bluesurly's Open Salon Blog

I Can't Forgive Michael Vick

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:12:45 -0500

I was pretty pissed off when I read Fay Paxton's blog post yesterday - so pissed I didn't have the right words to respond to it. I like Obama, I support Obama, but I think his support of Vick is way out of line. Should it be the news of the day? No.

One of the blogs I read on a daily basis is "Fugly Horse of the Day", and today's post says all of the things I feel about the Vick situation that I couldn't write. Yeah, I care about abused children too, but that doesn't mean I should excuse what Vick did to a bunch of animals.

I give you Fugly:

You have a remote control for a reason!

By now, almost all of you have probably seen this article:

Obama Calls Eagles Owner to Congratulate Him for Signing Michael Vick

And you may have seen this very appropriate response, from Best Friends, who has quite a few of Mr. Vick’s dogs (and is probably not holding their breath for him to shoot a few million dollars their way as a thank-you for their fine work cleaning up his damn mess).

When The President Calls About The Vick Dogs

But I don’t feel it’s all been said, so I’m going off topic today to address this myself.

When the hell did we start glorifying bad behavior to this extent, to the point where we even pat the backs of those who glorify bad behavior? And I’m not talking about stealing hubcaps here. Michael Vick and his dogfighting buddies killed (at least) thirteen dogs by various methods including wetting one dog down and electrocuting her, hanging, drowning and shooting others and, in at least one case, by slamming a dog’s body repeatedly to the ground.

This is not petty crime, “immaturity” (as Vick himself labeled it) or youthful tomfoolery. This is not toilet-papering a house or filling someone’s car with shaving cream. These are the actions of a violent psychopath. These guys were witnessed laughing at the suffering of the dogs. That is not mentally normal. That is Jeffrey-fricken-Dahmer in training.

If I ran the world, Vick and his buddies would spend the rest of their lives in prison. The rest of the world would be safe from them, and their brawny bodies could be put to work doing some sort of appropriate menial job. Unfortunately, I do not run the world, and Vick got his wrist slap and is back playing professional football, making a gazillion dollars, and on top of that, some dumb bunny is actually marrying him. Honey, you better not fold the towels wrong or burn his toast, that’s all I’m saying.

But hey – Vick’s actions show he’s not right in the head. My question is, what the FUCK is wrong with this Lurie guy who owns the Eagles and for that matter, what the FUCK is wrong with President Obama? What the FUCK is wrong with every American football fan who can cheer this man on without throwing up? Anyone who is a compassionate, decent human being should be repulsed at the sight of him and boycott any game he’s in. You know I always say to vote with your wallet. These people are voting for a psychopath. They’re voting for someone who enjoys pain and suffering and has no qualms about causing it.

And worse yet – what you’re all voting against, if you support this football team and its idiot owner, is the right choice. The right choice would have been to hand that opportunity to some perfectly decent college player who is dying for a shot at playing pro ball. How many college players are out there right now who have not done ANYTHING BAD, EVER…who do not have a criminal record, not a single DUI, who work hard in college and treat people and animals with respect and kindness? Guys who have, in many cases, come from nothing and for whom football is what it should be – a stepping stone to a better life? There are only so many of those guys who are ever going to make it to the NFL. One of them is not going to make it because his spot is being filled by this vicious, worthless, soulless piece of shit. And THAT is what’s really wrong here…that we are glorifying violence and evil when we could, instead, have stepped up and said no to that. We could have said, sorry Michael, you have proven that you do not deserve this. We found someone who does deserve this. And you are still lucky, Michael, because no one drowned you. You’re still alive, and you can choose to get therapy and see if you can control your violent tendencies for the rest of your life. You can get a job, you can get an apartment, you can have your freedom. But you do not get a zillion dollars and fame anymore…because you did something bad enough that you can’t have those things anymore, and we are going to draw the line somewhere.

