Donkeys

Sonette, the rare French donkey that was ordered to leave the country or face death, has had her sentence revoked. After receiving word Thursday that the 7-month-old curly-haired Poitou donkey had, after repeated tests, received a clean bill of health from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, San Diego Zoo officials feted Sonette with carrots and champagne. Sonette gobbled the carrots but turned up her nose at the champagne.

The first desperately needed aid trickled in Monday for earthquake victims in Afghanistan's mountains--on trucks where roads were passable, on donkeys where snow and ice were too deep. Survivors slowly walked out, with stories of whole families lost. Frozen bodies were strewn across devastated towns and villages, many still unburied after Wednesday's 6.1-magnitude quake crumbled hillside homes of mud and brick or buried them under landslides.

The Alabama Democrats are missing a donkey and they think the Republicans stole it. Her name is Irene and for 15 years she has been the beloved symbol of the party in Alabama, according to Dr. Willie L. Kirk, a Tuskegee, Ala., delegate who reported the loss to officers at Lew's New York hotel. The donkey was missing from a trailer parked in the hotel garage, Kirk said. He described Irene as "brown, long-eared, blue-eyed, white nose, always with a smile on her face."

"The San Diego Donkey Cart" which gained extensive publicity after the chief U.S. District Court judge ordered its removal Jan. 6 from the U.S. Courthouse plaza, is on exhibit at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park. Artist David Avalos, who made the painted wood construction, failed to get a court hearing in the case, which he called censorship. The politically charged artwork depicts an undocumented Mexican being apprehended by a U.S. immigration agent.

A suicide bomber rode on a donkey to the headquarters of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army in the southern Lebanon town of Hasbaya and set off a blast, killing himself and the donkey but injuring no one else, Israel radio said today. The report said that the attacker was a Shia Muslim and that he had concealed the explosives in saddle baskets hanging from the donkey.

Two San Fernando Valley youths who blinded a donkey in one eye with a BB gun were sentenced Wednesday to perform 300 hours of community service at an animal shelter. Jon Ryan Wynott, 18, of West Hills and Mathew Scott Chaney, 18, of Northridge pleaded no contest last month to one felony count of cruelty to animals in the July 9 shooting. Annie, a donkey owned by Wynott's neighbor, Larry Pulley, was blinded in the left eye by one of the BBs, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Fisch.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused Wednesday to grant a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit involving a donkey cart artwork. On Jan. 6, Chief U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson ordered "San Diego Donkey Cart" removed from the Federal Building plaza in San Diego "for security reasons," although a permit had been issued to exhibit it. An assemblage by local artist David Avalos, the donkey cart depicts an immigration official arresting an illegal alien. Last Thursday, U.S.

Annie the blind donkey apparently thought there were better things to do on a hot day in Reseda than to be the star attraction of her master's news conference. Larry Pulley had brought Annie to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus' field office to allege that Picus was indirectly responsible for the animal's being blinded by teen-agers with pellet guns. The sad tale of the donkey and the attempt to pin the crime on Picus would come later.

The Enabler has been fixating on love. What is it? How to find it? What feeds it? The answer to this last question, she is quite certain, is whiskey. Which is why on a recent evening she found herself contemplatively sipping a glass of 127-proof Four Roses cask strength single barrel bourbon at Pasadena's new whiskey bar, the Blind Donkey. The Blind Donkey is the work of the beer-minded men behind Verdugo Bar, the Surly Goat and the Little Bear, and as such it exudes a pleasing masculinity.

You think “beef” burgers with horse meat are bad? A new study out of South Africa shows that two-thirds of meat sold at supermarkets and butcheries contain unlabeled amounts of donkey, goat, water buffalo and other mystery ingredients. Researchers from the University of Stellenbosch found elements of surprise in up to 68% of 139 samples of minced meats, burger patties, deli and dried meats, and sausages from retail outlets and smaller meat outlets.   About 28% of products didn't list on the packaging that they contained soy and gluten - both common allergens.