Where pit bull prejudice began

Posted on July 5, 2012 by wellsdc

The caption for the cover just says “On the Cover: Don Mattingly, Baseball, New York Yankees; Photographed by: Jerry Wachter”

I mentioned a 20+ year-old Sports Illustrated article in an earlier post that was instrumental in drumming up negative and unfair prejudices against pit bulls. I vaguely remember the article when it came out in 1987 (I mistakenly said 1988 before), and I bought into it for a long time. It is rife with misstatements and all-around bad reporting, to the point that Sports Illustrated writer Jim Gorant, while covering the Michael Vick case in 2008, took responsibility for the magazine’s role in fomenting hysteria about the dogs.

The 1987 article, written by E.M. Swift, gets it both right and wrong, in that it blames pit bull attacks on the human owners, but also blames the breed for being “aggressive:”

America has a four-legged problem called the American pit bull terrier. And the pit bull, its “ridiculously amiable disposition” notwithstanding, has a two-legged problem called Man, to whom Stratton’s second quote could also be applied. These two species are not new to each other. They have intermingled for some 200 years, and some say their common history goes back as far as the Romans. But something has happened to the pit bull in the last decade that says as much about the nature of American society as it does about the nature of this aggressive animal. Far from being an aberration, the American pit bull terrier has become a reflection of ourselves that no one cares very much to see.

“They’re athletes. They’re wrestlers. They’re dead game,” says Captain Arthur Haggerty, a dog breeder and trainer in New York City who owns five pit bull terriers and has trained hundreds of others. “They will literally fight till they’re dead. If you found that quality in a boxer or a football player, you’d say it was admirable. Will to win. That’s what a pit bull has.”

Others call it a “will to kill.”

The article goes on to cite discredited theories about “multiple bites” and “locked jaw.” It goes on quite at length. Pit bulls developed a reputation as dangerous dogs, so people who wanted a dangerous dog tended to select pit bulls. Continue reading →

Blame the humans

Posted on July 5, 2012 by wellsdc

This little one had nothing to do with the reported incident. That’s just an awesome smile.

Someone in a pickup truck in Cedar Park reportedly commanded his two dogs, identified by KVUE as pit bulls, to attack a family at a park yesterday. The family was apparently going for a walk the morning of the 4th of July, when a man pulled up in a pickup truck and ordered his two dogs to “get ’em.”

Aundrick Richard told KVUE News around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, he, his wife, three daughters and pit bull, Cane, were walking at a nature trail off Arrow Point Drive in Cedar Park. He says it’s part of his family’s morning exercise.

Richard pointed to a grassy pathway and said a truck drove up close to the trail, off-road, toward his family. That’s when he says the driver of the truck let his two pit bull dogs out of the back of the pickup, and they came charging toward Richard’s children. Richard says his dog was on a leash but jumped in front of the baby stroller to fight off the dogs.

Richard says the dogs started fighting, the kids were screaming and his wife tried to kick the dog away.

“I’m telling the guy, ‘Hey come get ’em man, come get your dog. Your dog’s hurting my family man. Get your dog. Come get your dog. Please come here.’ The guy’s sitting there, he’s staring at me, and he goes, ‘Get ’em boy, get ,em. Get ’em boy, get ’em, antagonizing his dogs,'” said Aundrick Richard.

Richard says he grabbed a large tree branch and began hitting the man’s dog until it whimpered. Then he says the owner called the dogs back to the truck; they packed up and left.

“His dog screams. He says ‘Come on,’ clap, clap, calls them. They get in the truck. He burns out,” said Richard.

The full story is here (warning for somewhat graphic dog injury pictures).

Note that the only dog in this story that verifiably is a pit bull is the family’s dog, Cane, who by all accounts is a hero.

A friend posted this story to Facebook this morning, sparking one of the most thoughtful, least-combative combat threads in the history of my own Facebook use. Not all discussions of the incident have been so civil, apparently; one person said they were called a “one percenter” for defending pit bulls. Huh? Anyway, I’m re-posting my own comments from the thread here, for posterity or something. Please forgive the off-the-cuff writing style. Continue reading →

My First Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Health Care Decision

Posted on June 28, 2012 by wellsdc

Last week, House Majority Leader John Boehner issued a plea to Republicans et al not to “spike the ball” should the Court strike down the law. It was a magnanimous, if futile gesture. Rush Limbaugh, never letting an opportunity to issue jowly gloats slide, admonished his followers to keep doing what they do best (i.e. commit mass asshattery). Here is what I imagine their ball-spiking party looks like today:

(Source: GIF and video)

I’m surprised, first of all, at the way the vote split. The opinion just posted to the Supreme Court’s site, and I have not had a chance to read all 193 pages (go figure). I’m uploading a copy of the opinion below, if anyone wants to indulge.

Treating the individual mandate as a tax is an interesting outcome. I thought the Commerce Clause arguments were pretty solid, given precedent (stare decisis: look it up and explain it to Justice Scalia, please.)

