Petition for HAPPY (HR3501)

http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/campaign.faces;jsessionid=936206C269B5E4B8F4549017DF0665EB.ctgProd01?siteId=3&campaign=HAPPYAct3501

This is the address for one of the petitions for the HAPPY bill.  There are several petitions out there, and anyone who rescues animals knows why.  People are having to choose between keeping their homes and keeping their pets.  The rescue community is overwhelmed and the adoptions are drying up.  I still have the same cats available for adoptions as are posted below.  Not being a 501(c)3, in order to show my cats at local adopt-a-thons, I have to coattail on another group.  But they are all struggling to place their own animals and right now view me as competition for homes.  Besides, they keep telling me, they know my cats will not just be dumped, and they get good care, they are safe where they are and IF adoptions ever pick up again, then I would be welcome to coattail.  Til then, good luck.
Non-pet owners may not realize that this does affect them, and where their tax money is spent, but the pounds are budgeted by the cities and counties.   Housing the numbers coming in is out of the question for many facilities, but killing them is costly, both in the direct monetary cost and the  psychic damage done to the people who's job it is to kill a pet merely to make room.   I know about that damage first hand, I used to have that job. I  have nightmares of my approaching the pearly gates which is blocked by a large crowd of animals.  The animals I killed because they were inconvenient to someone and we could no longer give them space.  They are all shouting "She killed me".   My doctor tells me I have PTSD.  If I get treated for it, it will come directly from the taxpayer's pocket, as I am a veteran and the VA is my health care facility.   How many others are treated for PTSD or depression on the taxpayer's dime?  Most who do this job are either city or county employees with health care benefits, or employees of humane shelters on bare minimum wages so have to rely on state care.  You can see how this even affects the pockets of  people without pets and even those oddities who don't even like pets.
We need this passed, but it would be more helpful if there was a little tweaking done to it first so it helped the right group of people.  Scroll down to my post of November 9th so that you can see how the bill would affect you, as it is, and so that you know what to ask your representative to do.
http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/campaign.faces;jsessionid=936206C269B5E4B8F4549017DF0665EB.ctgProd01?siteId=3&campaign=HAPPYAct3501

I know yesterday was 9/11

I know that yesterday was 9/11, but I really didn't want to think about it.  Even after all this time, it feels too raw when I let my mind go there.  But trying to ignore it did no good, I spent much of the day seeing the images on tv and the net.  Even writing these few lines has tears in my eyes.  What I remember most about that day and the months that followed were the acts of heroism.  The teachers at a daycare herding their charges to safety through choking dust.  The first responders running up the stairs in the second tower, knowing they might, probably, die, because they saw what happened to the first.  The guide dog and his owner helping guide others through the blinding dust and smoke to safety.  The people on a plane who weren't going to sit back and just let the hijackers win.  The people who ran to help others when they could have run to safety.   The K-9 who risked his life to find survivors only to later be shot and killed by other police officers when in the line of duty pursuing a felon. The searchers in the following weeks knowing they couldn't possibly find a survivor, and the joy when they did against all odds. The same searchers when it became obvious just how dangerous and toxic the rubble was, but they kept digging, looking for corpses so families would know.  All the dogs who risked their lives and sanity to find the dead.  Don't think these dogs didn't know what they were being asked to do.  I've trained dogs for this.  They knew, but they went willingly.
It was a bad day, but it was a time that showed what Americans were capable of.  We pulled together.   Stores in the area opened their doors to give away food that would have spoiled anyway.  Crime dropped.  Flags flew.  People were proud to be Americans.  Not the fakey political pride of the later Bush years, but real pride in heroism and generosity.  We cared.  Why we have to have grand tragedies to act well towards our fellow humans, I don't know, but I do know that this is one thing I wish we could have kept out of that horrible time.
The horrors only brushed lightly over us, so far removed here in Tucson.  My husband was in California that day at the airport preparing to fly home.  He had turned in his rental car and was heading for his plane when the terrible news broke and all planes were grounded.  He returned to the rental place where miraculously they still had his car.  The company, Alamo, let him take the car out of the state, return it in Tucson and didn't charge him.  They even gave him a coupon for future use.
Maybe next year I'll do better on 9/11, cry a little less, maybe even forget a little.  I doubt it.  I don't think I'll ever stop feeling this pain when I let my mind go back...I'm not sure I want to.