THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506200067
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
Recently, a ``fiend'' in Norfolk, masquerading as a human being, deliberately and callously discarded and abandoned five almost newborn kittens, and this is my ``open'' letter to you.
It seems that someone discovered these abandoned babies, and Animal Control was called. When the kittens were picked up by Norfolk's Animal Control personnel, the mother cat was nowhere to be found, so the motherless kittens were taken to the local SPCA on Ballentine Boulevard. They were estimated to be less than three weeks old.
To avoid having these unfortunate, motherless kittens euthanized, my family elected to ``foster'' the babies in hopes of keeping them alive. All were male, long-haired kittens, three grays, one black and white, and one orange tiger-striped. My entire family worked to bottle-feed a milk substitute to these little ones every three hours, eventually adding cereal and soft food for them.
Despite our efforts, we lost two of the gray kittens to an upper respiratory infection after eight days, and later I lost the ``runt'' of the litter (he only weighed 4 ounces), tiny Striper, so named because of the perfect white stripe running the length of his tiny head. This particular death was extremely difficult for me personally because his tiny size and sweet personality had stolen my heart, and I had already planned to keep him in our family, but that was not to be.
My anger and disgust for you, the perpetrator of this cowardly act, are indescribable! My only consolation is that for the final two weeks of his short, tragic life, I had the chance to hold, cuddle, love and feed baby Striper.
I know you don't care about my loss, because in order to care, you need to have a conscience, and you surely have none. You are absolutely responsible for Striper's needless death and the deaths of his two brothers because you so callously and inhumanely separated them from the mother they needed so badly to survive their first weeks.
Three loving kittens were essentially handed their death warrants by you. How can you explain such stupidity? Was the responsibility of buying food for this little family too much? Did the responsibility of caring for this feline family interfere with some other activity of yours?
Of course, you have to know that there are SPCA animal shelters in each major city in Tidewater. Have you not heard of the Animal Assistance League and the Tidewater Humane Association, organizations that take in and find homes for unwanted pets? Why didn't you take both mother and kittens to one of these organizations?
And what did you do with the mother cat? If you still have her, she probably has had none of her shots as required by the City of Norfolk, to say nothing of her wearing a collar with proper ID and license tags. If you do indeed still have the mother cat, do you plan to be as irresponsible the next time she gets pregnant and discard those babies like you did the first ones? Taking the responsibility to ensure that this same mother cat is spayed so she cannot bring any more unwanted babies into the world will never enter your mind.
By the way, in spite of your cowardly action, our two remaining kittens are doing well.
S.R. Watson
Fishermans Road It was a great ride
We are writing regarding the MS 150-mile bike ride that was held the weekend of May 20 and 21, which started in Suffolk, Va., to Murfreesboro, N.C., and back.
This was the first year that we participated in the ride, and we wanted to thank all of the officials, volunteers and everyone who was involved with the ride. It was a very well organized ride with a well-marked course, wonderful rest stops and great volunteers everywhere you turned. The ride also raised much-needed dollars used to combat multiple sclerosis. Thank you again for a great event, and we will see you next year.
Jane Seymour and Peggy Frederick
Virginia Beach Questioning qualifications
Published information indicates that City Councilman W. Randy Wright will be a candidate for the clerk of the circuit court.
Unlike the incumbent clerk and his three predecessors, Mr. Wright has no in-house training or other associated experience for the clerk's job.
If elected, Mr. Wright could probably manage the responsibilities of the office but only by being ``carried'' by those capable employees in the clerk's office. These individuals will continue to perform the work and Mr. Wright reap any associated praise.
The time for Virginia to abolish all constitutional offices has long since passed. These positions should be staffed with competent professionals instead of political hacks, irrespective of the fact that they were elected by Virginia's voters.
Myron O. Wilcox
Lucian Court An eye-opening experience
On May 23, I attended Norfolk City Council for the first time. Upon leaving I felt I was both civicly and intellectually challenged. My mind was racing with questions: Do some council members often whisper to each other while being addressed by city residents? Is it common practice for the members of the City Council to appear disinterested in the concerns of the people? If so, is this generally communicated through fidgeting and impatient behavior?
I can only imagine how difficult a task being a City Council member is. This position requires the individual to be responsible to the residents of the city for which he or she was elected. I suspect it is a very taxing and stressful job.
However, despite the pressure and stress that was voluntarily taken on, it seems that each council member could still display some of the simple lessons of common courtesy that we learned as children such as: don't speak when others are speaking, give your full attention to the speaker, and we should, at the very least, communicate respect for the speaker's opinion, even if it's different from our own.
And so, for the council members, might I suggest an introductory counseling course where they teach active listening skills, the meaning of the word empathy and positive regard for other human beings. By enhancing our ability to understand and communicate with each other we may all be able to solve our differences together and perhaps even discover our similarities.
Sharon LaForgia
Spotswood Avenue by CNB