Castaway

Sophie Tucker, the dog, not the singer, is an Australian Blue Heeler Cattle Dog, who has a remarkable story. She did a Tom Hanks and got herself marooned on a desert island – she became a castaway.

She fell off her owner’s boat in heavy seas off Mackay in North Queensland, Australia and was given up as lost. Her owner, Jan Griffith, and her family were in a state of grief at having lost their beloved pet, who went just about everywhere with them. But in such sea conditions as there were when Sophie did her Robinson Crusoe act, there was no hope that she would have survived. After all, they were about five nautical miles off shore when the accident happened and the family, reluctantly, accepted the terrible fate that had befallen their dog.

But Sophie was made of sterner stuff than her family had giver her credit for. She somehow swam the gruelling five miles through heavy seas to reach St. Bees Island off the Queensland coast. That, believe it or not, was four months ago!

The brave little pooch survived all this time by foraging around the island and feeding herself on baby goats, and whatever else she could find. Indeed, she began to be noticed by visitors to the island and was presumed to be a wild dog. 

She was eventually captured by rangers after the Griffiths family contacted them to check out the sightings of the ‘wild’ dog. Imagine the joy, and the incredulity, when the family were at last re-united with their darling Sophie!

Jan Griffith and her husband met the boat on which the rangers had brought the dog back to Mackay. Sophie just about went berserk in the cage she was being held in when she spotted Jan and her husband. When the rangers opened up the cage she almost knocked them over in her excitement to get to her owners. Then it was on for one and all, as the reunion became a tangle of people and dog as they all went crazy with joy.

The rangers were impressed and amazed that a domesticated dog could not only swim so far to the island, but also learn to survive. They said they had found the remains of baby goats in various places on the island and even though reports at first said that the ‘wild’ dog look scrawny and weak, within a short while, it was seen to be in the best of health and beefing up nicely.

Now Sophie is back in the bosom of the family and, if only she could talk, what a story she would have to tell for years to come!

Here's a great site to visit if you're interested in pet welfare: http://www.waycooldogs.com/

The right to bear arms - what a travesty!

America’s love affair with guns is like a cancerous sore that keeps getting worse as the years go by. The problem is that more and more people are arming themselves against other people, who, had there been no access to guns in the first place, would hardly have presented a threat to them.

Is it too late to reverse this tragic cycle of fear? Perhaps. The Constitution says that all citizens have the right to bear arms, but is that really what was intended when the authors of that revered document put quill to paper? I hardly think so. How could they have known in those innocent times that their intentions would be so distorted? How could they know that gangs would roam the city streets armed to the teeth with ever more efficient killing machines? How could they envisage twisted, bitter people who go to school and wipe out the lives of innocent children and teachers? What would they think if they knew in advance that men would kill all their family and then themselves?

My bet is that they would blush with shame.

The gun lobby in America is very powerful and politicians are loth to cross them by voting for better gun-restrictive laws. The ordinary citizens have no hope of changing the system, even though they have the right to vote. No politician is going to risk losing his seat for such a politically suicidal issue as gun control, no matter what the public might want. It’s a vain hope that this will change in the foreseeable future. Politicians are not noted for their courage,

Yet, around 30,000 gun-related deaths occur each year in the USA. This is a national disaster – and a national disgrace. 9/11 was considered to be the worst terrorist act on American soil in its history, but, as tragic as that was, it pales into the background when placed against the annual deaths by gunfire - by its own citizens. Admittedly, the 9/11attacks were all committed on the same day; nevertheless, the annual gun deaths are almost ten times worse. There’s just no getting round this parlous fact.

Men like to have guns to prove their ‘manhood’, to show their power in the community. Sure, there is always the reason given that they need guns for protection, but if you were to go beneath the surface, I’m sure you would find that most men get a surge of adrenalin when they hold a loaded gun in their hands. Place these guns in the hands of unstable characters and you have a recipe for disaster. Women need guns for their protection, mainly because the men in the first place needed to show how tough they were. It’s all about dicks on tables. You guys should take a good look at yourselves. If you only knew, you don’t have to prove yourself to anybody. Just be yourself and stuff the rest of the crap.

Fruitcakes are not the only ones responsible for gun violence, No, ordinary people with a tendency to lose their temper can be just as lethal, if a loaded gun is handy.  Suicides account for most of the gun deaths in the USA. Jealousy, greed, power are all reasons for people to ‘bear arms’ and go out and kill. Thrill killing is another evil phenomenon that is fast rearing its vicious head; even boredom! If these guns were not so readily available, perhaps these people would find less dangerous means to vent their particular beef.

Then again, what do you do with the guns that are already out there in the community? How do you get rid of the guns, assuming for one crazy moment that that was the wish of the American people? It’s reasonable to say that this will never happen; therefore, the cycle recurs endlessly and the people are left with a problem that is just too big to fix, and too costly. Dollars matter – lives don’t.