Sunday, May 10, 2009

The Dog Wars -- guns & dog bites

A person wrote me about gun control. It seemed good to her to keep guns out of the hands of people who might kill children. But that isn’t the issue. The issue is something very different.

The first concern is that one of the first things an authoritarian state does, historically, is remove guns from the hands of its citizens. Are we moving toward becoming an authoritarian state? There has always been a concern about that. Our founding fathers were worried about it and put restrictions on the Executive branch of government. Another balancing measure was to prevent government from taking the guns away from its citizens. They had the experience of Britain and other monarchies doing that and wanted to prevent that every happening in the US. Is that still a concern? Many on the right think so.

To illustrate another aspect of this matter, years ago I was a rifle instructor in the Marine Corps. I had charge of the “unqualified detail” which consisted of Marines who failed to qualify their previous time out. Some of them had never qualified. As a coach I got all my shooters qualified, but in the process I learned something about each one. We coaches confided to each other that we hoped we never ended up living next door to some of those guys. They were not very trustworthy with guns. The public tests where a person had to show he was adept with guns before he got a license seemed a good thing to me because the focus was on the individual. The test determined ‘yes’ or ‘no’ about his qualifications to own a gun.

In a different realm, some individuals have committed crimes such that the courts have determined that they should never own a gun. I am very much in favor of preventing these people from owning guns.

But the American gun laws have a different focus. They seek to prevent all people from having guns. Oh yes, I know that the current bills don’t address all people, but they tried that, to get a national gun law through congress and that failed; so they are nickel and diming the public in hopes of achieving he same result. Gun bill after gun bill is being proposed throughout the nation and many are making it into law.

I wrote a note the other day quoting from Kaplan’s Warrior Politics. Page 125 has the following: “Television correspondents at the scene of catastrophes . . . manifest an impassioned tunnel vision in which sheer emotion replaces analysis: nothing matters to them except the horrendous spectacle before their eyes – about which something must be done! The media embodies classical liberal values, which concern themselves with individuals and their well-being, whereas foreign policy is often concerned with the relationships between states and other large groups. Thus, the media is more likely to be militaristic when individual rights and suffering are concerned, rather than when a state’s vital interests are threatened.”

Kaplan was referring to foreign affairs. Correspondents would focus upon individuals being killed, bodies bags, etc rather than larger issues. There was a strategy in place to oppose Communism and the Vietnam War was intended to carry on that strategy, but that was never discussed, whether our efforts in Vietnam truly opposed communism or not. Instead they discussed individual deaths. We were overwhelmed with pictures of body bags.

The reverse, sort of, was true of Kosovo. Now individuals were being killed by the Serbs, so picture after picture of individual deaths were presented to the American public such that we were finally impelled to send forces to Kosovo and Bosnia to “stop the killing.” The Correspondents were not hard on the American military for dropping bombs on Serbian civilians, including babies, because we were stopping the killing.

Move now into the realm of “gun politics.” A single shooting incident will be focused on in the same way. Look a child, or several children are being killed. Their solution is virtually always going to include a request for “tougher gun laws.” In many cases the killers are already criminals and by law denied the right to have guns. Their answer to that is that if all guns were taken off the streets, no one would have a gun; which seems an absurd thing for them to say until we remember that their desire to remove all guns from public hands is their long-held hope. For them “emotion replaces analysis.”

Moving back to dogs now, we see the same sort of thing prevail. One bite by a pit bull or Rottweiler and someone is going to propose a bill to make them illegal or restrict the owning of them in some way. Emotion replaces analysis!

I used to do a lot of “Free Diving” which is a sort of underwater hunting. Without breathing apparatus one dives down with a spear gun and hunts fish. I did that for many years. Typically, when someone heard what I did, they would ask “aren’t you afraid of sharks?” Emotion for them replaced analysis. How many shark attacks have there been on the California coast? I don’t recall the exact number but it is tiny. The same sort of thing is true of “the dangerous dogs.” Which breed is responsible for the most dog bites? The last time I checked it was the Cocker Spaniel. Are the anti-dog people trying to outlaw the Cocker Spaniel? How could they? Who could generate much emotion about outlawing the Cocker Spaniel? But the Pit Bull & Rottweiler look fierce. Correspondents can’t get worked up over them.

It would be easier for the Dog-Control people to get worked up over deaths caused by dogs, but they have problem. It is hard to avoid analysis if they talk about that. The average of dog deaths in the US over the last several years is 17. That is, in all of the United States, all 300 million of us, only 17 will be killed in an average year by dogs. Do they want to make a law affecting all dogs because 17 people were killed? Well, yeah they do. They tell us 74% of the deaths were caused by Pit Bulls, Rottweilers and Presa Canarios. http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html Disclaimer: I note that the lead in statement says 33 were killed in 2007 but further down when it lists deaths by state it says 15. In any case the number is very small. Do we have deaths by car accidents? Motorcycle accidents, skate board accidents, bicycle accidents, slipping on soap in the tub accidents. I would wager that all of those would exceed the dog bite deaths. But it is hard to put the fierce face of a Pit Bull on those things – emotionally. If we move away from deaths and get back to “all dog bites” then we were back into Cocker Spaniel territory.