We don’t ever seem able to send that message in our culture…that your behavior is so bad that we are going to, as a society, reject you…that we will vote with our wallets and not put money into your pocket. I mean, look at Charlie Sheen. How many women does he get to beat the crap out of before the American people stop watching “Two and a Half Men?” I won’t watch that crap. I don’t know what the Hell is wrong with people who do. (Now this is not to say that I don’t inadvertently watch stuff with people who might be as bad as Charlie but have covered it up better…but we all KNOW about Charlie, so we can’t plead ignorance about him.)

So I guess my overall message is, when you wonder why there’s so much evil … against animals, against children, against women, against anyone … ask yourself why we keep letting evil rise to the top in our society and stay there, in positions of power, sending the message that this kind of behavior is No Big Deal. And if you think Michael Vick can’t take those millions he’s making and discreetly influence legislation that keeps animals defined solely as property and protects abusers like himself, you’re living in a dream world. We’re giving the asshats the money and then we’re wondering why asshats control the world. Wise up, folks.

The Government's Ghosts (updated)

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:10:20 -0400

What lurks down these darkened halls?

They say that in space no one can hear you scream. They might as well have been talking about the facility where I work. We are located on roughly 50 square miles of prairie and the nearest town is 5 miles away. After normal working hours, there is a single security guard that makes the rounds, so the chances of him being nearby if something funky should happen is unlikely. With my luck he'd be checking gates 8 miles away.

Each fall my laboratory at the research center analyzes about 1,500 blood samples from newly weaned calves. This is split up over several weeks and in the big scheme of things isn't that big of a deal. The bottleneck in the process is our blood analyzer that takes about 3 minutes per sample - so on days we are running 180 samples, we end up having to work past "normal working hours".

This year my first long day ended up being a Friday night. It was after 6pm and I was pretty sure I was in the building alone - after all, who else would be so pathetic to work late on a Friday night? When I'm alone I make sure all of the doors to the lab are closed and the lights are on in the hallway so I can see through the small window in the door into the hall - nothing worse than looking out the door into darkness. Things were proceeding nicely, but every 20 samples the machine needs to go through a cleaning cycle and I get 10 minutes for a potty break. As I was walking down the hallway back to the lab, I heard a door slam on the far hallway. Okay...Denise's lab is in that corner, and she's pretty dedicated, so maybe she was here late too. Deep down, I knew that there was a snowball's chance in hell of her being at work late that night, but it was the only solution that wouldn't freak me out with another hour or more of work to do. I got the samples done by 8pm, turned out the lights, locked up the lab, went to my office to collect my belongings, and on the way out heard the door close down the far hallway AGAIN.

When I got out to the parking lot, mine was the only car there.

Monday morning found me working a regular day - thank goodness! But I had a chance to talk to my friend in the lab across the hall about my experiences on Friday night. She herself had experienced the closing door syndrome in the wee hours, but in another building. She also told me that other people who worked in that back lab where I'd heard the closing door had felt things were "not quite right" in that area. They'd had items go missing or be moved around and heard noises. Well all righty then!!!

Tuesday night I once again pulled the late night, only it was my good fortune that the security guy (who happens to be my friend) Gary, was on duty and stopped by the lab. I told him about the doors and his response was chilling. "I have the hair stand up on my neck everytime I check that back corner of this building." Great! So now it's not just my imagination...Gary went on to tell me about his experiences the day after mine.

Making his rounds through my building on Saturday night, Gary heard a huge crash at the end of the hallway where the offices (including mine) are located. The office at the far end of the hall had been reorganized for a new post-doc, and the white boards had been taken down and propped against the wall. A metal chalk tray rested on the floor at their bases. When Gary got to the hall with the white boards, although they were still standing, the chalk tray had been "kicked" out into the main hallway about 5 feet. No one else was in the building.

Shortly thereafter, Gary went back into the boiler room, located behind where I heard the door closing, to check on the system. There is a main boiler and a backup boiler, and both were very reliable. When he walked in, both boilers' pressure relief valves were blowing off steam - for no reason. Pressure readings were fine for both boilers, so there was no reason for the backup boiler to come on in the first place - let alone be blowing off steam. He tried to shut down the system and nothing happened. He cut off the power - nothing. He finally had to switch off some bigtime override switches (I don't pretend to understand how any of this works) before the system would shut down. The whole time he felt "it" was just toying with him, and he wasn't going to let "it" win.

