Artist Timothy M. Treleases current exhibit at Deerfield Academy is a celebration of the natural world with found-object assemblages included as cautionary signposts.

It is not a mystery that we live in a precarious relationship with the natural world. Human behavior is having an enormous impact on the climate, said the member of the Visual and Performing Arts Faculty at the school.

Trelease is showcasing his new exhibit, Nature and Alchemy, at the von Auersperg Gallery at the Hess Center for the Arts at Deerfield Academy.

There are more than 35 pieces in the exhibit, including a display case of sketchbooks and additional photographs.

The work ranges in style from representational to abstract, with influences from Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt and Mark Rothko to Marsden Hartley, Joseph Beuys and Alberto Burri. Several of the pieces are visual interpretations of poems by William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens.

The overarching inspirations come from a deep love for nature and an appreciation for protected land and National Parks, particularly Acadia National Park, 40 minutes from my studio in Blue Hill, Maine, he said. Some of the paintings could be described as bucolic or sublime, depicting scenes found along the Maine coast. There is also an awareness of the precariousness of our relationship to nature, the impact of human beings on the environment, and, quite frankly, a sense of impending doom.

The pieces, which include found objects, and the digital film, inspired by Eliot's poem, "The Wasteland," have a post-apocalyptic feel to them. There is an intentional tension built into the exhibit, between these polarities, Trelease said.

For the exhibit, the artist used oil paint on canvas, oil paint on found steel, found objects and oil paint on stacked canvases (assemblage), gicl prints, silver prints, ink on paper, charcoal on paper and a digital film.

Explaining the exhibits title, Nature and Alchemy, Trelease said the natural element is obvious because several of the pieces are of landscapes, ancient apple trees and natural specimens. The alchemical reference comes from his attempts to turn trash into treasure, to appreciate the simplest things in life. He incorporates found pieces of rusted steel into both self-portraits and abstract pieces, while also referencing simple found objects such as rusted nails and washers in other paintings.

The show is dedicated to the memory of the artists late father, Brian Trelease, who served as an inspiration for much of the material. The last portrait Trelease painted of his father is in the exhibit.

While my Dad was not an artist himself, he had an eye for what worked and an uncanny ability to identify my best work; he helped me see the forest through the trees on many occasions, Trelease said. After my Dad's passing, I gained a greater appreciation for my own mortality and an added boost of inspiration to make the most of every day.

Tim Trelease was born and raised in Springfield and earned a bachelors degree in fine arts from Rhode Island School of Design and a master of fine arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art. His work has been shown throughout the country, including solo exhibitions at The Bowery Gallery in New York City, Gallery One in Philadelphia and Paper City Studios in Holyoke.

Most of the work in his Deerfield Academy exhibit is for sale in the $500-to-$2,500 price range.

For more information about him, go to timothy-trelease-4l94.squarespace.com/about.

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'Nature and Alchemy' focus of Tim Trelease exhibit in Deerfield - MassLive.com

Vital Vio, a company that specializes in antibacterial white light, surveyed 1,200 Americans to create a report on their health risks and cleaning rituals. The bad news is for people; the good news is for bacteria.

Human contact with bacteria is normal, to an extent: the average person encounters 60,000 different types of bacteria daily.

But the report found that theres a big gap between daily behaviors and the need to protect themselves from dangerous bacteria and microbes. Its partly due to Americans cleanliness habits especially while traveling or using electronic devices that allow openings for these harmful bacteria.

Also, there are places in their homes that people clean religiously, and there are places that they spend much of their time in that they barely give an afterthought to purifying.

The graph below should give you an idea:

Four in five (80%) clean their bathroom once a week, while three in four (76%) clean their bedroom once a week, and just three in five (61%) clean their home office once per week. Women (84%) were more likely than men (75%) to clean their bathroom once a week, while one in five men (20%) admit to cleaning their bathroom just once a month. Eww!

But the surveys real shocker centered around our digital devices and whether or not they were spreading disease.

To start, almost half of people (46%) bring their phones into public restrooms every time they go. And if that doesnt gross you out enough, research revealed that 88% of adults usually toted their phone with them into private bathrooms. To do what? No one said.

To illustrate just how befouled most phones have become, researchers estimate that a normally used smartphone that has never been cleaned may contain more bacteria than an entire household bathroom.

We touch our phones so much that they act as a pathogen for disease. The 88% who take their phones into the bathroom aside, the majority surveyed said they used their phones while cooking (89%), on public transit (80%), and more. That means the devices are given more and more chances to be exposed to strep, E. Coli, and to staph.