Here’s an article that suggests Dachsunds are now the dog that may be biting the most people. It begins, “Forget pit bulls, Rottweilers and Rhodesian ridgebacks. It’s the sausage dog that’s the most aggressive breed.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2254479/Sausage-dogs-are-the-most-aggressive-dogs.html Well, whoever wrote that article probably doesn’t think much “softening” has gone on in the Rhodesian Ridgeback.”

This should give the anti-dog people some comfort: “. . . it is at least a hundred thousand times more likely that a ‘Pit Bull’ will be killed by a HUMAN, than the other way around.” http://www.thedogpress.com/Columns/Jade/07_Dog.Bite.Stats_09.htm

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Dog wars: The Ridgeback debates

I have mentioned acrimonious Ridgeback debates in the past One of them resulted in an irate breeder sending the Anti-Terrorist Task force to my door: http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2008/08/when-anti-terrorist-task-force-comes.html . Now there is another breeder, saying some similar things. Is it the same breeder? Certainly not. The first breeder, the one who turned me in, has been so universally castigated, that she is sure to want to make her sin a secret forever. This new one seems to think her authority should be respected. Alas.

What are the issues and what is the complaint? It is hard to tell, because typically these breeders, the ones who leap off the wall with both guns blazing, aren’t terribly articulate. I don’t mean to generalize here about all breeders. There are only a very few who do this. They yell in capital letters, but they don’t formulate sensible arguments; so it is difficult to argue, let alone communicate, with them. Trying to slow them down and countering their ranting with logical, well-thought out arguments only makes them angry.

I suspect their anger hinges on their experience. They have bred Ridgebacks for a number of years whereas I have never bred one. I have lived with Ridgebacks for close to 20 years and know a lot about the dogs I’ve owned, but my knowledge of “all Ridgebacks” is based upon reading and discussion. Whereas they, these breeders, have been in dog shows and have “seen” hundreds if not thousands of Ridgebacks. They take a superior position: They are breeders and will judge and evaluate prospective owners. Since I have been interested in Ridgeback health, and a certain temperament, I have not precisely “judged breeders” but perhaps set up a criterion that I want met in my next Ridgeback. I have reversed the order of things. I am not waiting patiently, hat in hand, for a breeder to determine my qualifications. I am announcing what it is I want, and shall do my best to get it.

Probably most breeders aren’t bothered by an owner who has had Ridgebacks and wants something particular in his next one. But some seem offended at my very existence. How dare I, a mere owner, make statements about the Rhodesian Ridgeback, or – gasp – criticize a breeder?

One of my observations has been that a “softening” has gone on in the breed. The Ridgeback was derived from dogs that were used by Cornelius Van Rooyan to hunt lions. The breed was also used by farmers to guard against hyenas, leopards and baboons. Could the modern-day Ridgeback do that? Some of them could, but I suspect that not as many could as in the days of yore.

Let me give an example of “softening.” At one time the Great Dane was a fierce boar dog. It was considered ferocious and used as a guard. But it is so big that who would dare own one in this modern litigious day and age? So a “softening” went on, and now the Great Dane has a reputation for being sweet and gentle. The goal of the modern day breeder of potentially dangerous dogs is to produce “sweet” ones. If you can say a Doberman, American Staffordshire Terrier, or Rottweiler is “sweet,” then you are on safe ground. But what about what the dog was bred to do? The Dobermann was created to be the preeminent guard dog, and perhaps the German Dobermann people (as opposed to the American Doberman people) still strive for the original temperament, but here in America we have bred away from it. Not as many American Dobermans would meet Mr. Dobermann’s standards.

If one shooting occurs, some congressman is sure to propose a new gun law. By the same token, one dog bite will typically be followed by someone calling for more restrictive dog laws: Let’s make the Pit Bull or the Rottweiler illegal, someone will say. We know the “dangerous dogs”: the Pit Bulls and the Rottweilers and all the rest. It does no good to say that the American Staffordshire Terrier only “looks” like the Pit Bulls of old. It does no good to point out that the American Staffordshire Terrier was recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1936 as a separate breed and that one of the intentions of the AST breeders was to breed away from the Fighting-Pit-Bull temperament. Surely they have been able to do that, to breed away from that temperament, if they have been working at it since 1936. It doesn’t take that long to change a dog breed. The canine genome is the most malleable of all genomes. One can, if one wishes, create a whole new dog breed, that is, a dog breed that will breed true, in a very few years; so breeding for a certain look or away from aggressiveness is demonstrably possible. Now I don’t mean this in absolute terms. If the Great Dane was bred as a fierce guard dog, and it was, then you will get some Great Danes that will meet that old standard, but by breeding away from that fierceness you will get fewer fierce ones and a greater number of sweet ones. Would American Staffordshire Terriers fight for Michael Vick? Yeah, sure, but not all of them and not as many as the old Pit Bull. I am not making an “absolute” statement about the Ridgeback either, merely, not as many would meet Van Rooyan’s standards for a lion-hunting dog as they would have in 1922 when the breed was first standardized.

