To Catch a Predator

Mrs. Danglewood is a highly successful graduate student, dedicated to working with special needs children. She is young, beautiful, and has fantastic taste in men. But she has a secret desire that could jeopardize everything. Traveling to rural Kansas, she plans a liaison to satiate that desire. Little does Mrs. Danglwood know, she is about to be part of an un-aired feature on Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator."

Using the screen name BulldogBitch, Mrs. Danglewood has attempted to solicit the company of underage bulldogs. Working with local authorities and Dateline NBC, Mutts & Strays Kennel has agreed to provide a decoy to lure this predator to their sting operation.

The decoy is a six month old beagle-bulldog mix, posing as an eight week old English bulldog. Mrs. Danglewood chats with him online for two weeks. The conversations are explicit. In one session she asks "Does your leg shake when your belly is scratched?" Finally, a meeting time and place is scheduled. Mrs. Danglewood will wait across the street from the kennel she thinks the decoy lives at. He will pretend to be ornery and dig a little hole under the fence, cutely wiggle underneath it, then scamper over to her.

Mrs. Danglewood arrives twenty minutes early, but local law enforcement, and the Dateline NBC crew are ready. As the decoy squirms under the fence, Mrs. Danglewood rushes forward to meet him, then stops short as she sees reporter Chris Hansen walking toward her.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Danglewood." He says. "What did you have planned here?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Just hanging out." She starts to back away, toward the car. She hasn't yet noticed the authorities hiding behind the car, ready to spring into action should she try to flee.

"Really? That's not what it says in these internet transcripts I have here in my hand." Suddenly, reams of paper magically appear in Chris Hansen's hand. They appear to be damning.

"I- I," she stammers, and stares transfixed at Chris Hansen and his handful of her damnation.

He points the transcripts at her. "How old did you think this puppy was?"

"I think he said he was eight weeks."

"Eight weeks. Tsk."

TRANSCRIPT--

BulldogBitch: Have you been weened yet?

Lilstinker: ...

BulldogBitch: Maybe I could help you out with that.

Lilstinker: ...

END OF TRANSCRIPT

Chris Hansen peruses the pages casually. "What kind of things did you want to do with him?"

"I don't know." She looks pleadingly from Hansen to the puppy.

"Hold him?"

"Maybe."

"Pet him?"

"Yes."

"Scratch his belly?"

"Yes."

"Smell his puppy breath?"

Mrs. Danglewood rubs her eyes and sobs as though she were crying.

Soon after, Chris Hansen reveals himself to be a television reporter, that the entire thing has been a sting operation, and Mrs. Danglewood is being filmed for a TV broadcast. Police leap from behind the car, tackling her to the ground. She manages to elbow one in the groin, and bite the ear off another. In the struggle, she wrestles free, disarms one of the officers, and with the cop's firearm, plugs Chris Hansen in the chest six times. The exit wounds spray Lilstinker with Hansen's blood. He shakes himself dry in such an adorable way, then waddles into the car with Mrs. Danglewood. Before speeding off, she looks into the camera and says, "I told you I was a bitch!"

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Michael Vick and Dog Fighting

Michael Vick obviously doesn't read my blog. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if you wouldn't do it to a baby, you shouldn't do it to an animal. That includes: shooting, hanging, electrocuting, smashing on the ground, starving, burying in the back yard, or sport fighting. I know, baby fighting sounds entertaining, but all it takes is one kid with that single chiclet to really make things messy.

Vick could be innocent. He is until proven guilty. So we won't really know for another 1-2 years, depending on how much his lawyers cost. In the meantime, I would advise that no one let this guy babysit. Maybe he does read my blog. Maybe he can do this to animals, because that's how he treats children. How many bed wetters does he have buried in his back yard?

Vick could be innocent of the charges brought against him. However, someone tortured and murdered those animals on his property. If the feds do a raid on his house and find a backyard full of toddlers, what's his defense going to be? "They're not my bed wetters."

