My take on Laura Schlessinger saying what she said about Pit Bulls is that no matter how much you may not like it, she has a right to say it. We all have a right to say whatever we want to say. I personally found her comments to be spectacularly ignorant, but we all have a right to be ignorant. It’s obviously unfortunate that she chose to flippantly behave in that way on the platform that she’s privileged to have. It’s also unfortunate that she doesn’t seem to grasp or understand the real-life consequences that her words will have, perpetuating unjust cycles, and equally unfortunate that she provided literally zero context to her statements.

Take this one for example, speaking about a shelter she visited…

Well, it was about 95% Pit Bulls, or Pit Bull-mixes. Now, I know this is going to get somebody angry but I think that they should all be put down. First of all, they were taking up space and nobody was going to adopt them. That’s why they were all there. People were getting rid of them.

There is a stunning amount of context missing from such a pompous statement. Pit Bulls, which ultimately is a slang term, are by far and away the most discriminated against dog on the planet. This leads to breed-specific legislation, routine profiling, perpetuated myths, collective blame, generalized fear, housing restrictions, among other things related to existential hardship. So no, that’s not “why they were all there.” Schlessinger clearly has no idea what she is talking about. Just in referencing her own local shelters, she is casting the net and speaking on behalf of people she has never and will never meet. Secondly, people do adopt them, a lot. That’s why they are one of the most popular types of dog in the United States of America. There are millions of them across the country. This is reality.

So as Schlessinger is clearly an idiot on this topic, I support her right to be an idiot. When this becomes a freedom of speech thing, I will stand with those not looking to ban or blacklist speech, no matter what kind of speech it is or who happens to say it. I also support those speaking their minds to her sponsors, and that is a legitimately powerful form of protest. So in closing, she has a right to say whatever she wants, just as we each have a right to criticize her for it, and we also have a right to simply turn her off. Don’t try to disappear someone, rather objectively inject common sense and give a differing public perspective to their nonsense.

So often I find myself shaking my head at the quality of both the local and national news. I’m not going to say much more than that, and rather lay out a random slice of coverage (KTLA, 10pm) from 8/30/2014. Here’s what we got:

10:00 – The Made In America music festival is tonight’s top story. There’s live video of a newscaster standing at the absolute back of the crowd. We learn that “hundreds of police officers, hundreds of sheriff deputies, and even more private security guards” are out to maintain order. They have made 4 arrests. No explanation as to why there’s so many uniformed entities on the ground.
10:03 – A motorcycle crashes into a tour bus in Hollywood, killing the cyclist.
10:03 – We’re informed that USC beat Fresno State. Hmm, I thought that’s why they had a sports section, no? They then detail how USC cornerback Josh Shaw is being investigated for a possible domestic violence incident. They say that he lied when he said that he injured his ankle by jumping off of a balcony to rescue his drowning nephew, and instead that he was fleeing from the scene of the crime. We get live video of the apartment complex and numerous at-the-game interviews with USC fans.
10:06 – There’s a man that was shot dead outside of his home in Whittier. The suspects fled, police are investigating.
10:06 – Joan Rivers remains in a medically induced coma.
10:07 – A woman that the news has dubbed “California’s serial stowaway” has been arrested again in Arizona. Her crime? “Loitering at the airport.” The woman, Marilyn Hartman, claims that she wanted to be arrested in order to show people how easy it was to get through security.
10:08 – Weather!
10:09 – A statewide ban on single-use plastic bags has apparently been approved by California lawmakers.

-Commercial-

10:13 – An update on the protests going on in Ferguson, Missouri in response to a police officer gunning down Michael Brown. We’re told that business owners are saying that the protests have “hurt the city,” while others say that they are “hesitant to rebuild.”
10:14 – The San Jose police department have decided to return an armored personnel carrier to the federal government amid protests from citizens. The MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) vehicle was designed to protect troops from roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one acts as if this is in any way abnormal.
10:15 – Tony Stewart speaks about his racing incident after striking and killing Kevin Ward Jr. with his race car on a dirt track in New York. The anchor states that Stewart “showed remorse.” Stewart said that he took the last couple of weeks off out of respect for the Ward family. He will race again this weekend.
10:17 – Michael Sam was 1 of 22 people cut from the St. Louis Rams today. Again, why isn’t this in sports?

-Commercial-

10:22 – More live coverage from the Made In America music festival at Grant Park! Awkward video pans of the audience.
10:24 – Hollywood box office ticket sales are down. The New York Times says that the film industry could lose $3.9 billion in 2014. Not a single movie has hit $300 million domestically. This is the first time that has happened since 1997.
10:25 – Guardians of the Galaxy tops the box office!

