Dog Brothers Public Forum

Woof All:

  Like the title says, this thread is for humor.  "R" rated Ok, but not "X" please.

  I've been travelling more of late and the following cracked me up.

Yip,
Crafty Dog
=====================

All too rarely, Australian airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight "safety lecture" and their other announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:


On an Air NZ Flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."


On landing the hostess said, "Please be sure to take all your belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something we'd like to have."


"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways to leave the aircraft."


As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Auckland, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"


After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Adelaide, a flight attendant on a Qantas flight announced, "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as f*** everything has shifted."


From a Qantas employee: "Welcome aboard Qantas Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."


"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with more than one small child, pick your favourite.


"Weather at our destination is 32 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Qantas Airlines."


"Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."


"Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the bag over your own mouth and nose before assisting children... or other adults acting like children."


Heard on Qantas Airlines just after a very hard landing in Hobart: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump, and I know what you are all thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault... it was the asphalt!"


Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."


An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door whilethe passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying United. "He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had got off except for an old lady walking with a cane. She said,"Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?" "Why no Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?"

The little old lady said, "Did we land or were we shot down?"


After a real crusher of a landing in Sydney, the Flight Attendant came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Capt. Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal."


Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurised metal tube, we hope you'll think of Qantas."


A plane was taking off from Mascot Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number XYZ, non-stop from Sydney to Auckland. The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax - SH*T! ARGHHH! OH, MY GOD!" Silence followed and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier, but, while I was talking, the flight attendant brought me cup of coffee and spilled the hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!" A passenger in Economy said, "That's nothing. He should see the back of mine!"
==============

This guy is flying down the interstate, going way faster than he should be, and consequently he gets pulled over by the state police. When the officer comes up to the window, the man says, ?Before you say anything, I should probably tell you that this car is stolen, I have an unregistered handgun in the glove compartment, and there is a dead body in the trunk.? The officer, in absolute shock, calls for backup and within minutes the road is blocked off and there are cops all around. They search the car and find none of the things he said to be true. After investigating, the sergeant approaches the driver and says, ?I don?t understand. I spoke with the officer who pulled you over, and he said you told him there was a gun in the glovebox, a body in the trunk, and that the car was stolen. What?s the deal here?? The man stands there dumbfounded, then says, ?I bet he told you I was speeding, too, huh??

Fatal Stabbing Called a Rare Act by Girls
 A back-alley knifing of a teen in Anaheim, in which two girls are held, highlights differences between the sexes in youth violence.
 
 
By Jennifer Mena and Mai Tran, Times Staff Writers


The fatal back-alley stabbing of a teenage girl in Anaheim over the weekend was a rare outburst of extreme violence among girls, apparently fueled by motives not often found in young men, witnesses and experts say.

"Boys fight for instrumental reasons, such as money. Girls tend to fight for emotional reasons," said Meda Chesney-Lind, a women's studies professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who has written several books on women and violence.
 
Homicide detectives won't discuss the possible motive behind the killing of 17-year-old Yolanda Acevedo. But to her friends, the reason was clear: She was beautiful, and her assailants were jealous.

Acevedo died several hours after she was attacked, allegedly by two other teenage girls late Friday night in an alley behind an apartment complex in the 1800 block of West Glencrest Avenue, where she had lived with her family for two years.

Police on Saturday arrested two Anaheim girls: Nuvia Jeanneth Constantino, 17, and Linda Duarte, 16. Duarte lived in the apartment below Acevedo. The two suspects will be tried as adults, prosecutors said Monday, and were being held without bail at Orange County Juvenile Hall.

Police said a weeks-long feud led to the killing, in which Acevedo was stabbed in the neck, heart and lung. A 19-year-old friend from childhood who was with her was treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital.

Neither the victims nor their alleged attackers were gang members, police said.

The killing stunned authorities because such extreme violence among young women is rare.

"We're so accustomed to hearing about males in fights and, unfortunately, [being] the victim of homicides," said Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez. "I haven't seen anything like this in my 30 years here."

Indeed, such crime is on the decline, said Chesney-Lind. Citing the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, she said female juvenile arrests for murder and non-negligent manslaughter dropped 43% from 1993 to 2002.

"I would suspect that in this case, [death] was not intentional," she said. "Girls tend to feel more guilty about what they do."

Acevedo's friends said Monday that they had spent several hours Friday straightening her hair before they gathered in the alley behind the apartment complex where she lived.

Trouble began when two girls and a teenage boy came out to the alley and reignited a disagreement that had been festering for several weeks, police and friends said.

The attackers "started stuff with us" and harassed Acevedo, said Laura Vizcarra, who attended elementary school with Acevedo and was wounded in the attack. "They always had something to say."

They "were talking trash," said Yesenia Mendoza, 19, Acevedo's sister-in-law, who said she was struck in the head with a bottle. "They came back with Corona bottles and hit us."

Acevedo "was beautiful, gorgeous," Vizcarra said. "They were jealous of her looks."

Neighbors heard the scuffle and called police, who arrived to find broken bottles and no one at the scene. They were notified by staff at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center after friends took Acevedo and Vizcarra there.

Knives and bottles are more common weapons of choice for girls than guns, said Chesney-Lind.

Some of the emotional reasons girls will pick fights include disagreements over boyfriends, gossip or "mean looks," she said. Boys usually commit violence for reasons related to gangs, drug sales or turf, she said.

In tough neighborhoods, Chesney-Lind said, girls may fight to gain respect, which they don't get through good grades or submissive behavior.

Usually, both the aggressor and the victim have lives marked by some sort of victimization, either poverty or poor relationships, she added.

Acevedo's father, Juan Acevedo, a native of Zacatecas, Mexico, who works in construction, said he never spoke to his downstairs neighbors, did not know their names and was not aware his daughter was the object of any harassment from them.

Acevedo attended Brookhurst Junior High School before joining the Anaheim-based Orange County Conservation Corps, a work-study program in which participants divide their time between studies and public works projects.

Vizcarra spent part of Monday sweeping the ground in front of the makeshift memorial of beer cans, liquor bottles and carnations that stands where Acevedo was killed.

Friends and family members stood nearby, crying and sharing stories. A sign read, "May you be at Peace. Forever in Our Hearts."

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives

Woof All:

  Frank Trigg of RAW Gym goes for the belt tomorrow night against Matt Hughes.  MH is very well regarded, but FT brings a lot to the party too.  Go Frank!

 Any comments/predictions on any of the fights?

yip,
Crafty Dog

Wuff All:

  I'll be in Bern with my good friend Guro Benjamin "Lonely Dog" this weekend.

Wuff (German spelling)
Guro Crafty

WND AT THE WHITE HOUSE
An Army of 1 ? and 1
in the oven
Spokesman asked about level of pregnancies among U.S soldiers in Iraq

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 16, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Les Kinsolving
? 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Scott McClellan about columnist David Hackworth reporting on the level of pregnancies among American service personnel in Iraq, and followed it up with a query about Pfc. Jessica Lynch.


WND: The Department of the Army spokesman at the Pentagon said yesterday that retired Col. David Hackworth is a heavily dedicated combat leader who is not regarded as undependable. And they have also seen his column where he reports, "Apparently more than half of the women deployed to Iraq are now pregnant." And my question: While Army spokesmen from the Pentagon and Baghdad would neither confirm nor deny this pregnancy rate, surely the commander in chief will not try to evade this very serious problem, will he, Scott?
McCLELLAN: Les, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to, but it sounds like it's a matter to address to the Pentagon. (Laughter.)