Vick could be innocent. One has to ask, what would make a guy who has so much to lose do something so stupid, so cruel, and so illegal? One could ask that for a number of celebrities and sports figure besides Vick. Maybe he can risk it all, because nothing will be lost. He knows that if caught, he faces a maximum of one slap on the wrist, and a fine up to a year's wages for a burger fryer. But the job will still be there, the fans will still be there. The spot light will still be there, although angled just a bit so the pile of dog carcasses don't upstage him.

However, if Vick is found guilty, he could face up to six years in prison and a fine of $350,000. Even if he did get the maximum, it seems kinda light to me. Six years for someone who slaughtered animals purely for sport? Check that, tortured animals purely for sport. Their murder was the most humane thing done to them. Do we want a guy on the street whose past time is torturing animals? Not the streets of America anyway.

Perhaps he was just auditioning for a job with the CIA. Maybe he already had a job with the CIA. Being an NFL quarterback was just a cover, and these dogs were really enemy combatants. First they were secreted away to a clandestine prison in Virginia, a sort of no-mans land for international law. To get them to talk, they forced the dogs to do humiliating tricks like play dead, beg, and sing. When that didn't work, they were stacked into canine pyramids, and photographed wearing cute sweaters, hats and little booties. Finally, Special Agent Vick and his toadies were brought in to work them over. Sadly, torture proved just as ineffective with these dogs as it has with humans. Whatever secrets they had, they took with them to a shallow grave in Virginia. But it was all for National Security.

So the question then becomes, who gave the order? President Bush? Vice President Cheney? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell? Or those who continue to put these people in a position of authority, the season ticket holder?

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Vote With Your Dollar

Like a lot of people, I at one time stole a lot of music and movies. It didn't seem like much of a big deal, the artist wasn't really losing that much money and I would pay to seem them in concert. And I wasn't the only one. Most of my friends did the same thing to the same artists. What we never considered at the time was the music that was being bought and the people who bought it. I'm talking about all of the crap you hear on most mainstream pop radio stations. I'm talking about all of the crap you hear on most mainstream rock stations. And I'm talking about all of the country music you hear on most country music stations. While my friends and I were blaring our stolen music, laughing about how we screwed the man, we were shoving the big floppy dildo of irony up our own asses.

You see, my generation created what was arguably some of the best, freshest music since the 60s. We had Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, The Pixies, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Tool, and so many, many more. And for a brief while, Rock under the guise of "alternative", was king. It was a period of time where record companies couldn't sign bands fast enough to satiate the hungering masses who had been starved on a diet of hair bands and pop singers. But then things changed, as they tend to do. There was a saturation of similar acts. The record companies and the media both over-hyped "Alternative" and "Grunge", not realizing that people wanted good music, not labels. The people who bought Nevermind were the same people buying Nothing's Shocking and Pretty Hate Machine. Those were three vastly different forms of music. What they had in common was that they were really damn good. Then the Internet boom came, and we the fans finished what the record companies and Rolling Stone Magazine had started.

It's not that by stealing music we forced artists into day jobs. I think the first new CD I stole was The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails. Since then NiN has released two full length Cd's, a remix CD, and toured the world a few times over. And they (Trent Reznor) are still kicking ass. But by not purchasing the music and not requesting it on the radio, we have neglected our most important duty as fans: the duty of advocacy. Not just advocacy for a particular artist or style, but an advocacy for quality. A record companies sales are listed in dollars and units moved, not star ratings. You can rant all you want about how some musician or singer is total crap, or how another is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if it's not written in cash it doesn't mean a thing. They don't care. The record companies don't care what sells, so long as it sells. The media doesn't care what they push, so long as someone buys it. And frankly, most of the public doesn't care, so long as they've got what everyone else does.

Every time I downloaded pirated material, I was costing my favorite bands a fan and customer in the eyes of the Record Companies. With each customer lost, the Record Company has less reason to support an act. By stealing music I was effectively telling the Record Companies to stop putting out the music I like. In fact, I was telling them that anything I might like I probably wouldn't buy. So the past few years of crappy music, has more or less been my fault.

