So Jackson, Mississippi’s crazy-ass mayor is running for reelection. But believe it or not, one of the candidates set to run against him is even crazier.
Black-coated shelter dogs least likely to get adopted. I’ve never really thought about this. But it makes some sense. Both my dogs are shelter dogs, and they’re both blonde.
Man facing death penalty after he made a deathbed murder confession . . . and then got better.
Parents want tougher “sexting” laws after their 18-year-old daughter committed suicide due to harassment when a nude photo she sent to a boyfriend was forwarded all over the area. It’s a sad story, but I’m not really sure what the family wants (the article isn’t clear, other than to say they want to start some sort of awareness campaign). The woman was an adult, so there are no child pornography issues, here. Looks to be one of those sad cases where overreaction to a tragedy may end up producing a really bad law.
Mayor of Schenectady, New York considering imposing martial law. But not because the citizens are acting up–because the police are.
Hey, something else to worry about!
Man arrested for using a five-foot penis to assault a horse-mounted police officer.
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on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 7:38 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
RE: jackson, MS
Is the whole town crazy? There has to be something environmental causing this, maybe lead in the water. Wonder how long before the move-on ads start showing up claiming “Republicans want to lynch black folk!”
Suggestion on Big Black Dogs- emphasize that with proper grooming you won’t have big black dog hair all over your house.
IMHO, the threat of never seeing the true color of your sofa again is a big part of the problem.
re: Deathbed confession. Sounds like a Monty Python sketch.
That’s how laws are made today.Take a tragedy and make a law that will eventually punish innocent people.We’ve seen it with sex crimes,D.U.I and of course the Patriot act.As for the police in this NY city.I’ve never liked public unions.The police should be at will employees.Imagine if they were treated with the same zero tolerance as the public at large.
…a dick decks a dick with a dick.
I’ve heard about the difficulty of black dogs getting adopted before, with the theory being that you can’t see the dog’s endearing facial expressions as clearly as with lighter colored dogs. I think(hope) that publicizing will make some people go out of their way to give these dogs a chance.
Regarding Schenectady, I’d really like to see to department disbanded and started from scratch, but hopefully, in a different model than every other police department in the country. I’d like to see a department run like a company that the sort of military model that they all use now.
On the sexting- yeah it’s a tragedy. But instead of trying to legislate a solution, which invariably means bad, overly harsh laws, how about pushing for a little accountability? Why is it we indoctrinate our children so, but leave out any lessons about consequences?
The worst of the over-emotional freakout sort of laws seem to be ones where someone’s kid commits suicide and the parents just can’t admit that their kid was that fucked up on their own so they want to blame someone or something else. People don’t just kill themselves because they are embarrassed. This poor girl had other problems.
The sexting story is worthless without pictures.
I know this is going to get some blood boiling, but I’m in agreement with George Lambus on combating crime. I’m not saying we lynch every criminal, and in fact I think he is using it as a metaphor for neighborhoods, and communities to do their own policing. We all pretty much know that police are useless in preventing crime, although they are pretty good at creating it.
Remember the James gang went undeterred by the law (police, marshal’s, Pinkerton’s) in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and the like. Northfield, MN is where the citizens took matters into their own hands, and lead to the capture or death of many of the gang members.
Also run down to your local library, and check out the book Tough Towns: True Tales from the Gritty Streets of the Old West by Robert Barr Smith, and see what happens to crime when communities do the policing.
I found a link so you can preview Tough Towns.
http://books.google.com/books?id=vz11nE3NOyQC&dq=Tough+Towns:+True+Tales+from+the+Gritty+Streets+of+the+Old+West&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=DTQKGUFuTX&sig=oklqzQYT36RIMF6VOen3822rtOQ&hl=en&ei=sfPISbmDLMOFtgepzvGxAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPP1,M1
I read an article years ago on picking an outdoor dog. Choosing a light colored dog was important. Black dogs overheat in the sun more quickly was the reason given.
Our black dog will always choose shade, or even a pile of snow, to lie down on.
Not the reason for the prejudice, but interesting nonetheless.
Does no one else find it odd that this was said by the parent of the girl who sent the photo?