Probably another reason I annoy certain breeders is that I’m not a true partisan. I am an engineer and must be able to justify a breed-selection functionally. I look at my circumstances, evaluate what it is I do and want to do and then determine which breed or breeds would best suit me. Probably most people don’t think like that. They had a certain breed as a child and now as adults, that is the only breed they will accept, or they pick a certain breed because it is cute. I want a breed that is “suitable” to my circumstances. We lived in a condo and I thought a Ridgeback was too large, but my wife was fixed upon that breed; so I resolved to keep it in shape by jogging with it every night. I could throw a tennis ball for my German Shorthaired Pointer, Heidi, but that wouldn’t do for Trooper; so we jogged and hiked.

When we retired, I wanted to be near an area where we could hike. There are some mountain trails not so far away, but as often as not, we go down to the river. It takes less than five minutes to drive down there, and we have a stretch of perhaps five or six miles where we can go on this almost-always-dry river. There is always something new to see down there. One might say that in a certain respect I agreed to this retirement location based upon Trooper. The river was precisely right for him. He thrived down there. So when he and Heidi died I sought another Ridgeback that would be equivalent to Trooper, that is, who could handle all of the challenges of the river. Alas, that didn’t exactly work out, or rather I couldn’t tell whether it had worked out. Ginger was “sweet,” but gave no evidence of being at Trooper’s level of protectiveness. An engineer insists upon evidence.

I don’t want to seem to totally reject “sweet.” “Sweet” is awfully nice to live with. In fact I have thought about that, from an engineering standpoint: perhaps “sweet” is affecting me in some beneficial way. Ginger isn’t on the alert the way Trooper was. If her head perks up it is because she hears some dog she might be able to play with. Trooper was on the lookout for trouble. Do I need a dog that is on the lookout for trouble? I don’t have a South African farm threatened by baboons. Perhaps a stray dog will wander by out front or a cat will hop up onto my back fence, but that’s about it. So perhaps “sweet” will suit me well enough in the future. But if my wife were to read this, she would take offense. Surely, Trooper was the “sweetest” dog in the world. Well, yeah, Susan, but he was also very alert for trouble. Ginger isn’t.

Sage too is “sweet,” but she is quite a bit edgier than Ginger. Sage looks out for trouble, and I must admit that Sage has proved herself. She has stood up to large stray dogs we have encountered at night. She also stood up to a large man I wasn’t sure wasn’t threatening us. So, perhaps it would be best to say that Sage provides a “nuance” of protectiveness I wasn’t previously aware of. Trooper was quick to go into a defensive posture if he saw what he perceived to be a threat. Sage won’t do that. She’ll wait until the threat is upon us and then explode. Trooper would stop the threat a long way off. Sage will stop it up close.

But what about competence at the river? Actually, both Ginger and Sage were able to switch seamlessly from chasing rabbits to chasing coyotes and feral dogs. They are large girls. Sage weighs 85 pounds and Ginger weighs perhaps 90. Most feral dogs aren’t that large and 175 pounds of Ridgeback bearing down upon them has caused them all to run. But we haven’t seen a large feral-dog pack down there since Trooper’s days, and if one should start up again I hope my girls won’t be as brash as Trooper was – and they probably wouldn’t be. Not only are they “sweet” but they are cautious. But I want to emphasize that there are two of these “sweet,” not quite up to Trooper’s standards, girls. If I had just Ginger I would still worry about her safety. I might not worry quite so much about Sage, if she were my only dog, but I would still worry. If I had another Trooper, I would not worry about trouble at the river.

Perhaps this current antagonistic breeder misunderstood my interest in “another breed.” She assumed I was unhappy with my Ridgebacks and wanted to switch away from them. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to “downsize” and still have two dogs. I recall that the combination of Trooper (very protective) and Heidi (a good watchdog) seemed perfect. Also, though Trooper (90 pounds) plus Heidi (55) pounds represented 145 pounds of canine, Trooper and Heidi never did the same thing at the same time. If Ginger and Sage and I were out on some farm road at night, when they were younger, and a rabbit darted across our path, there was 175 pounds of canine out to the ends of their leashes in a Ridgeback-instant. I had to work on that with them, and they don’t do that anymore, at least not as much. We were out last night and that very thing happened. Ginger didn’t move at all. Sage took a couple of steps toward the rabbit but stopped when I cautioned her; so we are good now. So why couldn’t I just become reconciled to having two Ridgebacks in the future? The puppyhood of two Ridgebacks seems daunting to me. Far better to get just one – and then some other, smaller breed if I feel a need for two dogs.

So what is there to fight about, in all this? I’m not quite sure. When someone is standing off cursing you and shouting at you, you can tell they are mad about something, but if they won’t calm down, and apparently such people can’t, then you can never know what is bothering them. I just hope that the Anti-Terrorist Task force doesn’t show up at my door again.

