I don’t know about you guys, but I'm desensitized to almost every awful news story.
For example, when Matt Lauer says "A man in Florida (Or Texas, it's usually one of those 2 states for some reason) was arrested yesterday, charged with the murder of 45 little schoolgirls,” or I hear that “A bomb went off in such and such High School”
or a friend tells me that a “Mudslide killed thousands in Italy, " I may feel a small ping of sympathy or fascination. Sometimes I may even get upset for a few minutes, until my roommate’s dog Rio decides to shit on my bed or I’m running late for a dinner date, and poof. Like magic, I never think of those poor wee schoolgirls or those muddy Italians again.
Thankfully for the most part I'm inured to disaster or pathos or another's pain. How else would I survive? It doesn't trouble me too much, I know I'm not alone. We all do it, in one way or another. I mean, I'm pretty sure that very few surgeons or Nurses or Doctors were instaneously cool when groping through someones innards the very first time. Right? I bet most of them were as grossed out as you or I would be at the idea of touching someones rotting bowel. (I betcha some even had difficulty keeping down the delicious egg sandwich they had recently eaten in the cafeteria.)
I haven't read any surveys, but I'll venture to say we’re all like this.
We become so inured to others pain & misery that it simply doesn’t register, because we have to protect ourselves.
However, every now & then something I read or hear about will punch through my chest, grab me by my throat and haunt me, like a fucking ghost. And he only way to exorcise the damn thing is to try to do something about it.
Sometimes the hauntings are relatively brief, like Katrina or 9/11. Oh, they're still there, mind you. The images, the feelings, the horror. But they've quietly stepped aside, making room for other ghosts.
Others seem to be more permanent. Like the desperate need for a sober high school in NYC. I’ll never forget`hearing about it for the first time-- I was 7 months sober and walking in the West Village with Joe Schrank on a gorgeous fall afternoon.
Joe told me how many lives sober high schools save, and that there are so many successful ones all over US, yet not one in New York City or State. Now, I don’t have children. I don’t really like most teens. Until this day, I certainly had zero investment or interest in the NYC public school system.
Good for Joe. I’ll give him a donati...
But then he tells me that the Boston area alone has 4 such schools. That teens in NYC who want to stay sober are forced to go to school up there.
And that the NYC Board of Ed wouldn't even entertain this idea.
That pissed me off.
I immediately joined forces with this fight. I emailed the Chancellor of schools office and explained that Sarah Jessica Parker and I needed to see him urgently. (Settle down, she's a friend of mine.) When I showed up alone, I explained she was ill.
This bitch (the ghost, not SJ) has haunted me for six long years as I created a board (www.slamnyc.org) and have fought for one simple goddamn thing: a “yes” from The NYC Board of Ed. No money. No space. We will provide all of that. JUST A YES so we can begin plans.
But the ghost that’s been with me the longest is how some human beings treat animals. My oldest & best friend in the world, Jackie, her sister Wendy and their entire family are staunch rescuers. I’ve been with Jackie on a freeway when she somehow saw a dog darting through trafffic, and spent the next 4 hours trying to capture the terrified pooch, taking it’s stinky ass to a vet, and driving it to one of the many rescue organizations she knew of.
In college, I spent many a hungover Saturday am helping them set up the weekly pet adoption fair her family organized. It’s through Jackie that I was blessed with Stella and Lulu. Not to mention I became a life-long supporter of rescue organizations, and will always admire the crazy, loving people who do this work.
Jackie made me see a film ‘Blinders’ by Donny Moss (Chilling & magnificent. If interested, I think they sell on Peta website) which is about the horse-drawn carriages in Central Park. The film angered me so much that I even agreed to pose in the altogether. Come on-- fighting abuse with nudity? That works, no?
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All this preamble is because this week, I saw something happened that made my blood run cold. And I was grabbed by the throat by the ghost of a sweet gentle dog and knew I needed to do something. His name was Arzy.
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Post-script:
Since I was 20, I've rescued many dogs. Especially those considered "hard to place" (slightly older, difficult breeds like pit bulls or German Shepherds.) As you guys know from my post Stella, I have a special love for these kinds of dogs. They won't win any beauty competitions, but each & every one of them was kind, obedient, grateful, loving, and non-aggressive.
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Note the owners' leg to the left, and the officers feet on right. I've thought many, many times about this woman. How well-fed her leg looks. And, despite obvious mistreatment, Pinky was looking at her the way she looks at me...with adoration & love.
