Sunday, August 3, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Bad sports: Violence by athletes off the field
CBS NEWS August 3, 2014, 9:39 AM

Are some sports stars in fact BAD SPORTS? Or even criminals? A high-profile trial set to resume this Thursday in South Africa raises the question. Our Cover Story is reported now by Richard Schlesinger of "48 Hours":

They call him "The Blade Runner" -- Oscar Pistorius, the champion South African athlete who overcame the loss of his lower legs to perform at the highest level on high-tech prosthetic limbs.

But now he is also called "the defendant." Pistorius is charged with murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in a fit of rage. He claims he shot her accidentally, fearing a home invasion. "Yeah, I believed that there was a threat that was on my life," he said.

His lawyers argue Pistorius was suffering from an anxiety disorder. But a court-ordered psychological evaluation found no evidence that Pistorius was mentally impaired.

Still, athletes and experts know that the kind of mass adulation a star athlete receives can change a person . . . for better or worse.

"You get treated differently," said Mike Golic, who has heard the roar of the crowd while playing defensive tackle for nine NFL seasons -- a position and a game that demand an element of rage.

"You get more things handed to you. And, you have a greater feeling of invincibility, that you can basically do anything you want and you're gonna get away with it."

"Did you have that feeling?" asked Schlesinger.

"Oh, absolutely!" he replied.

Golic and his sports journalist partner Mike Greenberg are co-hosts of ESPN Radio's "Mike & Mike."

"Sports is a microcosm of society," said Greenberg. "There are men out there who commit horrible acts when they put their hands on a woman. There are some of them who are professional athletes, and those wind up at the top of the newscast."

Such as Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Price, who recently made news with video of his dragging his fiance after allegedly knocking her out. Price was charged with aggravated assault, but the charges will be dropped if he completes counseling.

Price's name is now added to a long list of pro athletes accused of abusing women, or worse.

Schlesinger asked, "How interested are people generally in athletes who get into criminal trouble?"

"Enormously so," said Greenberg. "Athletes have become far more than at any other time celebrities. Today, I think they are much more like movie stars and rock stars."

That's exactly the point, says Mitch Abrams, a sports psychologist and the author of "Anger Management in Sport." "I think that when we talk about professional athletes, we should be comparing them to celebrities, not to the average Joe.

"People often talk about athletes being a violent population," said Abrams. "Or they're more likely to be involved in criminal behavior. And there's really no research to support that."

Greenberg said, "Most players -- the overwhelming majority of football players and professional athletes in this country -- are like Mike, who have a full understanding of when that switch gets turned off."

Mike Golic added, "But the perception also is, 'Well, these guys are almost mental cases on the field, and they can't shut it off off the field. So we expect the gun charges, or we expect the abuse charges."

And when they do get charged, they get on page 1.

It's not surprising that Aaron Hernandez (left), a former tight end for the New England Patriots, has been splashed across the headlines; he's charged with three homicides.

"You start to hear about, you know, Aaron Hernandez, the new charges against him," said Golic. "Is it over spilled drinks? You're like, 'What's in these guys' heads?'"

That is the question still being asked by the friends and family of Kansas City chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, who in 2012 killed his girlfriend, before driving to the team's stadium and committing suicide in front of his coach and general manager.

"This was an enormous story in the United States," said Greenberg, "despite the fact that it was a player that most people had never even heard of prior to that incident."

Plaxico Burress, a star NFL receiver, became a tabloid star after he accidentally shot himself in a New York nightclub. He was in the headlines for weeks afterwards, said Greenberg. According to published reports, Burress was carrying an unlicensed weapon for protection.

Schlesinger asked, "How vulnerable are these guys to attacks on themselves?"

"I think judging from their own actions, they feel very vulnerable," said Greenberg.

And the fact is, some athletes ARE targets, and become victims. In 2007 Washington Redskins free safety Sean Taylor, just 24 years old, was mortally shot by an intruder in his house in Miami. "Sean Taylor was shot and killed in his house during a home invasion, so it does happen," said Abrams.

Oscar Pistorius has said he was armed because HE was afraid of a home invasion. And for a growing number of athletes, fear is part of fame.

"I don't know that there is a statistic on this that can be verified, but I would say that the percentage of professional athletes today who carry guns has probably jumped 50 percent from what it would have been 20 or 30 years ago," said Greenberg, "and I think largely because they feel they have to, because they feel they need it to protect themselves.

