Advocates for and against these bills tend to be very passionate in their beliefs with little acknowledgement that there is some merit to both positions. I must admit that even after extensive research on the topic, I have mixed feelings about this issue. I think it’s worth reviewing the arguments on both sides of the debate to see what makes sense and what doesn’t. Ultimately, the choice to support or work against a bill is yours.

Spay and Neuter—Yes

We have been told for years that the responsible thing for a pet owner to do is to spay or neuter all pets. The main reasons cited are:

• Neutered pets do not have unwanted litters that must be raised, cared for, and ultimately found homes. Many of these unwanted animals will end up in shelters and may have to be euthanized.

• Non-neutered (intact) fighting dogs are intentionally bred for meanness. Required neutering will end this practice.

• Neutered pets are less aggressive and territorial, thereby making them calmer, more easily managed pets. (Neutered cats don’t tend to spray to mark their territory and spayed females don’t go through noisy heat cycles.)

• Early (pre-puberty) spaying or neutering allows the animal to remain more “baby-like” in behavior, which is appealing to some owners. Additionally, early spaying or neutering reduces marking in cats far more than post-pubescent neutering.

• Spayed animals have significant reductions of mammary and reproductive organ cancers. Neutered animals have no risk of testicular cancer.

Spay & Neuter—No

Those against mandatory spay and neuter legislation cite the following reasons:

• An animal is the property of the owner and such decisions are a personal matter that should not be regulated. In addition, whether to allow an animal to reproduce is also the owner’s personal decision.

• There are some negative medical consequences to spaying or neutering a pet including weight gain and the increase in some types of bone cancers due to the early drop in sex hormones (studies have been done in large dogs only).

• Spaying or neutering may be appropriate, but the timing should be left to the owner and veterinarian. Early spaying or neutering may not allow enough time for the animal to develop organs and bones to maturity. This is especially true for large dog breeds that may mature more slowly than average.

• Those who choose not to spay or neuter are less likely to obtain appropriate medical care for their pets, especially if veterinarians are required to report owners who are not in compliance. Additionally, some vets do not want to have to be involved in reporting those who choose not to spay or neuter since it is not a public health issue (unlike failure to comply with rabies vaccination).

• Spaying and neutering can be expensive. Enforcing these regulations creates criminals out of decent people who can’t afford the procedure for their pets. Additionally, if animals are surrendered by people who can’t afford the procedure, it creates an additional burden on animal control and shelters.

• Those involved in criminal enterprises (such as dog-fighting) are unlikely to be deterred by the threat of a fine or confiscation of the animal.

To Regulate or Not

I’m highly in favor of spaying or neutering pets. My two cats were spayed and neutered before I adopted them. I’m in favor of requiring shelters to neuter all adult animals prior to adoption. Requiring people to pay a higher licensing fee for keeping an unaltered pet doesn’t seem unreasonable as long as the fee isn’t prohibitively expensive.

That being said, however, I do not support mandatory spay and neuter ordinances. I think there’s merit in many of the reasons such ordinances are opposed, but for me the main reason comes down to personal choice. Do we really need more regulations that will need law enforcement attention? Do we really want to be removing pets from families that, through lack or knowledge or resources, do not or cannot comply with the law? Do we want to punish the hobby breeder for producing a litter while most ordinances explicitly exempt high-volume breeders (which can include puppy mills) from having to comply with the regulations?

I’d like to see communities that have low-cost spay/neuter clinics expand them. And wouldn’t it make sense to subsidize spay/neuter costs for low-income families so that they can afford to have their pets fixed? In fact, I’d go as far as to suggest that we actually might pay people a small incentive (such as a $25 gift card) to encourage them to “do the right thing.”

But you really can’t mandate people to do the “right thing.” You can educate, cajole, bribe—whatever, but there will always be irresponsible people. When you think about all the laws currently on the books that aren’t enforced, do we really want to add another set of rules that have to be enforced, especially when the failure to follow the rules results in comparatively little harm? Do we really want regulations that, when enforced, can result in the confiscation and possibly the euthanization of the animal?

What do you think?

(This post ran originally on Britannica’s Advocacy for Animals site.)

To Learn More

• How bad is pet overpopulation in the United states?
• Is early spaying or neutering safe? What are the risks?
• What are the benefits of spaying and neutering?

Porn 

You would think, with 115-100 male to female ratio, i.e., a looming demographic and social crisis, that the Chinese authorities are providing every safe outlet possible for their men to release their sexual frustrations. Not so - pornography is heavily censored. Yes, I checked.

