and ditto with the pictures...

but i was only PRETENDING to pee in the freezer

Well, thank god he was only pretending to pee in the freezer, but you just never know around here. (For those of you who might be thinking I have either an incredibly tall or well endowed three year old, our freezer is on the bottom.) Sam just couldn't understand why his father might yell at the mere appearance of him taking a whiz onto our frozen foods. These moments sum up the chaos of our household.

Sure, we only have one kid. Lots of almost-forty somethings have two or three kids. But, let me justify my whining a bit.

We have a lot of animals. Not a crazy "call the county on them" number of animals, but more than your average family. We've got 3 dogs (including yet another new/old heartworm positive Great Dane named Sandy), 5 indoor-only cats, 1 cat who believes himself to be feral who lives on our porch (I think it's an act and I *WILL* get him in the house), and 1 incredibly cranky Senegal parrot. I should also note that each of these animals has some kind of medical "quirk," shall we say, that ends up being both costly and inconvenient.

Now, put that all together with an extremely active toddler and smush it into 1,250 square feet, add a bit of daycare (but not enough for full time care), and two full time jobs that seem to bleed over into evenings, weekends, and "vacation" days. And from that grand package, subtract financial stability and voila, you have our family.

In that context, "I was only PRETENDING to pee in the freezer" seems to be a pretty reasonable statement, certainly one that didn't necessitate parental scolding. When he starts PRETENDING to go to school, while secretly going to the movies with friends, or PRETENDING that he's not sexually active when the condom wrapper evidence proves otherwise, well, then we can think about doing some scolding. Or some locking in the room until puberty is over, thinking back to those wonderful days in which he was *only* peeing in the fridge.....

our ms. sandy

sitting pretty, though with some
demon eyes....
no one will break in, I promise...





the couch belongs to ME ME MEPoor Harvey was only with us for about four months. His big body had been through too much--years of neglect and poor nutrition, heartworms, and the worst part--a diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease. In the end, it was his tummy that did him in.

A few months later we adopted this lovely lady, Sandy (yes, that is my mom Sandra's nickname). Sandy is also 7 years old and lived in a small pen with no shade or appropriate housing for her entire life. Heartworms and a variety of other icky worms. Body covered in a yeast infection that has been extremely stubborn to treat.

She's a SWEETHEART. Gentle with people, including spastic toddlers, and good with cats, dogs, and even a parrot. She probably wouldn't work in a house with pet squirrels, but our rehab babies in the backyard just mock her from on high. She's yet another old, beautiful Great Dane spirit who has come to live with us. Smooch.

religion & animals

Have to run to FASET orientation (freshmen orientation for incoming fall 2009 students), but Bill sent me this quotation last night and I love it, so I just thought I'd share.

"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
— Abraham Lincoln

portrait in sepia

My typical view of Harvey, at (or on) my feet.

sad sack

OK, so that's a bit of a gross title, but it made me laugh. Our new, used dog Harvey, AKA Norman, AKA Stanley, AKA Sam was neutered today. He was yet another one of the throw-aways. His owner was going to kill him (that's much more accurate than "put him to sleep") because he kept jumping the fence. Turns out, he's terrified of thunderstorms, which is a bit inconvenient when one lives in a yard.

He is an 8 year old Great Dane (the typical Dane lifespan is 8 - 9) who had lived his entire life in a back yard, with a utility shed to call home. He was not vaccinated, he was not neutered, but he did manage to contract heartworms. In the South, almost any animal would be heartworm positive after being outside for just a few months. He was filled with parasites, 30 pounds underweight, and has neurological problems in his hips. That's common in Danes--our previous Dane Eleanor had major hip and spinal problems.

Soooo, like any rational person, I said "that dog's for me!" and found someone willing to drive 8 hours (there and back) to south GA to pick him up and bring him to my house. He had been named Sam, which is also my son's name, so I figured we were karmically meant to be together. I don't actually believe in karma, though I wish it were real, but it somehow makes me sound a little less crazy...

Back to the sack issue. As I mentioned, he was not neutered. Suffice to say, in an 8 year old dog who is meant to weigh 150 pounds, this is not an attractive sight. I felt the need to put underpants on him, as having a dog that well-endowed (actually, at ALL endowed) goes against every cell in my animal-rescuer body. So, instead of throwing a wiggling 12 week old puppy in the car to go get neutered, I helped a geriatric old man in the car--an old man who is not used to car rides, never mind going to the vet.

OK, so why do it? He won't be around unspayed female dogs, and he's probably gotten used to them being back there, right? Well, for one thing, dogs his age are very susceptible to testicular cancer, which is impossible to contract if one has no testes. Neutering also reduces the instances of prostate cancer in male dogs, and it prevents that oh-so-pleasant "surprise" pee mark that I always seem to find with bare feet at 3:00 AM, on my way to the bathroom. It also helps curb aggression, though this boy doesn't have an aggressive bone in his body. He defers to the cats, even the ones who get beat up by the other cats.