"You're going to have a whole separate argument of whether that's a good idea or a bad idea, but I think that -- forget about what they say, look at what they do. These guys are carrying guns. And they're not doing it for no reason."

But, Abrams says, frequently athletes are their own worst enemies -- too proud when faced with taunts or challenges off the field to just walk away.

"The people that I think are at greatest risk to snap," said Abrams, "are those full-blown narcissists, the ones that are so full of themselves, and when they engage in criminal behavior it often is a rage crime. Where does it start from? Someone took a shot at your manhood."

"How hard is it to walk away?" asked Schlesinger.

Golic said, "Oh, it's very difficult to walk away. It's very difficult when you get in that mode, in that mindset, to turn it off. And unfortunately, that's what can get a lot of guys in trouble."

Eventually the judge in Pretoria will have to decide, what was at stake for Oscar Pistorius: was it his safety, or was it his pride?




“Still, athletes and experts know that the kind of mass adulation a star athlete receives can change a person . . . for better or worse. 'You get treated differently,' said Mike Golic, who has heard the roar of the crowd while playing defensive tackle for nine NFL seasons -- a position and a game that demand an element of rage. You get more things handed to you. And, you have a greater feeling of invincibility, that you can basically do anything you want and you're gonna get away with it.'"

“Schlesinger asked, 'How interested are people generally in athletes who get into criminal trouble?' 'Enormously so,' said Greenberg. 'Athletes have become far more than at any other time celebrities. Today, I think they are much more like movie stars and rock stars.'".... Mike Golic added, 'But the perception also is, 'Well, these guys are almost mental cases on the field, and they can't shut it off off the field. So we expect the gun charges, or we expect the abuse charges.'... Schlesinger asked, 'How vulnerable are these guys to attacks on themselves?' 'I think judging from their own actions, they feel very vulnerable,' said Greenberg..... But, Abrams says, frequently athletes are their own worst enemies -- too proud when faced with taunts or challenges off the field to just walk away. 'The people that I think are at greatest risk to snap,' said Abrams, 'are those full-blown narcissists, the ones that are so full of themselves, and when they engage in criminal behavior it often is a rage crime. Where does it start from? Someone took a shot at your manhood.'”

I had thought of the built in violence that exists with some sports, especially football and hockey, but I hadn't thought of the sports figures who commit crimes as being narcissistic. Of course they often do become the center of attention and are heaped with praise, despite their personal sins and failures. Sports is that important to many Americans. To me it is a sickness among Americans when they put a star of any kind on a pedestal for no good reason, and let him “get away with anything.” It shows how shallow many people are in their morals and ethics.

The article also explores the physical danger that surrounds stars, which could give Pistorius a reasonable excuse for being so flaky as to shoot his girlfriend three times without checking to verify where she was. Several true cases of home invasions are mentioned in this article. I flash to the actress Sandra Bullock who very recently found her stalker (her third stalker over the last ten years) inside her house in the hallway. It would be terrifying to wake up in the middle of the night and find a strange man outside your door. If I were Bullock I would get a small hand gun that I could easily handle and a 90 pound German Shepherd, fully trained of course.

“And when they engage in criminal behavior it often is a rage crime. Where does it start from? Someone took a shot at your manhood," said Abrams. I think that is the primary reason some men beat their wives. Their wife fails to knuckle under without any back talk, and their pride is hurt. Of course, there's also the issue of the fact that the wife is an easy mark – unable to defend herself physically. A man who feels scorned outside the home, in his job for instance, “needs” to blow off his anger by attacking some easier victim than his boss – in other words its a crime of cowardice.

I had a housemate once who was divorced from her husband and was renting out rooms. She said that her husband used to hit her until she got tired of it and paid for a self defense course. The next time the man came after her she knocked him up against a brick wall. He never touched her again. As you may guess, I have no sympathy at all with men who endanger others out of anger, especially if the other person is smaller than they are. That kind of crime should have stiffer penalties than it tends to get. Too often the law doesn't effectively stop such a man until he finally kills someone.

Back to Oscar Pistorius, he strikes me as being unbalanced. I've never seen more than a couple of men who cry all the time like he does. Interestingly, John Boehner is one of them. I think Pistorius is not only paranoid, but heavily depressed and in need of medication. I still would like to see him go to jail to serve a term for second degree murder at least. I don't quite trust his story. They will give him his meds while he's serving time. His girlfriend deserves some justice, after all.





