I admired Ted Kennedy so much. I need not add more to the beautiful and heartfelt tributes from this weekend. They stand quite well on their own as a testament to how special he was. I will simply suggest watching this, perfection in performance, a wonderful tribute to the man. Listen to the words, or read them below. It is no wonder that Teddy loved this song, it had so many parallels to his own life story.
Unfortunately, the beginning of the performance is not recorded here. Brian talked about how he and Teddy would greet each other, always singing Broadway show tunes. It somehow does not surprise me that one of my favorite Broadway performers and one of my favorite politicians knew and liked one another.
There are other recordings of Brian Stokes Mitchell singing this song on You Tube, but I don't think any of them can compare with the time and the place and the emotion of this one.
The song, as many people already know, was written by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion for the musical Man of La Mancha.
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Oligarh? Oligarhy?
This guy is an idiot. A fool. Take a look:
Who else are idiots? Fools? The "network" that gives him a platform for this idiocy, Fox News. Who else, do you ask, are idiots and fools? Sheep? The clearly intelligence-deprived people who watch him, listen to this bullshit, and believe it.
How did the right become so riddled with fools?
Oh, and the word is O-L-I-G-A-R-C-H. Or O-L-I-G-A-R-C-H-Y.
An idiot who can't spell and can't perform simple arithmetic...yeah, that's someone I want to listen to.
Jerk.
Who else are idiots? Fools? The "network" that gives him a platform for this idiocy, Fox News. Who else, do you ask, are idiots and fools? Sheep? The clearly intelligence-deprived people who watch him, listen to this bullshit, and believe it.
How did the right become so riddled with fools?
Oh, and the word is O-L-I-G-A-R-C-H. Or O-L-I-G-A-R-C-H-Y.
An idiot who can't spell and can't perform simple arithmetic...yeah, that's someone I want to listen to.
Jerk.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
A Beautiful Summer Day
On this sad day when I mourn the loss of Senator Ted Kennedy I find myself enjoying one of the nicest days this summer. We had a little rain, but in between that rain I mowed the front yard, did a little weed whacking, took a break when it got too wet, then finished the back yard. I let Homer stay out of his crate while I mowed the back, and he was a good boy and didn't chew anything he wasn't supposed to. The boys then enjoyed a really pretty, bug free afternoon outside. Fred and Homer played chase and tennis ball. Bailey rolled around in the freshly mown grass. Miller did an unexpected perimeter walk along the fence, and then trotted down the hill. He really seems to get a kick out of doing that. He looks all 6 of his 16+ years when he does it. Adorable.
The garden looked really pretty today. Yes, my stakes for tomatoes are bare, but other things in the garden look terrific, and I have been harvesting vegetables and herbs from it for some time now. I just made a zucchini and asparagus salad from zucchini from my garden. I should consider asparagus for the garden...I certainly eat enough of it.
I present to you, the glories of the garden:
Yes, that is Fred, that white and orange blotch in the middle of the picture. He wouldn't come in when the rest of the lot came in. I took this shot through the screen on the porch. Fred likes the garden...he and Homer use the paths as their own Le Mans course. But what Fred really likes, as you've heard before, is the sun. He stayed out about fifteen minutes longer than his brothers, resting, undisturbed by his little brother Homer, who can be a pest because he wants to play almost all of the time they are outside.
It was a nice day for all. I spent some of it crying about Ted Kennedy, but a lot more of it contemplating what a good man and public servant he was. And hearing about him all day, and reading about him on the internet, it made me wonder what exactly it is that is so wrong with wanting to give every American access to good and affordable health insurance.
The garden looked really pretty today. Yes, my stakes for tomatoes are bare, but other things in the garden look terrific, and I have been harvesting vegetables and herbs from it for some time now. I just made a zucchini and asparagus salad from zucchini from my garden. I should consider asparagus for the garden...I certainly eat enough of it.
I present to you, the glories of the garden:
Yes, that is Fred, that white and orange blotch in the middle of the picture. He wouldn't come in when the rest of the lot came in. I took this shot through the screen on the porch. Fred likes the garden...he and Homer use the paths as their own Le Mans course. But what Fred really likes, as you've heard before, is the sun. He stayed out about fifteen minutes longer than his brothers, resting, undisturbed by his little brother Homer, who can be a pest because he wants to play almost all of the time they are outside.
It was a nice day for all. I spent some of it crying about Ted Kennedy, but a lot more of it contemplating what a good man and public servant he was. And hearing about him all day, and reading about him on the internet, it made me wonder what exactly it is that is so wrong with wanting to give every American access to good and affordable health insurance.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Guns of August
I really couldn't have said this better myself, so I am just going to copy Frank Rich's column from The New York Times here. He says so eloquently how I feel about these crazies on the right just now. Wherever has reason gone to? It certainly can't be seen based on what these nuts are doing and saying. I hope Obama holds firm.
You can link directly to the column here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23rich.html?_r=1
August 23, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Guns of August By FRANK RICH
“It is time to water the tree of liberty” said the sign carried by a gun-toting protester milling outside President Obama’s town-hall meeting in New Hampshire two weeks ago. The Thomas Jefferson quote that inspired this message, of course, said nothing about water: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” That’s the beauty of a gun — you don’t have to spell out the “blood.”