Friday, May 8, 2009

illegal guns in Russia sufficient for civil war

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2009/05/window-on-eurasia-guns-illegally-in.html

The above article was written by Paul Gobel on May 8th and entitled “Guns illegally in Private Hands in Russia now Sufficient for ‘a small Civil War,’ Moscow Paper Says.”

Here are a few snippets from the article:

‘. . . Russians today have far more such guns than ever before and now have enough to “conduct a small civil war,” according to an investigation by a Moscow journalist. . . there are approximately 170,000 pistols and automatic weapons in the hands of those who are “not the best part of the population” and who obtained, retain and can be expected to use them illegally (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2009/047/00.html). . . .”

“As a result of corruption and the sloppiness of the force structures, the population of Russia is now in a position to conduct a small civil war.” And while that may seem to be a journalistic exaggeration to people in countries with far more guns in private hands, for Russians, who in Soviet times had little access to guns, it may be shockingly appropriate. . . .”

“According to this data source, from 1951 through 2008, on the territory of the USSR and then on that of the Russian Federation were stolen in one way or another 182,114 guns of various types. In addition, he says, “166,265 guns were seized by MVD and FSB officers from criminals and ordinary citizens.” But the actual difference between those lost and found is far larger.

“The largest ‘source’ of such weapons is the defense ministry, Kanyev says. While in Soviet times, the military was generally able to prevent the loss of weapons except during conflicts like Afghanistan, ‘beginning with the 1990s, the situation sharply changed [and] out of the army arsenals, arms flowed out in quantity.’


“During the two Chechen wars, the journalist says, the military officially lost 4,456 weapons, although the actual number was certainly higher given seizures by the Chechens, guns improperly listed as lost or destroyed, and generally chaotic accounting methods. Moreover, FSB officers serving in the combat zone lost weapons and ammunition as well. . . .”

“. . . it is an open secret that militiamen sometimes trade in arms, something they can easily do given that “according to unofficial data of operational officers, 70 percent of the arms taken from criminals are not recorded in the militia files.” As a result, today there are “approximately 170,000 pistols and automatic weapons” now in private hands illegally.

“Other officials, including prosecutors, have also “lost” or “sold” weapons, and it is entirely possible that that pattern may explain recent reports that the defense minister has issued an order banning officers from carrying weapons without explicit permission, something that has infuriated many officers but may help prevent more guns from falling into the wrong hands.”

COMMENT:

Goble begins his article by sayingWhile the number of guns illegally in private hands in the Russian Federation is miniscule in comparison to weapons having that status in the United States.” I left that out of the above because it probably wasn’t in the Russian article and Goble doesn’t develop the contrast between American arms and Russian arms in private possession.

Goble does make the statement, “As a result of corruption and the sloppiness of the force structures,” he writes, “the population of Russia” is now in a position “to conduct a small civil war.” And while that may seem to be a journalistic exaggeration to people in countries with far more guns in private hands, for Russians, who in Soviet times had little access to guns, it may be shockingly appropriate.” But Goble doesn’t explain why no Civil War is being threatened in the US and why the fact that guns are in the hands of ordinary Russians may result in a civil war might seem “a journalistic exaggeration.”

Yes, Russia, and the other states in the Russian Federation have a history of being denied the right to bear arms. Probably no autocratic state likes weapons being in the hands of its subjects. Autocratic states aren’t governed by the will of the people but from top down. Stalin could do whatever he wanted and no one could counter his decisions, at least not long. He cleansed the USSR repeatedly of individuals who “might” disagree with him at some point. I don’t want to compare Putin to Stalin, but it would probably be fair to say that Putin doesn’t want the ordinary Russian Federation citizen to have as many rights as the ordinary US citizen.

The article doesn’t precisely say so, but Putin is probably more worried about the non-ethnic Russian Federation citizens, especially of ethnicities where large segments don’t really want to be part of the Russian Federation. To be fair, if the US had conquered minority nations and made them part of a US Federation, the fact that the US has a Liberal Democracy probably wouldn’t make any difference. If the minority believes it is being mistreated or coerced, it may react regardless of where it finds itself.

I notice that the Russian Federation is doing what Leftist Americans like to do: If there is a potential threat, target the guns. Taking guns away from Russian Police seems pathetic and ludicrous. Disarming the front line troops, the first to be attacked by this feared “civil war,” is straight out of the American Left-Wing play book: “Don’t have any guns, because if you do, the bad guys may take them away from you and shoot you with them.” That is a Left-Wing mantra.

Many here in the US anticipate that Obama’s administration may attempt to pass more restrictive gun laws, but whereas Russia has a history of keeping guns away from common citizens, the opposite is true in America; so while Democrats might get behind most of the Obama agenda, many Democrats are from States where the right to bear arms is important; so Obama shouldn’t expect as much support from his party on Gun issues.

