やった! (yatta!)

A few weeks ago I posted a link to an article about the Animal Legal Defense Fund's lawsuit to free Tony the Tiger, a Siberian-Bengal tiger, being held in a cage at a Louisiana truck stop. Today, victory for Tony was announced when a East Baton Rouge District Court judge granted ALDF's request for a permanent injunction against the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries. The Department is enjoined from renewing the annual permit required to allow Grosse Tete Tiger Truck Stop to exhibit the big cat under Louisiana law.

True Blood's Kristin Bauer recorded a video urging support for ALDF's campaign to free Tony. The star power behind the campaign went supernova when Leonardo DiCaprio encouraged his facebook and twitter followers to help end the inhumane conditions of Tony's captivity. Thanks to these celebrities and others (hopefully a few of this blog's readers), ALDF went into court with 31,000 signatures petitioning the state of Louisiana to deny the permit to Michael Sandlin, owner of the truck stop.

I have a personal connection to this story through one of my closest friends, Matthew Liebman, who is a staff attorney for ALDF and was in court today in Louisiana advocating on behalf of the law (former Louisiana Representative Warren Triche, a co-plaintiff in the case, had authored the bill banning the private ownership if big cats), animal welfare, and general decency. Every time I doubt my reasons for going to law school, Matt always pulls off something amazing like this to remind me that lawyers can make a difference. Thank you Matt, the ALDF, Warren Triche, and the law offices of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell, & Berkowitz, P.C., who provided pro bono assistance on this case.

The ruling only enjoins the Department from renewing the permit which means that Tony will remain on exhibit at the truck stop until the current permit expires in December of this year (2011). ALDF is working with the Department to help find Tony an appropriate sanctuary. Stephen Wells, Executive Director of ALDF, had this to say.

Today, the law was upheld in the state of Louisiana, which has explicit regulations designed to protect tigers like Tony... It is an incredible victory for ALDF, the tens of thousands around the world who have supported this campaign, and most of all, for Tony. We eagerly look forward to the day that he leaves behind the noise and fumes of the Tiger Truck Stop for a new life of freedom that he has never known.

You can read the press release or find out about other campaigns and ways to get involved with animal welfare at the www.aldf.org.

UPDATE: Yay! Matthew's in the New York Times.

Breaking the seal

It's been a strange week indeed.

We had French Vogue inexplicably decide that reviving blackface would somehow get a bye in the age of Obama. The jokes were hard to swallow in Tropic Thunder and Downey's blackface there was deployed with irony in full force. "What do you mean 'you people'?" There isn't anything ironic about painting up a white Dutch model for a magazine layout. Fashion fail.

And today we find out some justice of the peace in Louisiana feels he has the right to deny interracial couples a marriage license. But oh no, he's not a racist; he has "piles and piles of black friends" whom are so privileged as to be allowed access to his bathroom. Anybody else feel we might need to search under his house and in the woodshed? Who counts up people by the pile... except, you know, Nazis and Rwandan warlords. And what's his excuse? He's just thinking of the children who, according to our good friend, will never be accepted by either the white or black community. Damn! Do his marriage licenses also include a one-way ticket on a time machine back to 1957? Please, Keith Bardwell, please stop being so helpful.

The battle lines were drawn more sharply surrounding Roman Polanski. On one side, Hollywood (notably minus Jamie Foxx) supports Polanski and thinks that slipping a 13 year old girl a quaalude and then having sex with her against her will is somehow ok when you make great movies. Journalists, on the other hand, found themselves cast again and again this week in the role of saying drugging and raping a 13 year old is not cool, no matter how many Oscars or lifetime achievement awards you may have won. You know how he lured the girl to Jack Nicholson's house? He told her and her mother he wanted to take pictures of the girl for French Vogue! You can't make this stuff up. Please sign this petition to cancel French Vogue. Do it for the children.

Tomorrow morning I will be saying goodbye to Capital One as my bank. They decided to delete all of my scheduled utility and credit card payments via bill pay. When I asked them to take care of the late fees and negotiate to re-establish the 0% interest rates on my cards as they promise in their TOS, they strung me along for 3 weeks and then said "sorry, since these weren't scheduled as auto-payments we won't help you." Which they knew from the beginning when I called on September 22 and on every subsequent call. I had to twist the arm of every rep I spoke with to get them to take a look at the notes left by previous reps. What a nightmare! I'll try to give the uncondensed version in the future so you can know what kind of pointless runaround to expect if you ever call Capital One customer service. I will never bank with Capital One again. Can't wait to see the bank manager's face when I come in to pull out all my money.

And lastly... finally got my LSAT score. Disappointed.