WND: I want to know how does the commander in chief ? is he concerned that all these women are getting pregnant?

McCLELLAN: Les, I haven't heard anything about this.

WND: Col. Hackworth also reports thousands of angry e-mails from veterans protesting the awarding of the Bronze Star to Pfc. Jessica Lynch after propagandists conned the Washington Post into reporting that she was shot and stabbed, but continued to kill Iraqis, which never happened. And I wonder, how does the commander in chief react to thousands of veterans' complaints?

McCLELLAN: Les, I think that the president knows that we have a lot of heroes, including Jessica Lynch. They should all be commended for the service and sacrifices that they make.

http://www.pressaprint.com/som/WeSupportU2.htm

Woof All:

  This was forwarded to me and I share it here.

Woof,
Crafty Dog
--------------------------------------

As many of you know, I won the World Juijitsu Championship in my division and placed third in the open.  Juijitsu is a full-contact grappling martial art exceedingly popular in Brazil where the World Championships are held.  The style of juijitsu that I have studied is called Gracie Method, made famous by the Gracie brothers who won the Ultimate Fighting competitions several times.  Before this, few in the US were familiar with juijitsu.  The Gracies proved that juijitsu could trample karate, judo, boxing and any other form of fighting.

The road to victory is never short and in my case credit must be shared with many people who helped along the way.  This is a little report on my preparation and last week's tournament in Rio.

To prepare, I trained three days each week with three different black belts.  The first was Steve Maxwell, he and his wife D.C. are the owners of Maxercise in Philadelphia. Steve not only taught me juijitsu but made it his personal project to transform my body into a lean, strong, limber fighting tool.  Hagis, another black belt from Brazil, reinforced many of the moves that I have learned over these past five years.  With him I would repeat moves again and again and again until they became second nature.  I also flew to California twice to train with Jean-Jacques Machado, a multi-champion black belt who also fights one-handed.  As I was discovering, my blindness was less of an hindrance than the limitations of my left hand.  For those of you that may have forgotten, my left hand has only two fingers attached to a fused wrist.  Machado taught me many ways to overcome my limitations and use more of my legwork.  So after six months of high-intensity training, I flew to Brazil for the competition.

D.C. Maxwell, Natalia Davis, Jamie and I flew to Rio together. All of us practice juijitsu. Once in Rio, we were met by Saulo Ribiera, a six time world champion who would continue my preparation for the match.   He would also prove instrumental in coaching me through my fights.  I worked out with Greg, a fellow blue belt juijitsu student who flew in from Ohio.  After four days of training, the competition was at hand.  I had only to focus on my state of mind.  My body was ready, now to prepare my head.  

It would all come down to five minutes on the mat.  At the tournament I was joined by four more friends from the US: Marco, Anray, Nick and Noah. They along with other Americans, whose names we never got, joined in the cheering.  My first hesitations came when I shook my opponent's hand and realized how large they were.  My next apprehension arrived when his young 46-year-old body hit my 58-year old body on the mat.  He was so strong and serious.  This wasn't friendly sparring in the gym.  But I performed technically better than I have ever performed.  I even managed to get out of a triangle, a move where the competitor wraps his legs around your neck in an attempt to choke you out.  I managed to stand up, stack his body, and produce enough pressure that he finally let go of his grip.  Thanks to Saulo, I never gave up even though I was afraid that I might pass out.  When I broke his triangle, it broke his spirit.  After that I passed his guard, or for those who don't know juijitsu, I escaped his legs coiled around my waist.  In the end, I won six points to nothing.  The gold metal!  The crowd roared and I got a standing ovation along with many hugs from friends.  Even my competitor was gracious with his compliments.  He declared that the better man had indeed won.

Next was the absolute or open, or the competition where size and weight is irrelevant.  There were eight competitors.  I had resolved previously that I would not fight these if I had won my division.  I was still nursing a dislocated rib and feared further injury.  But I found myself far less winded than expected, and I was spurred on by the cheers of my son.  This match was very different.  I had no sense of my opponent.  We did not shake hands ahead of time.  My first sense of him was when we hit the mat and I discovered that he must be at least 200 pounds.  30 pounds more than me!  I lost that 5 minute round but managed to make him work for it.  The winner, who had stormed through his division, now moved on to collect the gold medal in the absolutes.  I collected a bronze.  When I lost, the crowd cheered so loudly it was deafening.  Unfortunate for the winner, the crowd neglected to cheer him as well.  

After I collected my medals, many of the competitors and coaches came to shake my hand.  They were shocked to see that my hands were also disabled.  They looked at me with reverence.  Some of the local young people also came up to have their picture taken with me.  I was interviewed by a Brazilian magazine where I hope I inspired others to try harder.  This is one of the achievements I am most proud of in my life.

I was not athletic until middle age.  I didn't start training for juijitsu until I was fifty.  I had always believed that I was not an athlete.  I proved myself wrong.  "I have found that whether you believe you can, or believe you can't.  You are usually right."-Tony Robbins.

Again thanks to all of you who supported me both directly and indirectly.  I will remember this forever.
 
Russell Redenbaugh
Kairos, Inc.
www.Kairos-inc.com

Woof All:

You are invited to come train at our second "Dog Brothers Martial Arts Practitioner & Instructor Candidate Camp".

When:  Saturday and Sunday, September 20 -21, 2003
Where: Hermosa Beach, (Los Angeles) CA

Dog Brothers Martial Arts has as its mission to help its people "Walk as a Warrior for all their days".   In this system, a warrior is one for the length of his Life and each day is not only a celebration of the present, it is also a building block for the future.

In the Art of this, there are three basic stages:  the Young Man, the Family Man, and...well let's call it the Free Man.  Be clear that the system is very specifically for ALL: The Practitioner who stands ready without fail to step forward to Protect without notice is the greatest Warrior of all,whereas the Fighter may be but a young man on the path towards this
further level. To be able to step forward without notice without fail for the length of one's life in the real world requires thought as to the substance, order and organization of one's training over time.  DBMA is this.

In no order and leaving out for now their specific elaboration, the basic fighting areas of the system are:

1) Unarmed:  "Kali Tudo"(tm) for 'The Cage' as well as 'The Street.'
2) Knife:  Offense and defense
3) Stick:  For street as well as Real Contact Stick Fighting.
4) Double stick:  For street as well as RCSF
5) Staff/ Dos Manos:  For street as well as RCSF

Note that there are "non-fighting" areas of the system as well.

The fighting of the system is tested principally in "Real Contact Stickfighting" at a "Dog Brothers' Gathering of the Pack".   This fighting, which takes place in the Ritual Space, must then be understood in terms of the requirements of the Real World.  For example, one of the reasons the double stick is cultivated in the ritual space is for its development of
bilateralism-the ability to move in any direction with either side forward and to fluidly shift between the two-a skill needed for the realities of a multiple player world.  Another example is that staff is emphasized so that one may improvise with all items in the environment requiring two hands.

This point is an important one in understanding the system:  The skills that we choose to develop and test in the ritual space are chosen with the real world in mind.  Furthermore, the extraordinary array of skills that can be brought to, tested and seasoned at a DB Gathering make it an ideal
laboratory for cultivating not only these skills but the teaching and training methodology of the system itself as well.


  The DBMA path is about more than fighting skill in a larger context.  In no particular order, there are:

1) Hurting, Healing, Harmonizing.