Entrepreneurialism

Who said the Chinese weren’t entrepreneurial? I was in E-City, the electronics mega-center in Beijing, and let me tell you: walk in, and a salesperson from every booth in the store swarms you. Perfectly competitive free markets in the heartland of communism.

China Central Television (CCTV) Building (right-centre background) under construction in December 2007, Beijing, China. (Credit: Frederic J. Brown—AFP/Getty Images)

Public Bathing

Apparently, before civil wars and Japanese occupation, the Chinese had a penchant for public bathing. These baths have been popular for quite some time now - I visited one five years ago. Of course, I don’t think lots of genitalia soaking in the same water can be very hygienic.

Crazy N. Korea

I was at a dinner with some family friends and the conversation turned to the Korean nuclear crisis. Most people here are genuinely worried about Kim Jong Il’s sanity and recognize the distinction between rational actors such as China and the U.S. wielding nukes and a mad man playing with them.

Americaphilia 

Also, ask any Chinese person and the country they are most fascinated in is the U.S, because it’s the country many want China to emulate (and it’s arguably the only country more powerful).

“Two-child Policy” 

I was at a lunch and was told about all the exceptions to China’s one-child policy. Given the absence of a strong social welfare system since the reforms, most Chinese consider themselves lucky if they can have another child to act as a provider in their old age.

Apparently:

- If you are from the country, you may have two kids. This applies if your wife or mother is from the country as well.
- If you belong to an ethnic minority, you may have two kids.

The former didn’t make sense at first, considering the urban-rural income disparities and the greater earning potential in the cities. If you’re going to encourage more children, why not do it in the cities, where they’ll have a better chance of becoming part of the middle class? But then the policy makes sense if the government is more worried about concentrated pockets of unrest, which is more of an urban phenomenon. Larger urban populations = greater chance of urban instability.

Basketball

Finally, for all who wondered:  Kobe Bryant is more popular here than Lebron James.  (Sorry Lebron, but the mandarin is not enough.)

Paul Cezanne’s Boy in the Red Vest

Edgar Degas’ Count Lepic and his Daughters 

From the FBI’s art crime department:

DESCRIPTION

Four masterpieces were stolen in an armed robbery on February 10, 2008 from the E.G. Bührle Collection in Zurich, Switzerland. Two paintings were recovered. The two paintings illustrated above remain missing.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THESE WORKS OF ART OR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THESE CRIMES, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FIELD OFFICE OR THE NEAREST U.S. EMBASSY OR CONSULATE OR SUBMIT A TIP ONLINE.

This blog series (running July 6 - 17) will highlight one art theft daily.  Click here for other posts in the series.

From the acclaimed Danish product design company Eva Solo:

And Eva Solo “Teashirts” for your tea:

It was 32 years ago that Watson and Jack Nicklaus shot identical 66s on Saturday of the British Open at Turnberry, then Watson shot a 65 to Nicklaus’s 66 on Sunday to win the championship. That duel is still considered one of the most dramatic finishes in major championship golf history. 

Watson’s 1977 Turnberry victory was two years after his first Open victory at Carnoustie. He added three more titles at Muirfield, Troon and Birkdale. “It’s good to play in an Open at Turnberry again,” said Watson after he returned to the site of his epic 1977 win. His play on Thursday (he was finally topped at the end of the day by Miguel Angel Jimenez’s 64) showed how comfortable he was and confirmed the success of his hip replacement procedure. Watson’s hip replacement surgery was featured in the March, 2009 issue of Golf Digest: www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2009/03/injuries?currentPage=2.

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For background on this Major tournament, read Colin Montgomerie’s Britannica entry on the British Open.

What William of Ockham, he of Occam’s razor fame (for why a single spelling when English spellings can be so endlessly multiplied sine necessitate?), would have made of competing methods to peel a banana, that noble herb, is a matter of the deepest conjecture. Yet, modern times being what they are and people having time on their hands for such ponderings, it seems that there’s a modest movement under way to get us to peel our daily bananas differently from the way nurture, if not nature, intended. In particular, the video seen here threatens to go all viral on us, which is certainly to be preferred to the real viruses that can ruin a good banana.

