Writing Alert! Dallas Observer Publishes Article on Jenny 4/8/09. Cross Post Please

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Jenny Advocates, Please take these two actions for Jenny right now. Thank you. Margaret Morin, Founder, Concerned Citizens for Jenny

 

Write a Dallas Observer Letter to the Editor by going to:

http://www.dallasobserver.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee/?department=letters

 

Post a comment on the blog by going to:

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-04-09/news/the-zoo-has-a-new-elephant-so-can-jenny-retire/

The Zoo has a New Elephant, So Can Jenny Retire?

 

By Patrick Williams

Published on April 08, 2009 at 11:06am

 

Remember Jenny?: Give Margaret Morin credit for perseverance. For nearly a year, the leader of Concerned Citizens for Jenny has lobbied, cajoled and pleaded with city leaders to send Jenny—until last week the Dallas Zoo's only elephant—to a sanctuary in Tennessee. In that time, she says, she's learned just how responsive city council members are to their constituents—and she's still not giving up. In fact, she retains hope that Jenny may spend her golden years in Tennessee.

 

 

Subject(s):Dallas Zoo, Jenny, elephants

Wow...months of dealing with Dallas municipal government, and her soul hasn't been reduced to blackened ashes of despair. Buzz has got to get some of whatever meds she's using.

 

"I found over the course of the past year the Dallas City Council doesn't listen to citizens. They're blind and deaf," Morin told Buzz on Tuesday, when we checked in with her to see how the Jenny campaign was faring after the council last week approved $13.5 million to construct the first part of the zoo's planned African savanna exhibit and the zoo announced the arrival of a new elephant.

 

That took nearly a year? We'd accuse her of being naïve or a really slow learner, but, heck, even Buzz is sometimes surprised by City Hall's capacity for obdurate obtuseness. (It's true! Why, we nearly spit out our morning beer as we read this Sunday's Dallas Morning News. "Had [Hurricane] Katrina not happened, they would have been visiting us again and telling us everything is OK," council member Ron Natinsky said in response to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' "holy freakin' shit" report about the state of the city's levee system.)

 

So let's not be too hard on Morin for her own shock at the council's response to the retire Jenny effort. ("They just talk and talk, and they say nothing," she says.)

Instead, let's admire her for her recent efforts to meet with a dozen or so council candidates and incumbents in the past weeks. She and her group aren't endorsing anyone.

 

She just wants them to remember Jenny, an emotionally troubled, sentient beast who has had what can fairly be described as a tough life.

 

Who knows? Maybe she's right to hope. For instance, a reasonable person could suggest that now that the zoo has a new elephant and is readying a new exhibit, its managers might at least consider letting Jenny enter a peaceful retirement in Tennessee. She's done her duty. The zoo will still have elephants. Can't we let Jenny go now?

 

Hah. Just kidding. "Reasonable." That's a good one. —Patrick Williams

 

 

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Thank goodness Margaret Morin hasn't given up on Jenny - without hope there often is nothing. If Jenny knows, she appreciates it.Morin has a wonderful vision for Jenny and she won't give up. We need more people like Morin who fight for what is right, even when the system is designed against what is right. Failure is giving up. Keep fighting - Jenny is worth every bit.Comment by Tessa McKenna on Apr 8th, 2009, 17:50 pm