I gather from this article that if policemen stop a car and find a weapon, they are supposed to confiscate it. If I understood what I read, this would mean that unarmed policemen will be expected to confiscate guns from embittered minorities. I would definitely not want to be Policeman in Russia.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

U.S. Media -- Kosovo and Bosnia

On page 125 of Warrior Politics, Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos, 2002, Robert D. Kaplan quotes Walter Cronkite to say, “Most newsmen feel very little allegiance to the established order. I think they are inclined to side with humanity rather than with authority and institutions.” Kaplan goes on to write, “In the hands of the media, the language of human rights – the highest level of altruism – becomes a powerful weapon that can lead us into wars that perhaps we should not fight.

“When the media finds a cause it can rally around, it can both shape and replace public opinion, as it did in Bosnia and Kosovo, when the media was overwhelmingly interventionist while the public, as the polls showed, remained unenthusiastic. The media and intellectual communities are professional castes no less distinguishable than those of military officers, doctors, insurance agents, and so on – and no more representative of the American population. As with other professional groups, they are often more influenced by each other than by those outside their social network. Faced with an indifferent public, this quasi-aristocracy may shape the views of Western leaders much as the ancient nobles did of their emperors. And the media’s arguments will be difficult to resist. Human rights arguments advanced by the media at their most extreme have a distinctly inquisitional air.

“Television correspondents at the scene of catastrophes . . . manifest an impassioned tunnel vision in which sheer emotion replaces analysis: nothing matters to them except the horrendous spectacle before their eyes – about which something must be done! The media embodies classical liberal values, which concern themselves with individuals and their well-being, whereas foreign policy is often concerned with the relationships between states and other large groups. Thus, the media is more likely to be militaristic when individual rights and suffering are concerned, rather than when a state’s vital interests are threatened.”

COMMENT:

I’m reminded of Walter Russell Mead’s book, Special Providence, also published in 2002. Mead describes 4 major trends that influence American foreign Policy. He calls them, 1) the Hamiltonian, 2) The Wilsonian, 3) The Jeffersonian, and 4) The Jacksonian. Modern individuals don’t necessarily fit in just one of these categories, but perhaps the American Media fits most comfortably in “The Jeffersonian.” Mead writes at one point that a Jacksonian is most likely to join the NRA; while a Jeffersonian is most likely to join the ACLU. The individual and individual rights are the concern of the Jeffersonian as it is for the American Media. But what of National Interest? What happens when Individual rights’ concerns come athwart National Interest? We saw what happens during the Vietnam War. The grand strategy that defined our National Interest during the Cold War was “Containment.” All the US administrations from Truman to Reagan believed in containing Communist aggression. It was in our National Interest they, as well as a majority of Americans, believed. And yet the Media, abetted by the American Left, emphasized individuals over National Interest during the Vietnam War – a war intended by the US to contain Communist aggression in Vietnam The Media would picture body bags, a young girl running from napalm, and other individual horrors. The logic of what they were advancing could be simplified as “individual safety trumps national interest.”

Is this true? Does individual safety, whether safety of Americans or safety of the enemies we are fighting trump national interest? Many in the American Media do seem to hold that position. Consider the recent Iraq war. Compared to other wars, we had very few casualties, but our media was not interested in statistics and comparisons. Here, they would say, look at this dead person, and this one. Also, look at this dead Iraqi, and that one. For the US Media, the Iraq War was one horror followed by another. But can a Foreign Policy be conducted with that sort of focus? I don’t see how. The reductio ad absurdum of this position would be to argue that we should never go to war unless we could promise not to kill anyone.

But is this always the position of the Media? Apparently not, as we see from the Kaplan quote. The Media was quite willing that America should go to war in Kosovo and Bosnia for “humanitarian reasons.” Humanitarian Reasons we can assume mean “individual Rights writ large.” Individuals are being killed – lots of them. Therefore, let’s send our troops over there to stop the killing. Madeleine Albright complained to General Powell, that we have this great army we aren’t willing to use. She wanted to use it. She, Clinton, and the American media were willing to use it in Kosovo and Bosnia for “Humanitarian Reasons.” Clinton, to avoid offending the Media and like-minded Jeffersonians sent his bombers over their targets so high that no anti-aircraft fire could hit them; so that none of the airmen would end up in body bags. But ironically, the bombers being so high were not very accurate in their bombing; hence, more “innocent civilians” were killed than if the bombers were lower; or even if we had cut back on the bombing and sent ground troops in to risk their lives.

One Russian told me that the Russian Media did something very like the American and showed pictures of innocent Serbian babies killed by American bombing. The reaction against that American horror contributed to Putin’s success.

Will the American, and perhaps the Russian people wise up to this Media’s Jeffersonian twist on modern day warfare? Will they notice that the Media plays up individual deaths in wars they don’t like and plays them do in wars they do?

