Orrin's New Cynical Bogus Rabies Ploy; More Intentional Misinformation (aka lies) from Orrin

Longtime readers will recall that our Dear Orrin has had his treasured goal of eradicating the successful 20+ Year NYC Off-leash Hours Policy thwarted at every level:

• Legal - A NYS Supreme Court case to eradicate the policy was defeated in 2006
• Court of Public Opinion - Survey after survey has shown the vast majority of NYC residents approve of the Off-leash Hours policy.
• Public Health - In December 2006 the NYC Health Board unanimously amended the "Leash Law" to specifically permit the Parks Commissioner to promulgate the Off-leash Hours Policy.
• Parks Policy - In 2007, after public hearings where the vast majority of public comment was in favor, the NYC Parks Department codified the Off-leash Hours policy.

"Drat," thought Dear Orrin, scientists, epidemiologists, public policy professionals, the vast majority of the public all have looked at the 20+ years of experience with the successful Off-leash Hours Policy, and have not just approved it as is, decided to codify it into both Health Department and Parks Department regulations. "Double Drat", thought our Dear Orrin.

Then Orrin decided that he'd be Going Rogue. He realized that judges, public health professionals, and the general public are a difficult thing to go up against. So he'd have to concoct some sneaky, underhanded, bogus claims to try and poke holes in these unanimous decisions.

That's when Orrin came up with his Cynical Bogus Racist Ploy. But of course that failed miserably as well for our Dear Orrin. The only thing it was successful at was convincing rational non-racist people that Dear Orrin needs his meds adjusted, or that Orrin harbors some bizarre racist theories about people and animals.

"Triple drat!", thought our Dear Orrin. "What to do, what to do?"

Then Orrin's previous assertions that park goers need to protect themselves against the blood that runs in our City parks every day from dogs and their owners by carrying pepper spray. This bizarre assertion won our Dear Orrin front page attention from the NY Post for his 15 minutes of infamy! He was dubbed the "Pepper Spray Vigilante" and a photo of his gorgeous mug outed our dear hero.

"Quadruple drat!", thought our Dear Orrin. "I'm getting my message out there; getting lots of publicity, but everyone thinks I'm a wackjob. Am I the only one in this City of millions that sees things clearly?"

Fortunately Dear Orrin isn't alone in this great big City with his hateful ideas to destroy the Off-leash Hours Policy. Orrin's tripled membership in his so-called "Committee for Responsible Dog Ownership" (of course Orrin doesn't actually own a dog). Now there are three members, and one actually owns a dog! Another guy calls himself "ChickenUnderwear". It's nice to see that Orrin has some odd new friends who share some of his interests.

But still no traction in the court of public opinion for Orrin. In fact, more and more parks have instituted designated Off-leash Hours areas. "Quintuple drat!" stews our Hero.

Now comes Orrin with a new cynical ploy to scare someone into taking him seriously: Rabies! We'll dub it his Cynical Bogus Rabies Ploy, so as not to confuse it with Orrin's previous unsuccessful Cynical Bogus Racist Ploy.

Of course, Dear Orrin must have missed that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control declared over two years ago that canine rabies has been eradicated from the United States. But Orrin hasn't let pesky facts get in his way before, so why start now?

Orrin has an interesting way of interpreting statistics. Department of Health stats show that rabies has been in most of the five boroughs for many years now, primarily in raccoons. There hasn't been a recorded case of canine rabies for over 40 years! And, of course, the successful Off-leash Hours policy has been in effect for over 20 years, now in 89 parks from 9pm-9am every day. That's a major public health success, mostly achieved by responsible dog owners who have vaccinated and continue to vaccinate their dogs against rabies.

Odd that with rabies in in raccoons in most NYC boroughs for at least a decade, and with canine rabies eradicated in the United States for at least the past two years, Orrin's now horribly concerned that the Offleash Hours policy will now lead to rabies transmission.

Dear Orrin should be worried however, that rabid raccoons in certain parks could curtail his birdwatching activities. It would be a tragedy if Orrin were bitten by a rabid raccoon while traipsing through the woods trying to sight birds. And of course, unlike most dogs who live in NYC whose vets insist they are vaccinated against rabies, virtually no humans are immune to the rabies virus.

