Dogs deserve respect, but owners must use care

Family pets mauled two siblings, ages 2 and 5 months, last month in Tennessee.

The attacks left the children’s mother with grave injuries after she threw herself on top of the older child to shield her. Nevertheless, both children died.

The dogs were pit bulls.

According to the mother’s friend, quoted in USA Today, the animals had been with the family for eight years and had given no indication of being aggressive. Authorities are investigating, and both dogs have been euthanized.

America has a love affair with canines. The American Veterinary Medical Association says some 38.4% of American households have dogs, but other sources estimate almost twice as many.

Whatever the exact number, millions of dogs and dog owners live in the United States, with the vast majority going about their business without incident.

Pit bulls, many owners would say, have been unfairly vilified and singled out as “dangerous.” The AVMA notes on its website that “any dog can bite: big or small, male or female, young or old.”

The organization does not support breed-specific legislation. Instead, it recommends laws that designate specific animals as dangerous, based on that animal’s history.

This position is sensible. A dog that bites is a dog that bites, after all, meaning that if an animal attacks once, it is likely to do it again. Protecting the community from that animal by requiring the owners to take certain steps, up to and including euthanization, is warranted.

However, for a particular dog to be designated as dangerous, a dangerous incident must occur. Here is the problem with waiting for an attack − someone gets hurt before the animal is identified.

The nonprofit DogsBite.org says that pit bulls contributed to 67% of the 568 American deaths from dog bites from 2005 to 2020.

Some readers will see such numbers as a scare tactic, pointing out that dog-attack fatalities over a 16-year period are minuscule compared to the 647,000 U.S. deaths annually from heart disease or 1,670 per day from cancer. No argument there.

The AVMA also notes the challenge of correctly identifying dog breeds, especially with mixed breeds. It can be hard to tell a dog’s breed by the way it looks, so some dangerous dogs may be incorrectly labeled as pit bulls. That’s not fair.

So, these statistics should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

Still, the numbers would be enough for me, if I had small children, to think long and hard before introducing a pit bull into the family. Or to allow a pit bull to remain, even if it were a long-standing part of the household, once I had children.

Yes, there may be a prejudice among the public regarding the breed. And perhaps pit-bull attacks have gained greater traction in the media than attacks by other breeds. I have no doubt that many pit bulls are gentle, lovable and loyal toward family and friends, just as some terriers and toy poodles are vicious.

Despite what the law in a particular community might or might not dictate, is it worth the chance?

Pit bulls feel too risky, like having an open well on the property but not fixing it because nobody has fallen in yet.

I can’t imagine the pain of owners who shrug off the risks or pooh-pooh the warnings, only to have their pet attack a passerby or a family member. Did they look at the numbers and still convince themselves that their case was the exception?

Because it’s better to be unfair to a dog breed a million times over than to a child even once.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

Luring customers to McDonald's with adult Happy Meals

Folks needing another reason to eat badly have one: McDonald’s is selling adult Happy Meals.

I’m doom scrolling through a series of stories that place the promotion somewhere between Dante’s third level of Hell and the Second Coming. Apparently, nothing is lukewarm where McDonald’s is concerned. Except the food itself, of course.

Anyway, the fast-food giant announced adult Happy Meals this way: “One day you ordered a Happy Meal for the last time, and you didn't even know it.” 

If that statement is designed to make people feel horrible about aging, then mission accomplished, Mickey Dee’s.

I mean, what’s next? A funeral-home promotion that begins, “One day, you kissed your grandmother goodbye for the last time, and you didn’t even know it?”

Gosh, better Biggie Size that sentiment, dontcha think?

Once consumers shake off the impending sense of doom that comes from corporate recognition that youth is fleeting and the grave is closer than they think, they can take a look inside the festive red box.

But remember Nietzsche 101. When you stare into the Happy Meal, the Happy Meal stares back.

The choices for adults are consistent with the fact that people with mortgages require more calories and won’t be content with a mushy burger and a few carelessly tossed fries.