2) Fit, Fun, and Functional.

3) Mind, Heart, and Balls

4) Territory, Hierarchy, Reproduction

5) Contact and Consciousness, Dichotomy and Transformation



Q: Who should come to the Practitioner & Instructor Candidate Camp?

A:  Practitioners and those interested in becoming instructors in our system.   In contrast to the summer camp, there will be much greater emphasis on the inner logic of the system and how to teach the material.

A "practitioner" should have the basic skills in place, be able to pick up new movements, and most importantly,  know how to be a good training partner.  If you are "into it" enough to think about coming, your skills are probably up to it.

We understand that many good, humble people worry that by the very fact of expressing an interest in certification that they are presenting themselves as ready to be certified.   Not to worry!  As long you entertain no sense of expectation or right of certification that by attending you will be certified, you are welcome.   If your feeling is simply that you wish to learn and grow in the system, you and we will be happy.

Concerning certification:  There are two basic philosophies to
certification.  In one, certification is very business-like.  One pays the money, undergoes the training, shows the knowledge and skills, gets the certificate, and goes out into the world.  This is good and there is nothing wrong with it.

This is not what we do.
 
In the other approach, certification is simply a part of a larger relationship in which there is a genuine sense of friendship, loyalty, and continuing  responsibility in both directions. The money simply enables all this to take place. This is the approach we follow.

Q:  Tell me more please about the specific levels in the certification program.

A:  My teacher, Dan Inosanto, who is qualified as few people are to use big titles, uses nothing more than "Guro".  I, who am far less worthy than him, think this is a good example.  Thus the levels in the system are very simple:

a)  Group Leader
b)  Trainer
c)  Apprentice Instructor/Lakan Guro,
d)  Senior Apprentice Instructor/Senior Lakan Guro,
e)  Instructor/Guro.

Members of the Dog Brother tribe gets their titles in Tagolog, everyone else gets theirs in English. We are proud of our good name and what it represents, thus all certifications are revocable at any time.

Within each level there is first year, second year, etc.  Standards are high.  This is not a paper mill!  So far I have made only two people "Guro"-Benjamin "Lonely Dog" Rittiner of Switzerland and Guro Chris "True Dog" Clifton of Palm Springs, CA.  Please note that Guro Lonely was able to achieve this by making use of Personal Training Programs,
seminars, Videos, the DBMA Association and its Vid-lessons, so please do not allow your dreams to be hindered by the fact that we may live it different places.  
 
"Group Leader" is just that, someone who leads a training group.
 
"Trainer" is a title that allows us to give someone a
chance to get started, see what they can do as an instructor, and get to know them a bit without putting our credibility at risk too much.

Q:  What will we do at the Camp?

A:  Guro Crafty will do the bulk of the teaching.   Top Dog will be there at some point. In addition to what arises spontaneously, our plan is to cover the following:

1) Review: The Seven Ranges theory, "the triangle from the third dimension", the footwork matrix and their role in the logic of the system.

2) Review:The Snaggletooth Drill:

3) "Los Triques Siniwali":  A substantial block of the weekend will be dedicated to the new block of material we call "Los Triques Siniwali".  I confess to being rather tickled with myself about LT.  "Los Triques" stands for "The Three Ks" of Kali and Krabi Krabong.  It is our blend of the two.  Not only is it of ruthless efficiency in fighting, it is ideal for developing skills that are important in many areas of the system such as footwork, combining striking with the footwork, tactics & strategy, bilateralism, unarmed fighting and more.

4) "DBMA Kali Tudo":  Many of us for years have heard that empty hand is just like the weapons-- yet when it comes for unarmed fighting, this does not seem to manifest.  "DBMA Kali Tudo" is about manifesting Kali-Silat skills in the context of Vale Tudo fighting.  

For practical details please contact Cindy Denny at Prettykitty@dogbrothers.com

Woof,
Guro Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny
DBIMA

Woof All:

  It is always a chuckle to make a cover and we're on the cover of this month's (August) of Budo International with an article I wrote on "Blending Kali and Krabi Krabong".

Budo is the largest MA mag in Europe (the name varies according to the language) and is based in Madrid.  It is now looking to crack the American market (the current issue is #9).

  Know that there are some spelling problems (Krabi is spelled "Kravi" on the cover) and plenty of fractured syntax due to some awkwardness in the translation of the editor's opening for the article-- but with the kind things he said, who cares?

Woof,
Crafty Dog

Details on our "Recommend Seminars" page

To Kill and Be Killed
The Recovery of the West's Wild Wolves Is the Feel-Good Environmental Story of the Past Decade. To Some, There's Just One Problem: The Program Worked a Little Too Well.

By Jim Robbins, Jim Robbins is a Montana-based freelance writer. His last story for the magazine was about coal-bed methane drilling in Wyoming.


One night last January, wolves stole into a pasture at a ranch near Helena, Mont., and dropped a rust-and-white-colored bull. It's no small task to kill a 1,500-pound steer with teeth alone, and for that reason wolves usually take much smaller prey?calves or sheep. It was the only bull killed since the wolves began returning to Montana in 1979.

No one knows exactly how the drama played out, but biologists say two or three hunters from a wolf pack usually kill large prey while the rest look on. The wolves patiently parry with big animals until the animal tires. When they spot an opening, one or two will seize the hind legs with their massive jaws and a third will clamp on the throat. As the animal staggers, snorts and shakes its head, the wolves simply hang on with their crushing bite until the animal bleeds to death or goes into shock.

Payback was no less brutal. The next night the rancher, using a night-vision scope, shot a wolf feeding on his $1,500 bull, mistaking it for a coyote. When he realized he had killed what at the time was an endangered species, he notified Ed Bangs, who is in charge of the federal government's wolf recovery program in the Northern Rockies. The following night, just after dark, Bangs and an agent from the Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services?which, among other things, maintains a SWAT team for predators?drove to the ranch. They climbed a ridge, a vantage from where they could look down through their own night-vision scope and see the bull carcass, to which they correctly assumed the wolves would return. Kraig Glazier, the Wildlife Services agent, trained the crosshairs on an animal and squeezed the trigger. The sharp crack of a rifle shot reverberated through the valley. One wolf fell; the rest scattered.

Within a week, all seven wolves in the Castle Rock pack were destroyed, their whereabouts betrayed by a radio collar that had been affixed to one of their own. About the same time, federal agents wiped out four more wolves, part of the Halfway Pack just a few miles to the north, for the same sin. "Once they start actively hunting livestock, there is no choice?we need to use lethal control," Bangs says. But he adds that shooting wolves is important for other reasons as well.

"A little blood satisfies a lot of anger."

The West is getting wild again, and the speedy recovery of wolves, a once-endangered species, has become one of the most controversial wildlife issues in the country. A half century after the gray wolf was dynamited in its den, hunted, trapped and poisoned out of the West with vengeance, it has reclaimed the northern Rockies in spades. Experts say it could, within the next decade, re-colonize parts of Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado and perhaps even California. It's one of the fastest comebacks of an endangered species on record, a testimony to wolf reproduction. Bangs' and Glazier's "wolf removal" at the ranch was only temporary?just one day after the last of the offending predators were finally hunted out, four new wolves showed up to start the game all over again.