Where is this going? Is this a rant to convince you of the evils of music piracy. No. Unfortunately, that battle has probably been lost. And for most people, I encourage them to steal music, because they're probably listening to bullshit anyway. What I'm talking about here is voting with your dollar. Every CD you buy is a message to the record company that someone values their product. The more people who buy it, the more value it has. Every time you steal a song or a CD you're no different than someone who doesn't vote during a government election. We have the government we do, the war we do, because the only people to show up to the polls were Brittney Spears fans, Michael Bay fans, and Country music fans. Every time you steal music or movies you have effectively silenced yourself. You've given up the ability to declare what is good. The only votes being counted are the ones paid for at a retail location or movie theater.

If you're satisfied with a Bush-Cheney government, radio stations that play Paris Hilton "songs", and crappy remakes of the few decent movies Hollywood has produced, then by all means, keep doing what you're doing. However, if you're like me and sick of crap being sold to us in every facet of our lives, then use your voice. Vote with your dollar. The best way, the only way, to say the pop flavor-of-the-month sucks is to buy a Tool CD.

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Promoting Your Sport

Major League Baseball's midsummer classic was on last night, and once again the National League got stomped. It sold out, but this is not any sign of its popularity, rather the number of corporate sponsors pumping dollars into what I'm afraid is a dying sport. Those aren't fans in those sits, doing the wave and eating brats. They're employees.

In an interview by Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said that baseball was more popular than ever. Somehow I doubt this is true. When talking to other sports fans and baseball is brought up, the general reaction is that baseball is about on par with golf as a spectator sport, and just above bowling for athletic ability. It saddens me that our National Past-Time, even when injected with performance enhancing drugs and amphetamines, barely rates a yawn from today's sports fans.

To be sure, baseball has its fans. What it doesn't have, which other sports (football in particular) have, are the non-fans bullied in to following a sport they're too afraid to admit they don't like. I'm talking about the guy who goes to work Monday morning and isn't talking about Sunday's games. "Dude, you didn't see the Raiders game yesterday?" No, he was busy painting his war game miniatures and watching the Stargate marathon he Tivoed from the night before. To some, this might seem a reasonable way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon. To a football fan, this guy is a fag. "What are you, queer?" He might be, but the insinuation isn't that there is something wrong with being queer, but that there is definitely something wrong with not watching football. And so each week this guy feels compelled to follow a sport that has been out of his life since high school; a time when bullying and football were most likely synonymous. Everntually, his web browser's anime and manga bookmarks are slowly replaced by fantasy football sites. The half naked woman with the cool sword and dragon he had as his desktop background is gone; in its place is the logo of the team he's pretty sure he's supposed to follow. And every Monday morning he turns down the World of Warcraft podcast he's been listening to for two years so he can eavesdrop on the guys and their talk about Sunday's game. All so he won't be a fag.

Because of this cruel bullying, this demeaning of people with different interests and hobbies, football has become the most popular sport in America. Rather than appeal to people with the precision, skill, team work, strategy and tactics football demonstrates, fans resort to name-calling, shunning, and public humiliation to convert the masses to their cause. So why can't Baseball have fags, too?

These non-fans, or fags, account for 90% of a sports popularity and revenue. Wrestling has employed the tactics of football, and look how far it's come in the past twenty years: from Saturday morning cartoon for 8 year olds, to tits and beer for white trash across the country. It's what happens when Pop Culture meets Sports. It doesn't matter if you really like something, or even if it's any good. The important thing is that you buy it and show it to everyone, so they know you've bought it. God help you if you didn't buy it. Just ask Rv. Fred Phelps, God sends fags straight to hell whether they're homosexual or not.

