THIS MODERN WORLD

I can’t attest to its veracity, but according this posting, the Hearts & Homes animal shelter is horrendously mismanaged. Some of you may recall, I encouraged readers of this site to donate to H&H a couple of years ago, when they were about to be evicted from their loft space, and together, we raised a decent amount of money for them. Hearts & Homes was a fixture around my old neighborhood in Brooklyn — every weekend, their volunteers were out on streetcorners. The animals with them never appeared to be abused or mistreated, but if these allegations turn out to be true, it looks like I was taken, along with a lot of other Brooklynites, and a fair number of you — and to the latter, I apologize.

There are a number of updates on this page, as well as contact information — though if this is all true, I don’t understand why NYC animal control officers haven’t simply shut the place down. (There’s a lot here I don’t understand, actually, like how this could have gone on for any length of time without some volunteer noticing earlier.)

At the time, I wrote that you can’t save the world, but you can make a small difference sometimes. Looks like even that modest optimism may have been misguided. At least in this case.

…who recently sent me the really cool handmade sculpture of Sparky. Lost your address, want to say thank you. Email me.

Just in case they hadn’t already thought of it…

Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced Friday that he was resigning, and he expressed grave concern about the threat of a global flu epidemic and the possibility of a terrorist attack on the nation’s food supply.

“For the life of me,” he said, “I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do.”

Speaks for itself:

CORONADO, Calif. (AP) – The U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into photographs that appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees, and photos of what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head.

Some of the photos have date stamps suggesting they were taken in May 2003, which could make them the earliest evidence of possible abuse of prisoners in Iraq. The far more brutal practices photographed in Abu Ghraib prison occurred months later.

An Associated Press reporter found more than 40 of the pictures among hundreds in an album posted on a commercial photo-sharing Web site by a woman who said her husband brought them from Iraq after his tour of duty. It is unclear who took the pictures, which the Navy said it was investigating after the AP furnished copies to get comment for this story.

These and other photos found by the AP appear to show the immediate aftermath of raids on civilian homes. One man is lying on his back with a boot on his chest. A mug shot shows a man with an automatic weapon pointed at his head and a gloved thumb jabbed into his throat. In many photos, faces have been blacked out. What appears to be blood drips from the heads of some. A family huddles in a room in one photo and others show debris and upturned furniture.

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster. There’s a good rundown here.