Canis lupus arguably is the most charismatic of what biologists refer to as "charismatic megafauna"?wildlife with sex appeal and the fierce public support that seldom materializes when the endangered animal is the Wyoming toad or the short-nosed sucker fish. Wolves touch something unfathomably deep in the reservoir of human emotion. That's partly because the wolf is a social animal that many people feel has human-like qualities, such as the way it mates and rears its young. The wolf's homecoming offers tourists and naturalists the breath-stealing sight of a pack of the long-legged hunters loping across a grassy meadow, or sunning themselves, drunk on meat, on a Yellowstone Park hillside.

"When people start talking about wolves, within seconds they are talking about something else?their children's heritage, the balance of nature, someone else telling you what to do," says Bangs, who has spent the past 15 years traveling around the West, meeting with people passionate about wolves. "A lot of people on both sides get tears in their eyes and start sobbing. Managing the wolf is managing a symbol."

But while a wolf's ululating delights some, it chills others to the bone. The brutality of a wolf kill can test the mettle of even some of the most ardent wolf supporters. For example, a saddle horse in the Ninemile, a valley near Missoula, Mont., was apparently set upon by wolves. It galloped away, so frantic and blinded by fear that it impaled itself on the end of a 4-inch-diameter irrigation pipe. It managed to get loose and run a short way before it collapsed and was eaten. Such killings have meant the return of a raw frontier-style brutality to the Rocky Mountain West?not just on the part of the wolves, but also by the people charged with managing them.

The killing by and of wolves has ratcheted up in recent years as the number of wild wolves has grown from several dozen in the 1990s to nearly 700 today, increasing about 30% each year. The wolf recovery program is at a turning point: Federal biologists now consider the wolf a viable species. After 29 years on the endangered species list, it was down-listed in April to "threatened," a final level of protection that the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service has taken steps to remove in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming by 2004. Management would be turned over to the states and wolves could be hunted as trophy animals or shot by ranchers and homeowners if they attack.

The wolf's aggression is not its fault?the animal does what it's hard-wired to do. But the species has returned to a Western landscape far different than the one from which it was nearly exterminated. While the northern Rocky Mountain region has millions of acres of federally protected wilderness and parks, much of it is snow and ice for many months. Wolves, like people, want to live in more hospitable valley bottoms. The unchecked spread of rural subdivisions, where people raise everything from llamas to horses to potbellied pigs, and where ranchers graze cattle and sheep, are too tempting a target for some wild wolves.

So the species has been allowed to come back on conditional terms. Wolves can run, for example, but they can't hide. There are 43 packs in the three states, with an average of 10 wolves in each pack, as well as numerous loners and pairs. Lone wolves who take livestock are hunted down and killed almost immediately, and trespassing packs are trapped, drugged and harassed. If they continue to range too close to people and their livestock, the wolves are dispatched with extreme prejudice. More than 150 wolves have been killed by federal agents since 1987, something known as "lethal control."

The government's goal is to have at least one member of every pack wearing a radio collar so that the pack's whereabouts can be monitored and recorded. Federal agents can then, if necessary, track and shoot packs, wolf by wolf. The one wearing the collar becomes known, in the words of its hunters, as the "Judas wolf," even if, in this case, the creature isn't aware of its betrayal. "We're not proud of it," Bangs says. "It's a necessary evil."

With such intensive management, some say the Wild West is less than truly wild. But that may be what it takes to maintain the precarious balance between man and nature, for there are many who did not miss the wolf one bit and consider the renewed possibility of the species' extinction a reasonable idea.

In a cold, cavernous metal barn at the Park County fairgrounds in Livingston, Mont., under the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, a panel of ranchers and wildlife experts sits before an audience that consists of mostly men wearing cowboy hats. These two dozen or so ranchers are from the nearby Shields River Valley. Wolves have not yet colonized their neighborhood so these cattlemen have come to the Paradise Valley, north of Yellowstone National Park?a hotbed of wolf activity with four packs?to drink bad coffee and hear what ranching is like with a new predator roaming the hills.

Bangs is first to speak. A smart, affable guy, he managed wolves for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska and learned long ago that his biggest challenge isn't the wolves. It's the people. He offers reason and fact to those on all sides of the issue who are irrational or fearful or deeply concerned, or sometimes hysterical, or accuse him of being a butcher, even the few who have wandered out of the backwoods wearing guns, stinking of bourbon and screaming about black helicopters and government conspiracies. Bangs' rational demeanor calms most of them down, but there still are hotheads. Threats have come his way?including death threats, especially in some isolated places. "We had a saying in Alaska," he says. "People live at the end of the road for a reason."

Tonight's meeting is tense but relatively tranquil. After Bangs speaks, the meeting becomes the equivalent of "Tales From the Crypt" for the agricultural set. Three ranchers whose livestock have suffered wolf attacks quietly relate stories about howling at night, or coming home to find frightened, bawling, huddled cows at the center of a circle of wolf tracks in the snow, of a desperate feeling when they see buzzards circling over their pasture, and of cows who have trampled calves as they fled approaching wolves. Randy Petrich, a lean, young rancher, has shot four wolves under several shoot-on-sight permits issued because of numerous depredations on his ranch.

It's a return to times past. In the late 1800s, ranchers?some of them the ancestors of those on the land now?hired professional exterminators to kill wolves for a bounty of $2.50 apiece. In a good season those "wolfers" earned $3,000. Between 1883 and 1918, 80,000 wolves were dispatched in Montana alone. By the 1930s all but the occasional lone wolf was gone.

But the species found its way back to the West in two ways. In 1979 the first female wandered from Canada down the untamed northern Rockies into Montana near Glacier National Park. Then, in 1995, the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service reintroduced gray wolves from Canada into Yellowstone and Idaho. When the process began, biologists predicted 450 wolves would be in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming by the end of 2002. Right now there are 660, not counting this year's pups.

That may not sound like many wolves spread over that large a region, but they kill often, because each one needs an average of nine pounds of meat a day. They also travel far; each pack has a home range of 250 to 500 square miles. Wolves that kill livestock, however, are a minority. Most stay with a wild diet. But from 1987, when the first attacks occurred, until the end of 2002, wolves have dropped at least 200 head of cattle, 600 sheep, nine llamas, 50 pet dogs and the one terrified horse.

The challenge for biologists now is not to make the wolf population more robust, but to make the species palatable to those who suddenly find themselves in competition with the deadly efficient predator.

A wall of mountains called the Absarokas shoots heavenward and shadows Jim Melin's cattle and sheep ranch in the heart of south-central Montana's Paradise Valley. These mountains are the source of three problems for the Melins: grizzly bears, mountain lions and now wolves. When Melin comes out to conduct a tour of his ranch, his wife and several of their 11 beautiful, smiling, towheaded children swarm out of the trailer as well. The 53-year-old Melin introduces them warmly. "The last three or four I ain't even had a midwife," he says with pride. "Jus' done it myself."

His eldest daughter, 15-year-old Laura Dale, and a sister, 13-year-old Sarah, come roaring up on a four-wheel ATV with a .22 rifle and announce that they've been out "plinking" ground squirrels. "I shot 20," says a beaming Laura, her long blond hair spilling out from beneath a baseball cap.

Melin and his clan have grown up working hard on this beautiful but hardscrabble place. He drives a snowplow and does custom haying to supplement the income from the ranch. He is far more troubled by wolves than he ever was by the grizzly bears and cougars that made their way out of the mountains and occasionally carved up a cow. One night last year, a pack came down and made a mess. When predators start killing, they sometimes lose themselves in the frenzied bloodlust and keep attacking far beyond what they can eat?something biologists call "surplus killing." On the way to move cattle in the morning, the Melin family saw a flock of magpies feeding on 15 dead or dying sheep, their white wool stained with blood.

