Notice affixed to a stile on the Abthorpe to Slapton public footpath
Lamb death. “Due to lamb death following dog bite please keep dogs on a lead.†That was the printed message posted alongside a stile on the Abthorpe to Slapton public footpath. Barbara Smith of Slapton Manor Farm explained that a large well looked after lamb had been found dead in the field with a largish bite that she believed was too big for a fox. As people find it difficult to realise that the pet dogs that they love can cause expensive damage to a farmer’s stock, Barbara was asking for dogs to be kept on leads for the immediate future. The potential value of the lamb was between £65 and £85.
Once when I was a kid, I was riding my bike, and a neighbor’s dog ran out and bit me on the leg. I cried all the way home. I love dogs, but I also respect them.
Next week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. Thanks to dog vaccinations  and other public health efforts, rabies is rare in the United States. But it’s still a serious concern. And dog bites can also cause infection and serious injury.
Here’s what you and you family can do to protect yourselves from dog bites:
  * Don’t approach an unfamiliar dog.
  * Don’t run from a dog or scream when you’re around a dog.
  * Be “still like a tree†if an unfamiliar dog approaches.
  * If a dog knocks you down, roll into a ball and lie “still like a log.â€Â
  * Avoid direct eye contact with a dog.
  * Don’t disturb a dog that is sleeping, eating or caring for puppies.
  * Before petting a dog, let it see and sniff you.
  * Report stray dogs or dogs acting strangely to your local animal control agency.
For more information, read Dog Bite Prevention on the Web site of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Your local TV station or newspaper may have run a scary story about MRSA (pronounced “mer-saâ€). This skin infection is hard to treat and can even be deadly. But you and your family can take a few simple steps to protect yourselves from MRSA.
About 9 out of 10 MRSA infections happen when a person is in a hospital. But others occur as people go about their daily lives. For example, a towel infected with MRSA touches a scrape on a person’s arm.
MRSA infections often occur where there is a cut or scrape. They may also appear on a part of the body that is covered by hair, such as the back of the neck. Crowded conditions can help spread MRSA. Examples: Day care centers, locker rooms.
MRSA can sometimes cause serious problems. Examples: Pneumonia, infections of the bloodstream.
What Can My Children and I Do to Reduce the Risk of MRSA? Wash your hands often with soap and water. Or use a hand sanitizer that contains alcohol.
Keep cuts and scrapes clean.
Cover cuts and scrapes with clean, dry bandages until they heal.
If you have a cut, always put dirty bandages in the trash. Wash your hands after handling dirty bandages.
Don’t touch the cuts or skin infections of other people. Also, don’t touch their bandages.
Don’t share personal items that come into contact with skin. Examples: Towels, razors.
When Should I Be Concerned About a Skin Infection? Most skin infections are minor and easily treated. The skin may be red, swollen, painful, or have pus or oozing. The infection may look like a pimple, a boil or a bite.
Important: If a skin infection doesn’t get better, call your health care provider. The infection may be MRSA. Special treatment is needed.
Rabies, a disease caused by animals widely distributed throughout the world, has been classified by the World Health Organization in 2008 as Neglected Tropical Communicable Diseases. The Philippines, ranking 6th with highest incidence among countries, apparently belongs to the High Risk Category of the WHO with reported 200 to 300 deaths annually and increasing number of incidences of animal bites every year.
What people do not usually know is that this infection is caused by a virus, which is spread by the infected saliva of an animal that enters through a bite or a broken skin. According to WHO, this virus will then travel from the site of wound to the brain where it will cause inflammation and eventually, and if left untreated, it may become fatal.
On Recognizing the Symptoms: In Dogs and In Humans
The PPD Better Pharmacy has indicated the symptoms, which may vary according to the manifestations of the behavior of the infected animal, predominantly in dogs here in the Philippines. The dog may either appear to be furious: exhibiting marked shift from being tame to wild, unusually restless, evident foaming of the mouth and thick saliva, difficulty in eating and drinking, or on the other hand, may seem to be dumb: being inactive or showing signs of depression, often hiding in dark places, resists eating and posing a “far away lookâ€, jaw dropping, frail, and even sudden death without any sign.
In humans, symptoms may not appear after one has been bitten by an infected reservoir, that is the so-called “incubation period†of the virus for 10-14 days, and may even also last up to 30 days. During this time, prompt treatment is necessary to prevent further progression of the infection. The manifestation of symptoms have two phases: prodromal period, where the patient is experiencing excessive salivation, sensitivity to light, sound and change in temperature, muscle stiffness, loss of appetite, depression, nausea and vomiting and fever; and the neuroleptic phase, where the patient is already showing signs of hallucinations, hyperactivity, seizures and paralysis, difficulty in breathing and feeling of pain when swallowing, and hydrophobia (fear of water).
On Prevention and Treatment
The only thing one should be reminded of is to avoid being bitten by wild and stray animals. People who are at risk of exposure (that is if you are a pet-owner or surrounded by stray animals, or you handle animals, or even those who explore bat caves) should be given (before exposure) rabies vaccine  for immunization. And to some degree, this vaccine may even protect people for the rest of their life provided the booster shots are administered every 2 years.
