Sunday, April 9, 2006
In El Paso, every dog has its day -- and its own microchip.
New animal control laws going into effect this month require that all dogs, cats and ferrets be implanted with an identification microchip linked to a national pet registry.
The chips, city officials said, will help animal control officers return more lost pets and deter people from abandoning their animals.
It's part of a multi-pronged effort to reduce the number of unclaimed animals euthanized by the city each year, a figure that rose to 24,000 in 2005.
Not everyone supported the new law. Some citizens and City Council members said the requirement amounts to taxing responsible pet owners. City councilman Beto O'Rourke said others were uncomfortable with the procedure.
"For some people, it's scary because they don't understand it," he said.
The microchips are the size of a grain of rice and are injected into the animal's skin with an ordinary syringe, O'Rourke said. The one-time procedure costs about $20 and lasts for the life of the pet. Pet owners have until April 1, 2007, to comply or risk being charged with a misdemeanor.
The city's goal is "zero kill" of animals, "which we're nowhere near right now," O'Rourke said. "We're spending $2.5 million every year housing, feeding and euthanizing those pets, and then dumping them at the landfill."
-- Matthew C. Wright
Two Schools Lift Ban on Proms, But the Glitz is Gone
No limos. No prom dresses. No tuxedos. But it's still a prom. Two Long Island high schools recently reinstated the prom, albeit a toned-down version designed to put a lid on the excesses that had come to define the annual dance.
The new prom rules dictate "business casual" dress. Students will take buses to Manhattan and have a dinner cruise.
Last fall, officials at the Roman Catholic schools banned proms, saying they were fed up with watching students wash away thousands of dollars on liquor-stocked limos and house rentals in the Hamptons on prom night.
In a letter to parents, Brother Kenneth M. Hoagland, a principal at one school, wrote that although the "sex/booze/drugs" were problematic, "it is rather the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake -- in a word, financial decadence" that forced the ban.
-- Michelle García
Parent Seeks to Ban Schoolbook About Cuba
When people ask for a schoolbook to be banned, it's typically because the text dabbles in sex or evolution. But in Miami-Dade County, Fla., the passion, as it often is, is Cuban politics.
"Vamos a Cuba" is one in a travel series by Heinemann-Raintree, a Chicago-based publisher specializing in classroom books. A photo of smiling kids outfitted as Pioneers -- Cuba's communist youth group -- adorns the book's cover. Inside pages depict happy scenes from a festival held on July 26, the anniversary of the Cuban revolution.
"As a former political prisoner from Cuba, I find the material to be untruthful," a parent, Juan Amador, wrote to the school board. "It portrays a life in Cuba that does not exist. I believe it aims to create an illusion and distort reality."
Schools spokesman Joseph Garcia said, "It's unusual for the complaint to be based on a geopolitical, rather than a social issue."
The book is being reviewed by a school committee.
-- Peter Whoriskey
In Kansas City, Driving On the Left Will Be Right
Motorists in Kansas City, Mo., will get to drive on the left side of the road -- legally -- thanks to a new interchange based on one in Versailles, France, that is meant to unclog traffic.
After considering other options, the Missouri Department of Transportation recently decided that the design, known as a "diverging diamond" and the first of its kind in this country, is the cheapest and most practical solution for a problem intersection downtown that is clogged with commuter and truck traffic.
"You won't feel like you're on the wrong side of the road," said Susan McCubbins, a state transportation project manager. "It will be more like two one-way roads that have crossed each other."
Transportation spokesman Steve Porter said the idea went over well at a January public meeting.
"Pretty much everyone came in there thinking, 'This is weird,' and left thinking, 'This will work,' " he said.
The plan, to be completed in 2007, will cost about $6 million, compared with $11 million for a more conventional design.
"We've decided driving on the left will be the right thing to do," Porter said.
-- Kari Lydersen
View all comments that have been posted about this article.