ohmidog!

A Florida teen left paralyzed after an amusement park accident in Wisconsin is getting a therapy dog, courtesy of actor Charlie Sheen.

Fifteen-year-old Teagan Marti met the dog yesterday — an English golden retriever who her family has named Charlie, after the actor who’s funding the puppy’s training. 

Sheen wired $10,000 to the family in February after a family friend helped contacted him for help.

Teagan, who hopes to become a veterinarian, traveled with her family from Florida to Milwaukee for the visit, according to the Associated Press.

Charlie the dog is being trained in the Fond du Lac area and will be given to Teagan in September for her birthday.

Teagan suffered brain, spine, pelvis and internal injuries when she fell more than 100 feet from the ride while vacationing with her family at Wisconsin Dells.

While initially paralyzed, she can now walk with a walker. You can learn more about  Charlie (the dog) and Teagan’s road to recovery at the website Miracles4Teagan.com.

(Photo: Teagan, left, smiles at Charlie, her future therapy dog, as Lynne Sears, a nurse who helped treat Teagan, holds the pup; by Carrie Antlfinger / Associated Press)

Actor James Cromwell interrupted a Board of Regents meeting at the University of Wisconsin today, shouting and displaying a larger than life photo of a cat that, as part of a university experiment, had a metal post inserted in its head.

“This is not science! This is torture! Shame on you!” he shouted.

Cromwell, an Academy Award nominee and longtime PETA supporter, was arrested by campus police, as was a PETA staff member accompanying him, PETA reported.

Members of the University of Wisconsin (UW) System Board of Regents sat stunned when Cromwell entered their meeting holding this photo above his head:

PETA said the cat in the photo is named Double Trouble and that she is one of many cats who had been  killed in UW-Madison’s brain and ear experiments.

Experimenters screwed a steel post to her skull so that they could immobilize her head and planted electrical devices deep inside her ears. Her head wound to become severely infected, and, according to PETA, researchers stop feeding her. Finally, calling the experiment a failure, they killed and decapitated her, PETA said.

Cromwell said experiments underway at the university are “cruel and wasteful … As many as 30 cats a year have had holes drilled into their skulls, metal poles implanted into their eyes, been starved for days at a time and have been decapitated.”

PETA has repeatedly asked UW-Madison to end its experiments, but says it has received no response.

Actor Mickey Rourke says he plans to raise millions — and donate $250,000 himself — to build a dog shelter in Romania.

Rourke, in Romania filming the thriller “Dead in Tombstone,” made the decision after finding a stray dog on the set, named Foxy, and adopting it.

According to the Bucharest Herald, Rourke said the shelter will be called The Wild Dogs of Romania Sanctuary and that it will not be a money-making operation.

He also said he will come to Romania whenever necessary to see how the project is going.

Rourke has already found several partners for the project, including two Romanian veterinarians.

The actor said the shelter will be as large as a football field and will be able to host thousands of dogs. The Herald reported that Rourke is already in contact with an investor who will sell him a plot of land south of the capital.

Rourke’s a hard core dog lover who, after receiving the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in The Wrestler, took time to acknowledge his dogs in his acceptance speech –  “the ones that are here, that aren’t here anymore, because sometimes when a man’s alone, that’s all you got is your dog. And they meant the world to me.”

He credits his Chihuahua Loki, who passed away in 2009, with helping him battle years of depression.

A few hours after having his dog euthanized, soap opera actor Nick Santino took his own life.

Santino blamed oppressive rules instituted by his condo board for his decision to put his pit bull, Rocco, to sleep; and before taking an overdose of pills he left a note saying he had “betrayed his best friend,” according to the New York Post.

“Rocco trusted me and I failed him,” he wrote. “He didn’t deserve this.”

Pit bulls were banned from the building Santino lived in, One Lincoln Plaza, but he was allowed to keep Rocco through a grandfather clause. Since 2010, the condo board has also forbidden dogs from riding in the main elevator or being left alone in apartments for more than nine hours.

Santino had adopted Rocco, about five years old, from a shelter. Rocco was put to sleep on Santino’s 47th birthday. A few hours later, he killed himself in an apparent pill overdose, the Post reported.

A condo board member said the board feels no responsibility for the tragedy.

“I’m sorry the man is dead,” board member Marilyn Fireman told the Post, “but it has nothing to do with the pet policy.”

Relatives of Santino, who had roles on “All My Children” and “Guiding Light,” plan to place Rocco’s ashes beside Santino’s body when he is laid to rest.

Author Susan Orlean, whose latest book brings Rin Tin Tin back to life, thinks it’s time that the canine star be awarded the Oscar he was so rudely denied 83 years ago.

In her biography of the most famous German shepherd ever, “Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend,” Orleans recounts how the dog — while rumored to have received the most votes — was snubbed by the Academy in 1929, the year the Oscars were first presented.

In an recent interview with Deadline.com, she suggested the mistake be corrected, and a posthumous Oscar be bestowed on Rin Tin Tin.

That, we note (parenthetically and cynically) wouldn’t hurt book sales. But more important, it would rectify an injustice, she maintains.