Obama Weighing Executive Action on Immigration – ABC
By Jeff Zeleny and Chris Good
August 2, 2014

WASHINGTON — With Congress unwilling and unable to reach an agreement on how to address the nation’s rising immigration dilemma, President Obama is studying a range of actions that he could take to ease the humanitarian crisis at the border and begin tackling broader immigration reform, administration and congressional officials tell ABC News.

The president is considering what authority he has under existing law to ease the flow of young migrants from Central America who are crossing the U.S./Mexico border. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson are preparing a series of recommendations to give to the president as soon as next week.

Supporters of immigration reform are pushing the administration to consider issuing work permits for some of the 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S., officials said, a politically explosive move that would likely draw sharp criticism from Republicans. Officials say it’s one of many options the administration is considering after Congress left town without reaching a compromise on any immigration bill.

Some type of executive action could be announced before month’s end, officials say, with the most immediate steps likely to address the current crisis on the southern border. Obama confirmed in a press conference on Friday that, faced with an impasse in Congress over how much emergency money to provide to address the problem, he will take some form of unilateral action.

“I’m going to have to act alone, because we don’t have enough resources,” Obama said. “We’ve already been very clear. We’ve run out of money.”

The president is said to be considering a range of options.

Such a move by Obama would stir up an already heated national debate over immigration policy and would almost certainly spark sharp criticism from Republicans who have already held Obama responsible for the flow of child immigrants, claiming he incentivized illegal child immigration with a 2012 announcement that young immigrants could apply for deferred deportations and remain in the country legally, even if they came to the U.S. without going through a legal immigration process.

Some presidential action is expected this month, before Congress returns from its five-week August recess.

Obama and congressional Republicans have been locked in a standoff over immigration policy during his entire White House tenure — a political dispute that has only heightened in intensity with the recent border crisis.

Late Friday night, House Republicans rebuked Obama’s request for $3.7 billion in emergency funding to help house and process child immigrants on the southern border and to process and deport adults who had crossed the border with them.

Obama had called for that funding in July. Senate Democrats proposed a smaller, $2.7 billion package, which Senate Republicans blocked on Thursday. The House passed an even smaller, $694 million package that drew sharp criticism from Democrats, who called it insufficient and voted against the package.

That measure included funding to send National Guard forces to the border, a move Obama has opposed. The House also passed a bill to block Obama’s 2012 action on young illegal immigrants.

Unilateral action has been a theme for Obama of late.

In multiple speeches and weekly radio addresses, Obama has promised unilateral executive action on economic measures, browbeating Congress for opposing policies like a higher minimum wage and legislation that would expand legal recourse for unequal pay for women.

Republicans, in turn, have accused the president of overstepping his constitutional authority, and this week the House voted to move forward with House Speaker John Boehner’s planned lawsuit against Obama over an executive action delaying the employer-provided health-insurance mandate in the president’s signature health law, the Affordable Care Act.




There's nothing really new in this article except that the legislature has disbanded for its vacation, so they can go on the campaign trail to beef up their party enthusiasm. Obama is expected to come up with some unilateral moves “before month's end.” Meanwhile, I assume there is a continuing daily influx of children across the border. Hopefully a few more towns across the country will come up with some housing offers for the children, and there will be no riots around the buses that carry the children there.




Why I Walked to School Alone and My Kids Never Will – ABC
By Rheana Murray via Good Morning America
August 2, 2014

It's no secret that raising kids today is nothing like it was a decade or two ago.

In fact, many moms say there's no way they would let their children do what their own parents gave them free reign to do as kids.

"I remember taking the city bus with friends and riding to downtown Atlanta when I was 11 or 12, maybe younger," said Samantha Gregory, a single mom of two children. "I would never let my kids do that today."

Gregory, who still lives in Atlanta, says she used to get flak for dropping off and picking up her son and daughter from school when they lived only a half-mile away. But she refused to let them roam like she did at their age: "I was paranoid about possible abduction."

It's a common fear, although statistics show that crimes against children have generally decreased in recent decades. Yet moms and dads who walked to school or took public transit themselves as kids refuse to let their own children have that same freedom.

Melisa Alaba, a mom of three who grew up in Chicago, remembers taking the city bus as young as 8 years old to go to the movies. But the first time her 12-year-old wanted to go the movies without a parent, her husband still sat at the back of the theater.

