(A nod to Rachael Maddow). The personal blog on shelter politics started in 2016 vanished suddenly not for lack of interest or material but lack of time. Street advocacy for individuals and their animals facing injustice trumped the time needed to cover injustice. I would write the government every time hoping for a response. The facts were there. One never came.
It is clear now, as unrelentingly case follows case, that the time to write has to be created. Government behind closed doors becomes emboldened; without public exposure of misconduct there is no hope for change. Good government from the White House to the Dog House depends upon reporting what is being hidden from public view. And change depends upon public awareness.
In this year away I learned that appealing to government for change in the face of clear wrong doing is as effective as calling an empty telephone booth. Facts don’t count; facts with pressure do.
I am starting over, writing now as Gertrude Stein famously once advised, for myself and strangers… “It is the only way I can do it. “
Time was lost; this cause is not. And starts over with one case like so many others: a petition on Change.org.