About a month back, I wrote about this wacky little event going on in San Diego—a dachshund race that features participants who have earned the right to exhaust their stubby little legs by virtue of winning qualifying races held throughout the U.S.
For whatever reason, the Old Pueblo happens to host one of these qualifying races, though considering that we have more Wienerschnitzel restaurants in Tucson than the entire Phoenix metropolitan area, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise.
In the original post, I mentioned that the winner of the Tucson qualifier, Oscar, was a Tucson dog, from a Tucson family.
That was, unfortunately, incorrect. That was my mistake, and I'm completely willing to own up to it.
The thing is, something odd happened—we got a number of phone calls complaining about the error. Not simply pointing out the issue, by the way; vehement, genuinely upset phone calls for erroneously naming the hometown of a house pet that was going to run a race sponsored by a fast food franchiser that has the word "wiener" in its name.
This isn't "life and death"-type stuff here, people. This is about a silly looking dog breed competing in a silly race that gives the winning family a cool thing to talk about for the rest of their lives.
I get civic pride—hell, as a born-and-raised Phoenician in Tucson, I hear attacks on both areas from both sides—but the fact of the matter is, this dog winning is just plain cool for the state of Arizona as a whole. There's no need to gripe about Tyson Rondeau and his wife Jillian, who own Oscar, for their part in participating. They're just as proud of Oscar as Tucsonans are of their pooches.
So let's forego the "civic pride" for a while, and just bask in the happy absurdity of racing wiener dogs. That's what Rondeau and his family are doing, now that they're $1,000 richer. As Rondeau said to me when we spoke last week, "It's all for fun."
This Week On Our Blogs
On The Range, we looked at the case of two kids who joked about bombing their school on Twitter; talked about how to not be a douche to your tattoo artist; welcomed Ka'Deem Carey on joining the ranks of college football stars with legal troubles; gave readers a way to give Conn. state Rep. DebraLee Hovey a piece of their mind for trying to keep Gabby Giffords out of Newtown; praised Black Crown Coffee Co. for their excellent customer service; celebrated Kenny Lofton Week at TheClassical.org; reported on Steve Kozachik's jump from the Republican Party; and oh-so-much more!
On We Got Cactus, we listened to a rockin' Beatles/Zeppelin mashup; looked back at the life of Peter Ivers; noted the new Fun. single that's on HBO's Girls soundtrack; posted a terrifying photo of NOBUNNY in a review of their show with brokenCYDE and a plethora of other performers; sliced through the list of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Original Song; got pumped up for Dave Grohl's Sound City film and soundtrack; and more!
Comment of the Week
"They can't be that stupid. Nobody could, and still retain the ability to form complete sentences. That only leaves malice. This country really needs a law, making it illegal for the media to knowingly lie to the public. The absence of such a law is the only reason Fox News exists."
- TucsonWeekly.com user LouisWu, on trying to understand how Fox News co-hosts can make idiotic statements with completely straight faces ("Fox News Hosts Find 'Liberal Bias' in Math Textbooks," The Range, Jan. 11).
Best of WWW
This is a special message to TucsonWeekly.com commenter Fred Vanley, who announced his belief that Fox News champions Godly values and the American mindset, while the "liberal media" espouses socialism ("Fox News Hosts Find 'Liberal Bias' in Math Textbooks," The Range, Jan. 11)
Fred, look at Fox's CEO and Chairman, Roger Ailes, who figured out that the best way to run a cable channel was to find an audience that felt ignored and nurture their beliefs in a warm, fuzzy, advertising-revenue-generating cocoon filled with attractive people.
Check out Esquire magazine's profile, "Why Does Roger Ailes Hate America?" from their Feb. 2011 issue, where he talks about this and more. Then get back to me.