Her three daughters are so used to being chauffeured around that even when her oldest began high school, she still expected to be picked up every day, once waiting 45 minutes for a ride. The walk home, Alaba says, would only have taken a few minutes -- but it never occurred to her daughter that walking was an option.

"I was almost embarrassed," she said. "I was like, 'Wow, this is what this has turned into, that they expect a ride all the time.'"

She worries that all the "helicopter parenting" has a price.

"When we look at our kids, they're very smart in their own way, but they're not street-savvy," she admits. "I feel like we need to explain things more."

Gregory agrees that her kids lack the independence she had developed at their age. But knowing that they're safe is worth it, the moms say.

Michele W. Miller, who lives in New York City, said she can't even remember a time she couldn't roam the city streets alone.

"There was a sense that we could make decisions for ourselves that I would not necessarily expect my child to be able to make," Miller said.

She also doesn't want her twin boys, 11, to have to deal with what she did at their age.

"A man exposed himself to me when I was maybe my kids’ age," Miller said. "And I really did not know how to handle it. I definitely was not prepared for that situation."

Miller, an attorney and author, hopes that if she keeps a close eye on her boys, they won't make the same mistakes she did.

"I did quite a bit of drugs as a teenager," she said. "And I think my parents had a somewhat permissive attitude, possibly because of the times. I think people are more aware now."

In Salt Lake City, Carly Kerby, a stay-at-home mom to four daughters, is also stricter than her own parents were.

"We were always outside unsupervised, it was just the norm," she said.

Kerby does let her kids walk to school a few minutes away, but only if her oldest daughter, who's 11, calls her on a pre-paid cell phone as soon as they're safe inside. And while she remembers having frequent slumber parties with friends and neighbors, her own kids are only allowed to have sleepovers with cousins.

There’s no one reason for the over-protectiveness. Gregory blames feeling less connected to her community than she and her parents did years ago.

“We’re all online, we don’t really get around and talk to people. We don’t know our neighbors,” she said. “You don’t have that feeling of safety.”

Some of it might also be about stigma, suggested Kristen Treat, a mother of five in Nebraska.

“In talking to most moms, it isn’t the fear of harm coming to their child that creates ‘helicopter’ parenting,’ it’s the fear of public perception,” said Treat, who’s also a licensed counselor. “The fear a stranger will call Child Protective Services. Which is a loss for our children.”

It happens all the time. A South Carolina mom was arrested last month for leaving her 9-year-old daughter to play unsupervised at a park, and a woman in Florida was arrested on Saturday after police found her 7-year-old son playing alone at a park.

Moms add that even as crime declines, they're more aware of terrible things that do happen to children thanks to 24/7 access to news and social media.

"We hear about every single thing that happens, and I don't think we heard about things like that growing up," Kerby said. "It's just a different time."




“'We’re all online, we don’t really get around and talk to people. We don’t know our neighbors,' she said. 'You don’t have that feeling of safety.'.... 'In talking to most moms, it isn’t the fear of harm coming to their child that creates ‘helicopter’ parenting,’ it’s the fear of public perception,' said Treat, who’s also a licensed counselor. 'The fear a stranger will call Child Protective Services. Which is a loss for our children.'”

It seems to me that the times really are more dangerous for both children and adults, especially if a person's business carries him away from the presence of other people who can witness a crime if it is committed. Children and women have always been sexually molested or even kidnapped or killed There is a very beautiful, but eerie song by the singer Judy Collins which is an old mountain folk song – “Pretty Polly”-- which is the grisly description of the bloody murder of a young mountain woman who is wooed by a handsome psychopath.

I don't think I would hover over my children the way some parents now do because I think it is harmful to their self confidence and freedom, but I would put them in self defense courses until they are competent to defend themselves. I would also teach them about walking on the streets that have other foot traffic, to spot the people who are watching them unnecessarily, to carry their cell phone and to try to be home by dark. I would also encourage them to go around with a friend rather than being alone.

I lived over 20 years in Washington, DC, which had at that time a high murder rate, and I used the city bus system which meant that I had to walk unaccompanied from the bus to my apartment. I had three situations during that time in which I had to bluff men who were paying the wrong kind of attention to me, and in one case it was two teenaged boys who were standing opposite each other on either side of the street ahead. I could tell they were watching me, so when I spotted the trap I just turned around to go back the other way. I heard one of the boys say “She's going back.” They were going to try to rob me, I feel sure.

