Category: rambling

What seems like a fair punishment for someone who comes onto another person’s property, forces the property owner to drag their dog from their home and tie it to a post, and proceeds to shoot the pet three times while the family looks on? It seems obvious that the person who did this either had murderous intent or was completely deranged or both. I would expect him to receive a life sentence, if he was not committed immediately to a mental institution for treatment.

I also have to wonder about the dog owner who went along with tying their dog to a post. I can’t imagine allowing something like that to happen to my pet without first being shot myself, but I don’t have any dependents other than my dog, and who knows how my bravery would hold up unarmed, against an angry man’s rifle.

The crime was committed in Felt, Idaho, in late 2007, by a Teton County Sheriff’s deputy. After pleading guilty last week, the deputy, Joseph Guitierrez, was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Seems like a light sentence given the brutality of his actions. But wait, 25 days of his sentence were suspended, and he has been assigned to a sheriff’s inmate labor detail for the other five. Sounds like he will spend a total of zero days in jail. He does have to pay a whopping $100 fine and serve a six-month UNSUPERVISED probation. If he completes probation successfully the crime may be removed from his record. Is it possible to unsuccessfully complete an unsupervised probation?

Is this justice? Apparently it is … in Teton Valley, Idaho, and not just in the mind of Judge Colin Luke. There is a poll on the home page of the local paper asking people if they are satisfied with the outcome of this case. It appears that this is not an important issue to Teton Valley News readers because there are only a few votes, but shockingly 71% have voted “Yes,” they are satisfied with the outcome of the case. They believe that $100 and 40 hours of work is fair punishment for this barbarity.

…we know being a loner isn’t about hating people. It’s about essence, about necessity. We need what others dread. We dread what others need.

I recently finished reading Party of One: The Loner’s Manifesto, by Anneli Rufus. It was recommended by an ultrarunner several years ago. He thought that probably lots of ultrarunners are loners. I would say the percentage is higher than the general population, but we’re not a majority in that community either.

In some ways the book was a disappointment. I mean, how many examples do you need that “loner” is often used to describe criminals who are social outcasts. People who are truly loners would rather stay home and make a bookshelf or knit or mow the lawn or whatever, not bother themselves with some socially intimate mass murder plan. Really, except for the part about the making a bookshelf or knitting or mowing, and being social, that is true of most non-loners too! Ultimately, the book could have been much shorter. The author seemed to lack material and on more than one topic was just filling space.

There were some good insights for me; like 75% of the population actually enjoy hanging out with groups of people. That it is not a flaw or weakness in them. It’s just the way they are wired. Most of that 75% would think it was fun to walk up to an astronaut and ask about her job. Where I would rather research astronauts on the Internet, at home, alone. I loved the author’s insight about a lunch invitation creating a crisis for about 25% of us, and, that while big cities offer anonymity and are ok for loners, small towns make us feel completely uncomfortable. The interesting thing is that I knew all this about myself. I just didn’t realize that my feelings are shared by a large segment of the population. A minority yes, but still, 25% is a lot of people! Another interesting part of the book was the fact that loners are heroized in movies, tv and literature, but when many non-loners come face-to-face with independence they are either offended, frightened or try to fix it.

So what does this have to do with walrus and polar bears? Well, if you’ve seen the documentary Arctic Tale you know. As Queen Latifah says, the walrus are “always up in each other’s business.” A polar bear spends most its life alone. The mother polar bear chases her daughter off when she is only two years old! How sad. But she knows it is the best chance for either of them to survive. On the other hand, when one walrus gets itchy he assumes the walrus next to him is itchy too and starts scratching. In the movie, at times it almost seems as if the group of walrus is one organism rather than a group of individuals.

I of course related to the polar bear, not just because it was cuter! Sure friends and family are important, but given the choice of being completely alone or living en masse, the former seems more survivable. Made me wonder if most people relate to the walrus. Since this was a movie, and independence is heroized in that context (and it was cuter), more people probably relate to the polar bear. It would make an interesting survey.