Of course, a little cleaning and sanitizing would help immensely only 23% have never done this. Even more oddly, some respondents even admitted to putting their phones in their mouths when their hands were full.

Human behavior is immensely weird, and it only takes a survey on cleaning and cell phone use to bring it out further.

Make this the day you sanitize and wipe down your phone.

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This exact percentage of people regularly bring their phones into the bathroom - Ladders

The manslaughter-by-text prosecutions of Inyoung You and Michelle Carter effectively frame the accused women as manipulators with witch-like powers over men, critics say.

The thought is that women are cunning and malicious and dont really murder by strength. It harkens back to witch caricatures and sirens, said Boston-based writer Susan Zalkind. The Carter case felt like a bit of a witch trial. Theres a really risk of those beliefs infecting the criminal court.

Zalkind recently wrote a piece for Vicewith the thesis that these cases run the risk of drawing upon peoples images of devious women, like those who kill by poison or deceit in Sherlock Holmes or Game of Thrones.

Nancy Gertner, a retired Massachusetts federal judge whos working on Carters appeal, told Zalkind for the story, Thats the part of this that is interesting to me, is the notion of causation: the notion that these women were somehow putting a spell on the men so that the men were doing what they would otherwise not have done. Thats antithetical to most gender stereotypes, though it certainly is a caricature: the witch caricature.

You, a 21-year-old former Boston College student, will be arraigned Friday morning on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the May death of her boyfriend, Alexander Urtula. Prosecutors say she set him hundreds of texts a day, including many telling him to kill himself until he jumped to his death in front of her.

The case has strong similarities to the high-profile prosecution of Michelle Carter, who was convicted in 2017 of involuntary manslaughter for urging Conrad Roy III to commit suicide through texts she sent as a 17-year-old in Plainville. Carters serving a 15-month prison sentence and continues to appeal her case, now to the Supreme Court.

Boston attorney Wendy Murphy pushed back on the witch notion, saying, these are not gendered cases.

This isnt about the gender of the person sending the text its the intensity of the messages, Murphy told the Herald.

She said she expects men to be prosecuted in similar cases in the future. Carters conviction was controversial, but Murphy said she believes these prosecutions are important.

You want to use the strongest tools you can, and thats the criminal-justice system, Murphy said. Youre talking about the death of a human being caused by human behavior that too many people think is harmless.

Zalkinds piece noted that no men have been accused in similar cases in Massachusetts yet.

Prosecutors are essentially saying that these women were able to control the minds of these young men using words alone, Zalkind said. Thats what a spell is she was able to utter certain words and make them commit certain actions.

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You, Carter cases draw on witch stereotypes of women, critics say - Boston Herald

You finish that last sip of morning coffee and stare at the empty paper cup in your hand. Should it go into the recycling bin, compost, or be landfilled or incinerated?

You are not alone. Most Americans are confused about recycling, and the crisis driven by Chinas decision to stop accepting most foreign scrap material is worsening the problem. At this point its hard to be sure that items put in the recycling bin are recycled.

Research shows that more often than not, Americans give up trying to sort their recyclables. Or they engage in wishful recycling, tossing nonrecyclables into the bin. Even so, most waste never gets that far. People feel intimidated by the task.

The average American generates about 4.5 pounds of waste each day. Only 1.5 pounds of it is recycled or composted. This means that over an average lifetime of 78.7 years, one American would send 67,000 pounds of waste to landfills. Thats more than twice the weight of a cruise ship anchor.

The average American generates about 4.5 pounds of waste each day. Only 1.5 pounds of it is recycled or composted.

Although many communities and advocates have adopted regulations and action plans centered on moving toward a circular economy, major barriers still make it hard for individuals to reduce, reuse and recycle. Existing policies have been developed based on insights from engineering and economics, and give little consideration of how human behavior at the individual level fits into the system.

My colleagues and I use behavior science to foster goals ranging from energy conservation to community solidarity. In a recent paper, economist Marieke Huysentruyt, Ph.D. candidate Emma Barnosky and I uncovered promising solutions to the recycling crisis driven by personal benefits and social connections.

Why is getting Americans to recycle more so challenging? First, many dont understand waste problems and recycling strategies. Few are aware of the environmental problems waste causes, and most have a hard time connecting individual actions to those problems.