What I learned in Washington was to be very alert to everything that was going on around me when I was out after dark, especially when I was alone on the street. I never carried a weapon except for a couple of times when I put a knife in my handbag. Once I took my housemates 50 pound dog on a leash with me down to the grocery store. Most of the time I had no emergencies, though, and wasn't overly afraid to be out alone.





Cute Baby Deer Loves Being Tickled – ABC
By Geetika Rudra
August 2, 2014

A frightened fawn, separated from its mother, needed comforting so bad it couldn't get enough, even coming from a total stranger.

Justin Lewis, of Louisa, Ky., found the baby deer stuck in thick forest brush while clearing a path for electric lines. The fawn looked visibly shaken, so Lewis rubbed his belly to calm him down, Lewis explained on his Facebook page.

But when he tried to let the cute animal go, the baby deer was just not having it.

Every time Lewis put the deer back down, it yelped for Lewis to continue.

The baby deer was soon reunited with its mother.

"He followed us around the job site like a lost puppy for about an hour until I noticed a doe watching us from the hillside..." Lewis wrote on YouTube. "I sat him down, he ran straight to her, and they walked off together."



What a beautiful encounter. Mammals are fairly easy to tame if you get them young and treat them gently. Of course, once they become attached to people they can never be let loose in the wild again, as they won't have their mother's teaching about what foods to eat, where to find water, and when to run from a predator. They may also have trouble mating. Plus, a deer that is tame enough to come up to a human is likely to be shot by a hunter. That's the main reason I would not touch or disturb a baby animal like that. Generally they haven't been abandoned. The mother will be back shortly.





7 Ways Obama Basically Called Republicans Bums Today – ABC
August 1, 2014

As if to say, "don't let the door hit you on your way out," President Obama -- on the eve of the August Congressional recess -- decided to take a big swat at Republican lawmakers today.

Obama summarily dismissed efforts by the GOP to refashion a bill to address the humanitarian crisis at the southern border, blasted them for blocking several of his ambassadorial nominees and needled them for their inability to reach consensus within even their own ranks.

Obama didn't hold himself totally blameless though -- "there's no doubt that I can always do better on everything," he acknowledged in his remarks in the White House briefing room.

But it was clear the president was in the mood for a summer scolding. Here are seven ways the president basically called Republicans bums today:

1. 'They're Not Even Trying'
“We all agree that there is a problem that needs to be solved in a portion of our southern border. And we even agree on most of the solutions. But instead of working together, instead of focusing on the 80 percent where there is agreement between Democrats and Republicans, between the administration and Congress, House Republicans as we speak are trying to pass the most extreme and unworkable versions of a bill that they already know is going nowhere, that can't pass the Senate and that if it were to pass the Senate, I would veto. They know it. They're not even trying to actually solve the problem.”

2. So Sue Me?
”Keep in mind that just a few days earlier, they voted to sue me for acting on my own, and then when they couldn't pass a bill yesterday, they put out a statement suggesting I should act on my own because they couldn't pass a bill.”

3. Diplomatic Delay
“Even basic things like approving career diplomats for critical ambassadorial posts aren't getting done. … They're still blocking our ambassador to Sierra Leone, where there's currently an Ebola outbreak. They're blocking our ambassador to Guatemala even as they demand that we do more to stop the flow of unaccompanied children from Guatemala. There are lot of things that we could be arguing about on policy. That's what we should be doing as a democracy, but we shouldn't be having an argument about placing career diplomats with bipartisan support in countries around the world where we have to have a presence.”

4. ‘A Little More Extreme'
“They couldn't quite pull off yesterday, so they made it a little more extreme so maybe they can pass it today, just so they can check a box before they're leaving town for a month. And this is on an issue that they all insisted had to be a top priority.”

5. They Can't Even Agree With Themselves
“So now we have a short-term crisis with respect to the Rio Grande Valley. They say we need more resources, we need tougher border security in this area, where these unaccompanied children are showing up. We agree, so we put forward a supplemental to give us the additional resources and funding to do exactly what they say we should be doing. And they can't pass the bill. They can't even pass their own version of the bill. So that's not a disagreement between me and the House Republicans. That's a disagreement between the House Republicans and the House Republicans.”

6. ‘Congress Is Failing'
“A student loan bill that would help folks who have student loan debt consolidate and refinance at lower rates -- that didn't pass. The transportation bill that they did pass just gets us through the spring when we should actually be planning years in advance. States and businesses are raising the minimum wage for their workers because this Congress is failing to do so.”