"A lot of them, the wolves just grabbed and took a chunk out of, and [those] had to be killed," says Melin's wife, Betsy. One of the dead was Percy, a bum, or motherless lamb, raised by the girls' grandmother. "It makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck to hear 75 or 80 cows screaming at the top of their lungs," Melin says. "I never heard a cow scream until the wolves came back."

After the kids leave, Melin says he is worried that they will be attacked by wolves on their way to the bus stop or while sleeping outside at night. "It's like the Wild West around here," he says. "When the girls go to baby-sit, they are handed a rifle and told, 'The wolves were up on the porch last night. Be careful.' " He says he can't send his dogs out with the kids?as he does to protect against bears and mountain lions?because dogs attract wolves. Unlike bears and mountain lions, however, wolves are not known for attacking humans. There is no conclusive evidence of a wolf ever killing a person in North America, but there have been attacks.

Melin is heartsick over the return of the wolf and can't understand why anyone with the sense God gave gophers would bring back so vicious a predator. Yet he seems calm as he complains. Faith in God has gotten Melin through some tough times, and it will, he is fairly certain, get him through the test of the wolves. "I got the Lord," he says, pushing the front brim of his cowboy hat up to reveal narrowed blue eyes. "Otherwise I'd like to kill someone."

Ranchers aren't the only ones hopping mad over wolves in the Paradise Valley. Some hunters and hunting guides are furious. Elk, massive and elegant, are a prized big game species outside the northern border of Yellowstone, home to the world's largest elk herd, and hunters from all over the world come to drop one. In recent years the size of the elk herd has fallen by more than half. In 1991 park officials estimated the herd at more than 20,000, perhaps as much as 24,000. This year the count was between 9,000 and 10,000. How much of that decline can be blamed on wolves?

Robert T. Fanning Jr., Bill Hoppe and Don Laubach, all hunters from the Paradise Valley and founders of Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd, gather for coffee one afternoon to explain that they think this resource is being wiped out as a result of the reintroduction of wolves. "If this isn't eco-terrorism, I don't know what is," Fanning says. While elk numbers are affected by a variety of factors, from drought to grizzly bears, he believes it is the voracious and growing wolf population, with its surplus killing, that is the primary cause.

Theirs may be an extreme view, but Fanning and the others want the federal government to reduce the number of wolves. "No one foresaw that wolves would reproduce like gerbils," says Fanning, spitting the words out like coffee grounds. If officials don't remove wolves, he warns, "people will only take so much" before they rise up. "They will take strychnine and cyanide to the mountains. Ten men can put 1,000 getters [a deadly device that shoots poison into the mouth of a wolf when it eats bait on top of it] in one day and take care of our problem. But we would rather the government take care of it."

The relationship between elk and wolves in the Yellowstone region is complex and, to date, not fully understood, says Doug Smith, the park's wolf biologist, who bristles at unsubstantiated claims about the reason for the decline of elk. First, he says, the count in the early 1990s was probably a record high. Those numbers were thinned by a severe drought, normal population swings and five other predators that prey on elk calves and/or adults. "Disentangling those things is not straightforward," says Smith. "Wolves are not guiltless. But they are not the sole factor."

The unfolding wolf story isn't just playing out on isolated ranches and in rustic Yellowstone. Residents of rural homes, which have blossomed throughout Montana in the past several decades, have discovered, literally, the wolf at their door, with wildlife savagery sometimes playing out in the front yard. The Ninemile Valley, located 300 miles from Yellowstone, is a small slice of heaven and home to another wolf hot zone. A helicopter pilot flying over it once watched as two wolves chased three deer in circles around a house.

Actress Andie MacDowell lived there for several years in the 1990s when the wolves were first colonizing the valley. She spoke out in support, Bangs says, but her enthusiasm waned after wolves slaughtered the two Great Pyrenees guard dogs she had gotten to protect her children. One was found half eaten under the swing set. "She wasn't against wolves after that," says Joe Fontaine, a wildlife biologist who works for Bangs. "She just didn't speak out in favor of them."

Fontaine tools his white government-issue pickup truck down the Ninemile one day and stops at a tiny maroon house. A license plate on one vehicle reads "lma mgc," and Jeri Ball believes the unusual and imperial-looking llamas in her front yard are, indeed, magical. She dresses them in costumes and takes them into schools and nursing homes for educational and therapeutic purposes.

One night earlier this year, some visitors showed up. "Wolves whacked three llamas there," says Fontaine, pointing through the truck's windshield to a pasture in front of the house. "So we got 'em an electric fence."

He gets out of the truck and begins joshing with Gene, Jeri's husband, who works at the local sawmill. When Gene walked out of his house one night, he came face to face with a wolf feeding on his llama. It stared at him. And then continued eating. And there was nothing Gene could do. An element of trying to ease the effects of the wolf's return has been to make the rancher or homeowner feel as if they are not powerless.

Except in extraordinary cases, when someone is issued a shoot-on-sight permit, citizens until recently could not shoot or otherwise harass a wolf?only federal agents could. But since wolves were down-listed from endangered to threatened, civilians have been allowed to shoot them if they are attacking, and can harass them if they come around. Gene has the full complement of equipment, including a radio transmitter in his living room that picks up wolf radio collars, so he knows when the animals are nearby. The electric fence is hot. And now Fontaine is here to show him and a neighbor how to use rubber bullets, which can go through half-inch plywood at 40 yards, to harass wolves.

The government is trying to make sure wolf management doesn't become a free-for-all. If the number of wolf packs in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming drops below 30, wildlife officials intend to reassert authority. They will not allow the wolf to be driven to the brink of extinction again. But removing the animal from the threatened-species list will not be easy. The Republican-dominated legislature in Wyoming wants to classify the wolf as a predator outside of Yellowstone, not a trophy animal, meaning it can be shot by anyone at any time rather than carefully managed. That outrages the large number of Americans who consider killing wolves a sacrilege.

Bangs steers a middle course. As human development sprawls into every desirable ecological niche in America, he says, wolves need to be carefully managed, but not treated as vermin again. If Westerners are ever to accept wolves as their neighbors, he says, those wolves that offend need to be controlled, with lethal means, by hunters and ranchers?by far the cheapest method. Such aggressive control measures may seem harsh, but they may help dampen the growing outcry against the wolves.

Bangs says it's wrongheaded to focus on the fate of individual animals when whole populations are in trouble. Many wildlife biologists constantly fight the sentimental?but biologically unworkable?portrayals in such Hollywood films as "Free Willy" and "Bambi." Killing individual wolves that attack livestock means the population as a whole will be allowed to stay. Nonetheless, Bangs knows the bloodshed has only just begun.

"If you think shooting wolves is bad, wait until we start shooting pups," he says with a grimace.

Environmentalists do not accept the need to kill wolves as a given. Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group, has lobbied for years to return the wolf to the Western wilds. To try to make the wolf politically acceptable, the organization has raised more than $250,000 to reimburse ranchers for dead livestock. But that hasn't satisfied ranchers, who aren't fully reimbursed unless they can prove the calf or sheep was killed by wolves. If the carcass gets gobbled up, so does the evidence about the perpetrator. It can be difficult to tell a wolf kill from a mountain lion kill, and a necropsy, a physical examination of the carcass, is critical.