As if that wasn't enough, Gary went on to tell me that he also felt someone watching him from the projection room when he checked the auditorium in our building each night. He made sure he never looked into the booth because he wasn't sure he'd really want to see what was in there. Of course in order for me to walk from my office out of the building, I need to walk past the door to the projection room - note to self - don't look at the window in that door either!

I related these stories to my pals over lunch - they all suggested that Gary was pulling my leg. I agreed that the thought had crossed my mind until I saw the goosebumps on Gary's arms when he told me what he'd experienced. He wasn't making this stuff up. Once this conversation got going, another lady at the table who used to work in another unit at the center told us how she had walked around the corner in her old building one day only to see Dr. S. This would be understandable if Dr. S. hadn't previously been killed in a car accident . This spirit just seemed to stay on her old schedule and didn't seem threatening in any way.

So who or what is it down the back hallway in my building? Hard to say. Some employees have joked since the construction of our building that it sits on an Indian burial ground. Perhaps it is the ghost of some long-forgotten pioneer or settler. More recently, families were forced to give up their land so the government could use it as a WWII naval ammunitions production facility - there were fatalities during that period, however, not at the location of the research buildings. As far as I'm concerned, it can remain a mystery. I'm spooked enough at this point that I don't work late alone. My family brings me supper and stays until I finish up my work. Yes, I'm a big weenie, but if I do start screaming, it will make me feel much better knowing that they're there to hear me doing it.

Late this summer the facilities crew began work installing a new chilling system on the back the the building. They say that disturbing a building may irritated the spirits. I'm not sure if that's what's happening, but I've started getting in early so I can leave when there are still some other "humans" in the building...

My Bloody Valentine

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:02:57 -0500

Friday, February 13, 2009

Dr. Wonderful: “Even though the clinic is technically closed tomorrow, I have to go in a bleed a dog.”

Me: “Why do you have to bleed this dog tomorrow?”

Dr. W: “It’s a 90 pound husky that belongs to an ailing old man. His son is helping out, but he works Monday through Friday, and asked if we would let him come on Saturday morning. He’s the dog I told you about two weeks ago - the one that doesn’t like to be bled. So I’m going to have to restrain him and somebody else will have to bleed him.”

Me: “So who is that going to be? Can Katy or Beth bleed?”

Dr. W: “Well, no actually, and like I said, I have to restrain the dog.”

It was at this point I realized I was being requested to bleed the 90 pound husky that didn’t like to be bled. These days I mostly bleed cattle, but I have taken blood samples from my share of dogs, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

______________________________________________________

Valentine’s Day 2009

We planned on getting to the clinic, quickly bleeding the dog, and getting something to eat for our Valentine’s Day breakfast. The son was already there with the dog. Since the dog was more nervous in the presence of the son, we took the dog to the exam room to get the sample and left the owner’s son in the waiting room. As we walked away the son yelled out, “I love you Fritsy!”

OK!

Once we were behind closed doors, Wonderful backed the very large dog butt-first into a corner, then wrapped a gauze muzzle around his snout. He was so big the clinic muzzle wouldn’t fit on his head. Wonderful had a good hold around the dog’s neck, and Katy and Beth were on either side of Fritsy attempted to hold his front legs steady so I could get the blood sample.

What you need to know is that we didn’t need a big sample, just a few drops to test and see the glucose level in his blood. We use the exact same machine to monitor the level as a human diabetic would.

Fritsy wiggled, Fritsy growled, Fritsy pitched a grade A hissy fit – Fritsy pulled a “CUJO”.

Katy looked up.

Katy: “Wonderful, you should re-tie the muzzle. His mouth is half-way open!”

Dr. W: “No, no, I’ve got him, it’s ok, just get the sample!”

We wrestle some more. At one point I almost had the needle in the vein when Fritsy jumped again.