At the moment, I doubt anyone outside the court itself has read the opinion, unless they have mad speed-reading skillz. It will be several days before there is any meaningful analysis or commentary. I will be ignoring the media drivel. If I can get around to it, I’ll delve into the topic some more.

Opinion of the Court, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Supreme Court of the United States, June 28, 2012

“Hey! Stop hitting my hand with your face!”

Posted on June 27, 2012 by wellsdc

320px-Refrigerator_magnet_1 Police pulled over a man in Roosevelt, New York because he allegedly did not have his 2 year-old correctly strapped into a car seat. Unfortunately, he also allegedly did not have a valid driver’s license, and now he faces charges of unlicensed driving and charges related to the child safety seat.

Oh yeah, he also faces two charges of second-degree assault, for alleged assaulting two police officers during the traffic stop. That’s where this gets, uh, weird:

Nassau County police said First Precinct officers stopped the 1994 BMW driven by [Jorge] Guevara as he drove with his three children on Nassau Road.

A license check then revealed that Guevara did not have a license, police said. Police said his license had been suspended at least three times — and was suspended at the time of the traffic stop.

Police said that, as he was being questioned, Guevara started to walk away. Officers attempted to stop him, but, police said, a struggle ensued.

Guevara suffered a facial contusion, police said. One officer suffered contusions, lacerations and a sprained finger. The other officer suffered several fractures to his hand.

Police said all three — Guevara and the two officers — were treated at a hospital and later released.

The story is from Officer.com, a law enforcement news site. I bolded the parts I found most interesting, because, well………how exactly does someone hurt another person’s hand with his face? It is an incredibly novel theory of the jurisprudence of criminal assault. If you’re going to commit an assault, most of us have other appendages at our disposal that work better. It is not clear if the first officer suffered contusions and lacerations somewhere other than his hand, so it may be a reporting issue.

There are at least two other possibilities besides the face-as-a-weapon theory:

– The story was misreported somehow.

– This is bullshit of epic proportions, and a guy has been charged with assault for being punched in the face.

Time will tell.

Photo credit: ‘Refrigerator magnet 1’ by Tweek on Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

If you’re going to insist on sticking your nose into other people’s relationships that do not concern you, you will have to do it without any Oreos

Posted on June 26, 2012 by wellsdc

Oreos, those eminently awesome chocolate and cream cookies, burst onto the national stage yesterday due to an act of basic human decency. Of course, some people simply cannot let that sort of thing go unpunished. In a fit of diversity and inclusiveness, Oreo posted a rainbow cookie to its Facebook page, garnering hundreds of thousands of “likes” and more than twenty thousand comments. Some comments are supportive, and some are a permanent part of the internet, whose comments will hopefully come back to haunt the authors some day.

Now we know it’s getting real, because Fox Nation’s readers have the story, and they are offended!!!

I was hoping to collect a few choice quotes, but (a) Fox Nation commenters are cowards who don’t use their real names; and (b) I made it through one page and got sick to my stomach, in part because of the unabashed bigotry, but also because of the sheer number of people who think “lol u r stupd” is a good response to someone raising cogent, albeit “librul” points of contention.

Anyway, it only took about two seconds before I came across a racist jab at the president, courtesy of woodsman1st:

After four years of obummer, I believe I want nothing but vanilla cookies with white frosting.

This guy probably takes immense pride at being able to type out “obummer” correctly. If you don’t think this comment is racist to the core, then I have now identified an argument to which “lol u r stupd” is the best response, except that it might have too many big words for you.

Next (and this is as far as I made it), we have libssukkalot, whose handle doesn’t even merit ridicule:

First time in my life that I’ve ever seen a gay cookie, but then again it has been three and a half years of a lot of firsts too! I’ve never seen this many stupid people in charge of a country, and I’ve also never seen a “Dictator” for president of the United States until Obama!

With no way of knowing how old this person is, or anything else about the person’s background, it is impossible to say exactly how dumb this comment is above a baseline level of dumb.

That’s as far as I got. I don’t get why people think what others do in their own private romantic lives is any concern of theirs. As for the argument that gay people rub their sexuality in people’s faces, maybe you should stop thinking about penises so much whenever you see two dudes holding hands. Just sayin’.

Maybe it’s just that you haven’t had the proper introduction. Here’s a link to some excellent gay porn. Maybe you’ll end up liking it…

…Click the link…….I dare you…..

“The pastures of plenty are burning by the sea”

Posted on June 26, 2012 by wellsdc

Texas had the worst drought in its history in 2011, and it ain’t getting any better.

If you lived in Austin last September, you have some idea how bad the drought got, but not really. If you lived in Bastrop or Steiner Ranch at the time, you lived it.

BuzzFeed published a photoset a few days ago that everyone should see:

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Coyote pups, only a few weeks of age, come to the dying stock tank to drink from the murky water. These predators stand with their legs splayed apart in order to remain on solid ground to prevent becoming mired in the mud.

