Three-for-all

A trio of items to tackle today.

1) PITBULLSHIT...

Do we ban them, muzzle them, lock them in a big cage with their owners...what?
Let me preface this by saying: I love dogs. I had a collie named Cyndy who was my constant companion from age two to eleven; through my teens our family owned a succession of German Shepherds. (One year, I handled our dog Mac's to a first-place showing at the London Obedience Trials; my stepfather handled our other dog Seren to a very close second.)
So yes, I love dogs. But I hate dogs used as weapons. And let me tell you that a sizeable percentage of pitbull owners view their dogs in just that way. I have little use for people so insecure with themselves that they need a vicious dog to proclaim their superiority.
Having trained dogs, and done it well, I'm usually susceptible to the argument that 'it's not the dog, it's how you train it.' But not in the case of pitbull terriers and their related breeds. These dogs are bred for ferocity; training can only overcome so much. There have been numerous documented pitbull attacks wherein both victim and dog were simply minding their own business, and without warning the dog latched on...and woudn't let go. In the most recent attack, it took sixteen gunshots between two dogs to discourage them...and even then, one of them was still alive and had to be smothered to death. These aren't dogs. They're unpredictable killing machines dressed up to look like dogs.
So what's the solution? Do we ban the breeds?
If only it were that easy.
If you make pitbull terriers and their related breeds illegal, what do you do with, say, a Labrador-pitbull cross? Do we start practicing canine genocide, elminating all traces of the breed?
It honestly would be fine with me if we did...but then I'd like to live in a dreamworld without alcohol, too. It's quite simply impractical.
No, the answer lies in making pet owners responsible for the actions of their pets. If your little darling mauls a kid, you should be charged with assault causing bodily harm (and it goes without saying that your little darling should be euthanized.) If your dog--whatever the breed--God forbid kills some little kid, well, that'd be manslaughter.

2) TEENAGE ASININITY

Just before midnight last night, a few short blocks from my home, a fifteen year old was critically injured. He was on a skateboard, being towed behind a car driven by his friend, when he slipped off and hit his head on the pavement.
Wonder how much money our health care system is wasting treating this Einstein?
Sorry, that sounds heartless. I do hope that the boy (notice, it's usually boys involved in things like this?) makes a full recovery, and that his recovery involves a brain transplant.
Um, somebody shut me up.
No, really, I'm trying to think back to when I was fifteen. That'd be 1987. I'm wondering if I was ever up until midnight on any night that year. I kind of doubt it. And if I was, I sure as hell never found myself on a skateboard, being towed by a car, at that hour or any other.
Did that make me a perfect kid? Hell no. That made me a normal kid.
My wife says I was overprotected as a child, and I can grudgingly admit she's right. I can even admit that my being coddled as a kid led to my coddling myself as a teenager. But there's a difference between taking risks for the fun of it and pretending your skateboard is a surfboard.
Isn't there?
If there's anything I hope to teach my children--without overprotecting them--it's a healthy respect for potentially dangerous situations. I should hope that my kid's smart enough to just sort of intuitively understand that pavement is much harder than the human head, though...

3) THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL CAT-KILLING FESTIVAL

I like movies. I like a wide variety of movies, from blockbusters to movies invariably referred to as "films". Subtitles don't faze me. When I go to the cineplex, I want to see a story brought to life.
I've always wanted to go to the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF ranks second or third in the world for sheer size; you can see a stunning array of cinema from all over the world in a week.
But this year, among the soon-to-be box-office champs and soon-to-be critically acclaimed, will be showing a "film" called Casuistry. What this "film" purports to be about is killing cats as an artistic statement.
I don't mind violence in cinema. Much. And I am not one of those PETA freaks straight out of Animal Farm ... "Four legs good, two legs bad". But any "film" whose sole raison d'etre is animal cruelty has no business being shown in somebody's basement, let alone at a venue like TIFF. And any film festival that dares to defend such a film as art or its perpetrator-creators as artists has forever lost my business.