Believe it or not, a major city in the Philippines, perhaps the second largest city after Manila, Quezon City, did not have a centralized city pound until a new one was inaugurated on April 29, 2007. Approximately 2.69 million people reside in Quezon City together with approximately 200,000 dogs of which a third are strays. Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) worked tirelessly and constantly with Quezon City Mayor's office to make the pound a reality. Formerly, stray dogs were kept by the local barangay government until they were claimed by the owners. The barangay has no equivalent in the American government system. It is lower than the city government and represents the basic unit of government because it operates at the neighborhood level. The dogs kept by the barangays have been known to end up in the dog meat market since the barangay officials are only too glad to give them up for a very small fee. They are, after all, not in the dog pound business. So, the opening of a city pound takes a bite out of the dog meat trade. The stray dogs now have a place to go, and hopefully get adopted from there. Quezon City, by the way, is considered the largest source of stray dogs that end up in the dog meat trade. Without the vision and hard work of PAWS, this step in the right direction would never have been taken. It's an important step forward for animal welfare in the Philippines. Here is a couple of videos taken during the inauguration ceremony:
Thumbing through some Robert Frost poems, I was led to this one by Maya Angelou . I don't know if Frost ever had an influence on Angelou, but certainly any American poet living today would be familiar with Frost's work. Frost and Whitman are my favorite poets, and the romantic poets ( Keats, Byron, and Shelley ) I can't bear. I find their work dense, abstruse and impenetrable. It's just a matter of taste and connectivity. I am no expert on verse, but I will accept the opinion of those who are. They warn us that Frost's poetry is deceivingly simple. If we were to try our hand at it, to put complicated emotions into simple verse, we would be tied up in knots. Anyway, Angelou's poem below, Caged Bird, touches on the plaintive cries, the longing for better things, that captive individuals must go through. You can apply the core meaning or sentiment of this poem to any situation involving imprisonment or captivity, human or animal. Think of the dog in a dank, dark
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