ebay -- wow!

[Guest guest]

Catwoman wrote: "Now do you want to explain to the shelter dogs and cats why you don't want another means for finding homes for them? This wasn't to be an auction. This wasn't to be for breeders or pet stores. ... Guess it's on to death row for them. Thank you all the people who didn't bother to check out the facts before they started their rabid letter-writing campaigns. Just go ahead and pound another nail in their coffin and write more letters." Are you joking? It's absolutely incomprehensible to me that someone who cares about animals would write something like this to other people who -- even if they make a mistake -- are actively working to try to help animals. I do not think, however, that the letters we wrote to ebay were mistaken. For the letter-writing

parties, I get action alerts from a variety of sources we are all familiar with -- Peta, Animal Protection Institute, Farm Sanctuary, and Viva. I don't recall, and was not able to find quickly, which organization posted the alert about ebay. In my e-mail announcing what sounded to me like good news -- that animals won't be sold on ebay -- I included a link to the article where I learned about ebay's decision. Here it is again: http://news./s/ap/20051220/ap_on_hi_te/ebay_pets That article begins: "Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. has canceled plans to allow live pets to be sold on its Web site after receiving thousands of angry letters from users." As you can see, according to the article, the decision was about SELLING animals on ebay, not about an ebay animal

adoption service. Nothing else in the article suggests otherwise. Perhaps both the AR group that posted the alert and the news article were wrong about what it was ebay was considering doing (again, selling animals). That seems unlikely to me, but even if they were, it's unreasonable to expect volunteer activists like myself to research independently the facts of every issue we write about. Until I have reason to think that Peta, API, Farm Sanctuary, or Viva are posting inaccurate or misleading information, I will continue to rely on them. Everyone who comes to letter-writing parties is, of course, encouraged to bring alerts on issues they feel comfortable writing about. The letter-writing parties are such a positive experience. It's the only way I could get myself to take a few hours a month to speak out for animals, and it really is fun! I hope you'll

join us in January! Thea