No one can study everything. We all have to rely on others for some of our information. If we are relying totally on the Media, we need to make the effort to find a better source – or better sources. Where are those better sources? Build it (the recognition that better sources are needed) and they will come.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Dog Wars: Amstaffs and Ridgebacks

I am at the opposite end of the spectrum from someone who might pick out a puppy because “it’s cute.” I spent years as an engineer analyzing the appropriateness of parts and entire weapon systems for given tasks. I am too old a dog to teach new tricks. If I have to begin thinking about my “next dog,” then I must also think about my requirements and circumstances. What will this dog be expected to do? What do I want from this dog?

One of my requirements which I have come to think of as suspect is that I need two dogs. The Ridgeback is laid back and not much of a watchdog, at least not in the house I live in. Having one Ridgeback is not negotiable; so if I want watch-dog capability, then I must get a second dog. But, I have come to think recently, if I keep things locked up, then any intruder would have to make so much noise to get in that even a laid-back Ridgeback would probably wake up and go down to see what was going on. So I can probably get by with just one Ridgeback.

But before I came to this tentative decision (engineers never make absolute decisions), I considered the Amstaff, the American Staffordshire Terrier, the AST, as a second dog – the more alert watchdog. From all I’ve read, and from talking to a breeder, I think this is a great breed. But in terms of size, a male wouldn’t be that much smaller than a Ridgeback; so the only combination that would work, if I wanted to consider myself as having supplemented my laid-back Ridgeback with a smaller more-alert watchdog, would be a male Ridgeback and a female AST. I’m convinced that would be a good combination. My male Ridgeback might weigh 90 pounds and my female AST might weigh 45. The AST could be a watchdog at home and when we went chasing rabbits down at the river, I wouldn’t worry about her ability to defend herself.

From an engineering standpoint, the combination of a Ridgeback male and AST female seemed perfect, but then I started checking the AST discussion lists. I discovered something that reminded me of the NRA. I dropped my membership in the NRA because every month I would get a magazine that was filled with doom and gloom. I was made to feel guilty because I wasn’t out there campaigning against restrictive gun laws. Heck, I’ve got all the guns I’ll ever need. I don’t need to be harangued by that sort of thing every month. And with the AST something similar seems to go on. If you are an AST, Staffordshire Terrier, American Pit Bull, or just plain Pit Bull owner then you should be out in the trenches trying to stop restrictive dog laws. I imagined that if I got an AST I might be harangued more often than once a month. Then too, there might be restrictive Pit-Bull laws for my area that I am unaware of; or if not, then they may be on their way. And what about my home-owner’s insurance?

Gad. If I got an AST I wouldn’t worry about it being dangerous. As my son tells me, any dog I got and raised myself would probably turn out just like my girls. Maybe he is exaggerating a little, but not much. If I got an AST I wouldn’t worry about its causing trouble. It just wouldn’t. I’m not the sort of person where that would happen – as long as I have total control of the raising of a dog. But do I want to buy into a controversial dog war? Probably not.

My Ridgeback girls are quite a bit softer than my previous male Ridgeback, Trooper, but Trooper was raised and trained by my wife. When I would get home I would take him jogging and sometimes hiking, but Susan was with him all the other times and almost certainly influenced him more than I did. Susan herself has a softer personality than I do, and the dogs she raised turned out to be much tougher than the ones I raised; so maybe my future male Ridgeback, might seem like my girls. Well, okay. I can accept that better now than I could a few years ago.

I might question the degree of home-defense I have in my two “soft” Ridgeback girls, but Monday a Sears (now K-Mart) Dishwasher Repairman came to the house to check our malfunctioning Kenmore Dishwasher. I had the girls on the stairwell with a little fence down at the bottom. When the repairman came in and saw the girls through the stair railing, I could see panic in his eyes. They didn’t bark or growl but they were bouncing around and looking very intently at him. I assured the Repairman that the girls would stay on the stairs, and he accepted that and went to work, but probably anyone would be concerned to see two large unfamiliar dogs bouncing around and behaving like my girls. That’s probably all I need.

With Trooper, he had to check out each visitor and would not let anyone in unless Susan or I said it was okay. My girls aren’t like that, but maybe their effect is equivalent.

Now, I’m sure an AST would be an equivalent or even superior deterrent, but when I was looking for a second dog, I was not looking for an equal to a Ridgeback, but something a little different, a watchdog rather than a guard dog, but a dog who could at the same time defend itself down at the river where there are feral dogs and coyotes. I suspect an AST, even a female AST would sit on my stairs with my Ridgeback and represent a forbidding aspect to any visitor. An intruder would have an even worse time of it.

But the wind was taken out of my AST sails when I thought of all the political flack, and the dog war I would be expected to take part in.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

The Alzheimer Affair -- Memory of a Killer

I just watched De zaak Alzheimer, a 2003 Belgian movie given the English title “Memory of a Killer.” A more accurate translation of the Flemish title would be “The Alzheimer Affair.”

