NEW YORK -- San Franciscans, if we're to believe reporters who've spent the last week running up their New York employers' expense accounts, are searching the bottom of their recyclable souls in the aftermath of the death of Diane Whipple. Whipple, 33, was killed by one (or two, according to some sources) 54-kg Canary Island mastiffs that left her splattered all over the hall outside her apartment. As the cliche goes, even longtime police veterans had to seek trauma counseling to deal with the gory scene looping over and over through their grizzled brains.

There's no doubt about it: The residents of the Bay Area, as they like to call it, have an unnatural attraction to dogs. In no other city in the nation will you find so many canines having such a good time at the expense of human beings. They crap on the sidewalks. They run loose in the parks. And on the beaches, they run loose and crap at the same time. If you haven't been there, I don't blame you for not believing what you're about to read, but it's true nonetheless: San Franciscans not only tolerate other people's dogs running across them as they lie on the beach, they find it hilariously amusing when dogs knock down their own children.

"Look! Our child was nearly eaten! Isn't that cute?"