Profession golfer Tripp Isenhour was charged of cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird a few days ago after an incident last December that occurred when he was filming an instructional video. The red-shouldered hawk had been screeching about 300 yards away from where the filming was taking place and Isenhour said he tried to “simply scare it into flying away” and was “mortified and extremely upset” upon hearing about the bird’s death. However, his actions showed that he actively tried to convince the hawk to move somewhere else by hitting golf balls in its direction.
According to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission documents, Isenhour drove closer to the bird in a golf cart and hit several balls toward it before giving up and returning to the video set.
The hawk then flew closer to the crew, perching in a tree some 75 yards away.
Isenhour tried again, and on his 10th attempt he hit the hawk, which fell to the ground and bled from its nostrils, [video sound engineer] Senger told investigators.
Isenhour cites his family’s three adopted cats from a shelter as evidence of his love for animals so I agree with his claim that he didn’t act in malice (he may have simply been annoyed by the hawk) but it was still a stupid decision to act the way he did.
Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton got back into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in a big way with victories in Ohio and Texas, putting more importance on the nullified delegates from January’s primaries in Florida and Michigan. The San Francisco Chronicle is running an editorial today urging the DNC to run some sort of “binding elections” in each state and not ignore the 366 combined pledged delegates between the two states nor retroactively legitimize the then-nonbinding elections.
The DNC needs to come up with a firm, fair – and transparent – resolution of the Michigan-Florida mess. Each day it waits increases the chances that a backroom deal will trump the efforts of millions of Democrats who cast votes and participated in caucuses in the 2008 primary.
I think either state is too big to be pushed aside in determining which candidate will face off against John McCain in November and doing so would risk citizens of both to lean toward the GOP in the near future. I agree with the Chronicle staff that caucuses might unfairly favor Obama and that full-blown do-over primaries would cost too much on short notice. My suggestions: American Idol-style text message voting or, more seriously, just have each state direct its delegates to vote their own way. That would make the anticipated to be brokered convention in August that much more interesting.
