10:35 am | 19 February 2003 | do you think they'll drop the bomb

Below are a couple of important current activist movements that you can participate in from the comfort of your ergonomic office chair. Your support makes me adore you even more. clm.

Please join me in registering for a Virtual March on Washington on February 26th. We are asking Congress to stop the Bush administration's rush to war, and to let the inspections work. Time is running out.

With your help, on February 26th, every Senate office will receive a call EVERY MINUTE from a constituent, as they receive a simultaneous crush of faxes and e-mail. In New York and Los Angeles, "anti-war rooms" will highlight the progress of the day for national media. Local media will visit the "anti-war room" online, to monitor the throughout the day.

With your help, every Senate office switchboard will be lit up all day with our anti-war messages. This will be a powerful reminder of the breadth and depth of opposition to a war in Iraq.

Just go to this website to join.

Recently and disturbingly, Nike has recently unveiled a new ad promoting their athletic shoes with imagery of fighting dogs. With the current dog-fighting epidemic raging in the United States (more than 200 repossessed fighting pit bulls are euthanised DAILY in LOS ANGELES ALONE), this sort of advertisement is totally unacceptable.

Please send an email to Nike and express your concern about the current commercial. You can also visit this website to read more about Nike's ad campaign.

Below is a brief statement that can be cut-and-pasted into Nike's answer box, or take a moment to write your own letter. Please distribute this email as widely as possible.

Dear Nike,

In a disgusting act of corporate irresponsibility, you have unveiled a new ad campaign hoping to cash in on the sale of athletic shoes by including footage of a face-to-face confrontation between a Rottweiler and a pit bull--poised to fight. When taken in context with the rest of the commercial, it sends a message to viewers that is extremely distasteful: namely, that dogs trained to fight until death is somehow "cool"--that the fierce aggression of fighting dogs is concurrent with an admirable athletic modus operandi.

I require you to not only stop running this advertisement immediately, but I also suggest that, as a good-faith gesture of remorse, you make a contribution to an advocacy group that defends abused animals.

Sincerely,
[name]