This isn’t the first admonition to change our peeling policies, the better to align them with the ways of monkeys, ways that are, presumably, more natural and pacific than our unsentimental approach to the problem. (Say “nabama” rather than “banana” to a chimp, however, and you may find that nature is indeed red in tooth and claw.) Here’s one note on the matter from 2006. Economist Steven Landsburg got to the question even earlier, as his 2002 article “Are You Peeling Bananas Wrong?” establishes. Bless his heart, Landsburg, writing with due scientific gravity, gives one reason to think that the traditional method of peeling bananas is to be preferred for several reasons. For one thing, all that stringy stuff tends to stay on the fruit with a pull from the tip; for another, he adds, the outward end of a banana is likely to be the one that’s bruised, if only because we live in a stem-centric regime.

In other words: don’t unnecessarily multiply means to an end—no matter which end of the banana that end might be.

Street scene viewed through public sculpture, Berlin.

(Credit: Goodshoot/Jupiterimages)

This city is on the move. It is one of those rare places that grabs you, takes hold, and never lets you go. You can’t help but love a city that looks back and acknowledges its (undisputedly awful) past with great reflection, no more denial, and respect for the tragic events that either took place or were rooted here. And at the same time Berliners are not just looking toward the future, but sprinting toward it with progressive thought, bold ideas, and striking architecture.

The Potsdamer Platz (Photo by Lisa Lubin)

Considering how much of it was destroyed in WWII, and following that, how it became an ‘island’ in a sea of communist East Germany and thus split in two for nearly thirty years by a big concrete wall, I guess they had a fairly clean slate to work with. Kind of like after the Chicago Fire of 1871, world famous architects (Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Gehry, Libeskind, Jahn) descended upon Germany in the last couple decades…especially after the Iron Curtain fell and the Wall literally came down.

The 100-mile “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart,” as it was called by the East German government, was erected almost overnight in 1961 to stop the outward flow of people into West Berlin which had been divided into French, British, and American Sectors like the rest of West Germany (3 million poured out between 1949 and 1961). The Wall was 13-feet high, had a 16-foot tank ditch, a no-man’s-land that was 30 to 160 feet wide, and 300 watch towers. During its 28 years standing there were 1,693 cases when border guards fired, 3,221 arrests, and 5,043 documented successful escapes (565 of these were East German guards). In its progressive way of looking ahead but acknowledging the past, Berlin has laid down a double line of bricks all around the city marking the former site of the wall. Berlin has now taken the opportunity to reinvent itself and has done so in an amazing way.

The Berlin Wall — The East Side Gallery (Photo by Lisa Lubin)

Berlin is an uber clean place with one notable exception—doggy doo is everywhere. Not sure how or why the innovative and law enforcing Germans have not been able step up to the plate on this one and force their citizenry of dog owners to bag their pooch’s poop.

There is a ton to see in Berlin, a city constantly changing with cranes’  silhouettes in the sky as proof, from the reproduction of Checkpoint Charlie to the many green spaces and bike lanes to the haunting Holocaust Memorial and the oft-photographed Brandenburg Gate and so much in-between. I won’t bore you with all the details. Suffice it to say I would live in this city in a heartbeat.

The Brandenburg Gate (Photo by Lisa Lubin)

City of Neighborhoods

I tend to like cities that are big and thriving, but made up of smaller, friendlier neighborhoods where one can build a life and a community. Berlin has this. For a more local, neighborhood-feel you can stay in the hip, leafy ‘hoods of Prenzlauer Berg or Kreuzberg (pronounced kroitz-berg).  P’berg is situated in the heart of what was once bleak East Berlin. This area had become rundown and filled with squatters after the fall of the wall. Yesterday’s bohemian, alternative-artist types have morphed into today’s hipster, pierced parents pushing prams around the quaint, refurbished blocks past innumerable cafes and independent boutiques. During an afternoon stroll around Kollwitzplatz, you can stop in for a latte and a quiche slice at the Anna Blume Café and enjoy sidewalk seating under the awning while watching the young urbanites walk on by. For a younger vibe, head just a few blocks over to Kastanienallee (say that three times fast) where actors, artists, and expats are often found at many of the cafes and bars.

Inside the Reichstag (Photo by Lisa Lubin)

Afterwards you can head north a few blocks to the Kulturbrauerei -a former beer brewery turned ‘culture brewery’ with a lively mixed use space of galleries, restaurants, and cinemas.  Also here you will find Berlin on Bike. They do a comprehensive and down to earth four-hour city tour - very worth the 17 Euro cost. Seeing the flat city on two wheels is a great way to get an overview of this sprawling town and much less ‘insulated’ than one of the many double-decker bus tours around. Besides watching out for cars, you will notice how bike-friendly Berlin is by all your fellow cyclists whizzing about.