He's on the floor next to me, as I type. He's usually up on the futon in my office watching me, but I suspect he was just too damn tired to get up there. He keeps looking at his hindquarters with a bit of a puzzled look, though I'm probably just anthropomorphizing him. He's so trusting, and his eyes say "thank you for saving me" every time I look at him. But the funny thing is, it's these creatures who really save me.

life at the margins

As I was driving into work this morning, I passed a man holding council on the sidewalk. He was talking to no one, gesticulating wildly about and seeming to chastise the plastic shopping bag floating in the air around his head (I just chastise people who use plastic shopping bags, as they are crapping up our planet). But I digress...

As he stood there ranting, I watched the reactions of those around him--the non-mentally ill people walking down the street beside him and waiting at stoplights at the corner where he stood. They looked uncomfortable. Actually, they didn't "look" at all--at least not directly at him. They looked at the space around him, as if he were that pink elephant in the room that no one acknowledges but everyone knows is there.

Atlanta does not have the best record of working with the homeless. Our solutions seem to boil down to two simplistic options for dealing with this population: build large, overcrowded, and dangerous night shelters that primarily serve single men (women and families aren't homeless, you know), or aggressively pursue panhandlers on the street. Neither of these strategies gets at the underlying social and economic (e.g., structural) conditions that lead to homelessness. They are bandaids that placate constituents while merely shifting the problem away. The homeless move from tourist areas to under bridges, and the problem is solved.

A few years ago I heard about an essay contest for Lantern Books. Unfortunately, I heard about the contest the night before the essays were due but, nonetheless, I managed to pull a somewhat thoughtful reflection from out of my arse and submit it at 11:59 PM, exactly one minute before the deadline. I suspect that this is much how my students do their own papers.

I did not win the contest, I was a merely a runner-up, but my essay appeared on the Lantern Books website. I found it gratifying enough to post on the CV but, let's face it, in the world of Research I academia, no one gives a shit about this kind of stuff. But it meant something to me, even if sloppily written moments before the deadline. I'm assuming that I'm not wildly violating some copyright laws by posting it here, seeing as I was the one who wrote it. Let's hope that assumption is correct. :-) So, here it goes. It's from 2007 and entitled "Life at the Margins: Humans and Animals in a Disposable Society."

Life at the Margins: Humans and Animals in a Disposable Society

Driving past the landfill, I can see what we Americans throw away. Spoiled food, piles of diapers, newspapers, and out-of-date electronics form a landscape of waste and excess. Americans are a wealthy lot, throwing away more than many other countries produce and consume. As a culture, we consider the word “disposable” to be a positive quality—anything that must be cleaned, protected, and tended to becomes a burden in a society where time is of the essence. In this age of disposable convenience, many overlook the fact that it is not only mass-produced goods that have become disposable; humans and other animals are often viewed in the same way.

As I drive past the landfill, I notice the other buildings that dot the common landscape: a county jail and an animal control facility. The refuse of society—in all its forms—has been tucked quietly onto this shared piece of land. Of course it’s logical that facilities run by the county (a landfill, animal shelter, and correctional facility) should share the same parcel of land. It’s just a practical use of space, correct? Or perhaps it is something more. Perhaps this shared space is symbolic of what (and whom) we view to be disposable: household trash, unwanted animals, and people living at the margins of legality and society.

As someone who is both a sociologist by training and the co-director of an animal rescue organization, I see the ramifications of living in a “disposable society” on a daily basis. In the metro area in which I live, almost 100,000 dogs and cats are euthanized each year, simply because they are not wanted. Victims of overpopulation, there is nowhere to put them. There are not enough interested adopters for all of the dogs and cats to find homes, and many of the animals are not the coveted “purebreds” that are highly desired by the consumer public. The dogs and cats are surplus, and become as disposable as the leftover food we throw away. Juxtapose this against the vast consumer spending power of pet owners in the United States. While almost $35 billion dollars are spent each year in the US on companion animal care and upkeep, nationally, almost nine million dogs and cats are killed because they are unwanted.

As someone who studies the intersections between race, class, gender, and crime, I see not just animals, but also humans living at the margins of society, struggling with poverty, racism, sexism, violence, mental illness, and substance abuse. With no substantial network of social service programs to deal with their multitude of problems, prisons and jails become their holding pens. Like surplus animals whose lives end at the county animal control facility, we have a population of humans in the United States who have been deemed “surplus” as well. In many places, it is the human residents of jails—the inmates—who care for the animal residents of shelters and pounds, often until the animals are euthanized. The wealthiest country on the planet, we have one of the highest rates of imprisonment of any nation and are the only country in the Western world that continues to use the death penalty. It seems that disposing of those who are damaged, unwanted, or excess becomes acceptable, regardless of what is being thrown away.