No, the adult version of Happy Meals includes options like a 10-piece McNuggets or Big Mac. Enough calories to clog whatever arteries are still semi-open after a regular diet of pizza, beer and Skittles. Maybe it comes with a $100-off coupon for a good cardiac specialist.

But let’s face it, Happy Meals were never about the food. They were always about snorkeling through the grease to find the prize at the bottom.

Here’s where the McDonald’s promotion gets really strange. Because the toys are designed in conjunction with Cactus Plant Flea Market. If this name means nothing to you, don’t feel bad.

CPFM is − and I’m copying directly from Google here − “a fashion label crafting original streetwear with signature dye treatments and lettering.” So, this partnership of opposites is somewhat like the Vatican releasing Madonna’s next album. I mean, what’s next, Versace teaming with Walmart?

The toys feature the beloved (?) McDonald’s characters from past generations — Grimace, Hamburglar and Birdie the Early Bird. But here’s the kicker: They all have four eyes instead of two! How clever! How cutting edge!

A fourth character, Cactus Buddy, is also included in the image McDonald’s is using to promote this gastronomic trip down memory lane.

How to describe Cactus Buddy? It looks a little like Pac Man devoured the woozy-face emoji and then slipped on the hat and shirt a McDonald’s employee left behind when she stormed out of the restaurant for better opportunities across the street at Subway.

I mean, why Cactus Buddy and not Ronald? Why is McDonald’s downplaying the role a clown had in its worldwide success?

It couldn’t be that clowns have become super-scary, associated with homicidal killers in Stephen King novels and showcased in urban legends where they’re spotted walking around in the woods, could it?

To be fair, Ronald is hanging out on the periphery of a McDonald’s shirt from Cactus Plant Flea Market, but he looks to be just one of the guys, no more prominent than Mayor McCheese or Officer Big Mac, secondary deities in the fast-food pantheon.

And this is one reason the promotion will struggle, because McDonald’s won’t embrace the essential … uh, cheesiness of its former mascot. Many 20- and 30-somethings would like an edgy McDonald’s to lean into the creepy clown factor.

If your company has an iconic children’s character who has become synonymous with sewer grates and razor-sharp teeth, don’t hide it. Flaunt it.

Give adults a McDonaldland that looks more like a haunted house, and they’ll make the successful Monopoly promotion of years gone by look feeble in comparison.

Heck, a scary Ronald McDonald might even make them eat an adult Happy Meal.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

Are light-bulb moments dead or just evolving?

Steven Johnson wants to replace the “you” in “eureka” with “we.”

The author of “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” and a related TED Talk that has been viewed more than 1.5 million times, Johnson argues that the light-bulb metaphor of creation − where one person, often working alone, is struck by a moment of blinding insight − is inaccurate.

Instead, Johnson believes many good ideas come as the result of conversation and cooperation. Even something as revolutionary as Darwin’s theory of natural selection is more likely to “fade into view over a long period of time” than be the product of a single a-ha moment, according to his research.

Johnson credits the creation of the coffeehouse as an impetus for many modern ideas. It is, he argues, a place where folks come together and talk about pressing issues and, presumably, find solutions. (He is silent on whether many moments of inspiration are lost to a barista who shouts out orders and mispronounces names, or to customers who grouse over the high price of the latest venti concoction at the neighborhood Starbucks.)

Johnson’s book and TED Talk are 11 years old, but they are poised for a re-examination today.

For one thing, the world has invested heavily in the collaborative model, either because of theories like Johnson’s or as part of a larger communal push that Johnson’s work reflects. In education, where I spend most of my time, it’s hard to find a contemporary lesson that doesn’t feature some element of discussion.

“Work with a shoulder partner” and “get into groups” have become common teaching directives, far more so than in previous generations, when the main instructional mode was lecture and the primary way to demonstrate understanding was working solo.

These are tough times for students to be introverts, for sure. The world favors the extrovert or at least the ambivert, that rare bird at home in solitude and a crowd.