-Commercial-

10:29 – Footage is shown from the Ezell Ford funeral. Ford was an UNARMED mentally ill man that was shot and killed by the LAPD. The officers involved claimed self-defense. Maxine Waters and Diane Watson spoke at the funeral.
10:31 – Neighbors say that Ford didn’t resist arrest and that he was laying on the ground when he was shot in the back. Community activists are asking witnesses to come forward.
10:32 – The LAPD publicly identify 2 sergeants who were involved in the arrest of Omar Abrego, who died 12 hours later.
10:32 – Here comes an Ebola vaccine? Death tolls have risen in Africa to above 1,500 people as health officials begin a trial using 2 different versions of a newly created vaccine. It could be months before it’s approved.

-Commercial-

10:37 – Weather!
10:42 – Sports!

-Commercial-

10:44-10:52 – More sports!

-Commercial-

10:54 – Celebrities admit to using coupons? Here’s your top 5 “frugal stars”: Tyra Banks uses a notebook instead of the newest available gadget. Jennifer Lawrence clips coupons, says that her parents raised her to respect money. Ashley Greene has good credit and wants to be able to make her house and car payments, and provide food for her dogs. Sarah Jessica Parker wears hand-me-downs! Finally, Kristen Bell only spent $142 on her wedding when she married husband Dax Shepard at the courthouse. Oh yeah, she also clips coupons!

-Commercial-

10:58 – Another update on the motorcycle crash.
10:59 – A 3rd live update from the Made In America music festival.

Conveniently there’s no mention of the military’s new adventures into Syria and/or Iraq, the revelation that daily Syrian airstrikes are costing U.S. taxpayers a tad under $8 million per day, that over 3 million Syrians have been displaced since the fighting began between Syria/ISIS/U.S., that multiple car bombs killed 6 and wounded at least 45 in Afghanistan, the wargaming of Russia and the Ukraine, the newly released portion (28 pages) of the 9/11 Commission Report that had went redacted prior, the massive citizen demonstrations in Yemen, among other things, and all happening on 8/30/2014.

Priorities? Context? Examination?

When we talk about Pit Bull demonization and misinformation that gets spread around the internet as if it’s fact, I’d offer up this headline and article as a pretty good example of such foolishness…

So as you can see, not only does it imply that a Pit Bull’s head can shatter bullets, which it can’t, but it also overlooks the level of force that was rolled out and attempts to blame the dog for the outcome. Look, if you take a head shot then the inside of your skull is going to shatter, not the other way around. What very likely happened is that the cop shot at the dog, missed, and then part of the bullet ricocheted off of the ground and hit his fellow officer. Daugherty wants you to believe that the bullet was shattered over the Pit Bulls head (which lived, mind you) and then parts of it went downward into the ground and back upward into the officer’s arm. Further, she writes her piece as if the Pit Bull is actually to blame for the 2nd cop being shot, as if its head did the shooting. No inquiring into why such force was necessary in the first place, just blamed on a “charging” dog which has been labeled a Pit Bull through God only knows what channels and is now said to have a bionic head. Preposterous. Lastly, why is the dog’s breed or type relevant in this context unless you are trying to paint a dim picture of that breed or type? Phyllis Daugherty is known for this type of stuff, just Google her name.

As someone who wrote a pretty well-shared rebuttal to Charlotte Alter’s Time article, I now want to say something else… I’ve seen many people attempt to address Alter all over social media, some fantastically, some not. There’s a certain portion of people that were offended by what she wrote, and in response have decided to be just as offensive back, or MORE SO.

It truly is disgraceful when I have to see irrationally unstable people (who claim to love dogs) online calling for the death of someone they disagree with, calling her a “dumb bitch,” calling her a “whore pig,” wishing her to be “euthanized,” calling her mom a “fat slut,” and so on and so on. If you’d turn your brain on for just a moment you’d realize that with your trollish, eye for an eye, reprehensible behavior towards Alter you are doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of advocating for your dogs. You are instead cheapening us all by committee (and unfairly, I might add, because I want nothing to do with you), because who will be held up as a representative for Pit Bulls? Me? Or the woman that called for her death and referred to her family in a tasteless fashion on Twitter? Take a second… I’ll let you ponder that question.

Just as the media takes the 0.01% of dogs that are actually dangerous/unsound and uses them to disparage the 99.9% that are awesome, they will use an idiot’s vicious and personal rant to label everyone else who has been really informative, and thus unfairly drag us all through the mud together.

Further, if you didn’t have a dog and were just stumbling onto this “debate” from afar, to see how some of the “dog advocates” are behaving is to potentially have these folks believe the garbage that gets spewed to disparage Pit Bulls. Why? Because you are the one’s being vicious online. As vicious as the DogsBite cult, as vicious as any truly dangerous individual dog.