In the silent film era, which was then coming to an end, the German shepherd was a far more popular performer than the German actor, Emil Jannings, who won 1929′s best actor award.

“That first year that the Oscars were awarded, it seems to have been more a popularity contest than a serious assessment of performance,” Orlean said in the interview. “In terms of popularity, Rin Tin Tin didn’t have a peer, he was a huge star around the world and helped Warner Bros transition from its start as a small studio into a large one.”

The dog, reportedly rescued from a bombsite in eastern France at the end of World War I, was brought to California and made his screen debut in 1922′s The Man from Hell’s River. He appeared in numerous other films before dying in 1932, at the age of 13, only to see his character later reincarnated in TV series form.

The German actor, meanwhile, after receiving the award for his roles in two silent movies, returned to Germany and took part in making propaganda films for his friend Joseph Goebbels, a close associate of Adolf Hitler.

But it’s not just a matter of the dog being more American, or more popular, that leads Orlean to believe Rin Tin Tin would have been a better choice for 1929′s best actor award. She believes the dog had some acting chops.

“I think that training a dog to have a certain behavior is impressive and a credit to the dog’s intelligence and the mastery of training techniques. But if you look at what Rin Tin Tin did, he seemed to understand that he was performing,” she says in the interview.

“Look at Clash of the Wolves, as he limps away from his pack to die alone. You watch the scene and can’t believe he didn’t know he was acting in the movie. He is grimacing and limping, he falls to the ground in agony. How would you train a dog to look depressed and act as if he’s resigned to a lonely death? I don’t know how you do that. Somehow, the dog knows he’s supposed to look miserable and contemplating his mortality.”

Say you’re sitting home minding your own business when Steven Seagal comes crashing through your front gate.

In a tank.

That’s what happened to an Arizona man who plans to file a lawsuit against the actor and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for killing his dog during a police raid, TMZ reports.

The action film star was participating in the raid earlier this year as part of his new reality show, “Steven Seagal Lawman,” having secured permission from Arizona’s infamous sheriff Joe Arpaio — no slouch himself when it comes to macho-fueled overkill.

Jesus Sanchez Llovera has served notice of his intention to sue to Seagal and Arpaio.

He says Seagal and the sheriff’s department raided his home suspecting to find an illegal cockfighting farm.

Llovera says he raises roosters only for show.

TMZ photo of tank

Llovera says Seagal arrived at his home on March 9 with a tank, and rammed through the gate on his property. The tank was followed by officers dressed in riot gear.

He says his 11-month old puppy was shot and killed during the raid, that his home sustained “substantial damage,” and that — between the tank and the storm troopers — more than 100 of his roosters were killed.

Llovera’s lawyer says his client wants $100,000 for the damage and an apology form Seagal about the death of his family’s puppy.

TMZ is reporting a strange little story out of Arizona involving comedian/rapper/actor Katt Williams.

During a tour bus stop last month in the town of Williams, near the Grand Canyon, one of Williams’ bodyguards was bitten by a dog, and then shot the dog twice, killing him.

The German shepherd — named Lester — was a retired police dog that had gotten loose during a walk with his owners, and ended up in the same Jack-in-the-Box parking lot where Williams’ bus stopped.

After the shooting, Williams told the family that the bodyguard would be fired, then he stepped into his bus and came back out with an 8-week-old puppy, reportedly a mastiff.

Williams offered the puppy to the family to replace the dead dog.

The family accepted, then posed for pictures with Williams.

The family told TMZ they named the new dog Bella, and that, though they were “devastated” by the death of Lester, they appreciated Williams taking responsibility and offering them the new pup.

Police responded, interviewed Williams and others, and opted to file no charges.

(Photo: TMZ)

For all those wondering what Steve Carell would do after “The Office,” now we know: He has agreed to star in and co-produce a new movie about talking to a dog.

It may sound cutesy, but it’s not.

“Dogs of Babel” will be a film adaptation of the 2003 novel by Carolyn Parkhurst, described as a tragic story of love and loss, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Carell — pretty much a virgin when it comes to serious drama — will play a linguistic professor who comes home to find his wife dead in the backyard.

When the police rule the death an accident, the professor has some doubts, and he attempts to teach his dog Lorelei — the only witness – to talk, so he can learn about the final moments of his wife’s life.

Name: James Dean

Breed: Brooding rebel

Age: 24 at the time of his death. Were he alive today, he’d be 79

Encountered: The James Dean sign is at Blackwell’s Corner, a gas station, nut dealer and memorabilia shop in Lost Hills, California that bills itself as “James Dean’s last stop.”

Backstory: An icon of 1950s Hollywood, Dean was killed in a head-on collision in 1955 — the same year the movie version of John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” came out, in which Dean had a starring role. Steinbeck reportedly didn’t like Dean personally, but thought he was perfect for the role of Cal Trask.

After the movie’s release, Dean was driving his Porsche to Salinas for a car race. About 20 minutes after he gassed up at Blackwell’s Corner, an oncoming car struck his vehicle. He would posthumously receive an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

Today, Blackwell’s Corner specializes in pistachios and almonds, and also sells 1950s memorabilia. It offers a free pack of James Dean trading cards with a purchase of $75 or more.