Most people dont know where their waste goes, whether it includes recyclables or what can be made from them. They may know what day to put out curbside trash and recycling, but are unsure which materials the companies accept. In a 2019 survey of 2,000 Americans, 53 percent erroneously believed greasy pizza boxes could be recycled, and 68 percent thought the same for used plastic utensils.

Another 39 percent of respondents cited inconvenience and poor access to recycling facilities as major barriers. California pays a 5- to 10-cent redemption fee for each beverage container, but the facilities often are inconvenient to reach. For example, the closest to my home in Los Angeles is 8 miles away, which can involve driving for an hour or more. Thats not worth it for the few cans my family produces.

Most U.S. consumers are opposed to pollution, of course, but research shows that they seldom view themselves as significant contributors. As taxpayers, they hold local governments responsible for recycling. Many are not sure what happens next, or whether their actions make a difference.

What can be done to address these barriers? Better messaging, such as emphasizing how waste can be transformed into new objects, can make a difference.

But as I argue in my 2018 book, "The Green Bundle: Pairing the Market With the Planet," information alone cant drive sustainable behavior. People must feel motivated, and the best motivations bundle environmental benefits with personal benefits, such as economic rewards, increased status or social connections.

In a 2014 survey, 41 percent of respondents said that money or rewards were the most effective way to get them to recycle. Take-back systems, such as deposits on cans and bottles, have proven effective in some contexts. Such systems need to be more convenient, however.

Returning bottles directly to stores is one possibility, but novel strategies are being deployed across the country. "Pay-as-you-throw" policies charge customers based on how much solid waste they discard, thus incentivizing waste reduction, reuse and more sustainable purchasing behavior. Recyclebank, a New York company, rewards people for recycling with discounts and deals from local and national businesses.

Social status also motivates people. The zero-waste lifestyle has become a sensation on social media, driving the rise of Instagram influencers such as Bea Johnson, Lauren Singer and Kathryn Kellogg, who are competing to leave behind the smallest quantity of waste. Visibility of conservation behavior matters, and could be a powerful component in pay-as-you-throw schemes.

Its also nice to have support. Mutual help organizations, or community-led groups, trigger behavioral change through social connections and face-to-face interactions. They have the potential to transfer empowering information and sustain long-term commitment.

One famous example is Alcoholics Anonymous, which relies on member expertise instead of instructions from health care specialists. Similarly, Weight Watchers focuses on open communication, group celebration of weight loss progress and supportive relationships among members.

French startup Yoyo, founded in 2017, is applying this strategy to recycling. Yoyo connects participants with coaches, who can be individuals or businesses, to help them sort recyclables into orange bags. Coaches train and encourage sorters, who earn points and rewards such as movie tickets for collecting and storing full Yoyo bags.

The process also confers status, giving sorters positive social visibility for work that is ordinarily considered thankless.

The process also confers status, giving sorters positive social visibility for work that is ordinarily considered thankless. And because rewards tend to be local, Yoyos infrastructure has the potential to improve members community connections, strengthening the perceived and actual social power of the group.

This system offers a convenient, social, incentive-based approach. In two years the community has grown to 450 coaches and 14,500 sorters and collected almost 4.3 million plastic bottles.

Such novel behavior-based programs alone cannot solve back-end aspects of the global waste crisis, such as recycling capacity and fluctuating scrap material prices. But our research has shown that by leveraging technology and human behavior, behavioral science can encourage people to recycle much more effectively than simplistic campaigns or slogans.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

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To boost recycling, give consumers discounts, deals and social connections - GreenBiz

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. The Duluth Police Department reports that over the last several weeks they have received dozens of calls about coyote sightings in and around the city.

Officer Ted Sadowski, the public information officer with the city's police department, says the reports have come from the following areas:

Kaitlyn Goode, the Urban Wildlife Program Manager with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, says that this is a common problem in many areas during this time of year due to the time change.

"Coyotes are most active during dawn and dusk. Now that daylight saving time has ended, we are also most active during those hours as well. So that's why people are seeing them more often," says Goode.

Goode says that human and pet attacks can be prevented through modification of human behavior using these tips:

Goode also says that you should report any aggressive, fearless coyotes immediately to your local officials.

Want more Gwinnett County news? Like us on Facebook.

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Coyote sightings on the rise in Duluth - 11Alive.com WXIA

The role of human resources has evolved over the past 20 years into delivering more value-added services that support the strategic vision of the organization. The term human resource was first used in the 1960s when companies realized the value of labor relations, human behavior and organizational development. Human resources was known as personnel department in most organizations until the advent of 21st century. Human resources is currently related to management of an organizations human capital, including employees at all levels and sometimes contractors.