What to do when a person is bitten by a rabid animal? One must bear in mind that cases of rabies could be fatal, thus, appropriate measures should be done without delay. The wound should be treated immediately, cleaned with soap and water. People without immunization shots may be given an injection of rabies immunoglobulin (different from the vaccine as this provides immediate protection). This has antibodies against the virus, depending on the state of the animal. The WHO guidelines state that the shot is given initially (day 0), followed by shots of vaccine on days 3, 7, 14, and 28, as it stimulates the body to protect itself from the virus with much longer time.
According to the Merck Manual of Medical Information, if an immunized person has been bitten by a rabid animal, the risk of developing the rabies is reduced. However, it is still advised that the patient should be given immediate wound care and rabies immunoglobulin.
Once the symptoms develop in the victim, neither the vaccine nor the immunoglobulin is effective against the virus. Treatment is only limited, in this case, to relieving the pain and other symptoms making the person comfortable as possible; in most cases, death results due to cardiac or respiratory failure.
Prevention is always the key. Never approach animals or pets you don’t know of. Responsible pet ownership should be promoted as this can reduce the incidence of animal bites in our country. The goal is to make the Philippines a Rabies-Free nation. The world celebrates Rabies Day every 28th of September.
The public is entitled to safe streets. Without a doubt, one who will try to kill you or your children should be the first priority of law enforcement authorities. When the potential killer is a vicious dog, however, we are seeing unconscionable lapses on the part of animal control, police and prosecutors.
The latest story comes to me from Delaware County, Ohio. Last December, pit bulls attacked a man on the street and police had to shoot at them. They got away but their owner was identified. Police reports were filed but the prosecutor’s office said the same were not received. Then in April, the same dogs attacked a woman standing on her front porch and police had to shoot at the dogs again. This time, charges were filed — but too late to protect the second victim.
For all we know, there could be a good explanation as to why this prosecution did not go forward in December. At this time, however, the public has reason to question whether the police and prosecutors are performing at adequate levels with regard to dangerous dogs. The public needs to know that someone is monitoring the performance of the people who were entrusted with the safety of the community.
A couple of years ago, I was contacted by the family of Jennifer Lowe, a 21-year-old young lady who was mauled to death by pit bulls that savaged her for more than 30 minutes. It turned out that sheriffs had shot at the dogs in the past, the animal control department had declared the dogs to be vicious, but law enforcement officers then took no steps that would have saved Jennifer from her brutal fate. As a result, the renowned Tennessee lawyer Wayne A. Ritche II and I sued several parties including the County of Knox, Tennessee, because of the inactions of the Knox County Sheriff’s Department and Knox County Animal Control. Following a detailed judicial evaluation of the case, Knox County offered a confidential settlement which was acceptable to Jennifer’s family.
Since then I have been pursuing similar cases against the authorities in other areas of the country. The lesson that public officials must learn from these lawsuits is that they must take vicious dogs out of the hands of irresponsible dog owners and off our streets. The dangerous dog laws must be enforced. If the authorities fail us in this important duty, the victims will have their day in court.
PITTSBURGH (NewsRadio 1020 KDKA) — Did you know that 30 percent of home insurance claims in 2010 were due to dog bites?
Did you also know that many insurance companies have clauses and extra costs for the kind of dog you own?
KDKA AM’s Larry Richert and John Shumway talk to Dr. Mike Hutchinson of Animal General about whether it is right to single out a certain breed of dog as dangerous, if a dog bite is entirely the dog’s fault, and if Niko, the Husky that caused the death of a newborn in McKeesport, is safe to live with his new owner.
Click the link below to listen to the full interview:
Will the Wizards win 40 games this season? That would be 21 more than they won last season, more than doubling their win percentage.
I was sorry to see Darius Songaila go. But the Wizards’ off-season trades have been excellent. I think they will play better-than-.500 ball and will contend for a playoff spot…
…For the record: I can think of a lot of places where I would love to sit and drink a cold beer.
…As they continued their journey, He entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed Him.
She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at His feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to Him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.â€
The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.†–Luke 10:38-42
There is plenty to do. But the life of action in this world is for the sake of reaching the life of contemplation in the next.
It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek. –Vatican Council II, Sacrosanctum Concilium 2
1. For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently.
–Much Ado About Nothing, Act V, Scene i
2. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: a’ brushes his hat o’ mornings; what should that bode?… And when was he wont to wash his face?
Like all the chapters of all the gospels, the sixth chapter of John proclaims that the Messiah has come, and it is Jesus.
Moses
It will help us to understand this chapter if we recall some of the great deeds the Lord did through His prophet Moses in ancient times. Through Moses, the Lord taught His people a lot about how to hope for the Messiah—about how to hope for freedom and salvation.
Let us recall the Exodus of the Israelites. By the power of God, Moses brought plagues upon the Egyptian slave-masters. Then he parted the Red Sea and led the people across it. Later, Moses turned the desert rock into a spring of water.
Moses also demonstrated the power of God when he brought the Law down from Mt. Sinai and then consecrated the people in a covenant of obedience to it.
