Who Killed Tupac Shakur?

From PR-USA.NET Photo, above, is last one taken of Tupac alive (from cover of The Killing of Tupac Shakur. Who Killed Tupac? Interview by Anton Batey with Cathy Scott Who killed Tupac? Was it really Suge Knight, Crips or police? Why wasn’t the case ever officially solved? This insightful interview with Cathy Scott conducted by Anton Batey attempts to answer these questions. Award winning journalist Cathy Scott, author of several books and featured in the 2pac DVDs Before I Wake and Tupac Assassination, and will be featured in Part II of Tupac Assassination, is interviewed regarding the murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur. Interviewer Anton Batey asks Cathy a wide range of questions, talk at length about Orlando Anderson, the alleged killer of Tupac, the “Suge Killed Tupac” theory, the police investigation, Tupac’s record deal and much more. If you have any interest in justice, you’ll want to hear this! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Interview is about 45 minutes in lengh. Contact Anton Batey at Anton_Batey@yahoo.com

A Monthly Arts and Literature Review

I just came across this book review in OPEN LETTERS: A Monthly Arts and Literature Review and wanted to include it here. Review of Pawprints of Katrina by Steve Donoghue When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, dozens and dozens of city blocks became inundated swamplands of festering sludge, and thousands of people were displaced and evacuated, n most not knowing when – or even if – they’d ever be able to return. The haphazard squalor of their subsequent fates became the shame of a nation, but there were those who suffered even worse – the pets left behind in the drowned ruins of the city. Cathy Scott was embedded with the Best Friends Animal Society, a group that ended up rescuing nearly half the estimated fifteen thousand stray or stranded animals scrounging and starving in the wake of the storm. In this meticulously-reported (albeit ploddingly written) account, she tells the stories of all the desperate animals, and all the heroic volunteers who boarded flatboats and searched through attics and garages to find them (the included photographs by Clay Myers, of formerly pampered cats and dogs reduced to haunted-eyed scavengers skulking in the wreckage, are indelibly wrenching). These are stirring stories, and Scott tells them all – lacking a more poetic touch, this will certainly be the definitive account of Katrina animal rescue. Everything’s here: the owners cruel enough to leave chained and fenced dogs behind; the kittens and puppies born right as Katrina or Rita made landfall, the white-faced older animals who survived against all odds. And, happily, the beginnings of legislation to prevent such ancillary tragedies from happening again:

As a result [of the media attention given to abandoned pets], Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call with a resounding message: along with people, pets also need to be protected during a disaster. What came out of the televised images, as the world watched in horror, was the vow never to let it be repeated. Katrina proved that people need to be prepared, from individuals putting identifying tags on their pets’ collars or microchipping them to cat owners keeping crates on hand to government officials at all levels mandating provisions for not only humans but their pets.

The essential promise all good, conscientious animal owners make to their charges is rock-bottom simple: I will protect you from harm. If legislation arising from the tragedy of Katrina helps in the keeping of that promise, then some good will have come of those high waters. Photo of first responder Craig Hill in the Lower Ninth Ward by Clay Myers.

Looking back, moving forward

Photo of Ali MacGraw, with Jemima, and Cathy Scott, with Mia, by Clay Myers. The year 2008 was more than good to me. Pawprints of Katrina, a book near to my heart, was released to a crowd of 200 at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in southern Utah on a beautiful July day. There to welcome the book was actress and animal advocate Ali MacGraw, who lent her good name to the project by writing a beautiful foreword. In late January, I walked with volunteers, and covered, the Mardi Gras Barkus Parade. We received a rousing welcome from the crowd and VIP stand as we carried the Best Friends Animal Society's banner through New Orleans’ French Quarter. One weekend, I taught a writers' workshop for Authors of the Flathead in Kalispell, Montana, and met wonderfully inspiring future authors eager to make their mark in the literary world. I went on a book tour that included, besides the kick-off event in Kanab, Utah, a signing in La Jolla, CA, at Warwick's, three signings in Las Vegas, one in Santa Fe (more about that, below), Washington, D.C., and went on numerous speaking engagements. In September, I spoke at the 2008 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., on the Mall before 250 people about the animals rescued from Hurricane Katrina. I had breakfast at the White House and dinner at the Library of Congress, both hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, who has pushed literacy during her eight years in D.C. It was an incredible weekend and one I won't soon forget. Then, in November, photographer Clay Myers, whose heartwarming photos grace the pages of Pawprints of Katrina, his wife, Cathie, and I flew to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a book signing there with Ali MacGraw, where she lives. It's been a joy getting to know her. She's unpretentious, giving and truly cares about all creatures. She took us for a quiet dinner at Cafe Pasqual, where the red carpet was rolled out. The book signing at Garcia Street Books was a great success, with many of Ali's friends stopping by. I now count Ali and her son Josh Evans and daughter-in-law Charis Michelsen as friends. They're grounded, thoughtful people and I'm richer for knowing them. For two days, I walked a precinct with childhood friend Vickie Pynchon -- blogger, mediator/negotiator, author, literary editor extraodinaire in Los Angeles -- and then attended a November 4 election party with Vickie and her husband, attorney Stephen Goldberg, at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Vickie was one of 1,000 attorneys who converged in Las Vegas -- because Nevada was a swing state -- to make sure all was copacetic at the polls. I have another true crime book in the works -- and a contract with St. Martin's Press True Crime Library -- and I have assignments I'm working on for Best Friends Magazine and Web site. Life is good. I look forward to 2009. I'm enormously grateful to readers and animal lovers worldwide!