I have a black shelter dog. She was the cutest puppy there (she did have 4 sisters who looked just like her, but she stood out). There were some other puppies there, mostly light colored, but we wanted a Labby dog (she’s a Labramutt) and picked her.
She was completely black, not a white hair on her. We got her at 11 weeks and have had her about a year and a half. Now, tho, she has plenty of white hairs. We think she’s a reverse Dalmatian.
Regardless of the age of the girl, I can’t believe “sexting” has even risen above the level of talk show curiosity. A society that attaches that much hysteria, suffering, and anxiety to such a basically harmless act needs to take some time off and carefully examine its principles.
This brings to mind the days when the feminists declared that pornography was the same as rape. Yeah, and a hangnail is the same as having your hand run over by a train.
I wonder if there will ever be a day when suicide won’t be defined as an act forced on someone by someone (or something) else. I hate to break the news to these parents, but kids are commonly subjected to vicious name calling from the time they begin school until the time they graduate. It’s not a new evil phenomenon somehow spawned by a new technology. This beautiful girl apparently suffered greatly, but so do countless others who are deformed with birth defects, terrible complexion problems, retardation, and maiming due to accidents. Hell, just being an outcast from any favored group will get you a free lesson in mental cruelty.
If there has to be a new law every time a pretty kid dies, it’s only a matter of time before human nature itself is outlawed as being hazardous to your mental health.
And the libertarian solution for solar flares frying the electric grid is….?
I have a black dog who looks like a muppet, but doesn’t show up well in pictures either. I will take this space to point out that both my wife and I have doctorates but were refused shelter dogs b/c we live in an apartment. Effin spca.
As for the sexting story, thank God she was 18 or there would have been 700 child pron indictments as they witchhunted every teen boy who saw that pic.
#17
The SPCA wouldn’t let you take a dog because you live in an apartment? Were they concerned about a specific breed or just that any dog in an apartment was a problem?
My 2 dobes both came from breed specific rescues. Both rescue places are real tight about who they’ll let take one home but even they didn’t care if a person lived in an apt. My spouse did a home inspection for them recently for a family that wanted 2 large males in a home smaller than my first apt. They were good people but the rescue didn’t think 2 large dogs in a home that size would work out so they talked them into taking just one.
So, the mayor and police chief of Schenectady thinks the PD is so bad that they might actually have to fire a couple of the cops (oh, and maybe disband the department). That can’t be right. That just doesn’t happen. Let’s keep our eye on this one. I predict there will be a press release in a couple weeks that explains that it was all just a big misunderstanding.
Sad but true. Black coated pit bulls are destined for the bottom of a dead bucket.
I am sorry for the parents loss – but where along the line did they forget to tell their daughter that sending nude photos of yourself is NEVER a good idea – it’s not like this story just popped up in the media. It’s been an issue since camera phones came out. And – it was actually mentioned in ‘Sixteen Candles’ – “I would hate for it to get duped and turn up on cable somewhere” (paraphrasing).
Regarding the solar wind plasma ball thing, great pitch for a new satellite or three. You see if this satellite goes kaput, why the U.S. could become like Road Warrior and while you might look good in all leather, I find it tends to chaffe, so can we have a couple of billion to send some new satellites to watch the sun (in a whisper: so we can publish more peer reviewed articles to get tenure)?
About the sexting story: I’m not sure how much can be done about it, but I believe that ordinary bullying has been amplified online into a subculture of smug cruelty.
One thing is to quit saying that people just are like that. If you expect people to take individual responsibility for their finances and for not being criminal, it’s just as reasonable to expect them to not get their fun by trying to make other people miserable.
Nancy: I have a hard time believing that it’s any worse today, with the advent of the internet, than it was when I was in high school, and I was the only person on campus with an email address. I was viciously attacked, both verbally and physically, (though, being really big made the physical stuff less frequent than it was for the smaller nerds) pretty much every day of my high school tenure.
My first sympathies after Columbine were for Harris and Klebold.
But, frankly, people are just like that. They should be *ahem* strongly encouraged to not behave that way, but Lord of the Flies was a documentary.
perlhaqr, Lord of the Flies was a novel.