If Orrin is correct about rabies, we suggest that Orrin stay out of the parks until the rabid raccoon situation is remedied. It's too dangerous for humans to bird watch with those rabid raccoons out there. We wouldn't want Orrin to become more rabid than he already is.

_____________________________

More fuzzy math for Dear Orrin and one of his three members of the so-called "Committee for Responsible Dog Owners". The claim is that since codification of the Successful 20+ Year Off-leash Hours Policy, City dog bites have gone up. As our previous post has shown, Orrin is again completely wrong in his assertion, and now one of his "Committee" members have picked up on Orrin's misinformation. Poor Dear Orrin, so often, so wrong.

Happy Holidays to all, even Dear Orrin and the wretched refuse from the so-called "Committee for Responsible Dog Ownership".

We'll see you in the park.

Orrin and the NYPost: A Love Affair

Coming off Orrin's 15 minutes of infamy when his ferbissenah punim was splashed all over the pages of that bastion of fine journalism, the NY Post, our Dear Orrin dives into each new issue with relish, perhaps hoping the Post will run another article about his unholy jihad against NYC dogs and dog owners.

But wait! Just this morning, Dear Orrin sees an article completely unrelated to the NYC Parks Off-leash Hours policy and thinks that this error will be another great distortion to add to his bag of tricks as he unsuccessfully tries to discredit the successful 20+ year NYC Parks off-leash hours policy.

In today's NY Post article, the headline erroneously states "BITES SOAR AS BUREAUCRATS BUNGLE". In the body of the article, the reporter states that in NYC in the last reportable year, dog bites reported to the City Department of Health, was 3,537. There's no reference to other years or any indication why the Post editorial department decided to headline the article "Bites Soar..."

In fact, just the opposite is true. In the last reported year before the Off-leash Hour Policy became "official" in 2007--that is codified by both the DOH and the Parks Department--there were a total of 3,956 reported bites in NYC (of which only 86, which is 2.2%, took place in a NYC Park).

This means that instead of BITES SOAR, the headline should have read BITES PLUMMET. In fact, there were 419 less bites--a drop of over 10%!!!

Poor Orrin, quoting wrong statistics makes him even more laughable. It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for him and his micro-ilk. Almost.

NY Post Outs Orrin: "The Pepper Spray Vigilante"

It's the 21st century, and instead of Bernhard Goetz, we have Orrin Tilevitz--The Pepper Spray Vigilante!

Dear Orrin was outed today and his shameful mug shot plastered on the front page of that bastion of fine journalism, the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post.

And what a mug shot it is! Looks like the New York Post photographer shot our hero's good side. He looks like John Wayne (actually more like Shmendrick Ishkabibble). I'm sure his family is proud.

Of course, we're happy to finally see the "man" behind the myth, and to see Dear Orrin confirmed as the president of the so-called "Committee for Responsible Dog Ownership". (Orrin, of course, doesn't actually own a dog).


Orrin won't be able to sneak around behind trees as anonymously as he's tried in the past. In fact, whenever he's harassing anyone in the park, it will be easy to identify him for police reports. Our little camera toting vigilante will get a taste of his own medicine.

Shortly we'll be publishing the "Orrin Tilevitz archives"! Yes folks, through intensive research, we've located video of the NY Parks Department hearing over two years ago where Orrin first spoke of his macho fantasy to use pepper spray on dogs and their owners. You'll be able to watch and hear Orrin in his own voice spew his rage and vigilantism. What a sight it is!

• Exhibit A: NY Post article,
  


• Exhibit B: Orrin's blog,
  


• Exhibit C: Parks Hearings video,
  


• Exhibit D: Any future police reports for harassment will add to the growing dossier on Dear Orrin.
  
  

Orrin's NY Post outing now forever links our Dear Hero to his misadventures harassing his fellow citizens and encouraging others in his micro-ilk to attack dogs and dog owners in the park with pepper spray. WNBC news also picked up the story. We found this while Googling "Orrin Tilevitz."