There are seven key areas of human resources.

Recruitment and retention are the process of creating job descriptions, pay ranges of each job type, placing advertisements for new openings, the interviewing process, job offers, onboarding, training and most importantly, retaining the top talent.

Administrative and compliance is where human resources plays a critical role to create and maintain employee files and create metrics to assist the leadership team. Creating company policy and procedures and ensuring all employees are properly communicated of these guidelines in a timely fashion. Human resources ensures that all employees comply to these internal guidelines that are usually congruent to organizational mission and vision statements. The employers must be compliant to all laws that impact them at a state and federal level. Some of the key laws that impact most employers are Title VII, Americans with Disabilities Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, California Family Rights Act, Fair Employment and Housing Act, Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act for continuation of health coverage, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Employment at Will, Equal Opportunity Employment, Form I-9, Form W-4 and much more.

The employee handbook is a non-legal document that all employers should have an introduction to the company, employee rights, expectations and responsibilities, policies and procedures, pay and vacation procedures, state and federal laws impacting the employer, rest breaks and all relevant information that new employees must know to be productive members of the organization.

Compensation and benefits is handled by human resources to create pay policies, comprehensive benefits package for new employees, retirement plans and more. The pay policies include details on complying to state and federal minimum wage and overtime laws, pay ranges, meal and rest breaks, payroll periods and so forth. The benefits package might include health, dental, vision and life insurance as well as employee perks if offered by the employer. The benefits package might include retirement benefits like 401(k) or an employee stock ownership plan.

Training and development ensures that employers provide employees with the tools necessary for their success which, in many cases, means giving new employees extensive orientation training to help them transition into a new organizational culture. Many human resource departments also provide leadership training and professional development. Leadership training may be required of newly hired and promoted supervisors and managers on topics such as performance management and how to handle employee relations matters at the department level.

Employee relations, investigations and complaints are handled by human resources departments, which must be equipped to handle any complaints that may arise from confusion caused by unfair practices, non-compliant policies, poor communication and launching investigations to follow due process and to ensure all employees are treated fairly. Human resources acts as a liaison between the employee and the management in an organization to maintain harmony at all levels and to ensure its policies are fair and consistent. Some of these complaints might lead to investigations in cases like harassment or theft or illegal drug usage.

A strategic business partner, human resources in the 21st century, is much more than the administrative office of the past. It has a seat at the table in the executive board room where it has access to strategic initiatives of the organization allowing it to be a better partner to the company and its employees.

Other human resource roles might include organization, leadership development, diversity and inclusion.

Paul Sethi is the founder and president of Cognizant HR and Tax, serving small businesses with their human resource needs like payroll, compliance audits, employee handbooks, investigations, training, taxes and more. He brings over 10 years in the field and is SHRM certified professional with an MBA. Sethi can be reached at (951) 288-2367 or cognizant.hr.tax@gmail.com.

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What is human resources in the 21st century? - Valley News

Robotic process automation (RPA), or bots that can be programmed to perform tedious and mundane tasks, is undergoing a period of explosive growth. Deloitte reports that 53% of companies have begun deploying it and that 78% of adopters will invest more in RPA in the next three years. In fact, assuming the current trend continues, its anticipated that RPA will achieve near universal adoption within five years.

One of the incumbents in the space is Automation Anywhere, which in the roughly 16 years since its founding has attracted over 3,500 customers in more than 90 countries, among them LinkedIn, MasterCard, Comcast, Hitachi, Stanley Black & Decker, IBM, Cisco, Symantic, Juniper Networks, Tesco, Unilever, Volkswagen, Whirlpool, Quest Diagnostics, Deloitte, Boston Scientific, Dell EMC, Accenture, Cognizent, Siemens, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the World Bank. To support the influx of business, it has expanded its workforce to more than 1,750 employees in 20 global locations, including Boston, Dallas, New York, Baroda, Mumbai, London, Melbourne, and Japan. And now its laying the runway for future growth.

Automation Anywhere today announced that it has raised $290 million in series B funding at a post-money valuation of $6.8 billion. Salesforce Ventures led the round, with additional contributions from existing investors, including SoftBank Investment Advisers and Goldman Sachs. This brings Automation Anywheres total raised to date to $840 million a year after the firm secured $550 million from SoftBank Investment Advisers, General Atlantic, Goldman Sachs, NEA, World Innovation Lab, and Workday Ventures.