Wolf protection advocates have found some ranchers willing to test their belief that you don't have to kill wolves to keep them away from cattle and sheep. The lower sheep pasture at the Melin ranch recently looked like the opening of a used-car lot, with hundreds of red flags fluttering in the breeze. This is a European innovation called "fladry" that usually scares wolves away for a month or two, until the wolves realize they have nothing to fear. But it's better than nothing and can be used at critical times, such as lambing season.

The Defenders' Wolf Guardian Program in Boise, Idaho, also takes advantage of wolves' reluctance to approach humans. Volunteers, including students and housewives, pay their own way to camp out in remote mountain pastures when flocks and herds are most vulnerable. They track signals from wolf radio collars and when the animals approach, the volunteers whoop it up?yelling, banging pots and pans, firing off cracker shells, says Laura Jones, coordinator of the program.

There are, however, only so many guardians to go around, so the wolf killing continues. It's usually done by Wildlife Services under the direction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The activity creates such a public-relations problem that the media, which rode with troops in the Iraq war, aren't allowed to see what Wildlife Services is doing to wolves. Teresa Howes, a public affairs officer with the Department of Agriculture in Fort Collins, Colo., refused a request to accompany an agent on a lethal control action. "It's just too emotional," she says.

Bangs says that after 15 years of helping wolves reclaim a place in the West, he has no doubt it was a good idea, despite the number of angry people and the losses of livestock and wolves. For one thing, the wolf has helped restore a natural balance.

"We make decisions and trade-offs all the time," he says. "With any program there are winners and losers. It's important to have some areas as wild as they can be. This is just a tiny slice of the country, but it will always remind us of what we've lost elsewhere."

Woof All:

  A preview of the cover shot from the March issue of the Budo International magazines (name varies according to the language in which it is being published) appears on the website of our Spanish organization.

http://www.ctv.es/USERS/kali.jkd/Directorio.htm

Woof,
Guro Crafty

From Bataan to Capitol Hill, a Long Fight for U.S. Benefits
*Bush backs legislation that would give Filipino World War II fighters status as U.S. veterans.
*By Richard Simon, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON ? Alfredo Diaz, 86, was back in the Capitol last month, one of a dwindling group of Filipino World War II veterans lobbying yet again for U.S. government benefits they say were promised more than 60 years ago.

In 1941, five months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all organized military forces in the Philippines, then a U.S. territory, into U.S. military service. As a 25-year-old, Diaz responded to Roosevelt's call, joining one of those units, the Commonwealth Army, and fighting with U.S. forces and under U.S. command in the legendary battle of Bataan.
 
The Filipino troops took part in some of the most fabled action in the Pacific, including the siege of Corregidor and the infamous Bataan "Death March." It was understood, these veterans say, that having fought as part of the U.S. military, they would be provided with U.S. military benefits once the war ended.

But in 1946, five months after Japan surrendered, Congress passed legislation saying that the wartime service of most of the Filipinos "shall not be deemed to be or to have been service in the military of the United States" and denying them the benefits provided to U.S. forces.

Since then, the Filipino fighters have fought another battle ? for full recognition as U.S. military veterans. Their long struggle finally may be paying off.

Legislation that would provide added benefits to the former soldiers is gaining momentum in Congress, the result of President Bush's efforts to maintain strong ties with the Philippines, an important ally in the war on terrorism, and a post-Iraq war sentiment among many on Capitol Hill to show support for the troops.

Of the estimated 200,000 Filipinos who fought with the U.S. military in World War II, only one small group ? the "old scouts," who were full-fledged members of U.S. Army units ? received full veterans' benefits. Members of other units, including even those who are now U.S. citizens, got far less.

Eric Lachica, executive director of the Washington-based American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, noted with bitter irony that his father, a Filipino veteran who died in 2002, was buried at Riverside National Cemetery ? but when he was alive, he could not get care at a Veterans Affairs hospital for any illness or injury unrelated to his military service.

Some Filipino veterans do not even have the right to be buried in VA cemeteries. In some cases, their families cannot even get a government-provided American flag for the funeral.

The legislation backed by Bush would expand the benefits given to Filipino veterans who are legal residents of the United States, many living in California. It would make the veterans, who number about 8,000, eligible for the same VA health-care benefits that U.S. veterans receive. It would give all the veterans and their survivors full payment for service-connected disabilities; currently, some get only half the rate paid to U.S. veterans. And it would make the veterans eligible for burial in VA cemeteries and their families eligible for VA burial benefits.

Anthony J. Principi, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, also has pledged to provide $500,000 for the third consecutive year to support a Philippines-operated veterans' clinic in Quezon City. An estimated 21,000 Filipino World War II veterans live in the Philippines.

After languishing for years, the legislation received a significant boost when Bush emphasized his support for it during a recent White House visit by the Philippines' president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

With a coalition of Democratic and Republican lawmakers also behind the measure, it cleared a key House committee last month and could reach the House floor this month. The measure will come before a Senate panel this week.

Although the legislation does not include everything the veterans have sought, they and their supporters describe it as a significant step forward.

"I am optimistic that this year, after so many years of frustration, we will finally be able to do the right thing," said Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii), who first worked on the issue as a congressional aide in 1975.

Over the years, the veterans have staged demonstrations to call attention to their plight, including chaining themselves to a statue of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, their former commander, in Los Angeles' MacArthur Park in 1997.

The veterans have walked the halls of Congress recounting war stories, as Diaz, a Jersey City, N.J., resident, did during his recent visit to the Capitol ? one of the half-dozen or so he has made since 1996. "Thousands and thousands of young Filipinos swore allegiance to the American flag before U.S. Army officers," said Diaz, who wore several of his U.S. military medals, their ribbons fraying with age.

The measure has gained urgency, its supporters say, because most of the surviving veterans are in their 80s.

"I think there was a real sense that if we're ever going to right this injustice, we'd better do it fast," Case said.

Ramon Alcaraz, 88, a former Philippine navy commodore who lives in Orange County, said the issue is no longer just about money, but about "the honor of being recognized as a U.S. vet, a loyal soldier who served the American flag."

Some veterans and their supporters say that Congress should go further and provide to the Filipino veterans the full menu of benefits available to U.S. veterans.

"The Filipino veterans deserve nothing less than full recognition," said Lourdes Santos Tancinco, board chairman of the Veterans Equity Center in San Francisco. "This is a diminishing population, and you never realize how it feels for an 80- or 90-year-old Filipino World War II survivor to be struggling to claim full recognition as a U.S. veteran."

The veterans prefer an "equity" bill by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) that would provide a more comprehensive package of benefits, including pensions for disabled and low-income veterans.

Inouye's measure is likely to be more difficult to pass because of its cost: as much as $100 million in the first year, according to one estimate, though supporters put the figure at closer to $40 million. The administration also has been cool to the idea of providing pensions. The measure moving through Congress would cost the government about $19 million next year.

Cesar P. Patulot, son of a deceased Filipino World War II veteran and chairman and chief executive of the Los Angeles-based FilAmVets Foundation, called the bill moving through Congress "piecemeal legislation just to appease the surviving veterans." He is seeking to organize Filipino Americans around the country to put pressure on Congress and the White House to provide full benefits.

The veterans, he said, were "truly American soldiers."

Boosting prospects for the measure's passage this year, the Bush-backed legislation has been introduced by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

The legislation enjoys broad support in the House. Among its sponsors are conservative Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-San Diego), who has called Congress' failure to act to remedy the veterans' plight a "stain on our national character," and liberal Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego), who was arrested in 1997 after chaining himself to the White House fence in a demonstration to call attention to the issue.