The suffering experienced by animals and people living in a “disposable society” is often inextricably linked. In fact, the treatment of companion animals often reflects the treatment of various human groups in society. The fact that the jail, landfill, and animal control facility are all located on the same parcel of land may be more than just convenience or coincidence. The exploitation of animals and the justification of their mistreatment closely resembles human oppression: living chained outside, constantly reproducing, facing exposure to disease due to inadequate or no medical attention, malnourishment, exposure to dangers of human social environments (e.g., traffic, chemical hazards), and abuse from people. These indignities faced by unwanted animals are analogous to conditions faced by the people who live in similar areas—inadequate health care, lack of access to reproductive services and care, malnutrition, hazardous wastes, and exposure to abuse and violence. All areas are affected by this problem: inner cities, rural areas, and suburbs. However, areas where socioeconomic disadvantage and poverty are rampant experience the bulk of the problem—where people in the community are marginalized, so too are the animals of that community.

And the link between unwanted animals and unwanted humans is deeper than just their common “disposability.” Researchers have long known that individuals who are neglectful or abusive of animals are also more likely to perpetrate violence against humans, but it is only in the last decade that the strength of this pathway has been uncovered. Whether it is in the form of neglect, deliberate abuse, or dog/cockfighting, aggression against animals is often indicative of larger problems of violence against humans.

Companion animals are often caught up in the “cycle of violence” that can haunt families. Violence can be witnessed by children and, through the learning process, passed on through generations. In the cycle of escalating aggression often found in domestic violence, animals can also end up the victims. Many women who have been victims of domestic violence report a hesitance to leave the abusive relationship, for fear the abuser will injure or kill a companion animal.

The abuse of children in the US is a disturbing fact, to say the least. Census data demonstrate that approximately fifty percent of pet owners also are parents of children under the age of eighteen, meaning that investigations of child abuse should also be attune to the possibility of concurrent animal abuse, and vice-versa. However, it is even more disturbing when it is discovered that children are not only abused, but are also perpetrators of animal abuse themselves. Children who abuse animals often start on a small scale with insects or small rodents, working their way up to companion animals (both strays and their own), and then sometimes moving on to abuse other children. Those doing research on violent adult criminals—particularly those with extreme patterns of violence such as serial killers or serial rapists—often find a history of animal abuse that started when the individual was a child and was “only” harming insects or rodents. Psychologists, sociologists, and human services workers agree that such behaviors should not be taken lightly, as they can be indicative of violent, predatory actions in the future.

In American society, the links between humans and animals who are considered surplus or disposable are tightly wound. That both are treated as the flotsam and jetsam of our culture—inconvenient, messy, and easily disposed of in landfills, shelters, or jails—should come as no surprise. The conditions faced by many animals resemble those faced by marginalized people because such oppression is deeply grounded in the organization and belief systems of society. Sociologists have long argued that racism, sexism, classism, and the like have historical and social structural causes that are rooted largely in unjust social arrangements—arrangements that significantly shape human consciousness and that are reflected in individual behaviors. Such arrangements affect the social conditions in which animals live as well. That is, conditions faced by animals are directly related to conditions such as urban deterioration and economically distressed communities. Such areas tend to have relatively high rates of animal abuse and homelessness. Thus, the conditions that animals face are a symptom of larger social problems.

Driving by a landfill, most Americans grimace at the unpleasant smell or the visual blight inflicted on the landscape. We wish it could be a little further away, a little more out of our field of vision, and most certainly not in our own neighborhood. The same is said of the other “refuse” that dots our communities—homeless humans and animals. What is so often overlooked is the tie that binds all of us together: city dweller, suburbanite, prisoner, and even the stray dog or cat. We live in a society where people and animals have come to be viewed as disposable, and where “disposable” no longer holds a negative connotation. For those who dwell at the margins, being at the mercy of a culture of disposability becomes a way of life.

entering the blogosphere....

Well, I've finally done it. I've entered the blogosphere. I figured that if I'm constantly talking to myself, I might as well put the thoughts down on paper (so to speak).

So, who am I and why would you care to read my blog? Well, I'm no one important and someone important. I've written things that you've probably never read, taught classes that you've probably never taken, and rescued animals that you've probably never met. I'm also a mom to Sam and Violet (my most important job), spouse to Bill, and an academic.

Why would you care to read? Unless you're my mom, you probably won't. But if you do keep reading, beyond this paragraph at least, you'll get to enjoy (or at least tolerate) my musings on raising a child, being a reinvented academic, being married to an academic, and living in a household populated by far more animals than people.