Elephant finesse

Time to catch up a bit. I’ve been so busy that I’ve been reduced to only writing here about once a week. I got to see The Haunting in Connecticut. Good movie! I thought it had a good plot quite apart from the scary movie -- I enjoyed the son fighting cancer and his family supporting him. I thought it was very compelling. But it was also essential to the frightening part of the movie because it put him close to death and created a connection between him and the “otherworldly” things in the house. Very nice. It did bog down a little at times with a couple of weepy scenes, but they didn’t last too long. There were some really good frightening parts of the movie. All in all, I thought it was very good.

It does raise a question: if you take a house with a "creepy past" don't you have an obligation to at least discuss it with your spouse, if not the kids? If my spouse rented/bought a house where bad things had happened, I would really need to know that before moving in. Otherwise we would be adding another bad thing to the house's résumé in the form of a spousal homicide.

As far as our dog legislation, the state Senate committee was much friendlier to us than the House committee had been. They listened to our testimony and asked good questions. They’ll vote next week. We’re hoping to kill the bill in the Senate. We still have to deal with the bill in the House where it goes to the full Judiciary committee next. Maybe the full committee will be a little kinder to us than the subcommittee was. They were downright hostile.

In case you’re wondering, these are the so-called “Commercial Breeder” bills -- the same as have been put forward in nearly 30 states this year. Of course no one likes substandard kennels or bad care for cats and dogs. It’s ludicrous to think so. But we already have laws against cruelty and neglect. We already have a law that requires anyone selling 25 puppies or more to be licensed. You’re already supposed to be collecting sales tax when you sell puppies/kittens, dogs/cats in the state. Commercial breeders who sell to retail sources are already inspected by the USDA. So these bills are not necessary. They would only be used to create a new and expensive bureaucratic infrastructure in the state and set number limits on how many dogs breeders could keep. As anyone knows, number limits mean nothing when it comes to the care of dogs. There are people who can’t manage to properly care for one dog. Other people have good help and can care for many more dogs. Besides, once you start setting a number limit, it’s easy to lower that number every year until it affects ALL breeders. Virtually all breeders of cats and dogs, as well as agricultural people and other animal owners in the state are opposed to these bills. It’s only a radical fringe that supports them but they have been visiting with lawmakers and trying to convince them that the state needs these new laws.

I’ve been working on these particular bills since at least December. Actually, I’ve been watching since last year or before and trying to get people to become aware of them. In the last few days we’ve had another group become involved and it’s a been a little jarring. They’re doing a great job but they have come on the scene with all of the finesse of an elephant. We do see eye to eye about the legislation and the need to fight it. However, I had a few problems with some demands from the other group. For one, they wanted a list of all of the e-mail addresses of members of our Yahoo group. I had to tell them a couple of times that I didn’t have the right to give out that kind of information. When people join an e-mail list I think they have a right to expect their personal information to be kept private. If they want to join an organization they are free to do so but I can’t hand over their e-mail addresses so they can be automatically added.

Then, too, I freely shared the information I had about the bills and what was going on. On the other hand, when I talked to the other group they didn’t share information with me. They would tell me something, I would ask a question and the response would be, “Well, I can’t tell you that.” It’s hard to work with people who keep you in the dark.

I sent them the latest information about the bills but they appeared not to read what I sent them. They continued to refer to the original version of the bill and provisions in it, even in the subcommittee hearing. That doesn’t help us. Take the time to stay up-to-date on the bills.

Even if I had something in writing they would argue and disagree with me. They would call people to get an answer, duplicating our efforts. For instance, I had it in writing that the AKC OPPOSED the commercial breeder bills. They insisted that the AKC couldn’t come out and say that they were opposed to the bills. We had it in WRITING. I sent it all over the Internet and they still wanted to argue about it.

Really, the final straw was getting a call and being “asked” to write up material for the other organization. No idea what it was for, who would be reading it. But I was told to send it to them and they would give me notes about it so I could make changes. I wrote up the bill information and got back a message telling me it wasn’t what they were looking for. I replied that they would have to tailor their own message and that I couldn’t write what they wanted. They wanted an explanation. I basically told them that I wasn’t one of their volunteers and I don’t like to take orders from people.