Another reason for Johnson’s work to come back into vogue is more obvious. Society is lurching toward some semblance of normal after several years of forced isolation because of the coronavirus pandemic.

During much of that time, coffeehouses, along with most everything else, were closed or operating on a heavily modified business model, one that kept people apart rather than together.

Some of the workarounds for face-to-face transactions, such as ordering by app and contactless deliveries − are here to stay, further minimizing the sorts of interactions that Johnson argues are essential for new ideas to percolate.

Nor were restaurants and coffeehouses the only businesses affected.

In every area of communal life, similar losses were felt. Businesses large and small transitioned to work-at-home models, and Zoom meetings replaced gathering around the conference table. Churches began to congregate via video feeds. Physical classrooms were replaced with virtual ones.

And while each of these substitutes still carried opportunities for collaboration, few people would argue that the replacements were equal to the originals. Nor has the return to “normal” been seamless. With some folks preferring to work from home, will their potential innovations also be AWOL?

It will be interesting to see if the world experiences an “idea crash” in the next few years as an intellectual echo of the various supply chain and financial woes cycling through now. Or maybe we will see instead a reflowering of various creative endeavors driven by individuals instead of groupthink.

Perhaps physical presence doesn’t matter as much in a world where social media sites have become the coffeehouses of a new age. Who is to say that the next great idea won’t come as the result of a Twitter thread with hundreds of contributors or a series of Wattpad entries that a group of readers interprets in a slightly different way?

The coffeehouse may look different, but the creative outcomes may be the same. The spirit of innovation could be experiencing its latest evolution.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

@cschillig on Twitter

Does 'undo send' make e-life even harder?

I usually don’t get excited about iPhone updates, but iOS 16 might be the exception.

The new operating system allows users to do two things that are really awesome, he said in his most breathless voice. One might even be life-changing. That is, if your life doesn’t involve skydiving naked from an aero plane or a lady with a body from outer space, as Vince Neil sings.

First things first − the cool, non-life-changing update. If you hold down your finger on a dominant figure in one of your photos, Apple’s new operating system automatically removes the background.

I tried it first with a photo of my dog. Boom! The camera fairies traced him with a white line that looked a little like a firecracker fuse. When I opened social media, I could paste just his image, minus the half-dozen Wilson tennis balls he’d strewn around the floor and the mountain of unread books on my nightstand.

Don’t write to me saying that Android phones have been doing this since Obama was president or that some 99-cent app does it better. One, I’m an unrepentant Apple snob, and two, I like the convenience of having nothing to install and just holding down my finger.

Now for the life-changing … uh, change. The new iOS gives you the option to edit or even delete a sent text message. Ever send a break-up text to the wrong significant other? Or had a glaring typo in a text to your boss that changed “oh fudge” to the word that got little Ralphie’s mouth washed out with Lifebuoy soap in “A Christmas Story”?

No? Me either, but I needed something dramatic to convey how indefatigably cool it is to be able to “edit” or “undo send.”

Because maybe at some point in your life you’ve been having two simultaneous text conversations, one with a colleague and one with your spouse, and accidentally told your colleague you loved him and your spouse that a Thursday morning meeting would be terrific.

Not an apocalyptic mistake, but still.

But here comes the small print − and as always, the devil is in the details. You can only truly edit messages to other people who are using the same iOS 16 operating system. If they have an earlier version or an Android phone, they’ll just get a new message with the edited text, so your gaffe or inelegant wording (“I think your boyfriend is a schmuck”) remains.

Even if you’re chatting with people using the new software, they can still press down on the edited message and see the original, so the “schmuck” message is just a fingertip away.

Which raises ethical, Pandora Box-y type questions. If I see an edited message, will I press down on it and see what the person said originally? Or do I respect their revision process and stick with the second draft?

You gotta know I’m pressing down on that edited message. Every. Single. Time. If you aren’t, then what’s wrong with you? (Editor: please edit that last sentence to read, “If you aren’t, then you are a far better person than I am.” Thank you.)