CEO and cofounder Mihir Shukla said the fresh funds will help Automation Anywhere realize its vision of empowering customers to automate end-to-end workflows and advance its focus on improving human-to-bot collaboration. Never before has there been such a transformative shift in the way we work, with artificially intelligent software bots changing how people, processes, and technology interact for productivity gains, he added. This new funding reinforces the promise of the RPA category and empowers our customers to achieve greater business agility and increased efficiencies by automating end-to-end business processes bridging the gap between the front and back office.

Automation Anywheres platform employs software robots that make processes self-running in a range of industries, including (but not limited to) financial services, healthcare, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, and telecommunications. Using a combination of traditional RPA and cognitive elements like unstructured data processing and natural language understanding, its machine learning-powered systems can crunch through tasks that normally take hundreds of thousands of employees.

The companys spotlight solutions are IQ Bot, which learns by observing human behavior, and the Automation Anywhere Bot Store, a marketplace of prebuilt bots for common tasks. The latter offers more than 500 ready-to-download bots configured for difference tasks and software environments, while the former taps AI and machine learning to self-improve over time. IQ Bot further integrates with other automation solutions, like IBM Watson, conducting phonetic algorithm and fuzzy string matching against enterprise apps to validate and enrich data.

As for Automation Anywheres mobile app for Android and iOS, it affords control over bot activity for both attended and unattended RPA and customizable alerts that can be used to track activity. Operations managers and practitioners can monitor bot performance from a comprehensive dashboard and connect with RPA enthusiasts in a members-only forum or pause and start activity with the push of a button.

Both custom-tailored and preconfigured bots can automate specific tasks and workflows or segments of defined job roles, leading to a claimed 70% speedup in business processes and 50% lower deployment costs. Automation Anywhere says that most of its customers automate 70% of repetitive tasks within four weeks.

Automation Anywhere competes with heavyweights in a market thats anticipated to be worth $3.97 billion by 2025, according to Grand View Research. In April, UiPath nabbed $568 million at a $7 billion valuation for its suite of AI-imbued process automation tools, while rival Kryon in February secured $40 million. Elsewhere, Softmotive raised a $25 million tranche from a host of investors, shortly ahead of Automation Heros $14.5 million raise in March.

But investors like Salesforce Service Cloud executive vice president and general manager Bill Patterson believe Automation Anywhere has the momentum (its clients have deployed 1.6 million bots to date) to stand out from the crowd.

Automation Anywhere makes it easier for Salesforce customers to automate repetitive, manual tasks and focus on what matters most the customer, said Patterson. Were excited to extend our partnership with Automation Anywhere to help more customers automate their end-to-end business processes and accelerate their digital transformation journeys.

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Automation Anywhere raises $290 million at a $6.8 billion valuation - VentureBeat

LeeAnne, LeeAnne, LeeAnne girl, what are you doing? You could have had this round. Kary and DAndra were obviously being silly little monsters who took a joke way too far. Was I highly anticipating this joke after seeing hints of it in the mid-season trailer? Yes, I love a sight gag. But they took all the fun out of it. Did the LInfinity dress maybe need some workshopping before being delivered to actual paying customers. 100 percent, but it only needs to be said once!

LeeAnne handled it all so well, until she didnt. And then she really did not. Seeing a personworked up or notslap themselves in the face is a bit of a cry for help in any situation. When its followed by a racially charged rant, someone should probably take that person aside and away from cable network cameras.

But this is Bravo, and painful to watch or not, this is what we came for. People love to judge human behavior. This is sociology, Andy Cohen told the crowd at BravoCon this weekend. I hate myself.

We kick off this episode much more innocently with the groups arrival to Thailand, where the first real issue is about hats. I tend to think Kameron is very savvy and knows how to work the Bravo system, but I really hope she didnt think this baby elephant song might end up embroidered on one of Craig Conovers pillows. Its not even a song. Its barely a jingle! You have Erika Jayne dropping XXPEN$IVE over in Beverly Hills, and Dallas only tune to date is this baby elephant thing? (Also, not to be a wet blanket, but is this elephant exploitation?) Step it up, ladies.

Someone planned their itinerary very well. They just immediately get to go to bed when they get there and wake up to a full breakfast spread thanks to Stephanie (who I guess is technically our host for this impromptu trip). A list of local rules is read and Kary is wearing very cute pajamas. Thats all I remember. Oh, and Kam wants to go down to the alleys? I would like a list of rules for what Kam is and is not down with.