Quit ruining things for the compassionate, genuine, hard-working, thoughtful and responsible people of the world, who make up the vast majority, by giving people the illusion that you are speaking on my behalf. YOU ARE NOT SPEAKING ON MY BEHALF. You are not helping any of the dogs. You are actually doing the opposite. You are giving dog-hating people fuel, by providing them with stupid shreds of buffoonery that they will then use to attempt to scapegoat us all, just as they do with the dogs.

First, it is horrible that KFC kicked out that 3-year-old girl due to people being “scared” of her face, if that’s indeed what actually happened. Other versions say that the child’s mother was actually causing a massive scene inside of the restaurant and that’s what initiated the KFC staff to ask HER to leave, not the child (it’s now been investigated twice and numerous sources state that the incident didn’t happen at all). But regardless, Time writer Charlotte Alter’s focus was clearly on disparaging Pit Bulls. So my focus will be pointing out the many problems in her article…

Problem #1: Alter provided no description of what led to the attack on the little girl, no circumstances (10 dogs, they were all running loose, the little girl was unattended), no details of the environment that the dogs were living in prior and during (9 of the dogs apparently were yard dogs), nothing whatsoever. Kind of relevant and important information if actually wanting to further the concept of public safety.

Problem #2: Alter claims that Pit Bulls “make up only 6% of the dog population,” which she has absolutely no way of knowing or confirming. Why not? Because there’s no accurate way to peg the number of dogs from any breed or “type.” Further, because there’s no specific or consistent definition of what a Pit Bull is or is not, quite the opposite. The reality of labeling Pit Bulls is subjective, ambiguous, vague and all-encompassing in nature, especially by those wanting to exploit a tragedy as a way to further their anti-Pit Bull agenda. That notion then needs to swing both ways when calculating any total number of “Pit Bulls” in existence, meaning: You can’t conveniently overreach in an effort to label every dog involved in anything as a “Pit Bull mix,” and then turn around and not use that same formula when calculating a total number of possible Pit Bulls or Pit Bull mixes. At least be consistent with your erroneous tactics.

Problem #3: Visual identification is not scientific, wrought with errors and inaccuracies, and these identifications are often made by unqualified people and then printed/reported in the local/national news, which is then used as “facts” for unsubstantiated claims.

Problem #4: Mixed breeds are not a breed at all.

Problem #5: Even if the 6% figure was true (which it’s not even remotely close), in a country of 75 million dogs that would mathematically equate to almost 5 million Pit Bulls. By any count, 99.9% of those dogs have never mauled or killed anyone.

Problem #6: Alter sources Merritt Clifton.

Problem #7: Alter sources alleged percentages coming from Clifton, which aren’t based in reality, evidence or science, and are instead selectively chosen from unsubstantiated media reports. Total bias bullshit, a misrepresentation of the truth, and nothing more than arrogant claims being made when such claims aren’t even possible to ever accurately be made!

Problem #8: Alter tells the audience that the CDC stopped collecting breed-specific information but failed to mention WHY they stopped collecting breed-specific information… I’ll let the CDC explain:

A CDC study on fatal dog bites lists the breeds involved in fatal attacks over 20 years (between 1979 and 1998). It does not identify specific breeds that are most likely to bite or kill, and thus is not appropriate for policy-making decisions related to the topic. Each year, 4.7 million Americans are bitten by dogs. These bites result in approximately 16 fatalities; about 0.0002% of the total number of people bitten. These relatively few fatalities offer the only available information about breeds involved in dog bites. There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill. Many practical alternatives to breed-specific policies exist and hold promise for preventing dog bites.

Problem #9: Alter references the NOT peer-reviewed 2011 Annals of Surgery study titled “Mortality, Mauling and Maiming by Vicious Dogs,” which has been thoroughly discredited. Why? Because it was done by non-animal experts who were looking at photographs of injuries and then concluding, based solely on the photographs and medical records, which breeds of dog caused which injuries. But 1 problem: They never saw any of the offending dogs! So not only did they skip the shoddy visual identification process, but they never laid eyes on the dogs. And yet, they were so arrogant as to breed-label the injuries anyways. Preposterous.

Problem #10: Alter implies that all Pit Bulls and their owners should be collectively blamed for what allegedly happened to the little girl at KFC. Wow, I wasn’t at KFC that day and neither was my dog! If she was treated in such a way then it’s the fault of the person that treated her that way.

Problem #11: Alter mentions the dog from Arizona named Mickey, but again provides no description as to what actually led to that attack, no circumstances, nothing whatsoever. She then proceeds to claim that more people were concerned about the dog than about Kevin Vincente, as if a person couldn’t be simultaneously concerned for both, or as if concern or thoughts about 1 cancelled out concern or thoughts about the other.

