By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A hero cat gained international acclaim and interest for saving a six year old boy from a vicious attack by a marauding dog. She was thus awarded The Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ National Hero Dog prize.
Madeleine Bernstein, president of the local ASPCA chapter, stated: “We were so impressed by Tara’s bravery and fast action that the selection committee decided that a cat this spectacular should be the National Hero Dog.”
The cat, Tara, who lives in Bakersfield, CA received the 33rd annual award—presented to her family in a ceremony in Los Angeles.
The near tragedy unfolded in May of 2014 when her owner’s six-year-old son, Jeremy Triantafilo, was happily riding his bicycle in front of his otherwise serene Bakersfield home. Unbeknownst to this innocent young child, the sinister gaze of a most craven dog peered down upon the boy. It was nothing short of nefarious intent and a cowardly disposition that capitalized upon this deceptive ploy, the cloak of Man’s Best Friend. Most dishonorable indeed!
The cad dog stalked our child, seized the boy viciously by the leg, and hurled him to the concrete below. It had been quite enough to attack a little boy, but to do so from behind like a common backstabber shows quite decidedly how wretchedly low this mutt had sunk.
Wails of panic and pain cried out from our poor, victimized child. We are sorry to reveal such a horrible image befalling an innocent but it was this hue and cry that summoned a lightning stoked vengeance from an almost unbelievable source, the family cat Tara.
Tara vanquished this cowardly enemy with such haste and speed one could only imagine the intensity of the resolve that raced from mind to claws, hell-bent on rescue and unleashing justice upon this mutt.
Almost in mid-air Tara scored a most palpable hit, driving him over and sending him fleeing in the disgrace he deserved. It is with an almost ironic twist that the vanquished was named “Scrappy”, for it is our hero cat that deserved such a title after dethroning this beast from its pedestal of ego. But the defeat was further cemented when after a quick glance to see that the boy was in the arms of a very worried but comforting mother that Tara gave chase once again, driving the marauding beast from the tranquility of the family home forever.
It is no coincidence that Providence saved this boy through the boldness of a small but formidable champion. Tara’s deeds can be described fittingly in the biblical lessons of David and Goliath–though it certainly could be argued that Goliath was comparatively the more Honorable beast.
The family with haste conveyed our victim to hospital where he required no less than eight stitches to mend the wounds of this dastardly attack. Nevertheless it is clear this rescue from a harrowing ordeal served to only endear Tara to her loving family for her selfless acts of bravery.
Though she never sought acclaim or fame from her actions, Tara gained celebrity through the modern marvel of the YouTube Home Nickelodeon. An astonishing 800,000 souls watched in profound amazement. A year later, the ASPCA took kind notice.
Breaking all convention, Tara achieved a most unprecedented prize, the National Hero Dog Award. Hers was a victory so complete that it not only defeated this low-life dog, it destroyed all contenders of the canine species worldwide in their bids for glory.
We invite you to witness Tara’s triumphant stand in the below YouTube Color Motion Picture.
Certain we are that Tara can stand proud as a fine example of the heroism espoused by our Great Republic.
By Darren Smith
Sources:
YouTube Motion Picture Cinema
Color Daguerreotype Faces Book (Photography Credit)
Fox News Electric Picture Telegraph Service
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
LOL. I noticed in an effort to sell prunes, some producers have changed the label to “dried plums.” I LOVE prunes and prune juice. My bride and I eat prune Activia.
@KarenS
You’re welcome! (LOL!)
@NickS
You know, I just wish that the farmer had been a prune farmer, instead of a raisin farmer. Oh, the Irish Poems I could have done! Like this one!
Get Stuffed???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
There once was a guy who grew plums. . .
And the government took ’em, those bums!
Then constipation
Swept over the nation,
‘Cause a prune’s what a dried plum becomes!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Karen and Squeek, I heard about the raisin farmer’s plight listening to NPR last year. So, you know it’s govt. overreach if NPR does a story about his troubles!
Thank you, Squeeky. I now have Gotterdammerbanker stuck in my head.
A timeline of Greek’s financial crisis, and how they lied about their debt in order to be included in the Euro.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8580720/Timeline-of-a-crisis-how-Greeces-tragedy-unfolded.html
How Greece lied about its finances to join the Euro:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16834815
What I find a pros pos is how the Greek railway had more employees than passengers, being socialist. It would be cheaper to literally send everyone by taxi. So they sold shares to the government and made it look like an asset instead of a loss. (Like spending $65 billion on a vacation train to San Francisco with projected dismal ridership at a period of time where Metrolink hemorrhages riders every year.) And when it was bailed out, the Greeks didn’t particularly liked austerity measures, so they voted in yet another socialist government. Because let’s repeat a failed experiment and expect a different result, right? So now they can’t pay their debt and want the money for free. Heck, they lied about their debt to get into the Euro, so what’s wrong with breaking promises to repay a bailout or enact austerity measures? But since they don’t have their house in order, they may need more.
