{"id":708,"date":"2010-12-01T02:49:25","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T00:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=708"},"modified":"2015-04-27T18:52:29","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T16:52:29","slug":"when-dog-bites-man-is-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/when-dog-bites-man-is-news\/","title":{"rendered":"When “dog bites man” is news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first snow of the year fell in Munich on Monday \u2014 a month late \u2014 and road traffic came to a standstill. How humbling<\/span> it is that forces of nature can still put a stop to normal human activity! And how much it says about the human spirit that we always try to fight these forces.<\/p>\n

The bus was half an hour late. I summoned the courage<\/span> to wait for it in the freezing wind by remembering the unofficial motto of American postal workers:<\/p>\n

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“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom<\/span> of night stays these couriers<\/span> from the swift<\/span> completion of their appointed rounds.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This declaration is written in large capital letters<\/span> above the columns<\/span> of the main post office in New York City, which was built in 1912. Every American knows the slogan. It’s actually a translation of something the classical Greek historian Herodotus wrote about couriers on horseback in the Persian Empire. But it’s so poetic that it’s often quoted as a reference to American perseverance<\/span>.<\/p>\n

It’s also lodged<\/span> so deep in the public consciousness that we expect good service even under the worst conditions. As a government entity<\/span>, the US Postal Service (USPS) is required to do all it can to ensure delivery \u2014 and it takes pride<\/a> in its reliability.<\/p>\n

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“The Postal Service and its employees have proudly embraced<\/span> this notion<\/span> of service in the face of all possible adversity<\/span>. From the Pony Express through Hurricane Katrina and into the blizzards of 2010, the Postal Service constantly builds on its mission of providing universal<\/span> service to all Americans. From the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the furthermost point in Alaska, mail gets through,” says the USPS website.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s why a news item<\/span> from Dayton, Ohio, took me by surprise. There is something not mentioned by Herodotus that will<\/i> stop postal carriers: it’s dogs. The Postal Service has refused to deliver mail to some neighborhoods<\/span> in Dayton because its carriers keep getting attacked by pit bulls<\/span>.<\/p>\n

“Northridge Station Supervisor Geoffrey Estes said his station receives at least one call a week from letter carriers who have been attacked or threatened by vicious<\/span> dogs,” the Dayton Daily News<\/i> reported<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

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“A pit bull on the loose<\/span> recently bit letter carrier Brad Grubb on the forearm<\/span> while he was in the 2400 block of Oneida Drive. Grubb used pepper spray to try to get the dog to let him go. ‘He was just unaffected<\/span> by the spray,’ Grubb said. The pit bull lost interest in the attack when he noticed a female pit bull in the area,” the newspaper explained.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Postal Service has warned mail carriers in Northridge of more than 50 addresses with dangerous dogs on two delivery routes. One of those addresses has six pit bulls.<\/p>\n

In the Dayton View neighborhood, eight carriers were bitten in fiscal year<\/span> 2009\u201310. A ninth was attacked in September when delivering mail to a pit-bull owner who opened the door to receive an item in person. The dog ran outside, jumped up and bit the carrier on the shoulder.<\/p>\n

Pit bulls are notoriously dangerous<\/span> because when they bite, they don’t let go. But a hundred years ago, when those stonemasons<\/span> chiseled<\/span> that motto into the post office facade, ordinary dogs chased and bit mail carriers all the time. “\u2018Dog bites man\u2019 is not news,” the journalists of the day liked to say. “\u2018Man bites dog\u2019: now, that’s a story.”<\/p>\n

How times have changed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first snow of the year fell in Munich on Monday \u2014 a month late \u2014 and road traffic came to a standstill. How humbling it is that forces of nature can still put a stop to normal human activity! And how much it says about the human spirit that we always try to fight these forces. The bus was … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,42],"tags":[11,72,108,234,212],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1581,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/1581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}