Problem #12: Where are Merritt Clifton’s sources supporting his asinine claims about “shelter dogs” that span 151 years going back to 1858? No nod to the obvious difference in technology and communication capabilities from the 1800s/1900s in comparison to today. No nod to anything, just a made up number that is utterly unverified but that’s being presented, both by Clifton and by Alter, as if it’s fact.

Problem #13: Alter sources Colleen Lynn from the anti-Pit Bull hate group DogsBite.org.

Problem #14: Colleen Lynn is not a geneticist, nor is she genuinely knowledgeable about dog behavior.

Problem #15: Merritt Clifton states that “not every kind of dog responds to neglect and abuse by killing and injuring people.” Um, just by the way that he phrases this statement he implies 2 utterly wrong concepts: That all Pit Bulls would respond by killing and injuring people and that all non-Pit Bulls wouldn’t respond by killing and injuring people. Way to be a simpleton, Merritt! It’s an obvious fact that dogs are individuals and not objects, sentient beings and not manufactured products that come off of a conveyor belt. Clifton must believe the opposite. 99.9% of all dogs from any breed or type HAVE NOT mauled or killed a person!

Problem #16: Clifton’s proclamations as to what makes a “good” and “bad” Pit Bull is nothing more than a soundbyte meant to blame the dogs and not the people that put them onto the chains he speaks of. Just because a dog is on a chain doesn’t make it a “badass” (vicious, fighter) anymore than Clifton picking up a water hose makes him a firefighter. What chaining your dog does do is isolate it, frustrate it, make it territorial, and take away its option of flight, among other cruel things depending on the circumstances. Some dogs subjected to this type of shit are no less friendly than non-chained ones, as each remains an individual and deserves their right to be properly evaluated. Point being, it all depends. But chaining a dog (any dog) CAN LEAD TO TRAGIC INCIDENTS, especially when involving unsupervised children. What’s also interesting is Clifton claiming there are “good” Pit Bulls, yet he makes his living off of egregiously exploiting them and pushing fabricated statistics onto politicians who then serve up ideas for bans and regulations.

Problem #17: Alter embeds a bar graph from the hate group, spells their website wrong, and then provides no further explanation as to where the numbers come from. I’ll tell you: It’s from Colleen and Merritt, using their tactics of cherry-picking through unverified media reports. Further, what’s the definition of “attack,” or for that matter, “maiming”?

Problem #18: Lynn goes all land shark rhetoric on everyone, threatening that there will be a “disfigured child” in every school. Total fearmongering nonsense. 5? 15? 25 million Pit Bull-type dogs in the country? The definitions become so vague that that latest number is not to be discarded out of hand. What I do know is that reality does show that we have a lot of responsible people and really great dogs out there. Try as you might to ignore this fact, it’s still a fact.

Problem #19: How in the hell does Merritt Clifton assume that 80% of all dogs are sterilized, but then that 80% of all Pit Bulls aren’t sterilized? There is quite literally no way to know this information. Is this silly guy the Oracle? Does he kick it on the weekends with Santa Claus? Does Santa take him down the chimney, notepad in hand? I mean, I’m sorry, but this guy is totally full of shit.

Problem #20: Alter writes as if Colleen Lynn actually cares to prevent having more Pit Bulls euthanized. Haha. Earth to Charlotte Alter: Colleen Lynn wants Pit Bulls ERADICATED by any means necessary. You’ve been played like the neighborhood jukebox. A little something from her Facebook page…

Problem #21: Alter sources PETA, who rules the roost on animal-related doublespeak and lobbies for both Pit Bull bans and “no adoption” policies for the Pit Bulls coming into shelters. They promote the ideology of “killing them to save them from abuse.” This is completely ludicrous and the fact that they are still being given a platform on this issue speaks to how lazily Alter’s piece was slapped together.

Problem #22: Holding Colleen Lynn, Merritt Clifton and PETA up as examples of compassionate advocates for the well-being of Pit Bulls (and bigger dogs in general) is like putting the head of the Ku Klux Klan in charge of African American reproductive systems.

Problem #23: You mean to tell me that no other organization wanted to comment for this article? Alter magically produced the only animal welfare organization in the United States that is pro-BSL, and yet failed to produce more statements from the hundreds that are against BSL? Wow, that’s awful convenient! This is probably to give the illusion that the debate is actually equally split. The opposite is true however, as damn near every professional animal/safety-related organization is openly AGAINST breed-specific legislation.

Problem #24: Pit Bulls are dogs, therefore they ARE like any other dog, no matter what Daphna Nachminovitch/PETA or any other demagogue wants to claim.