Better to use the “undo send” feature, which blows up the message on the screen with a little puff of blue, much like Wile E. Coyote hitting the desert floor after falling off a cliff.

Even there (the deleted text, not the desert floor), a few caveats remain. “Undo send” works for only two minutes after a message is sent.

And if the receiver has even one Apple device, like an older iPad, that still uses an earlier operating system, the message remains, even if it’s deleted from other devices.

I’m waiting for some wit to come up with a name for the daredevil practice of sending a scandalous text and then trying to delete it before the receiver reads it. Destined to become the next TikTok challenge, it could be called e-sendiary.

These changes may prompt iPhone users to have frank conversations among themselves. Have you updated yet? Will you peek at edited messages? How quickly do you generally check texts?

Plus the angst of wondering if your poker-faced friends read your rant about their lack of parenting skills after their little darling doodled with a Sharpie on your living room walls, or if you deleted it in time.

On second thought, maybe this second new feature isn’t life-changing and indefatigably cool. It’s more like a pencil with an eraser that still lets people see what’s been erased.

But hey, at least I can still drop out the backgrounds on my dog photos.

Keep all books circulating during Banned Books Week and beyond

Banned Books Week is Sept. 18-24, and it’s a perfect time to tell librarians thank you.

Thank you for helping us find books.

Thank you for helping to keep books available.

Thank you for helping to ensure that the local library’s collection reflects the diversity of the people who live in the community.

In today’s hot-button political climate, libraries are at the center of the culture wars. Groups in neighborhoods across the nation are working hard to limit the materials that circulate there. They are trying to put certain titles out of reach, either through outright bans or by policies about who may borrow them.

And when they don’t get what they want, these groups threaten library funding, pressure elected officials and promote candidates who support similar restrictive philosophies. All legal, to be sure, but with a result that, if successful, would decimate people’s ability to access information freely.

A recent Time magazine story chronicles an attempt by some conservative residents in Victoria, Texas, to compel the local library to remove 44 books, many with LGBTQ themes. When library officials resisted, the residents leaned on the county commissioners, since the county owns the building that houses the library. At least one commissioner supports serving the library with an eviction notice.

Curtailing access to library materials is especially dangerous because our libraries, much like our courts, are the great levelers. This court philosophy was popularized by Atticus Finch, a character in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a book that has taken a turn or two on the American Library Association’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books list.

The ALA notes that a challenged book is one that somebody, somewhere, has tried to have removed from library shelves. If the attempt is successful, the ALA then characterizes the book as “banned.”

Just to show that the practice isn’t exclusively right-leaning, one of the reasons given for the most recent appearance by “To Kill a Mockingbird” on the list, in 2020, is that it includes a “white savior” character, often a complaint by people on the left who oppose certain mainstream texts.

And while the potential trauma from exposing students to racism of the past with the “n-word” in books like “Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a topic worthy of discussion, it’s not reason enough to restrict access to the books.

It would be easy to see book banning as a purely academic issue, far removed from day-to-day concerns about the economy or the environment. But consider this: Suicidal thoughts and attempts by LGBTQ youth are significantly higher than among their non-LGBTQ peers. One of the reasons is a sense of alienation and lack of community support.

The library is one of the few places these kids can go to find materials that answer questions about their lives and make them realize they are not alone. When these materials are removed from shelves or require parental consent, these kids lose access, especially if they live in households that are not supportive.

For these patrons, libraries and freely circulating materials could be the difference between life and death.

Even people who are indifferent or opposed to the struggles of LGBTQ youth should recognize the perils of letting any group dictate the contents of taxpayer-supported libraries.

While today it might be about content that they too disagree with, tomorrow it could be something central to their way of life. German pastor Martin Niemöller, writing about the rise of Nazism, voiced a similar sentiment in these often-cited lines: “First they came for the ________, and I did not speak out / Because I was not a __________.” Readers likely know how the quote ends.

So, during Banned Books Week, visit a library, peruse the shelves, find something you already like and something that challenges you. Read with an open mind, and if you still disagree with that tough book, talk about it and write about it, but don’t deny others the same opportunity you had to experience it.