Another turning point in the veterans' struggle came in early 2001, when Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), a supporter of the legislation, replaced Rep. Bob Stump (R-Ariz.) as chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Stump had been cool to the legislation, noting during a 1988 hearing: "While Filipino forces certainly aided the U.S. war effort, in the end they fought for their own soon-to-be independent Philippine nation."

But Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs health subcommittee and a leading supporter of the legislation, said: "The participation of the Filipino forces delayed and disrupted the initial Japanese effort to control the western Pacific and was vital to giving the U.S. time to prepare the forces necessary to defeat Japan."

Case said the legislation is benefiting from the growing political influence of Filipino Americans, as evidenced by the 58 lawmakers who have joined the recently formed U.S.-Philippines Caucus in Congress.

Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Va.) added: "It's about time we fulfilled the promise we made many years ago."

Woof All:

  A humorous email to me about the response of co-workers to viewing our Promo Clip combined with watching former UFC Heavyweight Champ Ricco Rodriguez on "Blind Date" (see the DB on MTV thread below for the URL) gave me the idea of starting this thread.

  Martial Arts can seem weird enough to the lay people out there, and the seemingly psychopathic implications of dedicating oneself to sticks and knives and other similar impliments of destructions can really weird people out.

  So question presented:  Who do you tell, when do you tell, and how do you tell people about all this that we do?  This can be particularly tricky/amusing when it comes to dating and relationships-- as Ricco's performance   on BD so clearly illustrates.  

Woof,
Crafty Dog

From today's LA Times:
---------------------------

Lifesaving product of the war

Bandages that stop bleeding instantly may have saved the lives of soldiers wounded in Iraq. Now they're making their way to your home medicine chest.
     
By Melissa Healy, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON ? One of the Iraq war's most dramatic lifesaving technologies is expected to make its civilian debut this fall, when it becomes available for household use, according to the company that makes it.

QuikClot is a granular powder, a refined mineral called zeolite that looks like cat litter and has many industrial uses. But when poured onto a grievous, bleeding wound, QuikClot staunches blood loss almost instantaneously. It is one of a group of new "hemostatic agents" that are on the market or in development. Two of them were sent into battle. The small bag of clotting agent was carried in every Marine rucksack and appeared to spell the difference between life and death for 19 soldiers wounded in Iraq, according to Defense Department medical officials, who helped speed Food and Drug Administration clearance for QuikClot in May 2002. In the process, the new product ? along with other innovations in military trauma care ? significantly boosted survival rates among those wounded in the Iraq war.

In one case, a Marine was shot through the neck. The bullet nicked his carotid artery before exiting from the back of his skull. As the Marine bled profusely, QuikClot was poured onto his wound, sealing it immediately. He made it alive to a field hospital and later to a Navy hospital ship ? a casualty that probably would have been a fatality in the Persian Gulf war.

Now, however, Z-Medica, the small Connecticut company that makes QuikClot, has its eye on saving those wounded in civilian life: in automobile wrecks, shootouts, airline disasters and household accidents. Late this summer, the company said, it expects to begin selling QuikClot through U.S. retail stores with no prescription required. Its sales pitch: Having the product handy could help a person with no medical or emergency training stop the massive bleeding that causes some 50,000 deaths a year, mostly the result of traffic accidents.

The military-issue "trauma pack" carries a price tag of about $22; the smaller version for household use will sell for less than $10.

*

Enhancing self-reliance

At a time when terrorist attacks have blurred the line between combatants and bystanders, experts say the growing number and availability of hemostatic agents such as QuikClot and HemCon ? another military clotting product that draws blood into tiny vessels and effectively plugs a gaping wound ? could make almost anyone with a well-equipped first aid kit an emergency first responder.

"Issues of self-reliance have become very important in the context of homeland defense," said Bart Gullong, executive vice president of Z-Medica, which makes and markets QuikClot, its sole product. In disasters and public health emergencies, Americans want to be able to help themselves and their families, he said, and the company's plans fit in with that.

But these wonder products are not without risks. Because of the speed with which it draws water into itself, QuikClot can generate enough heat to burn tissue if too much is used.

According to a study to be published next month in the Journal of Trauma, researchers with the Uniformed Armed Services Health Services found that, compared with two other clot-boosting bandages and traditional wound dressing, QuikClot performed best overall. But the product HemCon, which the Army favors, is believed to stem blood loss better in certain smaller injuries. It may have to be removed more quickly than other hemostatic bandages, however, and is several times more expensive than QuikClot.

Fibrin, another clotting agent under joint development by the Army and the American Red Cross, is derived from human blood and could cost $2,000 per application.

"I don't like it, but when you ask me one of the best ways to stop bleeding, it's QuikClot," said Dr. Peter Rhee, a trauma surgeon at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, who has used the newest hemostatic agent extensively in the last year.

"It does stop bleeding, and it does save lives. In trained hands, it does work well," said Rhee, who also directs the Navy's Trauma Training Center at County-USC.

Rhee is concerned that QuikClot could be risky if used by consumers with a poor knowledge of the product and of traumatic injury. He has higher hopes for other coagulant bandages making their way onto the market.

Dr. Hasan Alam, a trauma surgeon at Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center who participated in the testing of QuikClot, said the product should be put in a form different from the 3.5-ounce packets provided to Marines.

"If you start selling it in Wal-Mart, you have to come up with a strategy to prevent its misuse," Alam said. Given the risks of burns, pouring the substance onto skinned knees and shaving cuts is "like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly."

Z-Medica is exploring whether QuikClot may someday be used to stem bleeding in surgery (an internal use that probably would require extensive additional testing for FDA approval), or for the management of unusual bleeding among hemophiliacs, diabetics and those taking blood thinning medication, company executives say.

Rhee provided a dramatic preview of QuikClot's possibilities in emergency surgery at County-USC last winter. A patient with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest was bleeding everywhere. In spite of frantic efforts, the bleeding continued unchecked.

With the man's life ebbing away, a colleague urged Rhee to try using QuikClot internally ? an "off-label," or unapproved, use considered acceptable in cases when no viable alternative is available to save a patient. He did, and the bleeding stopped.

"It was absolutely the last thing" available, Rhee said. "I had actually made my decision to let him die This guy walked out of the hospital a week later."

*

A longer 'golden hour'

On the battlefield as well as closer to home, uncontrolled bleeding kills many in the first hour following an injury. For others, massive blood loss can cause shock, which can cause complications and death later, even for patients who make it quickly to a hospital.

When emergency medical technicians, fire and police units and even ordinary citizens can apply dressings that staunch bleeding well before a victim arrives at the hospital, doctors such as Terry Soldo, a Navy "Devil Doc" who served in Iraq and saw QuikClot used twice, are certain that more lives can be saved.

"They talk about the 'golden hour' " in which EMTs and doctors can keep a bleeding injury victim from dying, Soldo said. "If you could control hemorrhage earlier, the 'golden hour' can last longer. If they can control that, in my opinion, it would make a huge difference."

Francis X. Hursey, who developed QuikClot, discovered the properties of zeolite, a granular volcanic material, when he was developing gas-separation and -purification equipment for medical and industrial uses. One day more than a decade ago, he sliced himself shaving and decided to apply a bit of the water-absorbing zeolite to the cut.

