JESSIE JACKSON RESPONDS TO MEL GIBSON'S RACIAL SLURS

Jessie Jackson has called Mel Gibson's racial slurs "reprehensible and irresponsible."
"He wouldn't have said these things had his ex-girlfriend been a white person."
When Jackson was told Gibson's ex was a Russian woman from the Ukraine, he responded, "See, I told you so. I heard she had big old fake boobies."

In related news, when told Gibson had referred to Chihuahua dogs as "wetback" dogs, Jackson said, "I thought they were 'Hymie' dogs." After learning that the dogs were native to Mexico, Jackson said Chihuahua sounded a lot like Hanukkah. "I sense a conspiracy," he said.

Gibson has been accused of physical assault on Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of one of his children. According to Grigorieva, Gibson on several occasions been violent with her and even knocked out two of her teeth.

Gibson has responded to the allegation by saying that they were only "baby teeth."

Recently the motion picture megastar has been seen running on the beach in Malibu wearing a kilt and shouting "Freedom!"
When asked if he ever called Chihuahua dogs "wetback" dogs, Gibson said, "Not this f---ing Jewish thing again! That's the way it happened okay. God told me so."
The fallout from Gibson's statements are expected to end his career in motion pictures, though sources say Gibson is working on a remake of the classic DeMille film "Birth of a Nation."

When reporters asked Jessie Jackson if he thought the comments would adversely affect Gibson's career, he said, "They wouldn't have treated him that way if he'd been a white man."
One reporter said that Mel Gibson originally came from Australia.
"See, I told you so," said Jackson.

Photo courtesy of Orrin and Flickr.

MEL GIBSON CURSES OUT HIS EX-DOG!

A recording of a phone call is making the circuit in which Mel Gibson verbally abuses his dog.

"You have those fake teats and you are going around mating with all the male dogs in town," Gibson reportedly says in a phone call to his ex-pet.

Gibson could not be reached for a comment, and his publicist will not admit or deny that it is Gibson voice on a phone call to the animal.

In the call, a male voice that sounds like Gibson says, "You are just a bitch in heat. The way you chase around the neighborhood, it'll be your own fault if a bunch of pit bulls get ahold of you."

Gibson was recently accused of kicking his dog during an argument. It's also been reported that Gibson once had a career in motion pictures.

Since the news of his animal cruelty surfaced, friends say Gibson is back in Austrailia, running around in a kilt, painting his face, and repeating lines from the film "Sunset Boulevard."

"It's business as usual for Mel," says an unnamed source. "These unfounded rumors don't affect him in the least."

In related news, there is apparently no truth to the rumor that Nicole Kidman wants to renounce her Austrailian citizenship.

Photo by Flickr, courtesy of Orrin.

Two Dogs Attack Passersby in Golden Gate Park

The other day, in broad daylight, two pit-bull mix dogs attacked several passersby in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Police suspect that the dogs belonged to homeless people who live in the park. One of the dogs was shot in an effort to subdue it. No one has come forward to claim the dogs, and it is likely that both will be destroyed.

How is it that we have come to this? I have seen homeless people sleeping in the walkways of Golden Gate Park. It is supposedly illegal to do so, but nonetheless, it happens. It is not a safe environment for humans or dogs to sleep in the park. Drug use is rampant. (By the way, tobacco smoking is illegal in Golden Gate Park. It is assumed that shooting hard drugs is not.)

I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the homeless. My wife suggests that they may keep the dogs in order to protect themselves. San Francisco has this odd attitude toward the problem. There has been homeless encampments, tent cities in view of city hall. The mayor, Gavin Newsome, who is running for Lt. Governor, seems at a loss on how to deal with the problem. To be fair, his predecessors hadn't an answer for the problem either. But living in the park is not a solution.