7. Problem Solving? Not So Much
“When Congress returns next month, my hope is, is that instead of simply trying to pass partisan message bills on party lines that don't actually solve problems, they're going to be willing to come together to at least focus on some key areas where there's broad agreement. After all that we've had to overcome, our Congress should stop standing in the way of our country's success.”




The House Republicans are behaving like a two year old having a temper tantrum, lying down on the floor and screaming. I'm glad Obama “gave 'em what for!” They deserve it. Not all Republicans are in the same basket with the Tea Party, but too many of the more moderate ones are intimidated by the radicals. These last two years have been traumatic for me, until I quit worrying about it, that is. They're incorrigible and most of their actions are done in order to get the praise of the most radical right wing citizens in this country, whose numbers have grown in the last few years. It's no surprise that racial incidents have increased. If our economy hadn't tanked in 2008, so that more people would have had jobs, things wouldn't be so bad. Elections are coming up soon and I can be of use to my party by voting for Congress and the Senate. I always see to it that I vote, and unless I'm not physically able, this year will be no different.





Taste For Rare, Wild Pangolin Is Driving The Mammal To Extinction – NPR
by JON FASMAN
August 03, 2014

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that the scales of a pangolin, a small ant-eating mammal, are "cool" and "salty." Eating those scales, the TCM thinking goes, may help expel wind, reduce swelling and boost lactation. But pangolin scales also seem to induce something far less beneficial: rapacity.

A recent report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, warns that the pangolin is "literally being eaten out of existence." Demand not just for scales but also for pangolin meat in East and Southeast Asia has produced a thriving illegal pangolin market.

All eight species of pangolin are threatened by extinction, with two critically endangered. And unlike many other endangered species, whose relatively small habitats are threatened by urbanization, pangolin can be found over a wide swath of the planet: practically all of South and Southeast Asia and much of sub-Saharan Africa.

So why the sudden rapacious appetite for pangolin?

Dan Challender, who co-chairs IUCN's Pangolin Specialist Group, says that in recent years "the dynamic of [pangolin] consumption has changed." Once a supplemental protein source for people in rural villages, it has become a luxury food for newly-rich urbanites, prized precisely because it must be caught in the wild. "In Vietnam and China," Challender says, "wild meat is considered very good. It's treated differently from farmed meat ... It's a natural product. There's an attachment to it."

This distinguishes pangolin from shark fin, for instance — a traditional luxury food that became more widely consumed as more people could afford luxuries. Pangolin consumption seems driven by both urban nostalgie de la boue (the same thing that makes it impossible to swing a handmade banjo in Brooklyn without hitting a farm-to-table restaurant), and by its rarity.

IUCN has come up with an admirably broad plan to halt pangolins' slide into extinction by trying to stem both supply and demand. The former is well-intentioned and politically necessary, but may be waste of time. China and Vietnam are already signatories to CITES, an international treaty that on paper (and apparently only on paper) prohibits trade in endangered species. That has not stopped the trade in tigers,rhinos, or, for that matter, pangolins.

The action is on the demand side, which is much trickier: Getting governments to sign a popular treaty is easy; changing the behavior of millions of status-conscious consumers is much harder. But it's not impossible.

An anti-shark-fin campaign run by WWF's Hong Kong chapter namescorporations that refuse to serve shark-fin soup at their events and also lists caterers who provide fin-free banquets. WWF-HK claims that the volume of shark fin imported into Hong Kong declined by nearly 35 percent from 2012 to 2013. China began a three-year phase-out of shark fin at its state banquets; they too have avowed a dramatic drop in shark-fin sales.

Pangolins are often consumed as business deals are made. Challender suggests that one promising approach would be to get a large corporation to forswear wild-meat consumption during contract signings. The IUCN's also calls for digital-media campaigns, engaging foundations in pangolin-conservation and engaging "the arts community to promote the plight of pangolins."