While everyone goes to pair a cute outfit with bright white sneakers, DAndra reveals to Kary that she brought the LInfinity dress and my serotonin levels straight spiked. DAndra justifies the plan by saying that LeeAnne would do this if the roles were reversed. Shes probably right.

Later at Wat Pho, we find out which ladies consider themselves highly religious and theres a whole lot of fuss over hats. I mean, you know, its not really about hats. Its about two women trying to out alpha the other I guess. But surely they can pick a better point of contention than hats.

I do have to say, Kary keeps making a behind-her-back jab that LeeAnne has never traveled out of the country, but that simply is not true. LeeAnne does some of her best work off U.S. soil. Remember when she went to Mexico with a flesh-eating bacteria? The panty-liner line in Copenhagen wasnt my favorite (nobody likes the phrase panty liner) but people remember it.

Oh no. When LeeAnne says, I should have made the joke in Hispanic and not English. Thats not cool or correct verbiage!

Its time for dinner and its time for the LInfinity dress. DAndra shipped it to a P.O. box in someone elses name. Sneaky!

Now, I guess this is how I thought this LInfinty dress would go down. I thought DAndra would wear it (in one of its 175 forms) downstairs, cause a little stir, and then go up to change (or at least snap off the extensions) so everyone can move on and eat dinner. But instead, she and Kary go on, and on, and on about how disastrous the dress is and how it needs a pamphlet. It most certainly does, but this is pretty low hanging fruit. Its just too mean.

I really loved when Brandi asked LeeAnne if she was okay and stuck up for her. I think I may just really love Brandi?

And then, of course, LeeAnne loses it. Stephanies testimonial reaction when LeeAnne slaps her face and growls come on, Mexican is all of our reactions. Girl, what are you doing?

Until next week. Were all in this together.

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The Real Housewives of Dallas Recap: L'Infinity and Beyond - D Magazine

The City of Long Beach may soon allow residents to have up to six pets in their homes, two more than it currently allows.

Gerardo Mouet, director of Long Beachs Parks, Recreation and Marine Department, stated in a Nov. 15 memo to the city manager that next month the city council will consider amending an ordinance to increase allowed pets from four to six and also regulate animals brought into the city for adoption.

The purpose of the amendments is to promote the Long Beach Animal Care Services (LBACS) Compassion Saves approach designed to minimize the number of animals euthanized, Mouet said.

According to the memo, LBACS already reduced the number of its animals euthanized by 82% between 2010 and 2018, dropping from 5,651 to 1,044. It also increased pet adoptions by 370% from 144 to 677 during that period.

Courtesy City of Long BeachA table from a Nov. 15 memo to the Long Beach city manager showing how Long Beach Animal Care Services (LBACS) reduced animal-euthanasia rates and increased adoptions between 2010 and 2018.

As recent as 2012, LBACS started seeing less animals coming into the shelter due to effective population-control efforts, Mouet said in the memo, adding that it reduced euthanasia rates with the help of a 2015 spay-and-neuter ordinance and partnering with adoption organizations.

Mouet further stated that city staff plans to work with spcaLA (the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) which is housed in the same facility as LBACS in negotiating a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to maximize the effectiveness of LBACSs Compassion Saves approach.

That approach stems from an April 16 LBACS study session showing the positive impact of animal population-control efforts. The City had created a task force the previous October following results of a two-phased city-auditors report on LBACS completed last year. The City also hired a new LBACS manager, Staycee Dains, last February.

Along with deficiencies in LBACS operations, the audit noted that though they maintain separate leadership and identities, both LBACS and spcaLA are housed at the P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village in Long Beach, with a 55-year lease-back agreement expiring in 2053. LBACS leases part of the facility from spcaLA for its shelter operations and the City pays spcaLA 50% of the total facilitys operating expenses, according to the audit.

And though LBACSs live-release rates (LRR) of animals have increased, the audit found that the LRRs and impound improvements strained LBACSs resources and spread thin the shelters staff.

It also found deficiencies in LBACSs standard-operating procedures, resulting in inconsistent decision-making, conflicting shelter practices and changes implemented without proper direction and explanation.

No killThough Mouet said the three proposed steps are designed to aid LBACSs effectiveness in reducing euthanized animals, Dr. Patricia Turner of No Kill Long Beach, an advocacy group calling for no animal to be put down unless it has untreatable pain or illness, told the Signal Tribune that the steps are too limited.These actions dont go far enough, Turner said, adding that the real problem is LBACSs physical and operational proximity to spcaLA.