Problem #25: Breed-specific sterilization for Pit Bulls is not done for overpopulation purposes or to help shelters kill less animals, although those are 2 obvious ends that might eventually come out of a move to incrementally eliminate 1 of America’s most popular types of dog. The truth? It is done as a secondary move when banning dogs by breed or type is not supported by the community or viewed as being unfair or too extreme. Same rhetoric, same sensationalism, same intent, always. Pay attention.

Shall I keep going? I’ll stop.

Maria Guido, a writer over at the website Mommyish, sarcastically wrote a little poem a few weeks back in response to the Galunker book that’s coming out. In it she defiles all Pit Bulls as vicious animals that will eat your children’s face off. She writes…

What a genius idea to teach children not to be afraid of this breed. Maybe they’ll start approaching them more, because that hasn’t proven to have disastrous results or anything. This is a joke.

So wait, as opposed to the idea of teaching children to be afraid of certain types of dog? That would fix things or be more helpful?

I have a few brilliant ideas actually. How about you teach your children to not negatively stereotype dogs simply based on the way that they look, you know, because that might lead to them growing up and doing the exact same thing to human beings. Secondly, how about you teach your children how to behave around all dogs? You know, for their safety? Teach them what’s appropriate, what’s not. Teach them boundaries. That way they’ll actually be equipped with legitimate information to apply to their interactions with all dogs, instead of a false sense of security that only certain dogs are capable of harming them. How about that? No?

Guido then goes on to characterize all Pit Bull owners as people who have no interest in public safety, but rather as people that care more about blaming others than having empathy for victims of whatever tragic incident that might happen. This is a running theme in many of her articles. She uses screenshots of statements coming from individual people as evidence to collectively blame all Pit Bull owners, and as she complains about Pit Bull owners “blaming” everything else. Funny, but more pathetic and sad to be honest. This excerpt, taken from the same poem, relays her message quite well…

So listen to me kid, these dogs are just trouble. And their owners are worse, maybe even double.

Nice. See how it’s all so simple? I suppose I’ll be called the same thing if she’s to ever read this… That I’m blaming her by suggesting that she drop the discriminatory shtick and dually focus on the idea of educating children about safety precautions around all dogs as well as the idea of treating things as individuals instead of scapegoating them in groups. How dare I do such a thing!

As I looked further into Guido’s posts I began seeing many that were addressing Pit Bulls. I saw her actually source the anti-Pit Bull hate group DogsBite.org while lazily delving into the topic of dog-related human fatalities. That’s always great. In another sweeping Pit Bull rant from April she ends by stating the following…

Any animal that can be provoked to mauling someone because it’s tail is pulled or it’s food is touched should not be legal to own.

Wait, is that Guido actually talking about individual dogs and their behavior, or is that Guido essentially implying that all Pit Bulls will do these things, and thus need to be banned? That answer is obvious, as you simply need to look at Guido’s actual journalistic record. Hell, mere paragraphs above this very statement she says that Pit Bulls “have this annoying propensity of occasionally ripping innocent children apart.” No mention about the millions upon millions that never, ever do such a thing. Yet they are the ones that will suffer due in part to her erroneous blathering.

But then today Ms. Guido put out an interesting post… Its title? Banning “chasing games” won’t stop kids from getting hurt. That’s ironic. You know, considering that she seems to want to ban Pit Bulls and all. So there seems to now be an obvious question: Will banning Pit Bulls stop kids from getting hurt by dogs? Of course it won’t, but that’s highly inconvenient information.

So Guido takes a nanny state approach that’s centered around collectively blaming both dogs and people in 1 instance, and then complains about these same exact tactics in another instance. She asks… “Really? What should we stop next?” Damn, I’d ask her the same thing in regards to dogs! Because if she were to ever achieve her desire of eliminating millions of dogs that simply fit a vague physical description, what would happen when another dog eventually seriously injured or killed a child? Because that will happen, and it will continue to randomly happen. Would she want to regulate or ban that dog breed or type? Then ban another? And another?

Weeks earlier she went after people standing up for the 2nd Amendment in the wake of that psychopath Elliot Rodger murdering people in California with both guns and knives. Interestingly there was no focus on the knife, which he used to kill half of his victims. She took issue with the unkind words someone used, which is a fair point I suppose (I wouldn’t have used his words but it’s his right to be an idiot), but failed to appreciate the larger point he was trying to make. Then, just yesterday, she mocked the New Jersey Department of Children and Families for threatening to remove a child from his home because he was “twirling his pencil like a gun” in school. She described the situation as being “invasive, terrifying, out of hand, and a nightmare.”

