These days, when we're in Berkeley, Calif., Barbara Yaley and I load up
Jasper, a 10-month old border collie/lab/terrier mix, and head down
University, over I-80, and onto what was once a proud garbage dump, then,
North Waterfront Park, and now, Cesar Chavez Park. It's one of the most
beautiful vantage points in the Bay Area. Due west across the water is the
Golden Gate Bridge, then, swinging one's gaze south, the towers of downtown
San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and due east, the Berkeley hills.
Seventeen acres of this pleasing expanse are available to off-leash dogs,
an incredible achievement of Berkeley dog lovers who spent about seven years
of delicate political maneuvering to secure, last year, "pilot project
status" for the off-leash area. To win it, they had to surmount fierce
opposition from the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the Citizens for an
East Shore State Park, eager to seize the acreage of Cesar Chavez Park and
add it to their domain. State parks in California have never yet held
off-leash areas.
The whole off-leash thing cranked up nationally about five years ago. I
can't verify my instinct here, but I think it has been, at least in part,
the consequence of organizing work of midlife radicals bringing the war
home, discovering that winning a little leg room for Fido is one cause whose
fruition is something we might see in our own lifetimes.
Across the country, dog lovers are beginning to flex their political
muscles. We're talking big potential clout here. Claudia Kawczynska edits
The Bark, formerly the Berkeley Bark, now a national quarterly with a
circulation of 60,000. She tells me it's hard to be sure, but somewhere
between 20 and 30 percent of the nation's households have dogs. City after
city has acknowledged their new organizing power. I expect Gore and Bush
will be issuing dog position papers any day now.
In Seattle, COLA (Citizens for an Offleash Area) trounced UNCOLA, and got
their canine-friendly acreage. Portland, Ore., is off-leash friendly, too.
Chicago has Wiggly Field. (I know, dogdom has a terrible tendency to
cuteness.) Los Angeles is a nightmare. Earlier this month, San Francisco dog
lovers went up against the fearsome might of the National Park Service and
the Audubon Society, challenging an edict closing a portion of the
delightful 300-acre Fort Funston park in southwest San Francisco because of
the nesting bank swallow. The U.S. District Court judge lent SF DOG a
friendly ear, and told the contending parties to come back with fresh
briefs.
The usual gripes of the anti-off-leash forces? They try to seize the high
moral ground by giving us the old "Either/Or." Why should we be seeking
playgrounds for dogs when we aren't giving them to children? Answer:
Civilization is not a zero-sum game. Let's have both. Kids and dogs. Dog
poop? Dogs on leashes do it as much as dogs running free, and surveys show
that, once they win their off-leash area, dog lovers self-police with all
the vigilance of a neighborhood committee of public safety in the Paris of
Robespierre and St. Just. The off-leash area in Cesar Chavez is probably the
cleanest acreage in the East Bay.
Another ugly slur. Off-leash dogs are dangerous. Cities would face big
liability exposure. To the contrary. Most dog biting occurs in the home, and
there's never been such a liability suit. A dog that can run free is a happy
dog, uplifter of domestic morale. Owners are healthier, too, dashing along
after dogs like Jasper.
In fact, just the other day, Jasper and I were dashing along, pondering the
dark news. Foes of freedom were prowling round our off-leash area, readying
themselves for a deadly pounce.
The trouble really started when Cesar Chavez died. All over California,
city councils voted to rename streets, parks, bridges and other features of
the landscape after the great organizer of farm workers. San Francisco got
Cesar Chavez instead of Army Street In Berkeley, they wanted to rename
University Avenue, but the Indian merchants down at the lower end raised a
fuss. It's expensive for storekeepers when a street gets renamed. So, North
Waterfront Park was duly converted into Cesar Chavez Park, and some Hispanic
factions took this as an invitation to adopt a proprietary attitude, as if
the new name meant that the old landfill surfaced with 3 feet of topsoil was
somehow theirs.
Enter an artist, Santiago Casal, who wants to build what he once termed an
"Aztec calendar" on the western ridge. His latest model presumes the city
will give him a circle 90 feet in diameter, with bermed walls 8 feet high.
Casal wants all off-leash dogs banned, since freely moving canines, even
adjacent to his prospective work, might discommode "meditation." And he
claims that the off-leash area "desecrates" the memory of Cesar Chavez (who,
in fact, loved dogs, and whose Berkeley-based nephew, owner of Pinto the
dog, supports the off-leash area).
For reasons entirely to do with the political geography of Berkeley, the
council has treated Casal and his project with respect, and was set to deny
the off-leash area promotion from "pilot project" to "program," a serious
bureaucratic setback for us off-leashers. The fateful city council meeting
approached. Off-leashers rallied and turned out by the score. Eventually,
the council decided to be Solomonic. We get upgraded status for the
off-leash area. Casal may get his ridge, may get his calendar, and perhaps,
one day, Jasper will lift his leg against it, just as dogs have all the
great works of man since the pyramids were built.
To find out more about Alexander Cockburn and read features by other
columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
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