It has been a month since the Monday evening that rattled me as much as I have been rattled in a long time. I think September 11, 2001, was the last time I sat in front of a televison in a state of such distress.
The Washington Metro opened when I was a little boy. My dad worked for the city then, and we rode on a special Metro ride for V.I.P.’s, the day before the system opened.
He was so excited about the Metro that he used to ride it one stop each evening, from his office at Farragut North to the end of the red line at Dupont Circle. Then he would catch the bus the rest of the way to our house (near Friendship Heights–only a shaded ‘future’ station on the map back then).
The Metro ride did not save him any time or trouble. He did it out of sheer excitement.
I guess children who grow up on farms have a special love for pigs and tractors. They do not like to see sick pigs or mangled tractors. For me, it is the Metro.
There was a deadly Metro crash in January, 1982–the same afternoon Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th-Street bridge and plummeted into the Potomac River. And a Metro operator was killed in a crash in 1996.
But I think the crash on June 22 is the event that will mark a turning point in Washington subway history equivalent to the turning point that was reached in New York City ten days before the end of World War I:
Have you ever been to Frederick Law Olmstead’s magnificent Prospect Park in Brooklyn? One of the exits of the park opens onto Empire Boulevard.
This street once had a different name. They had to change the name of the street, because the old name had become synonymous with death and horror. Empire Boulevard was once Malbone Street.
Click here for the New York Times account of the deadliest non-terrorist subway catastrophe in history, which happened in the tunnel outside the Malbone Street station on All Saints Day, 1918.
At least 93 people died. The crash occurred because a non-union scab with two hours of training was operating the Brighton Beach express during a strike. He took a six-mile-an-hour curve at 40 mph.
The responsible authorities were indicted for manslaughter.
The NYC subway bounced back. It became a professional operation. May the same happen here in Washington. And may all the dead rest in peace.
I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand. (Matthew 13:13)
There are a lot of great stories. Some of them teach important lessons. Like “If you build it, they will come.â€
But the parables of Christ are not like these. The parables of Christ are in a class by themselves.
If we think Christ’s parables are moral lessons, we will not understand them. What is the moral lesson of the Parable of the Dishonest Steward?
The parables of Christ are about Christ Himself. They are about the salvation which God won for us by becoming man, suffering, dying, and rising again. The parables of Christ make sense only by the light of faith. They are not interchangeable with other morality tales.
There is a key to entering into Christ’s parables. Without the key, they are impossible to understand. With the key, Christ’s parables explain all of life, all of reality.
The key is the Nicene Creed, the truth about Who Christ is.
I have no choice but to admit that in the past two days, I have witnessed not one, but two miracles of liberal journalism.
I. Don’t know if you heard how a professor at Harvard was arrested in his own house. He claims to be the victim of police racism.
The first thing that occurred to me when I read the conflicting accounts of what happened: Wasn’t the police officer probably trying to secure the house after having received a burglary report? Why would Dr. Gates refuse to comply with the officer’s request that he step outside? Isn’t it reasonable to think that the officer asked Dr. Gates to step outside for his own safety, in the event that there was an intruder in the house?
My brother used to write for the Washington Post. Of course I would always be glad to buy my brother a beer. But other than that, I have never wanted to buy beers for Washington Post writers.
…Here is Reason #1,865 why it is impossible to take the Washington Post seriously. A quote from one of today’s editorials:
…The United States…is dealing with the omnipresent specter of another terrorist attack…
Omnipresent specter?
Would the word “threat†not suffice? Or even the phrase “constant threat?†Who hired someone from the Ministry of Truth to copy edit the Washington Post?
The truth is that there is only one Omnipresent Specter, and He does not appreciate blasphemy.
He will indeed terrorize the proud. But He will exult the humble.
He will reward those who treat the language with reverence. But the cheap word-mongers He will crush.
I was able to see King Lear at the Harman Center through the gracious generosity of a friend, and I am grateful for his kindness.
We have been down this road before. The Shakespeare-Theatre-Company production of Twelfth Night turned out to be painfully “gimmick-ridden,†and utterly unsatisfying for this “Shakespeare fundamentalist.â€
The problem is: Their production of King Lear is laden with more gimmicks than twelve Twelfth Nights. And all of the gimmicks in this production of King Lear are gross with a capital G.
Gross beyond the point of gratuity. Gross beyond the point of abysmal taste. Gross to the point of embarrassment.
St. Bernardine of Siena holding the insignia of the Holy Name of Jesus
This is what His Grace handed me:
For the welfare of the people of God, I appoint you, Reverend Mark D. White, pastor of Holy Name parish, Washington, D.C.
I hereby commit to you the full pastoral care of souls in this parish…May God grant you the grace and health to carry out this charge of priestly service for souls.
Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington
I am unworthy of such trust. Please pray for me. May the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, who together gave our Savior His Holy Name, watch over me and all the people of “Capitol Hill extended†and Trinidad.
Once when I was a kid, I was riding my bike, and a neighbor’s dog ran out and bit me on the leg. I cried all the way home. I love dogs, but I also respect them.