Earth to Maria: That’s what happens when you give control freaks the ability to lazily indict things based on ignorant characterizations and not individual circumstance and evidence. That’s what happens when you embolden the state to start banning objects instead of focusing on the specific individuals who are using said objects to cause murder and mayhem. This is the blatant feeding of a vilification campaign, and then that campaign bearing its nasty fruits. You can’t have 1 idea without the other eventually being pushed. Banning agendas always lead to the acceleration of other tactics meant to exploit the things having anything to do with that which is being scapegoated!

Last week she wrote about someone leaving a loaded gun in a Target store and then lamented people online for suggesting that it was planted. She said that “blaming this on a group of moms is just pathetic.” I’d agree! So with that, please consider being a little more consistent and stop your perpetuation of group-blaming when it fits your heinous messaging against Pit Bull-type dogs and their owners. Thanks.

In a country of over 300 million people, and mixed amongst 70 or 80 million dogs, there is absolutely no perfect universal fail-safe that will guarantee that everything that you come to experience in your vast lifetime will be okay 100% of the time. Although 99.9999999999% of the time it absolutely is, and day after day to boot, there’s still always that remote chance that exists for an accident or incident to happen. This is life. And this goes for anything in life, the few things related to dogs and the millions of other things that have nothing to do with them at all. With that, there’s usually things that you could also do that will further serve to minimize the likelihood of many tragic things from happening, and especially tragic things involving dogs. Even still, nothing in life is perfect. But life is about living, and “living” is to not live in an irrational and exaggerated state of fear.

I open with that paragraph because in the United States dogs kill about 30 or so people a year. The actual evidence (those remaining when you subtract 30 from 70,000,000 or 80,000,000 dogs) then proves beyond any shadow of a doubt their incredible deference to humans. This is indisputable no matter if it goes repeatedly unacknowledged by certain people who would still find it “practical” or “necessary” to ban or phase out entire groups of dogs based solely on the way that they physically appear. Expect no science, no consistency, and very few of the justifications of doing such things to ever be backed up with any actual proof. They’ll say it’s for public safety. I say it’s for giving the illusion of dealing with a glorified bogeyman of their own creation.

For the sake of conceptual comparison this brings me to a very sobering statistic stating that roughly 22 U.S. military veterans are committing suicide every day. EVERY DAY.

While pondering that statement also note that these numbers are apparently only taken from 21 states, which amounts to about 40% of the U.S. population. Amongst those opting not to report any data were California and Texas, the 2 biggest of the contiguous 48. More than 34,000 suicides from these 21 states were also “discarded” from the study because the death records failed to indicate whether that individual was a veteran or not. So that amounts to more than 23% of the recorded suicides from this 40% of the U.S. population that were not counted, meaning that only 77% of that 40% was looked at instead of the full 100%. Also, how exactly are homeless veterans being counted if they potentially have no one to vouch for their whereabouts? And how many suicides just go suppressed due to the family wanting to rewrite a public script as to avoid any stigma associated with such an act? All of these points are mentioned to imply that this 22/day figure is probably low.

Do the anti-dog folks happen to care about why this is happening to our military veterans? Just curious. Would they then care about what things may lead to this circumstance playing out? Or, like with Pit Bulls, is there just a simplistic and formulaic copout concept that can be used to label these individuals in a way that assassinates their character after they’re no longer around? Because that’s most definitely the mentality used by hatemongers wanting to negatively lump all of these dogs together… So would these veterans be vaguely labeled as “weak” or “unfit” by this same crowd that gleefully vilifies all Pit Bulls on the back of any and every (mostly avoidable) tragedy? I want to know, and if not then I want to know why not?! Because if you’re lazy with your thoughts in 1 realm then why isn’t that a consistent reaction to all others? And to the contrary, if you’re capable of critical thinking with regards to what leads to military suicides then why doesn’t critical thinking apply with regards to what leads to dogs fatally attacking people?

If you are reading this and this sounds like you and you’d define yourself as being in any way introspective then you should currently be at a crossroads. Instead, if you have no problem with the confliction of the point then it just serves to show your massive bias against Pit Bulls.

In broaching this difficult topic as to why this is happening to so many of our veterans, well, I’d offer up numerous thoughts that really don’t get much mainstream media attention…

First and foremost would be the devastating realities that some are very likely exposed to, and being haunted by those things that they either saw or quite possibly took part in. The concept of war is the oxymoronic opposite of peace. Our foreign policy of interventionism and desired expansion is literally based in ever-altering forms of aggression. This, depending on the cast of characters involved and their individual mental makeups, has to assist in harvesting a brutal and disconnected violence that may be seen in some of them. How that then manifests itself into the daily lives of differing individuals would obviously vary across the board, but it’s clearly ruined some. At some point a partaker in a horrific act will have to deal with their conscience, right?

