Now onto TIF..
Defining the concept for the January Challenge was a challenge in and of itself. The word admire, meaning to regard with wonder, pleasure and approbation; to have respect for... has multiple meanings and categories. I thought about many; authors and artists, mythical and biblical, political and activist, famed and humble, living and dead, real and imaginary, historical and futuristic. Would I choose a celebrity or a personal acquaintance? I appreciate many people for their talents and aspirations, but truly admire?
Let me share with you my hero, Susan Butcher . 12/26/54 - 08/05/06.
Susan, I love you still!! Her legacy lives on here. With Susan and her life as my muse, I will try to equate my feelings for her and what she means to me with thread and fabric.
With paint color chips ( since my printer is down) I culled my stash for Sharon's color scheme. Give or take a hue or 2 (and my poor lighting), I've come up with the palette that I'll use. Some will stay, some will go.. this is the basis. No telling what form the embellishment will be. I'm still bouncing ideas as to what form this will take and will try to document with pics any pencil to paper doodlings I make in the process. I love this " idea" phase!
I've decided to use the Featherweight exclusively for stippling & quilting and have the darning foot and feed dog cover installed. I am going slow with this and have posted several questions to the Featherweight Group , just want to make sure I have it all set up right.
My CNA classes start up next week and I still have the wayward clothes closet to address but the large scale goals this year are to secure gainful employment "here in no mans land", make more time for things that are important to me, to check myself against "brow beating", and to trust more in the fact that my true self is better than any immitation. Likewise my blogging goals are to be more creative and true to my purpose.
Till the next time....
Images from this post via Yahoo Images File
Quilter Blogs & Store Search
6 comments:
I love both your concept and your fabrics. I'm looking forward to watching this one progress.
Thanks for sharing Susan Butcher's story. I look forward to seeing your piece develop.
Jane, Happy Birthday! I hope you all your wishes are granted this new year. I wish you the best. Toni
Beautiful fabrics! It's exciting to watch everyone develop thier pieces for the challenge. Can't wait to see yours!
While Susan Butcher should be admired for her valiant fight against cancer, we shouldn't admire her for racing dogs in the Iditarod. Several of Susan's dogs died in the Iditarod in her effort to gain fame and fortune. One of the dogs used by Butcher in the 1994 Iditarod died from exertional myopathy, otherwise known as "sudden death syndrome." Another dog used by her dropped dead in 1987 from internal hemorrhaging. Several were injured and killed by moose. People who love their dogs don't make them run in the Iditarod.
Here's a short list of what happens to the dogs during the race: death, paralysis, penile frostbite, bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons, vomiting, hypothermia, sprains, fur loss, broken teeth, torn footpads and anemia.
At least 133 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race's early years. In "WinterDance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod," a nonfiction book, Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, "All the time he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill."
Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. "Sudden death" and "external myopathy," a fatal condition in which a dog's muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of Rick Swenson's dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.
In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.
No one knows how many dogs die in training or after the race each year.
On average, 53 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:
"They've had the hell beaten out of them." "You don't just whisper into their ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.' They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying." -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno's column
Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, "I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that "‘Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.'" "Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective...A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective." "It is a common training device in use among dog mushers...A whip is a very humane training tool."
During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Brooks admitted to hitting his dogs with a wooden trail marker when they refused to run. The Iditarod Trail Committee suspended Brooks for two years, but only for the actions he admitted. By ignoring eyewitness accounts, the Iditarod encouraged animal abuse. When mushers know that eyewitness accounts will be disregarded, they are more likely to hurt their dogs and lie about it later.
Mushers believe in "culling" or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. "On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don't pull are dragged to death in harnesses....." wrote Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska's Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, "He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens. Or dragging them to their death."
The Iditarod, with its history of abuse, could not be legally held in many states, because doing so would violate animal cruelty laws.
Iditarod administrators promote the race as a commemoration of sled dogs saving the children of Nome by bringing diphtheria serum from Anchorage in 1925. However, the co-founder of the Iditarod, Dorothy Page, said the race was not established to honor the sled drivers and dogs who carried the serum. In fact, 600 miles of this serum delivery was done by train and the other half was done by dogs running in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles. This isn't anything like the Iditarod.
The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs was inhumane and not in the animals' best interests. The chaining of dogs as a primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his living area.
Iditarod dogs are prisoners of abuse.
Sincerely,
Margery Glickman
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org
Post a Comment