Comments on Is Nowhere Safe?

"The truck is now back at the shop, and Witthoeft is wondering how slim his wallet will become."

A beautiful sentence.

fuck biodiesel, i get 30 miles to the pitbull in my new truck.

That's right. No more of this "boil them alive and feed them to their owners" crap. I've got a diesel car that runs on waste veggie oil. Now we just have to find a way to convert engines to run on pit bull extract as well.

pitbulls are the new cockroaches...

@4 that's right. In the event of nuclear holocaust, all plant and animal life will be destroyed...except for the pit bulls.

the downsize is getting a pit crew to work on your engine if there's a problem. you can't just take that to midas.

Interesting, "Once it got up on the hood, we could see it was more docile," Elm said.

Dan, I used to enjoy your writing.
What's with your fixation on pit bulls?
Why didn't you didn't post an article when a Jack Russell ate a baby in Jan. 2008 or mention in "Cute Widdle Pit Bull Puppies" Isabelle Dinoire, the French woman, who in 2005 had a face transplant after her dog ate her face off (it was international news). Her dog was a Labrador.

You know very well pits work as service dogs and in K9 units.

Dan you have become an ass. I believe you only write about pits because they generate the most prejudicial comments on your "articles". What, can you then get paid more based on higher readership? What a scam. What a "journalist". If you write about dangerous dogs then write about all of them, including the serious attacks not involving pits--they're out there. Guess they just don't pay out as well.

Dan, you have to know how to drive before you worry about a pitbull in your engine.

@8: Hehehe. Touche!

And Dan, if you (or your mate) were stuck in an engine don't you think you'd be pretty scared and upset? Have some fucking compassion already.

"Once it got up on the hood, we could see it was more docile"

It was just scared and stuck.

as a staffordshire friend and avid follower of the slog-pitbull wars, i think it's fair to note that dan could have been a lot more negative in this posting, but was not. maybe he was just busy with lunch and sex-columnist business or maybe he couldn't help himself this time. i mean, that picture of the pit bull looking up from under the hood is priceless.

xoxo

Yes, he could have been much more bigoted in his comments and not just leave it to the headline. Still don't get a sex-columnist writing about pit bulls all the time. It's sad.

tk, I agree with everything you said.

But it is hard for me to get worked up about this because I think the pitbull thing is just a running Slog joke now. Everyone knows many dogs perperate dangerous attacks and not ALL pitbulls do awful things. How do we know this? LIFE.

This overvilification of pitbulls has taken on a life of its own on Slog, and now it's just kind of funny - a Slog in joke. Of course Dan will histrionically post an outrageous pitbull story when he finds one and ignore stories of other dog attacks. Ripping on pitbulls is just one of Dan's schticks now. Do you actually think the post headline is serious?

Yes, I know, it's NOT FUNNY if you LUV pitbulls and know THE FACTS about them. But we've had that conversation. Some don't care. And now their continued obsession/self-aware continuation of the Slog joke is kind of funny and a part of Slog culture. Roll with it.

well said, greendyke.

Gotcha Greendyke.

It's just good ole bigoted fun that results in the proliferation of stereotypes that make their way across the internet. It doesn't remain local. This subject of breeds being labeled as inherently vicious creates a dangerous feedback loop. These articles and comments that people "stumble upon" reaffirm their misconceptions which causes them to voice and act upon their fears, which in-turn causes wanna-be gangstas to want these dogs (because they've heard how "dangerous" they are) which causes problems for everyone.

I guess it's okay to be bigoted when the subject of the bigotry can't respond themselves.

Now I'm off to the christian coalition site to joke about homos bringing down the US. It looks just like a rolling joke over there too.

Right tk. Gays = Dogs. Noted.

Gays=dogs
No, of course not.
Missing the point.

I'm not trying to belittle anyone.

I'm suggesting that this blog is not a closed group and many people come across these articles piecemeal. An "inside" joke is not viewed as such by an outsider. Perpetuating stereotypes as a joke on an ongoing basis is no joke, especially when the subject has hard hitting repercussions.

"Everyone knows many dogs perpetrate dangerous attacks and not ALL pitbulls do awful things. How do we know this? LIFE."

Not everyone knows this. This is the pitfall of generalizations. Remember, you are a well-informed person living in a open-mined, educated city. This is not always the case. People don't always think for themselves, rather they rely on articles and blog posts for their opinions.
Just something to keep in mind.

What we need is a site called "LOLPITS", much like that one with the funny pix of kitty cats, only it'd have humorously captioned pictures of pitbulls. That'd fix things right up!