Also, mix in selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Zoloft, Luvox and Paxil. Look at a sleeping pill like Ambien. All of these things are drugs known for treating anxiety, stress, depression, insomnia, and many other mental disorders, and they are also all known to cause psychotic breaks. The inserts directly say that these things increase the risk of suicidal behavior as well as an overall level of agitation and hostility. How many members of our military, past and present, are on them?

Lastly, how many of these men and women are sent on multiple tours of duty? How many multiples? How many are essentially used up and then, for lack of a better term, discarded when they finally (if ever) return home? Have their benefits been limited? Are they getting the proper medical treatment that their body or mind may require? Do they have a genuine support system? Are they privy to an environment that’s allowing them to transition back into domestic society? Have they been sexually assaulted or alienated inside of whatever program, and then silenced or made to feel as though they are helpless in trying to pursue justice?

I know that this is a lot, but for this topic of military suicide it is all relevant. You cannot possibly be saddened by that statistic, want to help lower it, and then proceed to completely ignore all of these points that I just mentioned. I’m sure that there are many more. Yet, when going back to the dog-related human fatality topic this is the type of stuff that is almost always done! Circumstances and problematic happenings leading up to whatever event, that’s then making whatever headline, customarily go ignored. So how do you genuinely attempt to address an issue, be empathetic towards and issue, be part of the crafting of any solution on an issue, if you are at the same time disingenuously covering your eyes and ears to the means that may lead another to that end? The confidence in such a process is non-existent.

To San Bernardino City shelter and ABC 7 news: Stop with the collective blaming of an unseen mass of people just because 1 or 2 jackass individuals may have decided to send “death threats” to a specific shelter staff. Media needs to move away from these types of dumbed down tactics. Quit using people’s programming for soundbytes against them in order to shift narratives of a story. The cowardly behavior from whomever sent the threat does not excuse anything another person did or didn’t do. Whomever sent a death threat does not speak for the next person, they speak for themselves.

To so-called “animal advocates”: If you send another human being a death threat, or wish death upon another person, you are nothing but an advocate for death. You are doing nothing positive for animals. Go away.

Coming from someone that desires news reporting that is more honest and thorough, the idea that robots and computer algorithms are generating immediate news stories should be a problem to all of us. We already live in a media culture that seems to salivate over gossip, celebrity and otherwise pointless nonsense. Much, that I’d personally consider newsworthy, already goes ignored. And now we are taking the human element further out of the process? A process that can only get worse if we continue allowing machines to further litter the landscape with repetitive and unverified crap.

From Singularity Hub…

This is possible because some kinds of reporting are formulaic. You take a publicly available source, crunch it down to the highlights, and translate it for readers using a few boiler plate connectors. Hopefully, this makes it more digestible.

I imagine the computer populating a Venn diagram. In one circle, it adds hard data (earnings, sports stats, earthquake readings), in another, a selection of journalistic clichés—and where the two intersect, an article is born.

The program chooses an article template, strings together sentences, and spices them up with catch phrases: It was a flawless day at the dish for the Giants. The tone is colorfully prosaic, but human enough.

The founder of Narrative Science, the company creating a lot of the computer generated news being discussed, predicts that upwards of 90% of the world’s news could be written by computers come 2030. Major companies and media outlets are already using the technology, and most are using it anonymously.

So as we hope for integrity in journalism, and for less of a monopoly at the top of the media spectrum, this signals for a high probability of the opposite. As we hope for more fact-checking and perspectives that can only be genuinely fleshed out by actual humans, we may get even more sensationalistic, exploitative and formulaic rubbish in the coming years.

The phrase “Pit Bull” generates news. The attempted process of breed identification and using actual scientific evidence rarely plays a role in making those assessments. And this is now! Just imagine a software system loaded with catchphrases and templates, whose sole purpose is to quickly generate news, writing an article on an alleged “dog attack.” The thought couldn’t be much worse.

After his massive defeat at Monday’s City Council meeting anti-Pit Bull demagogue Steve Madison is out on his Facebook page this morning promoting an alleged “Pit Bull attack” that happened at 5am in Pasadena.

Leading up to Monday’s meeting I had been attending Pasadena City Council and Commission meetings on a weekly basis and giving public comments. The one thing that was universally present in each of my comments is that any time there is a dog-related human fatality, or other serious dog attack for that matter, there is almost always existing elements of recklessness to blame. These 3 circumstances are roaming and loose dogs, chained/resident yard dogs and unsupervised children, or a combination thereof.

This incident in Pasadena was no different. Yet Madison, grandstanding on the mantle of public safety, failed to point out that this morning’s offending dogs were out roaming loose, and thus, able to do whatever they wanted to do to whomever they wanted to do it to.