Katy looked over at Wonderful.

Katy: “Wonderful, you REALLY need to re-tie the muzzle! His mouth is ALL THE WAY OPEN!”

Dr. W: “No, no, it’s ok, I have a really good hold on him, just get the sample.”

We all get back to concentrating on getting the blood sample while the very large husky carries on like a big baby.

Several minutes went by when we heard, “CAN SOMEONE PLEASE GET ME A PAPER TOWEL OR SOMETHING?!!!”

The three of us looked up to see blood streaming all over Wonderful’s left hand that is being pressed up to the side of his head. After a moment’s pause, we all jump up to grab the paper towels.

Me, Katy, Beth: “What happened?!!!”

Dr. W: “He was trying to bite my hat and I moved my head and he latched onto my ear. Don’t worry about it, I’ve got him, just get the sample!”

This simple bleeding job wasn’t going as planned AT ALL!

After several more moments of wrestling, we all called it quits. If Fritsy was that feisty, he wasn’t hypoglycemic. His treatment was working. He could go home.

Katy walked out to speak to the owner’s son with Fritsy in tow.

Son: Oh Fritsy are you ok?

Katy: He’s fine, which is more than we can say for the doctor…

Son: You’re kidding, right?!!

Katy: Um, no.

Dr. Wonderful wanders out at that point with a towel on his ear.

Son: Is that all Fritsy’s blood?

Dr. W: Uh, no, it’s all mine…don’t worry about it, and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don’t say anything about this to your father! It was no big deal, it happens, the dog is fine.

Son: OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!

Dr. W: It’s ok, don’t worry about it.

Son: I want to see it.

Dr. W: No, I don’t think you really do.

Son: No, I really need to see how bad it is.

Dr. W shows him the front and back of his ear.

Son: Ooh, I think I’m going to be sick…

Fritsy and the son leave, and we try to clean up the ear. My cell phone rings.

Daughter: Mom?

Me: Yeah?

D: Can you bring me home something to eat?

Me: Well, it’s gonna take a while because a dog just tried to rip your dad’s ear off.

D: No! (disbelief – we lie a lot)

Me: Yes! Really!

Several hours and between the front and the back of his ear 26 stitches later we head home so Dr. W can get out of his very bloody shirt.

Dr. W: And I really liked this shirt!

Me: Don’t worry, I’ll soak it and get it all cleaned up for you. Besides, you always have a sweater on so as long as the collar is clean, no one will ever know.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epilogue

Dr. W’s ear healed just fine. Other than some strange tingling in the cold the rest of the winter, it didn’t bother him at all.

I got the shirt clean enough to wear without a sweater!

The daughter finally got something to eat.

As usual, Dr. W provided great entertainment to his friends, family, and colleagues, as least as long as his ear looked nasty.

Fritsy continues to be large and spoiled but doesn’t carry a grudge. He no longer has any issues with low blood sugar since his owner started feeding him twice a day.

I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to beat this for a romantic Valentine’s Day. But at least it’s on a Sunday this year, and the clinic will be closed…

Just Another Snowy Day in Nebraska

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 15:02:00 -0500

This has been quite the winter for cold and snow, but that hasn't prevented life and work from going on here in the Hinterland.

The first view of the morning out of my bedroom window.

Even the cobwebs are icy.

Nearly half-way to work, stubble breaks up the white and grey.

Not all of the horses have warm stalls...

Nor do the mules!!!

Windbreaks are good - and pretty!

A little snow doesn't keep the Prairie Dogs inside.

The turkeys seems to enjoy it too (old bunkers from the WWII Naval Ammunitions Depot in background).

Landscaping must mean civilization...or work...

The view from my office window - one of the best perks of my job!

The car I was supposed to drive to the feedlot...

Cattle get worked sun, rain, or snow!

Glad they're outside and not me.

Blood-sampling: one of the things I do when I'm not on OS.

Some of the local deer herd as I head back home for the day.

My Thursday Haiku

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:01:31 -0500

The migraine woke me,

Treximate put me to sleep.

How’d I get to work?