Friday Hound Blogging

Frequent reader(s) of this blog are aware the jauntily colored balloons of youth dancing on their tethers against an azure sky full of hope and promise are now blown away by the harsh winds of age to lie deflated and crumpled under the inexorable tread of time...erm...we mean are aware that on occasion we have been accused of presenting a one sided view of the wholesale commodification and systematized abuse of innocent living creatures for (no) profit...uh...we mean greyhound racing.

Well, we take reader comments very seriously here in the marbled halls of IM Central (no we don't) and we constantly strive to be fair and balanced in our coverage of industrialized cruelty (who are we trying to kid?). Anyway, to counter the perception that we are anti-racing, animal rights wackos (which is actually quite accurate) we present the following interchange between the editorial staff at The Charleston Gazette and the overlords, but first a bit of back story. It seems the editors at the Charleston Gazette were a bit put off by the fact that the state had forgone $29 million so the overlords could stay out of the labor pool and they penned the aforementioned editorial titled Waste: Millions For Greyhounds. Now, the overlords may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but even they could tell this was not to be a puff piece on their vocation so they took to the comments to school these clueless upstarts in the finer points of animal exploitation. We present for your edification and intestinal queasiness that discussion. First up, the editors:

Betting on dog racing has almost disappeared in America. So far, 39 states have banned such tracks — mostly because animal-lovers protest that greyhounds spend their lives confined in cramped cages and suffer lethal injuries during wild gallops. Four other states have ceased racing, without prohibitory laws.

Right off the bat overlord Elaine Miller Summerhill takes issue with the blatant falsehood being perpetrated:

What is illegal is betting on LIVE RACING.

 As the kids say, oh snap! Overlord Elaine corrects a common misconception. In those states which the editors so erroneously characterized as having outlawed greyhound racing it is perfectly legal to race greyhounds, it's just that no one can bet on them. We tried to find out if there were any plans to open these bet-free tracks in any of the 39 states, but we were unable to determine if there were any such projects on the drawing board. Back to the editors:

  A few months ago, a West Virginia study ordered by the state Senate showed a colossal downturn: In 1990, gamblers wagered $64 million on dogs at the Cross Lanes track — but the sum dropped below $5 million in 2013. Yet the state gave a $29 million subsidy to dog breeders.

 Well, overlord Jaime Leach Narke (why do overlords always have three names?) is having none of it:

What that article fails to point out, because facts and the truth would get in the way of an agenda, is the money given to greyhound (and horse racing!) breeders DID NOT come from taxpayer money, it came from gambling revenue.

 Well said overlord Jamie. The $29 mill is a handout from the casinos to keep the overlords off the job market. Now, that's not to say that if the casinos didn't have to provide welfare for the overlords that money couldn't go to the state for useful things like roads or education, or public welfare, but let's not get caught up in the details here. The editors again:

The same report said 162 greyhounds were killed by West Virginia racing between 2009 and 2013, while 3,331 were injured. An opposition group, Grey2K USA, examined reports and announced that the Mountain State gave $10.2 million to a handful of breeders over the past two years. The largest subsidy, $1.4 million, went to McMillion Kennel at Alum Creek. Next was $1.2 million to Monroe Racing at Wheeling. Logan’s Tomblin family kennel, which was operated by the governor’s mother until her death, got $580,000.

Sharp eyed readers will note that Grey2K did not do the report, but merely "examined" it. As we all know though, just the mere mention of Grey2K is enough to drive the overlords to dizzying heights of apoplexy. Overlord Jamie again:

I don't think spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbyists and executive salaries a good use of donations when actual adoption groups are struggling to meet their needs. Grey2k is an anti gambling group disguising itself as an animal welfare group.

An overlord  from the Alum Creek Kennel put it a little more succinctly: "They should be in jail." He didn't specify the charge, but as you can see no assertion is made about the veracity of the facts reported, no critique of the report methodology is brought forward, no counter narrative is offered concerning the issue unless you count Grey2K! Argle Bargle Fweet Freet Blek! as a retort.

Finally, overlord Elaine sums the whole thing up:

Who ever submitted this POS editorial doesn't even have the courage to put their name to it.

 We think we can help here overlord Elaine. See, when a newspaper editorial staff writes a position, it's the position of the paper, not any one individual, so traditionally those editorials do not carry a byline because it's assumed the opinions expressed therein represent the views of the staff. Hope we cleared that up for you. It's fun to help people isn't it Banini?

Banini is a six year old female who has just been rescued so we don't know a whole lot about her personality yet. For more information about this dog, and other rescued racing greyhounds looking for homes, go here. If you don't know about the plight of racing greyhounds go here and here.