It’s an awful mess in a beautiful country done great harm by socialism.
randyjet:
So if someone comes to you and begs you to loan them money, and you do, he can tell you to go to Hell? And you’re OK with that?
I think it quite likely that more of Greece’s debt will be forgiven. And I think Europe has learned that a bailout will not be a loan, but a gift to a resentful recipient.
Greece should have just been honest. They needed a gift, not a loan, because they were so broke they couldn’t handle the debt payments, either. And then the EU could have made an honest assessment about what they were willing to give, not loan.
For me, the story of Greece makes me grimly worried about our own financial house. As you know, I’m a fiscal conservative very concerned that we are blithely following Greece’s example. But Greece may be poisoning the bailout well when our own wastefulness catches up with us. Plus, how much money should we take away from other programs to give to other countries who refuse to change their spending? Greece rejected austerity. They just wanted the money but the rest of the EU can keep its opinions on how they should run their country. So, if we were in the EU’s position with Greece asking for billions, which programs should we take the money away from? Welfare? Infrastructure? It’s not like the money wasn’t needed anywhere. I would be much more likely to chip in to help starving people, or a country rebuild after the fall of socialism, then a country who spent itself into bankruptcy while rejecting the requirement to fix its finances.
Iceland was brought down by out of control banking, especially aggressive lending. (Remember the sub-prime meltdown that Liberals engineered in the US, the whole “homeownership is a right” and its racist not to lend to the poor with bad credit meme?) And the tiny country of Iceland has a debt it will likely never repay, either, but it has put off the immediate effects. Foreign creditors will likely drag it to court. Iceland had a banking, not a spending, problem. And Iceland did not fight changes as Greece has. And, again, creditors having been burned will be far less likely to fall for that again. I think the “bailout bubble” has burst.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/34ab12fc-0d9b-11e4-815f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3dpe9ry4t
Here’s a slightly more positive take on it which does not take into account the effect on debt:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/02/us-iceland-economy-insight-idUSKBN0MT0WE20150402
@NickS
Yep. It is fantastic that Farmer Horne won his raisins back. The gov’t got 47% of his raisins??? Criminy! One bright spot in an otherwise bleakish atmosphere. But now, what are all those government raisin-stealing workers going to do since they can’t steal crops anymore???
RAISIN D’ÊTRE???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
There once was a farmer named Horne,
Who got half of his raisin crop shorn!
Now, those government apes
Can go eat sour grapes!
Or just sit around watching porn.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
NOTE: For people who don’t know what the title is about,
RAISON D’ÊTRE in French means “reason or justification for existence.” Sooo, RAISIN D’ÊTRE is a pun on that.
Hmmm. I did a post once on Iceland, and the bankers on my old Squeekonomics blog:
https://squeekonomics.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/gotterdammerbanker-the-twilight-of-the-bankers/
https://squeekonomics.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/demons.jpg
Caption: CDS Traders Meet The Counterparties
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Very true. It wasn’t even a question that they would close down.
@KarenS
If they were grossing $11,000 per year, then they couldn’t even afford an attorney to fight the charges. Government can quite often be arbitrary and absurd.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Nick and DBQ – great posts. I had not realized the raisin farm case had come up yet. I’m glad this farmer was able to fight the case in court. For anyone who did not know, here are some details of the case:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102777734
This brings to mind another case in which a small CA winery was driven out of business because it allowed people to work there as volunteers. People interested in wine, growing grapes, or just fans of the winery would come and put in hours, learning from the owners. They were such a small winery, they were open just 10 hours a week. The owner taught the volunteers for free. Everyone loved it. Except they were fined $115,000 for violating labor laws. Since it only grossed $11,000/year, that was the end of the winery. I never did understand why this wasn’t considered an unpaid internship.
This effectively ended the common practice of letting people volunteer at wineries to learn about them. No more helping your local CSA farm.
http://www.offthegridnews.com/current-events/california-small-business-shuttered-simply-for-using-volunteers/
@ Nick
Yes. I have closely followed this and am very pleased that the SCOTUS came down decisively on the side of right.