And while you’re there, thank the librarians for helping to keep the doors of knowledge open for everybody.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

@cschillig on Twitter

Biden's mistakes in addressing extremism

In Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” pilots who fly dangerous missions are categorized as crazy and are therefore ineligible to fly dangerous missions. But when they recognize these missions are dangerous and ask not to fly them, they are demonstrating their sanity, and can no longer claim the exemption.

President Joe Biden faced a similar paradox in his decision to speak last Thursday in Philadelphia.

As president, Biden has a responsibility to call out dangers to the nation. MAGA extremists are such a danger. They refuse to recognize the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, and they are increasingly comfortable advocating for violence to achieve their ends.

Yet calling out a small but nonetheless significant sliver of Americans risks further entrenching their MAGA identity and could serve as a catalyst for the very violence the president seeks to prevent.

Catch-22 territory, for sure.

Biden’s speech was laudatory in many ways. He noted the zero-sum fallacy that motivates many far-right radicals: the mistaken belief that there is only so much freedom to go around. “The MAGA Republicans believe that for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail,” Biden said, the opposite of a nation that is “big enough for all of us to succeed.”

He noted legislative successes that will make life better for all Americans, including a new gun safety law, health care reform and a climate initiative.

And he was correct in noting that American democracy is not guaranteed. Election deniers are working “in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies.”

We need a president to speak out forcibly about such issues, even if by so doing he can no longer claim to be above the fray when it comes to politics.

However, Biden’s speech had significant missteps, too.

The first was a failure to separate hardcore MAGA supporters from Republicans. The president was clear that only a very small number of Republicans are truly aligned with MAGA philosophy, despite the party today being “dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.”

However, we’ve reached a point where it is helpful to more forcibly separate rank-and-file Republicans from this extremist faction, which seeks to align itself with the GOP as a means to an end, since their numbers alone are insufficient to win elections.

Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. Many rank-and-file Republicans have also felt it necessary to align themselves with MAGA supporters to win elections. This allegiance has proven somewhat effective in the short-term but threatens to delegitimize the party in the long-term.

Similarly, Democrats have done themselves no favors in instances where they have supported MAGA candidates in primaries because they believe that such individuals will be easier to defeat in general elections.

All these “politics-make-for-strange-bedfellows” moments have helped to solidify and legitimize the MAGA brand and bring the weird QAnon-inspired theories that motivate many followers into the mainstream. Biden shouldn’t have called them MAGA Republicans; they are just MAGA.

Biden also erred in branding their extremist perspective a fait accompli. “MAGA Republicans have made their choice,” he said. “They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live, not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.”

This may be accurate, but it doesn’t have to be permanent.

I recently read that instead of asking why MAGA supporters believe what they believe, we should ask what they gain from believing it.

One answer is that MAGA provides an identity, a place of belonging. Better to think of MAGA supporters as fervent fans of a sports franchise. No matter how many times the Cleveland Browns disappoint, most fans aren’t going to one day show up in Steelers jerseys.

But even for super-fans, there is a breaking point. If a team moves to another city or signs a player whose off-field actions are too appalling, some fans jump ship.

No matter how many times Trump lies about the election, foments dissatisfaction with anybody who disagrees with him and leads crowds in chants of “Lock her up!” after the FBI has removed hundreds of classified documents from his home, many fans are going to continue to wear his jersey.

But just as with sports franchises, a movement’s supporters can reach a breaking point. Republicans are increasingly removing Trump references from their websites and distancing themselves from his extremist views. And some MAGAs are awakening to the realization that where there’s so much smoke, there might be a fire. That’s a heartening sign.

Instead of writing off an entire demographic, Biden and the Democrats need to ask how to better publicize what they’ve done to help MAGAs. Then they need to ask themselves what else they can do to make their lives − and the lives of all Americans − better.

Listening and finding common ground is the first step. Consigning them to oblivion only makes the MAGA agenda, such as it is, more appealing. And that’s a Catch-22 to which Biden can’t afford to succumb.

