August 23, 2007 Issue

Apparently this story has been all over cable news, but deprived as I am without it, I had to wait to learn of it from The Week. It seems in San Diego, four macho fire fighters are suing the city because the chief of their station, a female and a lesbian, made them drive a fire truck in the local gay pride parade.

I’m on the side of the fire fighters. Not just because it was an inappropriate use of personnel and equipment, but also because I’m not a huge fan of the stupendously stupid. And this woman is stupid.

I have no doubt that she had a tough time reaching the position of chief, not only because of her gender, but her sexual orientation could not have helped as she ascended the ladder. However, having reached an exalted position, she chose to humiliate those serving under her — apparently forgetting all she may have endured along the way. She ain’t got no class.

On two occasions in my life, I’ve been confronted with supervisors of the monumentally stupid variety. On both occasions, I made straight for the exit.

Life is too short to work for people you cannot respect. I have a lot of sympathy for these fire fighters. Work like this is more of a calling than a career and they are probably happy in their work most of the time. They shouldn’t have had to cater to someone else’s agenda. If she wanted to take part in the parade, she should have done it herself or done it with the other gay and lesbian people in the fire department.

The sad part of this is the city of San Diego will probably have to give them a very big check, funded by the local taxpayers. In California fire fighters are unionized, so it is entirely possible this moronic woman still has a job. She might not be chief any longer, but she is probably still employed.

Such abuses of power are not all that uncommon, but I expect women to act more responsibly than men at everything. Since women still have not achieved pay parity in the private sector, the very least we can do is show our smarts. This woman set us back as a gender and did nothing to help foster understanding from the homophobes among us either.

***
In other news, the despicable Michael Vick is going to plead guilty to dog fighting and if there is justice, he’ll be doing some maneuvering to protect his tight end when he goes to prison. At least in prison, he’ll have a fighting chance, which is more than he gave those poor dogs.

How much of a man can you be if you get your kicks torturing dogs? The dog cruelty and the interstate gambling should pretty much seal his fate as far as the NFL is concerned. Even they cannot overlook this, can they?

The description of what he did to “underperforming” dogs is sick making. The dude is so lame he initially tried to blame the whole thing on his cousins, who were reportedly living in the mansion he built in Virginia. That smacks of schoolyard mentality, but then the only thing the guy can do is play football, and he shouldn’t be permitted to do that again. Ever. Sweet.

When I was reading about this on the web, I looked over at my own dog happily chewing on a bone and wondered what kind of person would want to train a dog to kill other dogs? In the case of my dog, I don’t think it would be possible. She rarely barks, has never shown aggression toward any other dog and even finds cats fascinating. She will tear out the door in hot pursuit of the occasional squirrel, but I think she’s looking for a playmate rather than a kill. She’s a hound dog after all.

I gotta stop being informed…it’s making me crazy.

More from Leah Stratmann