Photograph by Wyman Meinzer

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In hopes that the rains will come, optimistic farmers sow their wheat crop despite the extreme heat and choking dust that follows the tractors and plows.
Photograph by Wyman Meinzer

The title of this post is from “Homeland Refugee” by the Flatlanders:

Justice, Bad Jokes, and More Justice

Posted on June 25, 2012 by wellsdc

[TRIGGER WARNING for rape, sexual harassment]

Kurt Buckman: I can’t go to jail. Look at me, I’ll get raped like crazy.
Nick Hendricks: I’d get raped just as much as you would, Kurt.
Kurt Buckman: No, no—I know you would.

From the movie Horrible Bosses (2011) (source)

Stanley Goodspeed: You enjoying this?
John Mason: Well, it’s certainly more enjoyable than my average day… reading philosophy, avoiding gang rape in the washrooms… though, it’s less of a problem these days. Maybe I’m losing my sex appeal.

From the movie The Rock (1996) (source)

Several good things happened on Friday. As anyone reading this already knows (unless this is the first website you have ever seen, in which case “Welcome!”), a jury in Pennsylvania convicted former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on 45 of 48 charges for sexual abuse of minors.

In another story that the Sandusky case may have overshadowed, a Philadelphia jury convicted Monsignor William Lynn on Friday of one count of child endangerment. Lynn is the highest-ranking Catholic official to be convicted in relation to a child sex abuse scandal.

Two thoughts on this. First, we are taking a long-overdue stand against abuses of power in areas we, as a culture, usually view as sacred (figuratively or literally): sports, especially football; and religion. Neither of these should give anyone, however talented or revered, license to flaunt not only the law, but some pretty elemental notions of humanity.

Second, within moments of the announcement of the Sandusky verdict, the jokes about prison rape started appearing. Refreshingly, quite a few admonitions to STFU about it also quickly appeared, based on a very simple premise that cannot be stressed enough:

Rape. Is. Not. Funny.

Ever.

If your initial reaction to the above statement begins with “Yeah, but…” please stand up from the computer and hit your head against the nearest door frame. Do it until I tell you to stop.

I call this “refreshing” because an issue that is usually the subject of bad jokes and perverse revenge fantasies is finally getting some serious attention. The issue of prison rape was already in the news, remarkably, because of new guidelines issued by the Justice Department, entitled “National Standards To Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape.” It is a common grievance among so-called men’s rights activists (MRA’s), who tend to whine a lot on internet forums but do very little actual activism. To see people, let alone the government, take it seriously is nothing short of dumbfounding. Continue reading →

Things I find on my front porch

Posted on June 25, 2012 by wellsdc

I would not go so far as to call my house “nice,” or “suitable for human habitation,” but I would call it “interesting.” Now that the plague of giant, non-biting mosquitoes seems to have subsided, new arthropodal fauna is coming out of the woodwork (I really hope not literally), and it’s freaking me the hell out.

This hefty dude has taken up residence on my front porch, competing for attention with a mid-sized spider, two cats, and various bugs I shan’t dignify by naming. I decided to crowdsource an ID of my new little buddy, and gosh do I regret doing that (h/t to Teresa for causing my future nightmares with her biology learnin’).

Meet Anisomorpha ferruginea, the Northern Two-striped Walkingstick. He is so terrifying that Wikipedia doesn’t even have a page for him. Here’s what it says about his cousin, Anisomorpha buprestoides:

This species, and another in the same genus (Anisomorpha ferruginea, whose range is more west and north, but may overlap with A. buprestoides) is particularly well known for its very potent chemical defense spray which it deploys from a pair of glands which open at the front of its thorax. The “Devil rider” name for this insect likely comes from this defense…

Did anyone else think of this scene from Starship Troopers?

If anyone needs me, I’ll be hiding in my closet with a shoe and a can of Raid.

Austin, STFU already and watch the show

Posted on June 21, 2012 by wellsdc

tumblr_m4ydp91aAk1rsg3x9o1_500 I did not make it to Dave Chappelle’s show on Tuesday night. As often happens, I heard about it roughly five minutes after tickets sold out. I’m also not really one to jump through hoops for a “surprise” show. Still, I thought it was great that he was here, but that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the dumbasses who apparently heckled all the way through the show:

Chappelle put on an almost two-hour set Tuesday night that got sidetracked early by hecklers and fans with recording devices and never really recovered.

Taking the stage in jeans and a light blue t-shirt, a buff and chain-smoking Chappelle brought the packed house to a standing ovation. Chappelle, who allegedly arrived to Austin from Dallas on his motorcycle, said he never dreamed he would have this much fun in Texas. Of course, the provincial and self-righteous Austinites in the crowd yelled out how Austin was not like the rest of Texas. And so it began. A night of shouting, (presumably drunk) morons interrupting the once King of Comedy with their worthless insights.

Now, the city of Austin is taking a drubbing all over the internet: Continue reading →

Cryptic Philosopher

Keep a Safe Distance and You Probably Won't Get Wet

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