People Who Don't Walk Their Dogs are Oppressors!

A couple of months ago I was walking my dog, Asher. He's a 7-year-old black lab. He grew up down in Cape Girardeau where I rented a house next door to a huge fenced in chunk of land owned by my fraternity. He was raised without a leash around a lot of people. His best friend growing up was a goat named Duke (a goat I ultimately got stuck taking care of). He's completely socialized and has never so much as growled at anybody or anything. The rabbits that hang out in our South City yard rarely even flinch when he comes lumbering out the back door. I know everyone says this type of shit about their dog, but ask anyone who's ever met Asher, the most violent thing he's ever done is accidentally knock over a beer with his whip-like tail.

KBO and I like to take him on walks without his leash. He never goes more than ten feet ahead of us and doesn't chase after animals or people when he sees them. It's pretty safe. Anyway, Asher and I were minding our own business listening to some Ryan Adams (Jacksonville City Nights...one of the best albums of the decade and closest I've ever gone to embracing country music), when some dude pokes his head of his house. The yard was littered with pink bikes and large plastic things of varying degrees of obnoxiousness.

"Hey! Hey you!"

Asher stopped and turned around, so I took off my headphones.

"Excuse me!" The voice behind me was definitely hostile. I hate assholes.

"Yes?"

"You know there are leash laws!"

"Don't worry, he's harmless. I've had him for seven years and he's never bit anyone or anything."

My words echoed deep within the corridors of this dude's icy stare.

"Okay, yeah...sorry."

I called Asher, he came running and sat down next to me, I put his leash on, and we walked quickly away. Looking back on it now, I wish I had something more clever to cut this guy off his "I have four kids so I'm better than you" pedestal. But I didn't.

On the way back we walked up the ally. It runs right aside old Leash-Law's fenced in back-yard. His dogs freak the fuck out. He has three of them and they bark like they want to rip your throat out when you walk past. There's a gap in the fence where these caged Cujo psycho-beasts broke through in a desperate lung for the blood of some poor innocent leash-less dog-walker. Fuckers.

I remembered this sequence of events when I walked past the yard today, Asher fully leashed, and tried to discard some poo in the ally dumpster. As I stared into the eyes of the crazed creatures, I began to feel sorry for them. And all of the other dogs in South St. Louis that are permanently imprisoned in their back yards. Leash-Law never walks his dogs. He lives twenty feet from my house and I've never seen his dogs outside of his yard. I mean, the dude has four kids at the perfect age to walk their three dogs. Why don't you walk your dog Leash-dude?

South city folks love dogs. Not just one dog, but three or four. Between the house next door and the one right across the alley, there are a combined SEVEN dogs. All of them bark with passionate intensity at any movement. I'll be working in my backyard for hours and they will bark and bark until the neighbor sprays them with a hose. These dogs are never walked either.

I know we have more important matters to attend to with Israel on a genocidal rampage in Gaza, and the economy recovering from eight years of irresponsible conservatism, but this is something I really need to get off my chest. Dogs need to be walked. They need to be socialized. They should be taken to the park. They should be allowed to run around. Anyone who buys a dog just to imprison in a small backyard or chain to a tire should be sent to asshole rehab. Fucking oppressors.

So, the next time you cringe at the site of a leash-less dog, Dude-on-the-Corner, you better recognize. Not all dogs have been caged to the point of insanity. Chill the fuck out.

Watch Out!

I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank the outgoing shithead Republican Senators for screwing us over one last time. Glad to see you handling the defeat with class guys. Good luck on K Street!

At least now we know what to expect from the GOP assholes still lucky enough to be clutching to their Senate seats: eight years of whatever it takes to fuck the country over. We know most of them will blindly cling to their ideology no matter what direction common sense may point. We know power is more important to them than the well-being of the country. And they know that a successful Obama administration might signal the death of their kind. They have no message, no leadership, no new ideas...all they have left is desperation. It ain't gonna to be pretty, my friends.

In a preview of future douchebag behavior, Senate Republicans blocked the auto industry bailout last night. Why? Apparently, middle class blue-collar workers are making too much money. Let Ms. Maddow break it down for you.



