The story of Beau

Beau the guide dog and his impact on political history is profiled in the Washington Post today:

One hundred pounds of loyalty and quiet determination in his prime, Beau became a minor celebrity for a couple of days in 1997 when the Senate barred the visually impaired Shea, then a nuclear policy aide to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), from bringing the dog onto the Senate floor.

An objection had been raised -- anonymously at the time -- by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), a stickler for procedure. The Senate had no formal rule allowing guide dogs into its chamber.

It had, however, voted two years earlier to require Congress to live by the workplace rules it had imposed on other employers. Those include the Americans With Disabilities Act, which guarantees that workers with guide dogs can bring them to the office under most circumstances.

It soon became clear that any argument for excluding Beau from the chamber was a dog.

Find out what happens at the rest of this link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122700874.html

If you have to register, try getting a password at www.bugmenot.com.

Rick C
www.goldentales.ca

Wow! I'm surprised that elected officials would get involved in such a "politically incorrect" stance. They shouldn't need to vote on it - it's the law!

It's amazing to me that this had to go to a vote. How silly. What about just using common sense and human kindness?

What a great dog and yep, I am always quoting verbatum the Americans with Disabilities Act - we still have to catch up in terms of technology especially in our own legislation tho we are getting there. This forum for ex violates the AS w Disabilities Act and our Cdn one and the Ontario one - but there are alternatives (keyboard shortcuts for example that can esaily be made created with even as "lowly" a program as VB and certainly any OOP API like Java or C++. (But the developers of the Jelsoft are not disability friendly I suspect - I don;t mean Marco et al, I mean the ppl who created the format for these forums - we could be such innovators here!!). I'd love to develop some of those games to be disability friendly - not to suggest that is the reason I cannot quite figure out Breakout, lol It is just beyong my capabilities I guess, lol

Anyway - sorry to digress but even Robert Byrd is uaually more progressive than that, makes me look at him in a new way. Then again, he did admit in a recent book to having belonged to the KKK in his youth tho he regretted it to be fair. I am sorrry to hear of the death of such a pioneering doggie!