'Today I am a man!'

This column is an oldie, but I can't say how old. Harvey Pekar passed in 2010, and this predates that. It still accurately describes my aversion to home repairs, although I've gotten better at making them over the years. But not much better.

***  

“Today I am a man!” shouts Harvey Pekar, plunger over his head, kneeling before the porcelain god he has successfully unclogged.

In “Another Day,” a collection of vignettes presented as comic-book stories, Pekar compares fixing a toilet to a Bar Mitzvah, how he was reluctant at age 13 to utter the five words that signal the change from childhood to adulthood because he was a “klutz” who “couldn’t do mechanical stuff … couldn’t fix anything.”

I know exactly how he feels about the agony and ecstasy of being all thumbs at home repairs.

This week, the sole toilet at Casa Schillig started to work overtime, gurgling water long after it should have. Luckily, it didn’t overflow, but for a few days, gallons were wasted, driving up the water bill and making us poster children for “Conspicuous Consumption.”

The solution, I found, was to jiggle the handle. If that didn’t work, removing the lid from the tank and pulling the lever on the filler valve did the trick.

Being the adaptable sort, this fix could have lasted me indefinitely. My wife and daughter, however, accustomed to the luxury of fully operational indoor plumbing, demanded more. Apparently, waiting around while the tank refills to see if one must manually stop the water flow isn’t convenient. Some people have no patience.

This left me with a conundrum. Behind door number one, as Monty Hall says, was the professional plumber, who would charge a fortune and look at me askance for not fixing such a simple problem myself.

Behind door number two were helpful family members who know full well that I can handle nothing more complex than changing a light bulb (if that) and who would make smart comments while handling the problem for me.

Door Number Three was the most frightening: Fix it myself.

A few years ago, I invested in the greatest do-it-yourself book ever, “The Stanley Complete Step-by-Step Book of Home Repair and Improvement.” It’s not great because it shows you how to fix lots of things (to be honest, I’ve never gotten past the table of contents), but because in the introduction, people like me are told to take a hike.

The book “warns you away from potentially dangerous or difficult jobs and suggests when to hire professionals for the tasks you don’t feel qualified to tackle or ones where you know you will need help to meet codes,” writes the author.

I’ve quoted the line many times when the subject of home improvements comes up. Repaper the dining room? Potentially dangerous. Paint the ceiling? Not qualified to tackle. Hang a picture? It won’t meet code.

Yet I knew something would have to be done. I was spending too many nights worrying about the toilet, jerking out of a sound sleep because I feared somebody had forgotten to jiggle the handle after flushing. (The dog is particularly bad at this.) When I compared the cost of fixing the toilet to sleepless nights or the other alternative – selling the house – I decided to follow the path of least resistance.

For 12 bucks, I bought a toilet repair kit. The box shows a simple three-step method: Take out old guts, drop in new guts, start sleeping again.

Once I got it home and opened it, the three-step plan became the thirteen-step plan, with A, B, and C subsets illustrated with lots of pictures and filled with warnings about how the new unit would devour the bathroom if not properly installed.

My daughter saw me with the kit and promptly ran into her bedroom and shut the door. “This measly door won’t keep you safe from a solid wall of water,” I shouted.

“I know,” she answered. “But I just feel safer in here.”

Within ten minutes, I had a minor flood (they aren’t kidding when they say to drain the tank before starting), a stripped nut (on the toilet, ye of dirty mind) and a repair job that was going south fast.

Ten minutes later, things got better. I tightened everything up, pushed down on the flush button, and ran into the closet to hide. Nothing bad happened. Water went out, water came in, water stopped running.

Success!

I’ve learned not to get too excited when I fix something, because usually in a week or two it needs fixed again, this time by a professional who undoes whatever mess I made the first time.

But for right now, today, I refuse to think about that. Tomorrow I may well come home to find the toilet has fallen through the floor into the kitchen, but for now, I am joining Harvey Pekar and poet Walt Whitman in sounding my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world:

Today I am a man!