By sucking up the water from the exposed blood, the material concentrated the blood's remaining coagulants. To Hursey's astonishment, his shaving nick sealed itself in seconds.

Other "hemostatins" seek to achieve the same effect with different materials and in different ways. Although some add coagulants at the wound site, others constrict bleeding arteries near the wound and activate platelets to speed healing.

QuikClot and Emergency Medical Products' TraumaDex, one of the early entrants into this field, work on the "aquasponge" principle. HemCon and Marine Polymer Technologies' RDH bandage effectively plug a wound. All but QuikClot are made of a sugar-related substance called chitosan that comes from shrimp shells, seaweed and algae.

Doctors say each has an area of strength. The RDH bandage, for instance, has shown particular promise for in stemming bleeding from liver lacerations but may be less effective in larger, gaping wounds. The TraumaDex bandage is absorbed by the body; unlike HemCon and QuikClot, it doesn't have to be removed by a doctor before repairs can be made.

QuikClot currently is distributed to police departments, fire and rescue squads, and hikers and hunters who venture far from emergency health care. Starting in September, Z-Medica plans to sell it over the counter in pharmacies, convenience stores and supermarkets.

Z-Medica executives believe that in addition to its still-preliminary record of effectiveness on the battlefield, their product has two things in its favor for consumer use: low price and ease of use. The packet , which was carried into combat by more than 50,000 U.S. troops, can be applied by the wounded soldier himself ? if necessary, held in one hand and torn open with the mouth. Pressure must be applied to the wound before and after the application. During the Iraq conflict, the QuikClot packets were so coveted by British soldiers that they offered to trade bottles of Scotch and war trophies to secure them from American GIs.

*

Battlefield lives

HemCon Inc., a Portland, Ore., company that received FDA approval for its bandages in November 2002, is working on new versions for the Army and for testing by the Marines, said Dr. William Weismann, the company's founder.

Military planners long have recognized that slowing blood loss on the battlefield and during evacuation is their best chance of reducing fatalities. Shortening the time to a field hospital can help, and U.S. forces accomplished that in Iraq by dispatching medical teams and rapidly movable treatment facilities to areas closer than ever to the front lines. But if blood loss also could be stemmed, according to Pentagon estimates, 1 in 5 men and women who might otherwise die in war could go home to their families.

Woof All:

  The adventure continues.  I just got a call from MTV asking for me to teach a private lesson as a "fun activity" for a "Blind Date" program they are doing

yip!
Crafty Dog

'Defend your family, go to jail'
Dad who saved son from intruder incarcerated for unregistered gun

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: June 11, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern



? 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A Brooklyn man who shot and wounded an intruder while defending his family will spend three days in Rikers Island, the same jail housing the burglar who terrorized his home, because he owns an unregistered gun.

Ronald Dixon, a 27-year-old father of two, caught an intruder rifling through drawers in his son's room early on Dec. 14.

"I went in. ... I looked in his face. I didn't know this guy; I was so shocked ... In a nervous voice I said, 'What are you doing in my house?' and he ran toward me yelling, 'Come upstairs!' like there were other people with him. I shot him 'cause I thought more people were in the house," Dixon told the New York Daily News.

Dixon fired two shots from his 9 mm pistol, wounding the suspected burglar in the chest and groin.

"The only thing I could think about was my family ? there was no telling what he would do to my children or girlfriend," he told the paper.

Authorities charged Dixon with illegal possession of a firearm when they discovered his gun was not legally registered in New York, a charge that carries up to a year in prison.

When Dixon proved he had obtained the firearm legally in Florida and tried to register it in New York, the prosecutors agreed to a charge of disorderly conduct.

Dixon pleaded guilty to the disorderly conduct charge, which will allow him to do time without carrying a criminal record. Sentencing is scheduled for June 27, WINS Radio reports.

The intruder turned out to be Ivan Thompson, a career criminal with a 14-page rap sheet. Thompson has been arrested 19 times and been convicted of criminal trespass, burglary and attempted assault. He currently is on parole until 2004 on burglary charges.

"Clearly [Dixon] was justified in shooting this burglar, and the burglar is going to get as much jail time as we can get him," Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes told the News.

But Hynes will not budge from his tough anti-gun policy.

"If you get caught with a gun in Brooklyn, you're going to do jail time," said Hynes, who has held that stance since taking office in 1990, when, he says, "Brooklyn was like Dodge City."

Dixon's case has attracted widespread attention and many letters addressed to Hynes, including this anonymous letter, which sums up the feelings of many supporters:

"If you were in the same position that Mr. Dixon was in, I would be willing to wager that you would also use whatever means you had on hand to defend your loved ones, as any of us would.

"By prosecuting Ronald Dixon on spurious charges, you are sending a very dangerous message to the residents in your jurisdiction: Defend your family, go to jail. You are also sending an equally dangerous message to the criminal element, who would realize that law-abiding citizens would now be hesitant to defend themselves for fear of criminal prosecution, and therefore make prime targets for violent crime."

A Jamaican immigrant, Dixon served in the Navy from 1994 to 1997 in weapons ordnance and holds down two computer-related jobs.

"I work seven days a week. I have been doing it for three years, because I wanted a safe haven for my family," he told the News.

"I thought the house would give me a safe haven. Now I'm thinking if I didn't buy this house this never would have happened."

Woof All:

  What follows is a recent post of mine on the ED-- posted here in hopes of stimulating sharing of the perspectives of others.

Crafty Dog
-----------------------

> Hi
>
> I was just wondering how list members train their left and right hands.  I tend to work my left hand in a thrusting motion, while my right hand moves in a cutting motion. My rationale is that as a right hander I am highly unlikely to ever even think about fighting somone with a longer weapon in my left hand.  The focus of my eskrima is very much on single stick & espada y daga.
>
> How do other people approach this?
> Jon

This has come up a couple of times before.  To briefly summarize Dog
Brothers Martial Arts (DBMA) in this regard:

Our system has as its mission statement "To walk as a warrior for all our
days".  The Real Contact Stickfighting that the Dog Brothers are known for is seen as a testing ground for the system, not merely as young sweaty smelly psychopaths with sticks airing it out.

Outside the ritual context of our "DB Gatherings of the Pack" multiple
player situations are a part of reality and we take training for such
eventualities seriously.  The 360 degree awareness and capabilities required we feel are greatly enhanced by what we call "Bilateralism": the ability to work with either hand, foot or shoulder forward and either hand in dominant modality.  To this end we do a lot of siniwali work with an emphasis on integrating foot and triangular footwork, blending in the footwork of Krabi Krabong.

This is in the context of short term, middle term and long term training.
If I had a beginner who needed to be a man to be reckoned with in short
order, this is not the portion of the program I would emphasize.  On the
other hand, by working at this material steadily over time and acquiring the skills and coordinations necessary one can, IMHO, have a formidable and highly adaptable skill set for a wide range of situations even when the
explosiveness of youth declines.  This applies to empty had as well as
weapons.

Although long & short is more of a subset of single stick in DBMA -- used
for developing the ability to really hit with the live hand-- I have high
regard for merit of long and short and was particularly impressed with the
time I saw GM Ben Luna Lema-- he readily did long & short both left and
righty-- which is a very high level of coordination indeed.

I do confess to a bias against emphasizing single stick out of concern for
its tendency to affect many people by increasing the disparity between the dominant hand and the complementary hand-- unlike a boxer who usually specializes in one side forward, but uses both hands.

Woof,
Guro Crafty
DBMA