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For example, when Matt Lauer says "A man in Florida (Or Texas, it's usually one of those 2 states for some reason) was arrested yesterday, charged with the murder of 45 little schoolgirls,” or I hear that “A bomb went off in such and such High School”
or a friend tells me that a “Mudslide killed thousands in Italy, " I may feel a small ping of sympathy or fascination. Sometimes I may even get upset for a few minutes, until my roommate’s dog Rio decides to shit on my bed or I’m running late for a dinner date, and poof. Like magic, I never think of those poor wee schoolgirls or those muddy Italians again.
Thankfully for the most part I'm inured to disaster or pathos or another's pain. How else would I survive? It doesn't trouble me too much, I know I'm not alone. We all do it, in one way or another. I mean, I'm pretty sure that very few surgeons or Nurses or Doctors were instaneously cool when groping through someones innards the very first time. Right? I bet most of them were as grossed out as you or I would be at the idea of touching someones rotting bowel. (I betcha some even had difficulty keeping down the delicious egg sandwich they had recently eaten in the cafeteria.)
But I wonder how soon the sights, smells, the textures all started to feel familiar? To feel like "just another day at the office"? I'm guessing much faster than we might think. Within a few days, at most. A man who'd been clammy & nauseous one day, is suddenly calm as a cucumber.
We become so inured to others pain & misery that it simply doesn’t register, because we have to protect ourselves.
Others seem to be more permanent. Like the desperate need for a sober high school in NYC. I’ll never forget`hearing about it for the first time-- I was 7 months sober and walking in the West Village with Joe Schrank on a gorgeous fall afternoon.
Joe told me how many lives sober high schools save, and that there are so many successful ones all over US, yet not one in New York City or State. Now, I don’t have children. I don’t really like most teens. Until this day, I certainly had zero investment or interest in the NYC public school system.
Good for Joe. I’ll give him a donati...
But then he tells me that the Boston area alone has 4 such schools. That teens in NYC who want to stay sober are forced to go to school up there.
And that the NYC Board of Ed wouldn't even entertain this idea.
That pissed me off.
I immediately joined forces with this fight. I emailed the Chancellor of schools office and explained that Sarah Jessica Parker and I needed to see him urgently. (Settle down, she's a friend of mine.) When I showed up alone, I explained she was ill.
In college, I spent many a hungover Saturday am helping them set up the weekly pet adoption fair her family organized. It’s through Jackie that I was blessed with Stella and Lulu. Not to mention I became a life-long supporter of rescue organizations, and will always admire the crazy, loving people who do this work.
Jackie made me see a film ‘Blinders’ by Donny Moss (Chilling & magnificent. If interested, I think they sell on Peta website) which is about the horse-drawn carriages in Central Park. The film angered me so much that I even agreed to pose in the altogether. Come on-- fighting abuse with nudity? That works, no?
All this preamble is because this week, I saw something happened that made my blood run cold. And I was grabbed by the throat by the ghost of a sweet gentle dog and knew I needed to do something. His name was Arzy.
Here’s a part of the tale, from The Bangor Daily News:
Maine man fighting back after police allegedly shot, killed his dog in LouisianaA few days later, The Huffington post gave more details and an update:Brandon Carpenter, a musician from Portland, said Wednesday that a Louisiana police officer shot and killed his dog Monday morning, even though the “incredibly friendly” dog was on a four-foot leash.“That dog wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Carpenter said of his 90-pound dog. “Everybody loved Arzy. Everybody said, ‘Oh, he’s so friendly. So gentle.’ He was an angel in dog form.”
The 28-year-old musician had hopped a freight train from Lafayette, Louisiana, to Sulphur, Louisiana with a friend. The duo was on their way to stay with friends in Lake Charles, Louisiana, their backpacks, guitars and the 14-month-old Newfoundland-Labrador-golden retriever mix in tow, when they got off the train in the early morning.
“We were exhausted, and as we were walking, it started to rain,” Carpenter said.
They decided to find a place to sleep a little out of the rain, and clambered into the back of an empty box truck that was parked in the lot of the city newspaper, the Southwest Daily News. About 10 minutes after they got in, Carpenter said, they jolted awake by a police officer who drew his gun and ordered them to get out.
“We did everything he asked us to do,” Carpenter said, adding that he tied Arzy to a fence with a short leash when Officer Brian Thierbach of the Sulphur Police Department told him to secure his dog. Thierbach put the men in handcuffs and ordered them to get on the ground, facing away from the dog. Then the officer asked if the dog was going to bite or attack him, Carpenter recounted.
