All dogs go to heaven
people don't because we're selfish
Greetings. This is the first issue of Those Creatures Jumped The Barricades.
If you're reading this you are probably a part of the friends or family that I added to the subscriber list. Or you're reading after the fact on the website. Or the least likely thing is perhaps you actually signed up with the minimal (essentially zero) marketing to get subscribers I did before launch. Whatever group you belong in, thanks for reading.
I'd like to set the expectations a bit for what this newsletter will be. Right now I can commit to 1-2 issues a week. I say 1-2 because I'm just one guy doing this and sometimes things come up and I have a separate full time job. There will always be free issues available, and to start this thing out every issue will be free for the first month or so as I pick up steam and ideally grow a subscriber list. So paywalled posts will most likely start showing up in June.
Other items to note:
- There will probably be typos and other errors. I'm editing this myself so I am bound to fuck up at some point.
- I will probably mention Lacey in many issues of the newsletter. She's my wife so I will often refer to her and quote her. No one tell her if I steal any of her funny bits though.
- All things written here will come from a human brain. Albeit a kind of strange one but human nonetheless. There will never be AI-created work on Those Creatures. Unless we're talking Allen Iverson (I am definitely the first person to make this joke).
- If you want to email me with something cool/important I should see or that I should write about, if you're a band/artist with music you want covered, or you just want to say you love me or hate me please email thosecreatures94@gmail.com.
My boy turned seven over the weekend:
We took him to this cool dog park/trail system a little ways away in Wisconsin and hiked around for a couple of hours. I actually can't believe he's seven already. He's the coolest dude. Many say he is the Brad Pitt of dogs. Not the parenting part or relationships part but the he looks good as hell part. We've been calling him Little Handsome around the house the last couple of weeks. His foot is actually propped up on my left arm right now.
Lacey always says she would take 10 years off of her life and give them to the dog and I would absolutely do the same. That'd be an extra 20 and I think that's a pretty good deal. I'm going to live to be 150 and 140 still seems like a solid number so what's another 10 years for me. I might miss out on season 108 of The Pitt but I can't imagine Dr. Mel King still being a character so what would I really be losing here? I wonder where we're at on the whole giving-years-to-the-dog-technology. Someone's gotta be on the case.
On the way to this dog park I began to notice an alarming amount of police driving south away from us. One is enough to raise my attention but seeing 7-10 cop cars speeding in the same direction is definitely not good. My initial reaction was that there must have been a shooting. There are acts of gun violence every day in America so I don't think the idea was that farfetched. It turns out I was wrong about this one though.
I would later learn that hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people embarked on a dog rescue mission in protest of Ridglan Farms. Ridglan is technically licensed by the state of Wisconsin as a dog breeding operation and has been in business since 1966. They are also federally licensed as a dog breeder and as a research facility.
Ridglan specifically mass-breeds beagles and sells them for research while also conducting their own tests. There are approximately 2,000 beagles on site currently. They are packed together in tiny wire cages in giant sheds. They don't get to go outside.
This is the second protest/rescue attempt at the facility this year. During the first attempt back on March 15, people were able to break out 22 beagles. This past weekend activists were met with fast force from police & security in the form of tear gas and rubber bullets. No dogs were rescued during the attempt on April 18.
Here's some video from March 15:
& here's an excerpt from an article by Quinn Clark & Christopher Kuhagan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the situation:
Why is Ridglan Farms controversial?
Last January, a Dane County judge heard testimony from former Ridglan employees that dogs had their eye glands and vocal cords cut without anesthesia, were kept in small wire cages and developed sores on their feet. The judge found probable cause of animal cruelty violations and appointed a special prosecutor.
The special prosecutor determined that the eye procedures violated state veterinary standards and constituted animal mistreatment.
In exchange for the state not prosecuting, Ridglan agreed to surrender its state breeding license by July 1, 2026, according to the special prosecutor's report, ending its practice of selling dogs to outside researchers. It can continue breeding dogs for its own internal research.
So instead of sending out these little guys for experimentation they're just gonna continue to tinker on them from the comfort of their own compound.
On their website, Ridglan Farms describes their mission as "to provide Purpose Bred Beagles for research that increases and exceeds the expectations of the research community."
Most people would simply describe their operation as a prison.
It's amazing how many people in this country have an affinity for putting living things in cages. Yes that means humans too.
