Dear friends and neighbors:
Looks as if something might be cooking down at City Hall tonight, dog-wise.
To me, this dog controversy is all so incredibly disgusting, and reeks of the residue of 1930's pseudo-eugenics; where racial and behavoral traits were assigned to pre-judge our human family...only now, some may be thinking that those types of notions ought to apply to animals? I thought WWII was fought in order to banish these types of ideas from the earth.
I hope that you all will look for my regular column "Pulse of the City" in the Lakewood Observer this week, where this topic will be addressed in some detail.
Nearly 12,000 views here on the 'Deck tell me that this has been one of the most passionately discussed subjects since the West-End controversy.
Each side hanging onto their arguments, like, well, dogs do, with their chew toys?
And both sides occasionally nipping at the heels of the other? (...or was that-trying to rip each other's faces off?)
But enough fun-filled analogy...both sides seem to have made some good points, and the other kind too, I think.
I tried to look at the issue objectively. Honestly, I did. You may have noticed that I have not even expressed my thoughts in this section...up to this point.
In my opinion, this topic carries many of the same old and tired aspects with it that we've seen before, if you will read between the lines, and look below the surface. You name it: cultural, economic, racial, polemical, political, personal...they're all there, I believe; well below, and far deeper, than the simple aspect of some knee-high, big-headed dogs that no one seems to be able to define; whether agreeably, scientifically, or legally.
Those are the REAL elephants, er, dogs, in this particular chatroom fight, er, so-called discussion...at least, as appears to me...
...a sad commentary for Lakewood, this I do believe...but not surprising, in my opinion, given other knee-jerk responses that I've observed with other Lakewood social issues; discussed here with our blinking little virtual ant-cursors, on Jimmy's little virtual ant farm.
Don't get me wrong. Opinions are a good thing, and the more, the merrier...and we all certainly have a right to them. I just think, as a personal opinion of my own, that the line between civil discourse and uncivil gets kind of fuzzy around here at times.
It's easy to manage a disagreeable dog. They can simply be muzzled in polite company. We do not, however, have muzzles for people.
My main concern at this point is, behavior-wise in a round-up, how the authorities would differentiate between pit-bulls and people?
Kind of makes me want to buy a dog...
...knee-high, with a big head,
...and that's my opinion on this matter.