The MOU must establish LBACSs independence from spcaLA [] as its own entirely city-operated animal shelter and facility so that they can operate at scale to meet the needs of the people of Long Beach, she said.

Turner said that such a separation would allow LBACS to operate full-service adoption and foster programs and a robust volunteer program.Ideally, spcaLA would not be associated with the City of Long Beach, she said. They are on taxpayer land.

Turner also said that the MOU should require transparency by spcaLA about the outcome of animals under its care, such as how many it euthanizes or sends out to adoption, foster care or to other shelters.

That MOU is the most important thing, Turner said when comparing the three steps.

The step of limiting the number of animals brought into the city for adoption is a response to the general perception that spcaLA brings in animals from other places, Turner said, but noted that the memo doesnt specify that organization as the problem.

Nothing in this memo, in regards to animals being brought into Long Beach, mentions spcaLA, she said. It applies to anybody.

Turner said therefore a person who finds a kitten in Lakewood couldnt by law bring it to the Long Beach shelter, nor could a rescue organization that finds a dog in neighboring Compton bring it in for adoption.

It places a burden on these rescue organizations who are already overburdened, under-resourced and theyre doing the work that LBACS should be doing of adopting animals out, she said. LBACS is not adopting large numbers of animals out because spcaLA doesnt want them to. Its just foisting the problem back on the community.

She remarked that the 677 adoptions LBACS reports is small next to comparable cities like Sacramento, whose shelter managed 5,000 adoptions. That citys website states that the shelter sent out 5,037 dogs and cats for adoption last year and 4,321 as of October this year.

And regarding the proposed ordinance amending the number of pets people can have, Turner said her organization advocates for eight rather than six but said such laws dont impact animal welfare by themselves.

If youre concerned about animal welfare, the laws dont do anything in terms of changing human behavior except to deter responsible people who would take good care of a larger number of animals from having them, she said, adding that Sacramento allows up to 10 pets per household. Sacramentos website states that residents can harbor up to three dogs and seven cats.

Public opinion supports a no-kill policy and stronger adoption efforts, Turner said, but also noted that LBACS and spcaLA practices affect all pet owners.If your dog gets out, your dog could go to the shelter, Turner said. And if he gets sick, [] he could be killed.

Shelter progressDespite these concerns, Staycee Dains, LBACS manager, told the Signal Tribune that she collaborated with Mouet on the steps and is hopeful for continued progress.She said that the City has already made great strides in reducing its stray-animal population following the four-year-old spay-and-neuter ordinance.

Courtesy City of Long BeachGraph from Phase 2 of the City of Long Beachs audit of its animal-care services showing increases in live-release rates of animals in recent years

The City increasing its limit of how many pets residents can have will further reduce the stray-animal population, she said.The idea is to allow people to have more animals so they can adopt more animals from the shelter, she said.

Dains said she is also hopeful that the MOU with spcaLA will formalize the ways in which their operations work together, especially as LBACS has evolved over the past decade.

We really want to make sure our efforts are collaborative and make sure whatever were putting into place is going to be definitely beneficial for the LBACS shelter animals she said. Im very hopeful that we will be able to come up with a memorandum of understanding.

Dains added that LBACS will begin negotiations as soon as possible and expects the process to be short, hoping to complete the agreement early in 2020.

Dains said she is also confident in LBACSs Compassion Saves model to ensure the animals in its care get everything they need and especially an appropriate outcome, whether that means being returned to an owner, adopted, placed in foster care or sent to a rescue organization.

We want to make sure that were making excellent outcome decisions for them, Dains said. Making sure that animals are getting to their outcome as soon as possible is a really important part of the Compassion Saves model.

Dains said she is also pleased with reforms allowing volunteers to come on board faster.

Weve streamlined some of our training so that those who can come to the shelter and go through the screening process and be trained has been thankfully truncated, she said.

She added the City has opened up the window of time it can screen volunteer candidates by contracting with another organization to provide such services as fingerprinting.

People wont have to wait from their orientation to their processing time, which for some people could be weeks, Dains said. Weve definitely seen an increase in volunteer retention from going to that process.

More volunteers have allowed LBACS to develop new programs, such as behavior rehabilitation for dogs, Dains said.

Prior to starting this program, [some dogs] were not getting their needs met and so would languish in the shelter [and] their behaviors would become increasingly concerning because they werent getting the right type of enrichment, like getting out of their kennels and getting the right type of handling, Dains said.

She noted that a lot of the dogs at the shelter have been through trauma and need someone to guide them through that experience through specific activities with volunteers, such as educational training that helps them cope with the shelter environment.