When I told my wife I was going to watch a movie about a hit-man who had Alzheimer’s disease. She observed, “surely it is a comedy.” I was more concerned that it might be a very heavy dose of pathos, but it was neither. The hit-man, Angelo Ledda, played by Jan Decleir, is experiencing the onset of Alzheimer’s and has medication to inhibit the progress. He tells his boss he doesn’t want to go on the current assignment, but his boss says “people like us don’t retire.” Gad, how often that concept is used. I wonder if there is any truth to it. Everyone gets old and retires; surely there must be retired hit-men floating around the world. It is absurd to think that they are all assassinated as soon as they get old or sick.

The same device was used in Blast of Silence. Frankie Bono wanted to quit but was told to complete his assignment which he did, but the mere mention of a desire to quite was enough for his boss to send out a team of hit-men to terminate him. Doesn’t sound very cost effective to me.

But Frankie Bono was a wimp compared to Angelo Ledda. When Ledda refuses to kill a 12 year old girl, he tells his employer that no one would take such an assignment, but someone does and then tries to kill Ledda. Ledda is extraordinarily effective for having Alzheimer’s. I wouldn’t think someone who was having episodes where he was forgetting what he did could do all that Ledda did in the movie. He manages the social things well enough. He remembers who he is going to kill and how to keep the police from tracing his phone, but he doesn’t escape from situations as quickly as he used to before he got Alzheimer’s – we are to assume.

A couple of sequences I didn’t like. One of the policemen, Vader Cuypers, played by Dirk Roofthooft, is supposedly a crack shot. We see him showing off at the pistol range much as Mel Gibson did in Lethal Weapon. A few scenes later Cuypers is in a position to kill Ledda, we are invited to assume, but his boss, Eric Vincke (played by Koen De Bouw) won’t get out of the way. But I rather doubt that Cuypers accuracy would overcome the deflective capability of a modern-day automobile windshield. Presumably Cuypers was shooting a nine-millimeter pistol. He would almost need to be shooting full-metal jackets to pierce the windshield and hit something immediately behind it, but these are dangerous rounds when there are innocent bystanders about and I doubt that policemen would be allowed to used them.. Hollowpoints seem like a more reasonable round for the police to be using, and one of those would be deflected by a windshield to some extent. I might be wrong about this, but we are invited to assume that all Vinke needed to do was move out of the way and crack-shot Cuypers would without fail fire through the front windshield of a car and kill Ledda. If Cuypers had a high powered rifle, I would believe it, but he didn’t so pardon me for having some doubt.

Also, a key element in the movie is when Ledda is cleaning his handgun, presumably a Browning Hi-Power, before going off to kill the Baron. We are led to believe that Ledda has an Alzheimer’s episode and forgets to reinstall his firing pin. I once had a Browning Hi-Power and do not recall field-stripping it to that level. .You want to make sure the barrel is clean and the slide moves freely, but disassembling it to the point where you have the firing pin and firing pin spring in your hand doesn’t ring true. Of course if this was the only gun Ledda ever used and he used it over and over perhaps he would know how and want to field strip it to such a level, but don’t hit-men want to get rid of guns after they use them? We learn from watching Frankie Bono that they do. He used a gun once and threw it away and was shot a short time later for lack of having a gun – quite a difference from Ledda who carries his gun around in a metal suitcase.

But just as I think Bono shouldn’t have thrown his handgun away; so Ledda shouldn’t have taken his gun as far apart as he did – doesn’t make sense.

Then too there is a fitting moral and medical ending to The Alzheimer Affair. Ledda goes down after being shot enough to satisfy a Japanese Yakuza-movie director. Ledda needed to die because he had killed a couple of policemen, but also this was a humane way for someone with Alzheimer’s to kill himself: stand outside and wave his pistol about.

But he didn’t need to wave his pistol because the police were already ordered to kill him: there was corruption at a high level in Belgian Law Enforcement -- ???. In the European paradise???? Say it isn’t so.

I didn’t find the film-depiction of Alzheimer’s all that convincing (which is probably a good thing). Ledda stands still looking dazed while the camera does a kaleidoscopic visit to what he does without remembering as well as what he recently did. Ledda’s Alzheimer’s was in effect no different from the blackout periods of an alcoholic. When he sees that the 12-year-old girls he refused to kill was nevertheless killed. In a panic he demands that the prostitute he is with assures him that he spent all night in the bed with her. An alcoholic who has blackouts might have that experience, but would someone with Alzheimer’s? Maybe, but it doesn’t ring true.

But despite my objections, I enjoyed the movie, perhaps to some extent because the director didn’t dwell so much on Alzheimer symptoms that I ended up depressed.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Returning to the Good Old Stalinist Days

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2009/05/window-on-eurasia-duma-draft-law.html

The above article was written by Paul Goble and posted on his web site, May 1, 2009. It’s title is “Duma Draft Law Against Rehabilitating Fascism Dangerous Nonsense, Moscow Commentator Says.”

Here are a few snippets from the article :

The subject draft legislation imposes penalties “on those who express a different view on the history of World War II.”

“. . . the draft legislation is ‘a historical stupidity.’ Instead of focusing attention on Nazism, the bill has the effect of focusing attention on the Soviet past and especially on the Stalinist period. . . .”