For baseball, the sport I love, I've experimented with this method. When I ask people if they like baseball they usually say, "Baseball? It's so boring!" And I reply, "What? Are you a fucking idiot?" It is both demeaning and legitimate. But as most people are fucking idiots, and don't really mind being called one, it has had little to no impact. I won't go the fag route, since they'd probably say "No, I watch football." So I'm going to try for "What? Are you a bitch?" I suspect basketball already has claim to that one, but if the last NBA final is any indication, they're either not using it properly or it doesn't work.

Perhaps the real reason baseball is dying isn't because we haven't bullied the fags into our sport, rather we are the fags being bullied out of ours. Our numbers are dramatically being culled by football, basketball, wrestling and their cavemen supporters. I say it's time for a change. I say their is nothing greater than a 12 to 6 curveball, or a perfectly turned 6-4-3 doubleplay. I say we fire the corporate dicks sitting in our seats, eating our brats, drinking our beer. I say we beat the cavemen at their own game, and make them all our bitches.

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Donnelly Dome: Yeti Attack Part III

...Continued from Donnelly Dome: Yeti Attack Part II

Dr. Heitnutts squints as he crushes a nugget between forefinger and thumb. He watches carefully as bits crumble, and drift slowly through the breeze. He scribbles notes, makes calculations, and categorizes each detail per the method set forth by the American Scatological Society.

The American Scatological Society has four traits by which it measures feces: size, texture, density, and color. By examining these qualities in a sample, one can determine the health and diet of an animal, as well as a general sense of its type (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore). It is a crude method suitable for novices, but it has its limitations. The system that I developed, for which I was politely asked to leave the Society, includes four additional elements: distribution, symmetry, taste, and smell. It is a more holistic approach and if properly used, can tell us not only the diet and health of the animal, but particular species and mood. I find it to be far more practical, for it models the way animals in the wild examine and categorize scat. For instance, a deer that comes across a pile of dung might approach it cautiously, noting the size and area it encompasses. It sniffs and nudges it with a nose, determining the freshness. Then carefully nibbles a piece. With a few tentative chews it recognizes the particular flavor of its cousin Bob, who had been missing for a week. The deer prances off to warn friends and family of a hungry bear in the area, and to make memorial arrangements for poor cousin Bob.

These two conflicting methods have always been a rift between myself and Dr. Heitnutts. Though he maintains his membership in the Society, despite his association with me, he displays a latent fecalphobia. It is because of this fear he can never fully comprehend the elegance of my system, nor embrace the knowledge it can teach us. I suspect him of orchestrating my removal from the Society.

"I'm not sure what it is," Dr. Heitnutts says. This is quite an admission. Even though he clings to an archaic, flawed method, his knowledge is expert. It is easy to see that it's not the smooth, almond shape of moose droppings, the squat patties of buffalo, nor the squished date appearance of bear. These are all common droppings, and abundant in the area. Turtle conducts his own experiments, flinging it against rocks and into the nearby pond. I'm not sure if he is testing for aerodynamics, splatter patterns, or some other quality. His method might be the next leap in our work, something to make my system as irrelevant as the Society's. Or he's just exercising his need to toss shit around whenever he sees it. But after a few throws he looks as perplexed as the rest of us.

It is a puzzle. We seem to be dealing with some sort of omnivore. There are bits of undigested bone fragments, as well as seed husks. The trail of droppings that leads to the larger pile suggests dehydration, or constipation. However, with a pond nearby and the beginning of the seasonal melt, this seems unlikely. A small taste should solve the question. Most mammals have anal glands which tend to flavor their excrement in a way particular to their species. Wolf scat tends to have a smokey-oak taste, whereas bear tastes of curry and is slightly intoxicating. Certain aficionados of the orient prize brown bear over most others as a seasoning and aphrodisiac.

I take a small pinch from the mound and pack it behind my lower lip. Instantly I spit it out in disgust.

"My God, Danglewood! What's gotten into you?" Dr. Heitnutts asks. His outrage turns to terror as the smell of black licorice wafts from my mouth.

"Yeti!" I manage to choke out, then fall into unconsciousness.

To be continued in Donelly Dome: Yeti Attack Part IV...

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