Further, Ricky Whitman of the Pasadena Humane Society stated that the dog that was killed by the police “looked like it was in heat.” And even further, if any dog were at first acting in an aggressive manner you can directly correlate the increase of such behavior by the others to a pack-mentality type of response. This also has nothing to do with breed. Many individual dogs with varying personalities could certainly opt not to join, but others most certainly would. This, aligned with the “in heat” element, creates a scenario totally ignored by Mr. Madison.

I find this Councilman shameless to the core, and as disingenuous as they come.

In his Facebook ramblings, and at Monday’s Council meeting, Madison also mentions the 5 dog-related fatalities we had in the state of California in 2013. He quickly attributed them all to Pit Bulls, and then moved on, achieving his hyperbole but ignoring all of the circumstances behind the incidents.

Here’s some very pertinent background regarding each of these situations:

Elsie Grace, a 91-year-old from Hemet, was found dead in a hotel room with her son’s 2 dogs identified by someone as “Pit Bulls.” There was an autopsy done at the time of her death, with unknown results, and it was stated by the impounding officer that her death could have been due to natural causes. Claudia Gallardo, a 38-year-old from Stockton, was killed by a resident yard dog after she jumped into its chained area at night “looking for work.” Pamela Devitt, a 63-year-old from Littlerock, was killed when 4 loose dogs (identified by someone in a car as “Pit Bulls”) ran up on her while she was walking in the desert. The owner of these dogs was arrested and it has since been uncovered that animal control had been called out to his residence numerous times, covering a multitude of dog-related complaints. It should also be noted that her husband went out of his way to say that he doesn’t blame the dogs, or “Pit Bulls,” but the irresponsibility of this specific dog owner. Nephi Selu, a 6-year-old from Union City, was bitten 1x in the head by his uncle’s “Pit Bull” while over at his grandparents’ house. This dog was a resident yard dog who was “never allowed in the house.” Nephi had a past with the dog and was left fairly unsupervised while out in the yard. According to the police Nephi was “riding the dog like a horse.” Nephi was “coherent, conscious and talking for hours” after being bitten. His uncle, the owner of the dog, actually went to work after ending the scuffle, which he thought might have required a “couple of stitches.” Nephi died hours later. And finally, Samuel Zamudio, a 2-year-old from Colton, was killed by anywhere from 7-10 resident yard dogs (some chained) after he climbed out of a screenless window and ended up in the backyard unsupervised. His dead body was found almost an hour after he had died. No one witnessed the attack. 6 of the dogs were referenced as “Pit Bulls,” while interviewed neighbors said that they actually owned 1 Pit Bull and many Lab-mixes.

So for those that are counting: 1 incident involved an unknown outcome, 3 incidents involved chained/resident yard dogs, 1 incident involved a roaming pack of loose dogs, and 2 incidents involved unsupervised children. Only 1 of the 5 involved no known reckless circumstances, and that’s the one with the lady from Hemet who quite possibly died of natural causes.

Another element of the “attack” from this morning that’s certainly interesting to me is how it’s being reported vs. certain details that are in the report. For example, the 911 caller stated that the dogs were “dragging” the man down the street, yet the victim of the attack actually “declined medical treatment.”

This is from the police’s own press release:

Mr. Ross tried to position his bicycle between him and the three attacking dogs attempting to bite his legs. At least one dog did make contact with Mr. Ross’s left leg, resulting in minor puncture wounds. Ultimately, Mr. Ross dropped his bicycle and jumped onto the hood of a vehicle parked on Fair Oaks Avenue.

^I see nothing about “dragging,” do you? Also, as far as I know there are no images of the offending dogs available as of yet. The Pasadena Humane Society has declined to identify the dogs as “Pit Bulls.” Regardless of whether they were or not is not the point, as it takes away from any element of genuine public safety and shouldn’t be used to scapegoat any and every dog that looks like a Pit Bull.

Worth keeping in mind is that the Pasadena Humane Society, at a prior meeting, have explained to the Council about the many difficulties in identifying such dogs. The Animal Control Association offers no courses in “breed identification.” 2010 court case Cardelle vs. Miami-Dade County found that animal control officers were “not qualified” to visually identify Pit Bulls. They also found that there is “no scientific basis” for admitting such an opinion, since there is no way to test whether it is accurate. Dr. Victoria Voith, in her 2013 study on visual identification, found that over 900 shelter workers across the country were wrong over 73% of the time when their breed designation was compared with actual DNA evidence of the same impounded dog.

All of this clearly lends to the fact that police officers have no more of an ability to identify a dog than anyone else does. Madison needs to hold his horses and not be so opportunistic in his approach.

In closing: The dogs, whatever breed or type they end up being, were out and running loose. This is the reckless circumstance that deals with public safety. Focusing on the breed, based on a mere mention and no further evidence, just shows that Madison is nothing more than an polical hatchet man.