BarkingDogs.net

San Francisco Chronicle Suppresses Information Vital to Public Health

For years, we at barkingdogs.net have repeatedly contacted the editorial staff of the San Francisco Chronicle, informing them of the danger that noise poses to the public health, with a particular emphasis on that most dangerous of all noise sources: barking dogs.

Sadly, through the years our message has fallen on deaf ears, as the Chron's decision makers have ignored our every attempt to prompt them to fulfill their obligation to provide the information necessary for their readers to understand this issue that is so critical to the maintenance of the public health.

However, based on a recent article they published about the dangers of traffic noise, we know that the editorial staff of the Chronicle is now aware that noise, force-fed into human living quarters, ruins lives and sends many to an early grave.

Indeed, we know that the forces within the walls of the Chronicle building are aware that the noise of barking dogs is particularly dangerous to the health of those who are compelled to live with it being forcibly projected into their homes on a round-the-clock basis. At least, the Chron should know, because we have informed them of the same countless times.

Dogs barking unchecked is both the single most dangerous noise source as well as the one that could be most readily eliminated.

The continuing refusal of the Chronicle to cover this story that is so vital to the public health now takes on the proportions of a scandal as a major American newspaper withholds information from the people that is vital to their well-being.

How much longer will the Chronicle continue to suppress this message that is so essential to the public health? And how much longer can they live with themselves before they are overtaken by some approximation of a sense of right and wrong, and of their responsibility to promote the public good?

Please find below the latest letter to the editor that never saw the light of day.

Dear Editor: Please Tell the Big Lie No More

In an October 24 article ("New Plan to Regulate Noise"), the Chronicle stated that in San Francisco the noise of barking dogs is "already regulated by city law."

In my role as an educational psychologist, I have invested tens of thousands of hours researching the animal control system and the laws that pertain to chronic barking. As the webmaster of the world's only comprehensive source for information on that topic, and as someone who has investigated, written about, and discussed these issues in meticulous detail, I can tell you that the laws that supposedly regulate chronic barking in San Francisco are little more than a convoluted scam that in their true effect serve actually to legalize chronic barking.

Please, let us tell the big lie no more. When it comes to chronic barking, San Francisco has only unenforceable laws that were long ago lobbied in to place by special interests in order to create the pretense of effective regulation as a means of ensuring the absence of the same.

Craig Mixon, Ed.D. Webmaster - barkingdogs.net

You can express your own opinion to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle at: letters@sfchronicle.com

This page is part of the Peace and Quiet News and the Hall of Shame,
which are a components of the Barking Dog News and barkingdogs.net