“I said no, it’s an incredibly friendly dog. He’s a big teddy bear,” he said.
According to Carpenter and a witness, the officer pet the dog for a few seconds.
“His tongue was out. His tail was wagging. That’s my dog,” Carpenter said. “Arzy maybe did a little sniff, like do you want to play? Then [the officer] jumped down from the back of the truck and shoots my dog in the head. I watched him convulse his last breath and twitch the life out of him.”
Carpenter said that the officer threw their belongings out of the truck. Carpenter said “‘You didn’t have to shoot him.’ The officer smiled at me and said, ‘He nipped at my foot.’ But Arzy did nothing like that.”
Eyewitness Eric Midkiff said in an official statement to police that Arzy did not attack the officer. “He also stated that he saw the dog wagging his tail and acting in a friendly manner, and that it was when the dog bumped against Thierbach that the officer immediately responded by shooting the animal,” the newspaper account stated.
While Carpenter could not see what happened between Thierbach and the dog, Eric Midkiff could. Midkiff, the circulation manager for the Southwest Daily News, told HuffPost last week that he drove into the parking lot at some point after Thierbach had cuffed the men.
Midkiff said he stood about 20 feet away, and could see the officer standing on the back of the box truck petting Arzy.
"The dog was rubbing up against the cop," Midkiff said. "He would rub the dog's back and then push him away. All of a sudden, he just jumped down and shot the dog in the head."
Though Thierbach later claimed the dog bit him, Midkiff was adamant that he could see both the officer and dog clearly and that no bite occurred.
"That dog did not bite that officer," he said. "The dog was wagging his tail, his tongue was hanging out."
Carpenter whipped around when he heard the gunshot. "I saw the blood start to run down his face," he told HuffPost. "I'm watching my dog die while I'm sitting in cuffs."
He also said Arzy, who he raised since puppyhood, was an "incredibly friendly dog" and had never acted aggressively towards anyone. "He was just a big teddy bear that you had to feed," Carpenter said.
Carpenter added that Thierbach "seemed to be fighting back a smile" after the shooting, and when he asked the officer why he was smiling, he "smirked" and replied, "Well, he nipped at my foot."
The Sulphur Police Department and the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office launched a joint investigation into the shooting that found Thierbach "violated the Sulphur Police Department's Departmental Policy and Procedure regarding Use of Force and Personal Conduct and Behavior," Sulphur Police Chief Lewis Coats said in a Thursday news release obtained by KPLC-TV.Thierbach resigned before "final disciplinary action" was taken against him.
"The resignation of Officer Thierbach was accepted so that the officers and community can heal and move forward," Coats said in the release.
I believe that this deserves justice. As does Arzy. Brandon and his supporters have started a FB page Justice For Arzy. Please, visit it, like it, voice your support.
I would be destroyed if some officer shot my pit bull Pinky.
Thank you to Carly for keeping this issue front & center. I hope this helps.
We support you, Brandon!
And Arzy clearly was incredible. He must've been, it takes a lot to grab my throat these days.
KJo
And Arzy clearly was incredible. He must've been, it takes a lot to grab my throat these days.
KJo
Post-script:
Since I was 20, I've rescued many dogs. Especially those considered "hard to place" (slightly older, difficult breeds like pit bulls or German Shepherds.) As you guys know from my post Stella, I have a special love for these kinds of dogs. They won't win any beauty competitions, but each & every one of them was kind, obedient, grateful, loving, and non-aggressive.
I love it when someone who's paid 2 grand for their dog from some fancy breeder comes over and is shocked by how well-behaved my dogs are. "You mean they don't eat your shoes? Or bite children? Or jump up on you? Or piss all over your house?"
Nope. None of them have. Some people say I've been lucky. But I know the truth....in almost every case, rescued dogs are eternally grateful. They will never be spoiled. They will love you for the rest of their life.
Now, if someone I know buys a dog from a store (meaning a puppy mill)...well, I'm happy to say that's never happened. But if it did, I daresay I'd like them a lot less. Jackie would de-friend them.
I rescued Pinky from the ASPCA around 61/2 years ago. She was a breeding bitch, used to breed fighting dogs.
She was starved. Here are 2 pictures from the day she was rescued (By a cop, not all of them are bad):
Note the owners' leg to the left, and the officers feet on right. I've thought many, many times about this woman. How well-fed her leg looks. And, despite obvious mistreatment, Pinky was looking at her the way she looks at me...with adoration & love.
See?
She is the light of my life.