From your bike saddle, you will see the tourist musts:

• Alexanderplatz and the Fernsehturm (TV Tower)
• Hackescher Markt
• Berlin Dom and Museum Island
• Unter den Linden
• Potsdamer Platz and huge modern Sony Center complex
• Checkpoint Charlie
• The Berlin Wall
• The Reichstag and other modern government office buildings
• Brandenburg Gate
• The Holocaust Memorial
• The Tiergarten - Berlin’s huge, ‘Central Park’

The more arty bunch of today have left Prenzlauer Berg behind and are pushing the limits in Friedrichshain - around the grungy-turned-trendy Boxhagener Platz and in Kreuzberg - dining on tapas or Indian food on Bergmanstrasse or hanging out at the bars lining the Landwehrkanal (canal) during the balmy summer months until the wee hours.

Fernsehturm — The TV Tower (Photo by Lisa Lubin)

If I lived here I would pick one of these neighborhoods to live in. And living here seems pretty easy - you can find a small one bedroom apartment for under 500 Euros. No wonder so many people are moving here - Quentin Tarantino has a flat here, Brad Pitt bought a place here (when I was there, both were in town filming Quentin’s latest flick currently titled “Inglorious Bastards“). Even 80’s pop star Joe Jackson moved here. Now that says something. I think.

My other favorite place is the architecturally stunning skyscraper ‘times square’ sector known as Potsdamer Platz. It is dominated by the new and jaw-dropping Sony Center designed by German-born and Chicago-bred Helmut Jahn. This is the same man that did the controversial space-ship-like James Thompson Center in Chicago and the huge new Bangkok Airport. Like his other creations, the Sony Center is steel and glass everywhere you look done in a sleek sexy style that makes it hard not to stare upwards in awe. The striking glass atrium is topped by a cirque du soleil-like tent cover that hangs over an entertaining mix of several restaurants, shops, and cinemas.

And rounding out the whole ‘Ich Liebe Berlin’ (I love Berlin) experience was my hostel. Joining the list of some of my favorite sleeps on my trip had to be the brand spankin’ new Inn-Berlin. Run smoothly by a young Berlin couple, Yvonne and Ralph, it was spotless with fluffy new comforters and towels. Plus each room had all these fun whimsical touches like bright splashes of color here and there, murals on the walls and your own cuddly gnome in each room. You don’t know how much brand new pillows, sheets, and towels mean to this world traveler after sleeping on 87½ different beds, trains, chairs, floors, and couches throughout the year…where, hundreds or perhaps thousands, of other icky travelers had laid their own greasy heads. I liked it so much I went as far as offering to work there—something I hope to still pursue except for that pesky law forbidding non-EU citizens from working without a work permit. If I can only get them to treat this law as they do with their dog poop…I’ll be all set.

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Lisa Lubin is an Emmy-award-winning television writer/producer/photographer/vagabond. After 15 years in broadcast television she took a sabbatical of sorts, traveling and working her way around the world for nearly three years.  You can read her work weekly here at Britannica, and at her own blog, http://www.llworldtour.com/.

Golfer Colin Montgomerie

Dutch Master Frans Van Mieris,  A Cavalier

From the FBI’s art crime department:

DESCRIPTION

On June 10, 2007, A Cavalier, a self-portrait in oil on wood panel by Dutch Master Frans Van Mieris, was stolen from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. The piece was stolen while the gallery was open for public viewing. The relatively small portrait measures 20 x 16 cm. Its value is estimated at over $1 million.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THESE WORKS OF ART OR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THESE CRIMES, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FIELD OFFICE OR THE NEAREST U.S. EMBASSY OR CONSULATE OR SUBMIT A TIP ONLINE

This blog series (running July 6 - 17) will highlight one art theft daily.  Click here for other posts in the series.

The survey, carried out by the Centre for Brand Analysis on behalf of Superbrands UK, looked at 1,400 brands and canvassed more than 2,000 consumers to arrive at a list of the most respected businesses, based on perceptions of their products’ quality, reliability, and distinction.

The results: Britannica finished 10th among the 500 brands ranked. Here’s the Top 10 list:

1. Microsoft
2. Rolex
3. Google
4. British Airways
5. BBC
6. Mercedes-Benz
7. Coca-Cola
8. Lego
9. Apple
10. Encyclopaedia Britannica

While we don’t normally use this blog to toot our own horn, this is very good news for us, so we hope you won’t begrudge us this brief advertisement for ourselves (to borrow a phrase from the late Norman Mailer and thereby, perhaps, inject some redeeming literary merit into an otherwise commercial post.)

You can read more from the BBC and The Bookseller. Details at Superbrands UK.