Let me offer a poem: "That's a pangolin/Don't stuff it in/Your mouth."


http://www.macroevolution.net/pangolins.html
Pangolins and Armadillos

A "giant" armadillo (Priodontes) is not even quite as large as the smallest known ankylosaur (Struthiosaurus). But much larger armadillos (glyptodonts), now extinct, survived long enough to be hunted by the pre-Columbian peoples of South America only a few thousand years ago.⁷

Glyptodonts the size of a small car survived into the latePleistocene (e.g., Glyptodon). Such animals were about the size of Ankylosaurus itself, the largest of the ankylosaurs (the Pleistocene ended only about 10,000 years ago).VIEW A PICTURE OF A GLYTODONT Like certain ankylosaurs, some of these giant armadillos had tail clubs. In both ankylosaurs and armadillos, these clubs could be armed with long, bony spikes.⁸ 

These observations suggest that paleontologists have created an artificial distinction by classifying Mesozoic "ankylosaurs" as reptiles and post-Mesozoic armadillos as mammals. Given available evidence, and given stabilization theory's assumption that new types of organisms typically arise from precursor forms similar to themselves, the obvious conclusion seems to be that the various forms described as armadillos of the "Age of Mammals" (the Cenozoic Era) are descended from the various forms described as ankylosaurs of the "Age of Reptiles" (the Mesozoic Era).
But the reasoning of stabilization theory suggests the various forms described as ankylosaurs, too, had the soft traits of a mammal, since their hard anatomy is so similar to that of armadillos. But, if such is the case, what about other Mesozoic "reptiles" similar to ankylosaurs (members of Order Ornithischia)? Are some of these, too, mammals on masquerade?

Incredibly, this seems likely to be the case with one of the most famous "dinosaurs," Stegosaurus, an animal usually considered closely related to the ankylosaurs. According to Bakker (1986: 187), "Stegosaurus and its close kin were the only common large, beaked dinosaurs in the late Jurassic." Stegosaurids became rarer through the Cretaceous as the ankylosaurs became more numerous, but are known even from the end of that period.⁹,¹⁰ The familiar image of Stegosaurus shows a creature with spikes tipping its tail and upright angular plates sheltering its spine. The small inset in Figure 9.2 (below) depicts a typical museum reconstruction of this animal. But this reconstruction of the living animal is uncertain — articulated stegosaurid remains have never been found.¹¹ As Dixon et al. (1988: 156) point out,

The pangolins, or scaly anteaters, are classified as mammals (Order Pholidota). Nevertheless, the back, upper flanks, and the outer surfaces of a pangolin's legs are covered with large scales similar in shape to the armor plates of a stegosaurid. Several different kinds of pangolins are extant. A Giant Pangolin (Smutsia gigantes) is pictured in Figure 9.2. In the figure, note that although only a portion of each scale shows (because each is mostly covered by the ones that overlap it), the scales of a pangolin are actually about as large in proportion to body size as are a stegosaurid's armor plates.  Even in large stegosaurids, the jaws are weak and the teeth are tiny and ineffectual. Stegosaurids apparently used gizzards to grind their food.¹⁴ The presence of a gizzard is not usually considered a mammalian trait, but pangolins do possess this organ.¹  Fossils recognized as pangolins date to as early as the Paleocene,¹⁹ just after stegosaurids supposedly went extinct.²




This article on the probable development of the pangolin groups it together with armadillos, and both of those are presented as being very direct descendents of two Jurassic creatures which used to be called dinosaurs, but which this author feels were probably primitive mammals with some reptilian features. There are also egg laying mammals or monotremes still in the world today, and pouched mammals called marsupials which also represent a very primitive stage of mammalian development.

Birds, in addition to feathers, have scales on their feet and a gizzard for processing food, like many of the dinosaurs , which serves in food processing in the absence of chewing teeth. The Pangolin and the armadillo have some small hairs in addition to the predominant scales, but the pangolin also like some dinosaurs and like birds has a gizzard. To me this means that they are related to some very early mammalian forms, and to kill off the last remaining examples of them just because they taste good is immoral almost.

I know I'm supposed to be tolerant of all ancient human cultural elements, but I draw the line at head shrinking and cannibalism, and I also draw the line at the Asian beliefs in using animal parts for medicine or to stimulate virility. That is causing the killing of bears, rhinos, elephants, tigers, sharks, and now pangolins. Then there are always the whales, which are hunted in at least three cultures – the American Indians in Alaska, the Japanese and the Feroe Islanders. I wish the human race were not so voracious in its habits and superstitious in its beliefs. It's hard for the world to progress very far with that kind of thinking being dominant in so many places. This is the space age. We all need to modernize in order to have a peaceful and beautiful world. A beautiful world has animals in it. When God gave us “dominion over” nature he didn't mean for us to destroy it, but rather to take care of it. I feel sure I'm right about that.