When I was younger, and I lived in San Francisco, I used to walk or jog across the park at night in order to get home. We had several buses and streetcars that served the area around the park. Late at night one bus ran on one side of the park, and the streetcar ran on my side. If I tired of waiting for the streetcar, I might take the bus, and just walk across the park to my side and home. Now daylight use of Golden Gate Park can be dicey. How is that serving the people of San Francisco or the homeless?

Have we given up?

Some years back, San Francisco bragged about their new public toilets in the style of Paris. There was serious discussion about giving free passes to the homeless to use these toilets. So far so good right? We don't want the homeless defecating and urinating in the streets. But also the City of St. Francis was taking into account the use of those toilet facilities for shooting hard drugs. Another San Francisco debate centered around "drug zones" where shooting up would be tolerated. The rationale was that it would be easier to provide clean needles in such zones. Heaven help us.

Many of you know I am concerned about the adoption of "homeless" pets. I am not without empathy for my fellow humans. But the so-called enlightened attitudes toward homelessness serves no one. Not the homeless, nor their dogs, nor the public. Homeless encampments solve nothing. Sleeping in the park endangers the general public and the homeless. It is much easier for city managers to wash their hands of the homeless by pretending to care with an attitude of excessive toleration. Perhaps the word offends us. Toleration. But the attitude serves no one.

Lindsay Lohan's Dog Jailed. R-T U Painted on Nails.

After Lindsay Lohan was sentenced to jail yesterday, her dog, Screwthejudge was sentenced to 90 days in the hoosegow for drinking from the toilet and barking incessantly. Lohan's bitch had RUT U painted on her nails.
"It's not fair," said Screwthejudge. "That other bitch doesn't get sent immediately to pound, how come I do? I want to go back to rehab."
Lohan has been the subject of countless stories in the media for her bizarre and self-destructive behavior. Lohan's dog has often been seen intoxicated on toilet water.
The judge who sentenced Screwthejudge to the pound was unavailable for comment. Lindsay Lohan had this to say, "x^%%$***@&!"
Screwthejudge's lawyer, J. Cheever Loophole says he will appeal the sentence.

Photo by Flickr-- Joe Focus.

My Favorite Dog in Literature. Colin.

"So I resolved to acquire a dog, and bought one from a


prospector, who was stony-broke and would have sold his soul

for a drink. It was an enormous Boer hunting-dog, a mongrel

in whose blood ran mastiff and bulldog and foxhound, and

Heaven knows what beside. In colour it was a kind of brindled

red, and the hair on its back grew against the lie of the rest of

its coat. Some one had told me, or I may have read it, that a

back like this meant that a dog would face anything mortal,

even to a charging lion, and it was this feature which first

caught my fancy. The price I paid was ten shillings and a pair

of boots, which I got at cost price from stock, and the owner

departed with injunctions to me to beware of the brute's

temper. Colin - for so I named him - began his career with

me by taking the seat out of my breeches and frightening Mr

Wardlaw into a tree. "

From John Buchan's Prester John.




While Enzo, from The Art of Racing in the Rain may be the funniest canine anyone has ever written about, it is difficult to give him my nod as my favorite dog to grace the pages of a book. It is a close race for number one with me. Racing in the Rain is the best darn dog book going, but since Enzo can relate his feelings to us, I am going to give Colin from John Buchan's Prester John the nod as my favorite "real" dog in literature.

Prester John is not a dog book, but an adventure story by the author of The 39 Steps. If you haven't read Buchan, you're in for a treat. His books give a wonderful view of the British stiff-upper-lip society around the time of The Great War. No, it is not high literature Buchan writes I suppose. But it is fine example of the adventure genre of the period. The writing is somewhere between Joseph Conrad and H. Rider Haggard. Not quite literature but not pulp either.

Prester John is the story of a young man's journey to Blaawildebeestefontein in the Transvaal in South Africa. I will warn the reader that it contains some racial terms many might consider offensive, language similar to Heart of Darkness. This should not stop anyone from reading Buchan though, any more than one should not read Conrad.

Colin is all dog. Mean, nasty and unrepentantly so. Yet he is loyal to a fault. In general I do not find the idea of a vicious dog appealing, yet Colin so fits his environment that his appeal for me is irresistible.