Just go buy some stickers. Damn those pit bulls are adorable!

http://www.stickergiant.com/Hello-Pitbull_rst130.html

so fucking funny!

that is suggesting people=dogs, and gays=breed: pit bulls. and that's crap. calling it an analogy doesn't excuse it; choose a better comparison.

the ways in which the analogy break down prevent it from being useful, and the analogy presupposes what it is trying to prove in the first place, making it circular reasoning. what makes it worse, is that you think by comparing gays to pit bulls, you will garner sympathy on this board.

your "real world" cases argument, the only one present save your appalling analogy, is proven inaccurate by the real world stats. check out this compilation of dog attacks resulting in a death or a maiming, and my follow-up with the author.

sure, it's a running joke on slog. but, as with many jokes, there is a bit of truth behind it.

jesus christ tk keep your britches on.

you read way too much out of a fucking one-sentence post.

First, how do you know I'm not gay. Do I not fit your stereotype?

Again missing the point. My focus wasn't a comparison.
"This subject of breeds being labeled as inherently vicious creates a dangerous feedback loop. These articles and comments that people "stumble upon" reaffirm their misconceptions which causes them to voice and act upon their fears, which in-turn causes wanna-be gangstas to want these dogs (because they've heard how "dangerous" they are) which causes problems for everyone."

Why are there no stories of the pits bulls working as service dogs or in K9 units "turning".

This is a good article regarding pit bulls.
Article by Malcolm Gladwell author of Blink It's important to read the entire article to get the message.

My britches are now back on. MMM..silky.

whether you are gay or not has nothing to do with it. there might be gay men who are against homosexuals adopting children because he thinks homos are morally corrupt. him being gay does not justify a wrong position.

the statistics i provided show that people aren't just stumbling across stories full of misconceptions. the facts of the real world show that the pit bull breed is responsible for more human harm (where the result is a death or a maiming) then any other breed -- by a long shot.

the existence of other dogs who harm does not negate the overall harm done by this one particular breed. reporting on an isolated incident is different than reporting on what is actually a rather demonstrable pattern.

you very clearly call the attitude toward pit bulls bigotry, and in the following paragraph talk about the way homosexuals are treated. that isn't even an analogy, to be frank. you are making a direct comparison.

the idea that you cannot judge one part by the whole is discounted because:

1) a breed is not akin to a group
2) statistics show this breed is different when it comes to attacks
3) a breed has obvious biological characteristics that define it
4) people have free will to an extent that dogs do not
5) certain breeds are trained to act a certain way, a trait not seen in people as often

the analogy fails in a big way. it assumes people are like dogs. they are not. i assumes a group of people is akin to a breed. this is also not true (the defining characteristics differ). it assumes a small sample, whereas there is a large body of evidence. it assumes we don't treat breeds different already; we do.

say, for instance, you see a cat chase a mouse. would you use this information an conclude that only some cats chase mice? and when you read stories about this phenomenon on the internet, would you discount those stories as just a few bad apples? or maybe those are the cats with owners who didn't know how to train them properly?

no you wouldn't. it is a bad comparison. you wouldn't make it about pit bulls, and you wouldn't make it about cats and mice. it doesn't make you think about the issue: it purposefully misleads regarding the issue.

it is of worth to consider that perhaps not all pit bulls are evil. but no one thinks they all are.

I just don't know why we have to spread this hatred of pit bulls. why don't you hate the people that train them to fight? why don't you hate the people that breed them to fight? why does no one ever take a stand against dog fighting? the proliferation of pit bulls in urban areas is directly proportional to the existence of dog fighting in urban areas. i mean, give me a fucking break, the only reason you see pit bulls at the pound is because some fucker dumped his pit after it didn't preform the way he wanted. And the only reason you can find 500 dollar pure bread pits is because of the fetishization of the gangster/dogfighting culture. And then we get all pissed off at the little punk kids that adopt a pit bull mix puppy from the pound?

why is it that only "stats" are provided by lawyers working to make a buck?
why is it the CDC states not to use it's stats on dog bites because of gross inaccuracy of breed identification?
why is it that the American Veterinary Medical Association doesn't believe pits have any higher propensity to attack than any other dog?
Why do many police depts choose to work with rescued pits?
why are at least 20 different breeds identified as pits (making them more of a group of different breeds)?
why do pits score higher on the american temperament test than most breeds?
Why is it in New Zealand & Australia two studies show that:
- Media reports tend to misidentify attacking dogs as pit bulls when bites were more severe
- Severity based on breed was not statistically different
- 16% of the 8% of pit bull bites were considered 3-5 in severity (five being most severe). A breed comparison shows that Dalmatians had a 3-5 severity rate of 24%; Rottweiler 21%; Doberman 17%; Golden Retriever 16%?source