Yes. You heard her right. They are so ideologically opposed to everyday American workers who organize and fight for their rights, they would rather see the industry collapse than pass up an opportunity to cripple the evil unions. Never mind that the income gap is wider than ever. Never mind the massive layoffs occurring all across the country. Never mind the fat pockets of CEOs all across the country. Never mind the fact that the collapse of the auto industry IS NOT Joe the assembly line worker's fault. Never mind the fact that these very Senate Republicans are more responsible for the collapse of the economy than ANYBODY ELSE. None of that matters. It's the union's fault because Rush said so. After all, these Grand Old Pieces of shit love nothing more than blaming people who work two jobs to support their family.

I'm not going to lie, I was skeptical of the auto bailout for a while. There is nothing that makes me angrier than the arrogance American car companies displayed in the late 90s and early 00s. The endless bombardment of testosterone-pumped commercials for giant SUVs and trucks made me nauseous. When I see a Hummer, I want to throw something through it's window. The demise of the EV1 is one of the greatest tragedies in the history of industry. The guys who have been running the show for the past 10 years are idiots, and they need to go.

But the more I hear from people on the ground in Detroit, the more I understand why action is so important. People need jobs right now. The economy cannot grow if the current job loss trend continues. Manufacturing has almost completely dried up in the US. Now is not the time to watch more jobs head overseas. Republicans have been gambling taxpayer dollars on Wall Street for the past eight years, why not gamble on the middle class for once.

Ultimately, this is a gamble. It might not work. We have to accept this fact, grab our collective nut sack, and have faith in the people. At least this time we are betting on something we believe in. As we have found out many times in the past, when we invest in hardworking Americans, they come through. It's the only way we'll get out of this recession alive.

*I stumbled upon the Maddow clip at Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!, so you should check it out.

Is Blagojevich a Sociopath? Scandal in Six Minutes

Editor's Note: I've been working on a couple of posts that have gone Skynet on me. Pride is the only thing standing between me and the self-destruct button, but never fear, I will do what has to be done to save the planet from a hostile cyborg takeover. I hope to get back to long angry rants soon. I promise.

So the governor of our friendly neighbors to the northeast is a scumbag. So what? We're pretty used to it by now. It sucks that he's a Democrat, but, as we learned from the brief political career of Jerry Springer, corruption don't discriminate. I always knew he was kind of a dick from the snippets of news that would trickle down to Missoura occasionally, but good lord, what a fucking idiot. I'm sure there are many reasons for his reckless arrogance, blatant disregard for the rule of law, and obvious emotional immaturity, but I'm going with a full blown mental illness.

Not only does this guy possess the moral and ethical compass of a whipworm, but he's in complete and total denial. Let's take a look at how Governor Rod Blagojevich stacks up against some of the warning signs of Sociopathy.

+Superficial charm - Have you seen that haircut? Check.

+Manipulative - He tried to use political leverage to get a sweet job for his wife? Check.

+Grandiose sense of self - He is refusing to step down even after the President-Elect and ALL 50 Senators call for his resignation? Check.

+Pathological lying - The day before his arrest after a wire tap revealed he tried to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder, he told the country, "if anybody wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it. ... [W]hatever I say is always lawful."

Check.

+Lack of remorse, shame, or guilt - His lawyer the day of his arrest: "He didn't do anything wrong." Uhhhh, did you hear what they recorded with that wiretap? Check.

+Seeing others as targets and opportunities, not people - When speaking about President-Elect Obama, he said, "They're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them." Check.

+Irresponsibility - Conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery? Check.

+Criminal Versatility - They didn't even need the Senate seat talk to bust him. Check.

I could go on, but my soul hurts. Can we stop talking about this now? No? Fine.

As entertaining as it is, you're probably too busy to sift through the 76-page document detailing the charges against Blagojevich. Never fear! Rachel Maddow was kind enough to sum it up for us in six hilarious minutes. Her recap is complete with voice actors playing Rod and his wife Patricia. Very nice Rachel. Very nice.


Oh, and one final note of beautiful poetic justice that not enough people are talking about...he had to go before the judge in sweat pants. Can someone please find a picture of this? Please?