Wayne Hsiung
If you want to keep up with the news on this situation give Wayne Hsiung a follow. You can find him @waynehsiung on Instagram or subscribe to The Simple Heart Initiative (above), his nonprofit's blog/newsletter where he details events from this past weekend and their other efforts to rescue the beagles of Ridglan Farms. There are also national outlets that have picked up this story in the last couple days.
All dogs go to Heaven
And people don't because we're selfish
All dogs go to Heaven
They'll stand by you when the world is ending
In Blazers News
So the Portland Trail Blazers lost on Sunday to go down 1-0 to the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. I'm sad about the loss and the team didn't shoot very well but like many other fans I am decidedly more upset at the team's new owner Tom Dundon for being another cheap ass billionaire. The whole thing actually made it harder to enjoy the team's first playoff game in 5 years.
To pair with the absolute unease that comes with a random super rich outsider swooping in and taking over, Dundon has also decided to do the classic billionaire guy bit of cutting costs:
- It first began with rumblings that Dundon only wants to pay a new head coach up to $1.5 million. And I know that's a lot for people like you & me (no one that rich is reading this and if you are why haven't you subscribed) but for an NBA coach that is incredibly low and probably insulting. This happening all the while interim head coach Tiago Splitter has done a fantastic job getting the team to the playoffs when the prior head coach was arrested by the FBI in a gambling probe.
- The team dropped the news that there would be no free t-shirts at the first home game of the playoff series. I know t-shirts are a small and silly thing but they really do go a long way in creating a fun environment for the fans & team. Plus literally every other team does this. See how sick the Spurs stadium looked when they played:
They had three different shirt colors and the Blazers will have zero. Streets are saying there will be towels to wave around instead.
- Dundon also made the decision to not let team photographer Bruce Ely and digital reporter Casey Holdahl fly to the game to cover the team as they have been doing for many years. As anyone following the team knows, those two have been integral members of the organization and do incredible work every season.
- Then the cherry on top to all this was the news that Dundon decided to not let players on two-way contracts travel to the game. Making the Blazers the only(!) team in the playoffs to not let their two-way players attend the game.
The Blazers were purchased for $4.25 billion and Dundon's net worth is listed at $2.3 billion by Forbes as of this month. He also owns the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL. The dude is not short on money but he has no problems disregarding certain players and staff if it means he can save a couple thousand dollars. Apparently he's also trying to make certain employees check out of the team hotel hours in advance of bus time, which means they will have no place to go.
Here's Jason Quick of The Athletic on Dundon's antics:
At the time, it was the most important day of Tiago Splitter’s coaching career. The Portland Trail Blazers were playing the opening round of the Play-In Tournament against the Phoenix Suns. Win, and the Blazers were in the playoffs.
But instead of worrying about defensive strategy, or his rotation, Splitter was worried about the team masseuse. By order of new owner Tom Dundon, all members of the Blazers’ traveling party — with the exception of players and coaches — had to check out of their hotel at 12:30 p.m. in an effort to avoid late-checkout fees.
Splitter, the team’s interim head coach, had just heard an earful from the masseuse, who had nowhere to provide treatment for the players ahead of that night’s game. And she wasn’t the only one complaining. Splitter eventually called a confidant, and vented his frustration.
“I told (Splitter) he can’t be focused on this while he is about to coach his most important game,” the person Splitter called told The Athletic. “And he was like, ‘But what if the masseuse decides that she doesn’t want to do a good job because she’s angry and then she doesn’t do a good job on Deni (Avdija)? Then it affects me, too.'”
Led by Avdija, the Blazers went on to beat Phoenix that night and advance to the NBA playoffs for the first time in five years, but a precedent had been set and since reinforced: When it comes to everything outside the locker room, the Blazers will be cheap. And they will not follow the widely accepted norms of the NBA.
"The Blazers will be cheap." Yikes.
The billionaire with a giant pickleball empire is turning the team into a joke and he doesn't even like the state of Oregon. He's treating staff as if they are old toys he wants to throw in the trash. And fans don't need t-shirts to commemorate a playoff run even though they spend their hard earned money on tickets to support the team. They already have enough. It's like if somehow Donald Trump was elected presi–ah fuck.
I don't like any of this but game 2 is tonight and that means the Blazers are just one step closer to winning the championship.