It has made a huge difference in the stress level of our dogs in our kennels and the ease of volunteers being able to handle the dogs, she said.

As for cats, Dains said her own office has become the place for especially scared cats to calm down before continuing into the shelter.

People have been so invested and have really made a lot of personal sacrifices to see our animal-services department succeed, Dains said. Were very excited to keep up the momentum and progress that everyone in our community has worked on for so many years.

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Long Beach City Council to consider increasing allowed pets from 4 to 6 to reduce animal euthanasia - Signal Tribune

Lets consider two humorous prayers today with life lessons for all of us. One prayer is about prayer itself. The other is about prayer in the process of maturity in human beings. Often used and seldom understood, prayer and prayers require a bit of explanation and exploration. Lets get started with this lesson in understanding answers to prayer.

Two missionaries agree, just before they leave for their respective mission fields, once a year they will get together to go hunting on the first day of deer season. They did this for several years together.

One year as they were hunting, they came upon a clearing in the woods to find a very large bear devouring wild berries. The bear heard them, raised himself up to see better and turned to move toward the friends. They quickly became frightened. What do we do? One said, Shoot the bear! We cant! the other replied, Bears are protected in this area the fine is $10,000. The other said, Run, run, run!

They headed for the woods for protection. They could hear the deep panting of the bear gaining on them with every breath. What should we do? one friend asked the other. Pray! was the swift reply. They both stopped in their tracks and spoke the following prayer. Father in Heaven, please make this bear a Christian. Amen!

The bear then stopped dead in his tracks. The two missionaries could not hear the bear any longer. They each slowly turned around to observe the bear. The bear was kneeling on the ground with his massive arms folded in quiet reverence. Then they heard a groan from the bear that sounded like: Father in Heaven, bless this food I am about to partake. Amen.

The moral of this story is be careful of what you pray for, you might just get it!

One thing I have learned in forty years of ministry is you never want to underestimate the power of prayer. Our tendency toward self-reliance and skepticism often gets in the way of prayer. We want to be in control, doing everything on our own. But what happens when you arent in control? What happens when you have a crisis or need much bigger than your self-sufficiency? Prayer gets God involved. Prayer takes you to a Source and Resource much higher than your limited human resources.

Someone once noted God answers prayer in three ways; Yes, no, and youve got to be kidding! Can you imagine what we sound like to God in some of our prayers? I think Gods answers to our prayers are more like yes, no, slow or grow. Yes, God is a God who answers prayer. I believe that. However, when we get the no, grow or slow answer, we need to trust Father God knows best. When you cant see Gods hand, trust in His character. Dont let a few no, slow, or grow answers spoil your prayer life!

Heres a prayer about lifestyle and the process of maturity. Dear Lord, so far today, Ive done all right. I havent gossiped, havent lost my temper, havent been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or overindulgent. Im very thankful for that. But, in a few minutes, Lord, Im going to get out of bed. And, from then on, Im probably going to need a lot more help. Amen.

Like anything else, Christianity is much easier to preach than to live, isnt it? Its easy to go to church. Its hard to be the church. It easy to read the Bible. Its much harder to live the Bible. The inconsistency of knowing and living Christianity is what drives others crazy. Thats why Christians are often called hypocrites.

The truth is all people struggle to live out what they know. Every group is full of hypocrisy because human behavior is initially learned and then integrated slowly into how we live. Knowledge starts with the head, then moves to the heart and finally to the feet. The distance between the head and heart is the longest foot in the world. The idea is for what you know to be integrated into behavior exhibited consistently in our lives. Its a process more than an event. Which includes all people, not just church people.

What you know and desire to do is a belief. What you consistently do is a value. For example, I believe I shouldnt eat French fries or chips. I believe French fries are strings of carbohydrates, soaked and boiled in saturated fat that can plug up arteries. Now, ask me if I eat fries. Of course, I do. You see, I have a belief, but it is not a value. How hypocritical, huh? But as we consistently choose the act upon what we know, beliefs turn into values.

We are all works in progress. Can we give one another a little grace on this? And, besides, if a hypocrite is what is standing between you and God, it could be the hypocrite is closer to God than you are. What often makes us critical of others is we often see ourselves in others.

There you have it, some great wisdom on prayer and allowing prayer to elevate your life. After all, I dont want you to be running around with a bear behind. (I cant believe I said that!).

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'Yes, No, Grow and Slow' in our lives and prayers - Glendale Star