with the Conservatives despite the government’s Haiti recovery efforts. Around Christmas, Harper polled around 40 percent compared to Michael Ignatieff trailing at the 23 percent mark. Ignatieff, whose nosedive in the polls reflected levels of Stephane Dion’s disastrous reign the year before, has made a comeback in vote-rich Ontario and Atlantic Canada, as well as gaining popularity with younger voters.

The poll suggests that if an election were held tomorrow, 30.9 per cent of those polled chose the Liberals and 31.5 per cent would back the Conservatives. 14.9 per cent of respondents supportedthe NDP, 11.5 per cent the Green Party and 9.1 per cent the Bloc Québécois.

The poll also highlights the mixed feelings among voters when it comes to the performance of their government. Forty-five per cent feel the government is moving in the right direction while  42 per cent believe they are moving in the wrong direction.

It seems as if Harper’s strategy to prorogue parliament until the federal budget is revealed has hurt him in the short term among voters, but as quickly as polls change, I suspect by March Harper will make a comeback as the storm dies off and parliament gets back to business.

As a public relations student I’ve analyzed many of the major occurrences in today’s society pretty harshly. I strongly believe that many people and organizations (Tiger Woods for one) fail to effectively deal with their publics or their audiences. However, Barack Obama is currently the exception. (How many times have we heard that throughout the past couple years?).

Merely a few days ago, word was announced that the President’s annual speech would be aired on January 25^th and February 2^nd. Although, January 25^th coincided with American Idol (that show is STILL on?!), the major problem occurred as February 2^nd was supposed to be the series premier of the final season (the sixth) of Lost.

People were going nuts! Twitter and Facebook pages filled up with comments from tons and tons of people indicating their complete devastation regarding the fact that they would have to wait 7 more days (oh no!) to find out what happened to Jack, Kate, Lock and the many other characters they had grown to love.

Nonetheless, a few days later, Barack Obama took time to overlook the issues surrounding the economy, forgot about the 2826255 issues concerning Iraq and the ongoing war, and pondered about the scenario… and decided to postpone his speech. 

Although different televisions clips, radio announcements and websites are currently indicating a multitude of different information, the last statement confirmed is that Obama will be postponing his speech until another day in the near future – BUT it will not be held on the second of February.

There is no doubt that this was a great move on Obama’s behalf. His Twitter account was being filled with millions of comments about viewers’ disappointment of the original proclamation that they would have to wait. However, now he is only receiving positive feedback. For instance, co-creator and executive producer, Damon Lindelof, upon hearing about the recent update, tweeted, “Groundhog Day is OURS!” and preceded to ask his followers to  tweet your thanks to @BarackObama.

Although I feel the President (and his PR staff) handled the situation wonderfully, I am still weary on the situation itself. What is the world coming to? We are going to postpone a presidential speech so we do not have to wait…7 days… to see a television show?
 
I do understand that all of those involved with the show would be affected if it was postponed. Since the middle of November, I do not believe any of us can admit to watching television for more than ten minutes without seeing the promos for Lost’s first episode… and the words February 2^nd attached.

Overall, I’m still iffy on the whole scenario but it definitely announces to the world how effective social media has become within today’s society. It also exemplifies how on the ball Obama is and how much he cares about his target audience. He is well-aware that many of the people that believed in him (and evidently voted for him) are also the same people that wish to watch Lost. For this reason, he communicated perfectively – effectively and without hassle.

Overall, one can indicate that belief in Obama is not “Lost.” Oh, and to all of you ‘Lost’ watchers…. Enjoy your show…. On February 2^nd!

I’m not one to jump on bandwagons, mainly because I think there are multiple sides to every argument, and many angles to consider. Assigning myself a category to fit into on hot topics like global warming, partisan politics, and other unmentionables is somewhat hypocritical. Recently, I was on face book and noticed that my friend joined the group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, and I felt a bone-crippling need to play devil’s advocate, and possibly educate people about the whole prorogue scandal.

The news of Canada’s Conservative government proroguing parliament for the second time in 2 years is all over the news. The decision, anticipated to be announced early this week, has raised a roaring response from the Canadian media, which largely portrays Prime Minister Stephen Harper as cheating us out of our civil liberties. Prime Minister Harper wants a prorogue in order to reassess Canada’s federal budget for 2010, but this is ignored in lieu of the thought that Harper is playing God and calling a “re-do” whenever he sees fit.

Harper’s decision to prorogue parliament raises a number of thoughts within me, but I don’t think it’s the end of the world. Why? Because proroguing parliament simply means that our elected officials in the House of Commons will, basically, start fresh. All documents being passed through the legislature before the Holiday break (an annual prorogue of sorts, if you will) will be scrapped, and the government gets a clean slate to work with.

What the headlines tell us is that a prorogue is completely undemocratic; that it undercuts Canada’s essence of fair representation; and that Harper is messing around with our government without our direct permission. That sounds good enough to protest about, but I think another side is being downplayed.

When we vote, we vote for a representative based on their political platform. Then, we are powerless. We send our hometown heroes to settle into their seats in the shark tank of politicians that is our House of Commons. By saying that proroguing parliament is undemocratic is technically true, nothing in our constitution defends us against them. But the amount of political back-scratching that plays a huge role in forming legislature is also ironically missing. None of us vote for game playing, but it‘s what we get. If things were truly democratic, we would hold a referendum for everything. By Harper using his lawful right to prorogue parliament, he is only acting on the power that democracy itself gave him.

Positively speaking, proroguing parliament could be beneficial for many Canadians. Not only will the federal economic budget be brought through the courts again, but many other bills that were defeated in 2009 will have a chance to pass. This means that us, united democratic citizens, must petition our representatives for a harder stance on issues that affect our communities, lives, and families. If Harper says the budget gets a re-do with his prorogue, than every other bill that was left dangling in 2009 gets a fresh beginning as well.

If you really want to get extreme, proroguing government could potentially result in a complete reorganization of parliamentary politics. New deals will now have to be struck in order to get things back to the way they were in the race for new legislature, meaning our elected representatives will have to find out again where their friends lie. Maybe the HST tax will suffer due to different agendas, and bills politicians failed with previously will now stand in its way for success. Who knows, maybe by the next election the Conservatives will have even fewer supporters because the budget, and other high priority issues, will look worse than they did before. Anything can happen.

As for flag-waving facebook groups, I’m gonna stay away from them. I don’t want to be wrongly represented by something that I may have some belief in. It might sound a bit anti-democratic, but sometimes the majority is wrong.