"Wherever I went - on the road, on the meadows of


the plateau, or on the rugged sides of the Berg - it was the

same. I had silent followers, who betrayed themselves now and

then by the crackling of a branch, and eyes were always looking

at me which I could not see. Only when I went down to the

plains did the espionage cease. This thing annoyed Colin

desperately, and his walks abroad were one continuous growl.

Once, in spite of my efforts, he dashed into the thicket, and a

squeal of pain followed. He had got somebody by the leg, and

there was blood on the grass."

From Prester John.

Buchan's books are worth a read.

RUNAWAYS! Have a runaway dog story? Tell it here.

One July 4th, my dogs ran away because of fear of fireworks. Maurice and Pearl. The name Maurice came from a Steve Miller song "Enter Maurice" (or something like that) and Pearl was named for Janis Joplin. They took off, the two of them, and decided to wander the neighborhood. I found them about a mile away, wandering in a field.

Maurice was a dog who liked to wander. His last conscious act was to amble to the end of the driveway in an effort to stroll the neighborhood, then-- he died. I swear. I love him even more for final act of rebellion.
But Maurice came back without much trouble when you found him, not like a Scottie I had who enjoyed the game of catch me, the little s.o.b.

Actually, I worked the night shift at that time in July my two dogs ran off. I don't know if my wife called me at the office to tell me the dogs had run, or if I knew before I left for work. Anyway, I just happened to ask a supervisor if he'd seen any dogs on his way to work, and he said he had seen two in a field, and I went and picked them up. They were unrepentant.

A local story on the news today told of a police dog who jumped a fence and ran off because of fireworks. I don't guess that dog was from Oakland or he would've been used to the sound of gunshots.

My daughter and her husband's dog is a wanderer. He jumps-- no climbs their fence and goes to the bar about 50 yards away. The bar has my daughter's number, they call, as if Xena the dog were a husband who drank too much and needed to be picked up. This is a true story.

Xena also climbs trees. Go figure.

I used to drive a cab in San Diego as a college student. One night I picked up a passenger in front of a bar. If I remember, someone helped him into the backseat where he collapsed into a near-unconscious heap. I asked him where he wanted to go. He blubbered that he didn't know his address.

I called my dispatcher.

The call went something like this: "I got this guy in my cab who is drunk and doesn't know where he lives."

"Where'd you pick him up 818?" (my cab number)

"At the Dew-Drop Inn."

"That's Joe," the dispatcher said, and he gave me an address.

It's kinda pitiful when a human is reduced to the equivalent of a dog in the art of communication. I guess the drunk should have been wearing tags. Remember this the next time you decide to party 'til you puke.

My current dog, Lulu was a runaway. Her name was Marian then. She took off, was gone a week, and though the shelter found her owners, they decided they didn't want her anymore. Lulu was five-months old at the time, covered in fleas. When my wife, daughter and I went to the shelter looking to adopt a dog, Lulu almost didn't go home with us.

Lulu was scared to death of humans. She wanted nothing to do with me, and barely allowed my wife and daughter a chance to touch her. I don't know how we decided on her. She was skinny, scared, and had obviously been mistreated.

She's a very pretty dog, about 40 pounds or so. It took her a long time to get over her fear of men. She still is a little shy of them, and newcomers altogether. But she's turned out to be a great dog. Very loyal and eager to please us. Now I am her alpha-male. Oh, well, at least someone thinks of me in that way.

One day, when my kids were younger, we had a runaway goats in our front yard, but that's another story.

You got a runaway dog story? Tell it here. Leave it in the comment box so everyone can read it. I love comments.

Super-Size Neuticle. Why Go Small? Designer Dog Balls.

Heard Neuticles, the testicle replacement for dogs has now gone super-size and designer. It could cause problems I suppose.
Have a Happy Fourth everyone. I hope to have a post-July 4th story for you early next week.