“Doesn’t this remind you of something?” Ikhlov [writes] . . . the USSR operated a totalitarian terrorist regime. But making a hero out of it is in no way prohibited.” Instead, President Dmitry Medvedev has again made November 7th, when the Soviet state was founded, a national holiday. . .”

“. . . the bill is a piece of “political theater,” intended to make propaganda points rather than become part of the rule of law, and one that appears set to serve as “a false pretext for dimwitted censorship and idiotic conflicts with the neighbors” of the Russian Federation.

“On the one hand, the law contains a large number of assertions about the legal standing of the Russian Federation which are simply untrue, including the remarkable and absurd suggestion that “the

Russian Federation is the continuer [rather than legal successor] of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
“And on the other, this bill could lead to absurd cases in which leaders of neighboring states – Ikhlov cites the president of Ukraine and the prime minister of Estonia – are charged with violating the law, convicted by a Moscow court – since that is where their embassies are – and where the sentence is enforced by Gazprom cutting off the gas to their countries.

“Despite these problems, Ikhlov says, the bill is likely to be passed by the Duma and signed by President Medvedev because no one in the Moscow political establishment will want to say anything that their opponents could and would construe as a defense of the totalitarianism of another state. Defending such a system at home, of course, is another matter entirely.”

COMMENT:

Maybe we ought to go back and revisit the belief of the early 1990s that the West won the Cold War. Here in the US we see legislation being proposed (that will surely be passed) moving us toward a European-type Welfare State. And here in this article we see that Russia is lusting for the leeks and garlics of Egypt. It misses the good old totalitarian days when someone in leadership told them what was right and what was wrong.

The Totalitarian Temptation is potent The world must have thousands of individuals who think their nations would be perfect if only they were in charge and making all the decisions. Well, Russia is heading in that direction. Maybe Ikhlov is wrong when he denies that the Russian Federation is a continuation of the USSR. Russians, many of them, long for the good old Soviet days. They admire Stalin. They aren’t willing to repudiate the USSR period of Russian history. Beyond that, they are now making it against the law to disagree with the official (Russian) version of World War II. What precisely is that official version? Does it mean that Gorbechav was right when he said NKVD soldiers killed the Polish Officers at Katyn? Or will the official version of that incident be that of Y. I. Mukhin as found in his book Katyn Detective?

It is true that much of Medieval History, for example, is not to be trusted because the victors always got to write them. Norman Cantor describes the progress of the study of Medieval History in his Inventing the Middle Ages. Nothing before 1900, he tells us, is to be trusted, but from then on many historians, with a desire to present truth accurately and fairly distinguish themselves. Cantor provides a bibliography in the back of his book listing the historians he believes are to be trusted. That is, historians that seek to provide truth and not a partisan position.

This is not an easy matter even when an historian is striving to be objective. R. G. Collingwood in his The Idea of History provides insight into the challenges a modern historian faces. Everyone is “prejudiced,” or as Collingwood puts it has a “constellation of presuppositions.” The historians job is to recognize his own presuppositions, own up to them and then strive to prevent their interfering with his pursuit of the truth.

Collingwood prescribes the criteria and Cantor describes the results, but their writings are applicable only ito societies where an historian can follow his own conscience. There will always be historians who don’t want to follow their own consciences, or don’t have a highly developed sense of morality, but an historian can if he choose behave honorably. No one in a Liberal Democracy is denying him the right to speak his mind.

But let us look at societies that aren’t free. Look at most of the Middle Eastern nations. There are famous cases where individuals attempted to speak out but were arrested, beaten and sometimes executed. We hear about the Islamic Moderate, but where is he? He is in hiding afraid to speak out because he doesn’t live in a free society. And after the Cold War we assumed that Russia who choose to be free. Who could imagine that the majority of Russians would want to return to a non-free Totalitarian Society?

Ikhlov treats as a joke the new legislation that makes it a punishable offense to disagree with the Official History of the Second World War. But I have read about many totalitarian regimes and don’t think it’s funny.

Political Scientists and historians tell us that only in a free society where entrepreneurs flourish do you have the technical innovations necessary to produce the great economic strides advanced (free) societies make. No one in leadership is in a position to dictate to the entrepreneur as to what he will invent, create, or discover. Leaders are bureaucrats which by definition means that they are inferior when it comes to such matters. This is true of military matters as we know from studying World War II. Stalin made some colossal blunders. He was like Hitler, a mediocre war leader, but nevertheless in total control of his nation’s war effort. More people were killed by Stalin’s blunders than were killed by all fighting forces in World War One. How is the official Russian History of World War II going to clean that up? Short answer: lie.

And if Russia is committed to a non-free totalitarian system where there is little innovation and few entrepreneurs, how shall it keep up with the free societies of the West? Short answer: spy on them.

I hope Ikhlov is right and this legislation will be seen as a joke and embarrassment, but I know there is a strong desire on the part of a sizable segment of the Russian population to return to the good old Stalinist days when things were “better” than they are now. Good luck, Ikhlov. Let’s hope they don’t arrest you.