I’m not a flunky and I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been writing about what’s wrong with animal rights and about dog legislation for over ten years. They can write their own damn press and web site material.

I believe this group has had problems working with other organizations in the past. They complain that other groups are “territorial.” Perhaps other groups simply don’t like being bulldozed or attempts to make them subordinates?

I’ll be happy to work with them to fight this legislation. They are a great group as far as fighting legislation goes. I just don’t want to be under their command.

(Of course it didn’t help any that they thought I was 12 years older than I actually am. Nobody likes that. If you want to work with people, don’t go around offending them.)

Scary Movies

I’m supposed to be writing an article about smelly dogs right now which, as you can see, I’m not writing at the moment. It’s not a hard subject. There are plenty of things to write and I can even be humorous about it. I have solutions for the problem, which will make my client happy. I even have people on Facebook offering to send me their smelly dogs to inspire me. But, somehow, I’m not in the mood to write it.

Instead, I am playing hooky from work. I’m watching the wind blow the tree branches outside and the rain fall. I looked for and found a few four-leaf clovers outside a little while ago. I’m cooking some food for my old dog who needs a little extra something added to his regular dog food these days. I’m browsing the Internet to see what people thought of The Haunting in Connecticut, which I’d like to see.

Have I mentioned that I’m addicted to the series A Haunting? Everyday I take a break from work so I can watch people deal with the paranormal for an hour. I know it probably sounds ridiculous, but I love it.

It goes like this: people move into a new house. They begin to notice strange things happening but they try not to pay any attention. They tell themselves that they are imagining stuff or that there is some logical explanation for events. Then things begin to escalate until they can’t ignore them anymore. Then all hell breaks loose! LOL Okay, maybe it’s low-key hell, but people get spooked. That’s when they try to get some outside help, whether it’s a priest or a paranormal investigator or a local historian or someone like that. Half the time that doesn’t work and they have to keep trying. Or, they may just have to move out of the house. Most of the time they get things worked out. But sometimes they just learn to live with whatever is in their house.

I have loved supernatural stories ever since I can remember. I adore them. When I was very young I used to watch Dark Shadows every afternoon. I would dress up my cat in baby clothes and watch Barnabas and Angelique while I chewed my nails. It was wonderful. I always thought Angelique was just the best, smartest woman in the world. You have to admire her tenacity. I have always liked single-minded people, people who don’t let anything stop them. Like facts or someone’s aversion to you. :)) I thought Angelique was a wonderful role model in life. And, of course, she was very beautiful. Did you know that Lara Parker is from Knoxville, Tennessee? I only found that out much later but I think Tennessee should be very proud of her.

I loved other supernatural stories, too. When I was a kid one of our local TV stations used to show old black and white horror movies every afternoon. I remember that I particularly loved the old mummy movies. I never got tired of them. One of them was on TV again recently and I stayed up watching it late at night. I think I enjoyed it just as much now as I did when I was a kid.

I could never get enough vampire movies either. I used to try to watch every vampire movie on TV. I loved Frank Langella, Jack Palance, the Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee movies. Somehow I didn’t like the Gary Oldham movie very much. But I loved the Lestat books. I wasn’t crazy about the first movie with Tom Cruise but I thought the second movie with Stuart Townsend was pretty good. Not as good as the books, of course, but pretty good.

I know many people have explained why we love the paranormal and why we love to be scared. I still don’t know what it is that gives us such a delicious feeling when we watch a movie that frightens us -- and we sit there knowing in our minds that we’re really safe. I still think one of the scariest movies I ever saw was The Haunting with Julie Harris. And yet you really don’t see anything at all scary in the movie. It’s all done with atmosphere. But it’s terrifying. I have watched it again and again and it’s still great. On the other hand, the original Halloween scared me so badly that I wouldn’t watch the sequels for years. That was too much, especially for a kid. Now I can watch them and they’re no big deal but when I was 12 years old or so it was horrible. It did not give me the pleasant kind of scare. I still don’t like gory movies.

But I do still love scary movies. I really like the movies that have been coming to the U.S. from Japanese originals, like The Ring, Dark Water, The Grudge, and one I saw this week -- Shutter. It was good, too.

Maybe I can find a good scary movie to watch this afternoon instead of writing about smelly dogs.