There are schools with successful anti-bullying policies. People are “like that” if there are no social controls.
If someone gets mugged, do you just say “muggings happen”?
My take on the effect of the internet is that it’s feasible for many more people to join in the harassment, and also that they offer each other emotional support.
Hmmm… interesting. I’ve always liked black dogs. I prefer them actually. I wonder if it’s a matter of my dog growing up was a black lab mutt. Once I get my finances and schooling done, my plan is on getting another black dog.
I never knew there was a stigma to black dogs.
Good on her for raising the awareness of black dog syndrome.
We have four black dogs – all rescue dogs – two black labish, one black Great Dane (gorgeous dog, dumb as hell though), and one mostly black lab/border collie mix (we believe, he’s got these giant ears, so we’re not completely sure what he is. Cutest thing you’ve ever seen.)
But we didn’t learn of the problems black dogs have until we acquired the last one. The lady who ran the shelter had a large litter of yellow labs and two black puppies. The yellows were all spoken for, but the two black puppies needed homes. She informed us on the black dog problem. Since then, we encourage anyone we know who is planning on getting a dog to think black. We will always get black rescue dogs in the future as well. Would it be wrong for me to say once you go black…?
Some rescue organizations are more selective of their potential clients than others. They all loved us because we have five acres, but I do remember some of the questions on their application forms to be a bit… pretentious – to be polite.
Animal people are weird like that. We love animals, but don’t consider ourselves “animal people.” Horse people are the worst, but that’s another story.
Our community is building a new dog park. Yay!! And on the website announcing the construction, they put in a suggestion box. There were more than one suggesting that maybe some frequent goers could be “deputized” to police others on the rules. I doubt that will happen, but it would be funny if some crusty old battle-axe tried to bark orders at me cause she didn’t like my dog or whatever.
It would be almost worth it.
Anyway, good on her and others for the rescue work that they do.
Cheers.
There was a time when the only reason why the Mafia wasn’t in Schenectady was that the police ran all the illegal operations in the city.
Schenectady PD today rates close to the bottom of the pile in an area where the best department is only slightly above mediocre. Albany PD had two cops shoot at a DUI driver and kill an innocent a block away, and another cop DUI, drive away from an accident, then got into a garage and was so drunk he ran the tires down to rims and the sparks ended up burning down an apartment building.
Must be a slow news day, usually some big city department canine fornication overshadows the antics of the cops in upstate NY.
I have always preferred black animals — horses, dogs, and cats. I will always pick the black pup/kitten out of a multi-hued litter, and I would choose a black pound animal over any other color. Size doesn’t matter, I’ve owned dogs of all sizes from Dane (3) to Chi (2) with a Lab and Cockers in the middle, most in the Cocker size range (5) some have been purebreds (1 Dane, 3 Cockers, the Lab and 1 Chi), and most of them have been all or part black. Most of my cats have been black, as well, with one Calico and a few Tabbies thrown in the mix. Never owned a black horse, but not for lack of wanting, I usually end up with a bay.
Black cats are the least likely of their species to be adopted, too.
kids are commonly subjected to vicious name calling from the time they begin school until the time they…
…stop contributing to reason.com’s Hit and Run.
Many cultures consider black dogs (and cats) to be ill omens, so I’m not surprised at the fact that they get left behind more often.
Black horses, however, are linked to power, so they are actually preferred.
Like Windy # 30, I tend to prefer black dogs, cats & horses.
Great article from Newsweek last month on the sexting trend. It isn’t all-encompassing, but it likely affects at least one teen per high school if not more. Here’s the link:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/184814
I totally agree with the argument that the police are not the people to go to to sort out this mess. It boils down to pompous, self-aggrandizing prosecutors who are looking to “save the children” by branding them with a sex offender label for the rest of their lives. Laws originally intended to protect minors are now used to lock them up and ruin their lives.
Perhaps if that young woman had not committed suicide, she would be facing charges right now. Here in Utah, we’ve at least seen fit to bring sexting down from a felony to a misdemeanor:
http://kcpw.org/article/7585