Orrin (again) Unwittingly Proves the Value of Off-leash Recreation

In Orrin's latest rant, he somehow tries to draw a link between two suburban dogs fenced into their backyard that escaped and attacked a neighbor and her dog with the NYC Off-leash Hours policy.

But in citing this example of enclosed suburban lifestyle, yet again our Dear Orrin unwittingly proves the point that NYC Off-leash Hours policy encourages dogs to be less aggressive, less territorial, and better socialized with other people and dogs that they may have never encountered.

Many dog behaviorists have confirmed that a dog left in a suburban yard, without proper socialization and exercise with other dogs and people, is more likely to be aggressive--similar to a "junk yard" dog who is left to guard its territory and not properly socialized toward strangers.

Anyone who comes out to see the thousands of dogs in the 89 parks currently with Designated Off-leash Hours Areas will see that responsible off-leash recreate results in urban dogs that are well socialized and well behaved. If one were to believe Orrin's screeds, one would think there would be blood running in our parks every day. Over 20 years of a successful off-leash policy has shown that clearly to be false. So much so that the Department of Health, after closely studying the 20+ year successful "experiment" altered the Leash Law to accommodate the policy explicitly.

So we must again give thanks to Orrin. Not only has his efforts alone and with his fellow anti-offleash jihadists helped finally to codify the Off-leash Hours policy into case law at the State Supreme Court, and in the Health Department and Parks Department regulations, but he continues to show (inadvertantly) why NYC has some of the best socialized dogs in the world. Thank you Orrin. Keep up the good work.

Orrin's New Low

We should have seen this coming. But we thought even Orrin would never discredit himself so much, embarrass himself so much, or be so delusional.

We're talking about Orrin's latest post that compares the NYC Parks Department Off-leash Hours policy to Nazi concentration camps.

That's right kids, Nazi concentration camps. Read the diary of a madman here.

Nothing, of course, needs to be said about this, only that our assertion of CREDO's delusions and Orrin's overall mental state have been confirmed for time immemorial.

Orrin's Racism Thesis Takes Another Hit

It's been a while since the last posting. As this blog is primarily dedicated to refuting the delusions that frequently flow from Off-leash Hours policy rejectionist Orrin and his so-called "Committee for Responsible Dog Ownership" aka CREDO, which is neither a committee nor has dog owners (check that, out of the three known CREDO members, one does claim to have a dog), there just hasn't been much of worth from Orrin's disjointed and stubbornly wrongheaded missives in 4Q 2008 to discuss. Orrin just kept posting the same boring delusions that don't break any new ground, nor coherently contribute to his general rejection of the 20+ year successful Off-leash Hours policy and his hatred of the thousands of dog owners in NYC who responsibly take advantage of the Designated Off-leash Areas (DOLAs), now in 89 NYC parks.

But it's a new year, and Orrin's whackadoodle racist anti-dog/anti-dog owner theory is being tested yet again. This time by his own blog entry.

Frequent readers may remember that following the fringe off-leash rejectionists' total defeat in 2006-2007, our Dear Orrin struggled to find a peg to hang his anti-Offleash Policy hat upon.

The Off-leash Hours policy rejectionists were shut down every which way but loose (no pun intended)--legally in NYS Supreme Court, from a public health perspective at the NYC Health Department, in the court of public opinion as overwhelming support for the 20+ successful Off-leash Hours policy appeared in tens of thousands of petition signatures and on public opinion polls in the major NYC weeklies, and of course the final insult to their self-inflicted injury, when the NYC DOPR formally codified the formerly "unofficial" policy.

So poor Dear Orrin felt a bit left out. It appeared that only him, a few hopelessly grizzled Archie Bunker types in Middle Village, Queens, and one or two of his radical birder Internet friends felt the way he did against his fellow citizens. (Interesting side note: this author attended a recent dinner at which several birders were happy to discuss some of the radical anti-dog fringe birders such as Dear Orrin and his buddy the so-called Prospect Park "Advocate" and how the rational mainstream birder community rejected their futile calls to go against the Off-leash Hours and politely asked said radical anti-dog birders to leave their group).