Sotomayer seems to think it is OK for the government to take your property as long as they give you a pittance of what it was worth. So I can steal her new car in the name of the government and give her 1% of the value and that’s all good with her. What a ridiculous position that woman has taken.
Thankfully the rest of the Court recognized that a “taking” is a “taking” under the Constitution.
The rest of the agricultural controls that are meant to artificially keep prices at higher than they should be priced, should also be done away with. The cost at the marketplace of good will likely come down and the individual producers can manage their part of the supply and demand process by ON THEIR own, without government mandates, produce or cut back on production. l. Funny how when the government does the price fixing by “taking” from the producers it isn’t illegal, yet if they producers decided as a group to limit production to fix the price…..it is illegal.
DBQ, I don’t know if you have followed the California raisin farmer case? But, the travesty of unbelievable govt. overreach was righted by SCOTUS today. We learned a lot about Sotomayer in her completely siding w/ the govt. on this case.
Randyjet:
I agree with you that quite a bit of German debt was forgiven in the 1950s after they had lost a war. About half of their debt was forgiven that was incurred before the Nazis took over. That debt was to pay reparations after the first World War. So countries essentially agreed to forgo reparation money. It was also required to make payments whenever it had a trade surplus, which created a market for German goods.
Billions of Euros have ALREADY been forgiven of Greece’s debt. Greece got into trouble because it had unsustainable tax-and-spend and benefits packages that our unions would salivate over. It was also rife with corruption. The Greeks had become so dependent and helpless on its social programs that even modest cuts were passionately opposed. So when austerity measures came up, the nightly mac & cheese after getting yourself in debt moment, the country rioted.
They lied about their debt and their prospects in order to get Europe, mostly Germany to support them. But once they got Germany’s money, now they are resentful that Germany wants it back, LIKE THEY PROMISED. They got billions of Euros forgiven of their debt. Their deadline is coming up and their solution is that more debt should just be forgiven. Because when you get in debt that badly, you can’t even afford the payments.
But what if they had just been honest? When they were begging for the bailout, they should have honestly stated what they wanted – please just give us the money, no strings attached. Please support our unsustainable financial decisions because you’ve bailed out other countries after wars or the collapse of socialism. Please provide an international bank that successful countries have to donate to in order to prop up failing socialist leaning countries. It will be like income redistribution on a global scale.
And here is another lesson in out of control spending. Most of that record breaking bailout went to pay creditors that had ALREADY loaned Greece money.
What happens if creditors don’t get paid back on that scale? It can collapse or seriously effect the economies of the rest of Europe, bringing the region down with Greece. Greece still has debts at 175% of GDP, which is not sustainable. But they are STILL fighting the serious changes such out of control spending will have to undergo. They were told this would happen many years ago, but the Greeks would not listen. They didn’t want to change their spending or benefits habits.
There are no easy answers for Greece. And their demands for more debt forgiveness than the billions they’ve already received is probably going to make Europe more hesitant to engage in bailing anyone else out.
This is what makes me so frustrated with our tax-and-spend and unsustainable benefits packages of government employees. We literally cannot afford to live this way. And we are projected to overtake Greece’s debt to GDP percentage chillingly soon. Like Greece, we fight cutting spending and campaign against politicians that call for it. And as Greece shows, once you get into debt that badly, there are no great answers. You have to convince creditors that you can repay the money in order to get your bailout, then you have to start begging for debt forgiveness, and then you still can’t afford the payments, so you have to start begging for more. In Greece’s case, you start getting angry that you can’t get more. The people don’t like the austerity measures that their profligate spending necessitated in the first place. Creditors were promised repayment, and now find themselves pressured to just give you the money. And maybe they can’t afford that. So now you’ve dragged your creditors down with you and you’re resentful if they resist.
No, there are no easy answers for Greece or the creditors. I think it’s likely that there will be more debt forgiveness if Greece just cannot pay it, now that we know the facts of their debt.
I think that New Zealand’s handling of their own debt is a far more hopeful scenario.
Karen, I rather liked Iceland’s method. They put the bankers in prison and told the creditors to go to hell, and went their own way. Greece can and should do the same. The lies about the Greek economy and debt were not only of their own making, but of the same bankers who are screaming now.
So we have the US going from a PERPETUAL UNION in which states have NO right of secession to as our Constitution says to form a more perfect UNION in which states have the right to secede. One cannot form a more perfect union and then on the other hand say we really don’t mean a union and states can leave any time they wish. Only a fool could buy such claptrap and they prove themselves as intelligent as furniture.