John Steinbeck, as he tells it in “Travels with Charley,” didn’t stop in Fargo.

He kept Rocinante rolling another 40 miles until he stumbled upon a more idyllic setting — yet another riverside camping spot, this one along the Maple River, near the sleepy little farming town of Alice. There, he just so happened to run into what would turn out to be one of the book’s more colorful characters, an itinerant Shakespearean actor.

Steinbeck would break out the coffee, and the whiskey, and listen as his flamboyant fellow camper explained that he performed Shakespeare around the country, in tents, in high schools  … “wherever two or three are gathered together … With me there’s no question of doing something else. It’s all I know — all I ever have known.”

Steinbeck recounted the meeting in great detail — including how the actor unfolded a packet of aluminum foil to reveal a note he once received from John Gielgud. After that, explaining the importance of a good exit, the actor makes one.

Was the Shakesperean actor a dramatic invention in Steinbeck’s classic work of non-fiction? We’ll probably never know. But indications are, just maybe, something is rotten in the state of North Dakota.

From all existing clues, it appears Steinbeck didn’t actually sleep in the town of Alice on the night of Oct. 12, which can only lead one to wonder if the actor was real, or if, like Tom Joad in ”The Grapes of Wrath,” he was artfully concocted by the author, most of whose works were fiction.

If so, it wouldn’t be the first discrepancy between Steinbeck’s account in “Travels with Charley” and what his papers and other sources reveal about his 1960 trip.

Many of those are now being brought to light by blogger Bill Stiegerwald as he retraces Steinbeck’s route. (Bill, who we met at the begining of our trip is a good two weeks ahead of me.)

“Contrary to what he wrote so nicely and in such detail in ‘Charley,’ Steinbeck didn’t camp overnight near Alice on the Maple River or anywhere else on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1960,” Stiegerwald concluded on his blog, Travels Without Charley. “He stayed at… in Beach, N.D., some 300-plus miles to the west.”

This, along with some of the recent stops on our own retracing of Steinbeck’s travels with Charley, brings us back to our discussion of the truth in fiction, and the fiction in truth.

We’re all for the former, but have some problems with the latter. We have nothing against using the techniques of fiction writing in non-fiction – in portraying the innate suspense of a situation, or the turmoil raging inside characters; or in skipping over the boring stuff.  (Otherwise, a writer might end up boring readers with something as mundane as tossing french fries to his dog.)

But we’d argue that a reader of books, even a reader of blogs, deserves — like an eater of food — to know what he’s consuming. What sort of liberties an author of non-fiction has taken in processing the facts is information to which a reader should have access, much like a diner should be able to find out what sort of oil a fast food restaurant uses to cook its french fries.

The line between fiction and non-fiction, it seems, is becoming a difficult to define boundary. Then again, maybe it has always been so.

Earlier this week, our “Travels with Ace” took us to Sauk Centre, or as Sinclair Lewis called it in his 1920 novel “Main Street,” Gopher Prairie. “Main Street,” while labeled fiction, exposed many truths about small town life — more, at least initially, than some Sauk Centre residents cared to be exposed, proving that not only does the truth hurt, but fiction can as well.

Our next, and latest, stop was Fargo, which most people know through the Coen brothers movie of same name. The movie starts off with the words: “This is a true story …  At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.”

But “Fargo” — whose characters were mostly portrayed as dull-witted sorts, living in a frozen wasteland — wasn’t a true story at all; rather it was a concoction of the wonderfully degenerate minds of two brothers from neighboring Minnesota.

Both the movie “Fargo” and the book “Main Street” brought some unflattering notoriety to the towns they were depicting — much like Steinbeck’s novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” offended some Oklahomans.

In addition to criticism that “The Grapes of Wrath” was too political, didn’t accurately describe the migration of farm families from the dust bowl to California, and some nitpicking that Sallisaw, the town it opens in, was not actually part of the Dust Bowl (a fairly major nit), there were those who thought the novel portrayed “Okies” as illiterate hicks.

(Possibly, that’s why when he was traveling with Charley, Steinbeck sidestepped the state of Oklahoma.)

In each case, though, once the dust settled, there was something close to a happily-ever-after ending – some acknowledgement of the truth beneath the fiction, or at least some evidence that any perceived slights were forgiven.

Sauk Centre, where Main Street now intersects with Sinclair Lewis Boulevard, has embraced Lewis, its most famous son, with an annual festival.

In Fargo, chamber of commerce types proclaim there has been “a renaissance” — not so much due to the movie itself, maybe, as to the efforts to show the world there was more to Fargo than the movie portrayed. In 2006, on the movie’s 10th anniversary, it was projected on the side of the Radisson Hotel, the city’s tallest building as part of the Fargo Film Festival.

And even Sallisaw, on the 100th anniversary of Steinbeck’s birth, started a “Grapes of Wrath” festival, though it was short-lived. It has since been replaced with the annual Diamond Daze Festival, which isn’t Steinbeck-related at all.

All of which, in addition to just being interesting, serves as proof that — as the maybe real, maybe not Shakespearean actor in “Travels with Charley” might have said — all the world really is a stage.