Orrin thought to himself--since the challenged Off-leash Hours policy got a full and fair hearing in court, court of public opinion, in front of public health professionals, and has been shown over 20 years to be a very popular and beneficial policy, so much so that the Parks Department decided to codify it in its regulations--there must be some sneaky, cynical, depraved, disingenuous, cowardly, yet effective way to somehow still kill it.

That's when Dear Orrin came up with his Cynical Bogus Racist Ploy. In a nutshell, a made up attempt to "scare" city government officials by playing a false race card, in the belief that certain City agencies (such as the DOPR) are so sensitive to charges of racism and racial discrimination, that he could somehow get their attention, manipulate them, and finally get his way. In Orrin's World, his way would be the total abolition of the Off-leash Hours policy. The baby with the bathwater approach that Dear Orrin and his micro-ilk so strongly advocate, and have failed so badly to achieve.

So our Dear Orrin has been carefully counting the number of "Black," "White," "Mexican" people he sees with and without dogs in various parks and our very white Dear Orrin has arrived at his brilliant hypothesis from his life experience and hours of careful observation through his anti-Off-leash colored glasses: Black people are afraid of dogs, so therefore the Off-leash Hours policy is keeping Black people out of the parks, so therefore the Off-leash Hours policy discriminates against Black people.

So Orrin's been blogging repeatedly about his racial observations and theories. And he's found company in the single dog owner in the 3 person "Committee for Responsible Dog Ownership" - Kim E., Pit Bull Owner, of late calling herself "Datnioides", and who has jumped on Orrin's Cynical Bogus Racist Ploy bandwagon.

However, on his New Years Day 2009 blog entry, it completely escapes our Dear Orrin that the recent DOPR approval to make Coffey Park (or as Orrin repeatedly/incorrectly types "Coffee" Park) the 89th park in NYC designated to have Off-leash Hours, completely shatters his Cynical Bogus Racist Ploy.

Red Hook is one of the most ethnically, racially, economically diverse communities in NYC. There's a sizable public housing population, a significant Latino community, and a large African American constituency represented.

The process to declare Coffey Park a DOLA took the better part of a year, as first the community received provisional permission to try out a DOLA to see if:
(a) a responsible group of dog owners would use the facility (it did),
(b) contribute to the park (they do),
(c) comply with the rules (they do),
(d) and to see how the rest of the community perceived the DOLA (as a benefit to the park and the community).

So guess what happened? A large responsible group of people takes their dogs to Coffey Park on a daily basis, forming strong friendships and community bonds across class, racial, ethnic lines (which so often happens when people of all stripes gather in all weather, day and night to care for their dogs) with each other, other park goers, and others in the community.

In fact, the president of the Red Hook Tennent's Association, which is a representative group for the very racially diverse public housing in Red Hook, who's also a member of the local CB, joined to unanimously approve the DOLA in Coffey Park after the months long experiment to see how the DOLA benefited the entire community progressed. Judging by the community support, the support of the CB, and the local associations, it's been successful and was overwhelmingly approved by one of the largest non-white and African American communities in the City.

Our Dear Orrin, if he ever set foot in Coffee (sic) Park, might see what he chooses not to see in Prospect or Central Park; that the 20+ year successful and now official Off-leash Hours policy brings diverse groups people together in this City around something most people can agree to--that the 1.4 million dogs in the NYC should be properly socialized, exercised, and that taking one's dog to the park is a beneficial recreational activity for all citizens, whether you own a dog or not.

But we know our Dear Orrin. He'll conveniently ignore this inconvenient truth and continue to keep his Off-leash rejectionist lenses firmly strapped to his eyes.

Also interesting in Orrin's post is that he lets the real truth slip again out why he's really so vehemently opposed to the Off-leash Hours policy. You see, in Orrin's World, apparently the parkland should just be for HIS recreational activity, and not other peoples. We've known about the rejectionists' selfish reasons for trying to kill Off-leash Hours in 2006, but it's nice to see them occasionally admit it to themselves and others in print.

A happy and healthy 2009 to everyone, even Orrin and his ilk. I'm sure we'll be hearing more racial theories and other interesting perspectives in the coming year from the rejectionists. For them, it's like being the Grinch all year long.