The protester was a nut. America has never had a shortage of them. But what’s Tom Coburn’s excuse? Coburn is a Republican senator from Oklahoma, where 168 people were murdered by right-wing psychopaths who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Their leader, Timothy McVeigh, had the Jefferson quote on his T-shirt when he committed this act of mass murder. Yet last Sunday, when asked by David Gregory on “Meet the Press” if he was troubled by current threats of “violence against the government,” Coburn blamed not the nuts but the government.
“Well, I’m troubled any time when we stop having confidence in our government,” the senator said, “but we’ve earned it.”
Coburn is nothing if not consistent. In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, he was part of a House contingent that helped delay and soften an antiterrorism bill. This cohort even tried to strip out a provision blocking domestic fund-raising by foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas. Why? The far right, in league with the National Rifle Association, was angry at the federal government for aggressively policing America’s self-appointed militias. In a 1996 floor speech, Coburn conceded that “terrorism obviously poses a serious threat,” but then went on to explain that the nation had worse threats to worry about: “There is a far greater fear that is present in this country, and that is fear of our own government.” As his remarks on “Meet the Press” last week demonstrated, the subsequent intervention of 9/11 has not changed his worldview.
I have been writing about the simmering undertone of violence in our politics since October, when Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential candidate of a major political party, said nothing to condemn Obama haters shrieking “Treason!,” “Terrorist!” and “Off with his head!” at her rallies. As vacation beckons, I’d like to drop the subject, but the atmosphere keeps getting darker.
Coburn’s implicit rationalization for far-right fanatics bearing arms at presidential events — the government makes them do it! — cannot stand. He’s not a radio or Fox News bloviator paid a fortune to be outrageous; he’s a card-carrying member of the United States Senate. On Monday — the day after he gave a pass to those threatening violence — a dozen provocateurs with guns, at least two of them bearing assault weapons, showed up for Obama’s V.F.W. speech in Phoenix. Within hours, another member of Congress — Phil Gingrey of Georgia — was telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC that as long as brandishing guns is legal, he, too, saw no reason to discourage Americans from showing up armed at public meetings.
In April the Department of Homeland Security issued a report, originally commissioned by the Bush administration, on the rising threat of violent right-wing extremism. It was ridiculed by conservatives, including the Republican chairman, Michael Steele, who called it “the height of insult.” Since then, a neo-Nazi who subscribed to the anti-Obama “birther” movement has murdered a guard at the Holocaust museum in Washington, and an anti-abortion zealot has gunned down a doctor in a church in Wichita, Kan.
This month the Southern Poverty Law Center, the same organization that warned of the alarming rise in extremist groups before the Oklahoma City bombing, issued its own report. A federal law enforcement agent told the center that he hadn’t seen growth this steep among such groups in 10 to 12 years. “All it’s lacking is a spark,” he said.
This uptick in the radical right predates the health care debate that is supposedly inspiring all the gun waving. Nor can this movement be attributed to a stepped-up attack by Democrats on this crowd’s holy Second Amendment. Since taking office, Obama has disappointed gun-control advocates by relegating his campaign pledge to reinstate the ban on assault weapons to the down-low.
No, the biggest contributor to this resurgence of radicalism remains panic in some precincts about a new era of cultural and demographic change. As the sociologist Daniel Bell put it, “What the right as a whole fears is the erosion of its own social position, the collapse of its power, the increasing incomprehensibility of a world — now overwhelmingly technical and complex — that has changed so drastically within a lifetime.”
Bell’s analysis appeared in his essay “The Dispossessed,” published in 1962, between John Kennedy’s election and assassination. J.F.K., no more a leftist than Obama, was the first Roman Catholic in the White House and the tribune of a new liberal order. Bell could have also written his diagnosis in 1992, between Bill Clinton’s election and the Oklahoma City bombing. Clinton, like Kennedy and Obama, brought liberals back into power after a conservative reign and represented a generational turnover that stoked the fears of the dispossessed.
While Bell’s essay remains relevant in 2009, he could not have imagined in 1962 that major politicians, from a vice-presidential candidate down, would either enable or endorse a radical and armed fringe. Nor could he have imagined that so many conservative intellectuals would remain silent. William F. Buckley did make an effort to distance National Review from the John Birch Society. The only major conservative writer to repeatedly and forthrightly take on the radical right this year is David Frum. He ended a recent column for The Week, titled “The Reckless Right Courts Violence,” with a plea that the president “be met and bested on the field of reason,” not with guns.
Those on the right who defend the reckless radicals inevitably argue “The left does it too!” It’s certainly true that both the left and the right traffic in bogus, Holocaust-trivializing Hitler analogies, and, yes, the protesters of the antiwar group Code Pink have disrupted Congressional hearings. But this is a false equivalence. Code Pink doesn’t show up on Capitol Hill with firearms. And, as the 1960s historian Rick Perlstein pointed out on the Washington Post Web site last week, not a single Democratic politician endorsed the Weathermen in the Vietnam era.
This week the journalist Ronald Kessler’s new behind-the-scenes account of presidential security, “In the President’s Secret Service,” rose to No. 3 on The Times nonfiction best-seller list. No wonder there’s a lot of interest in the subject. We have no reason to believe that these hugely dedicated agents will fail us this time, even as threats against Obama, according to Kessler, are up 400 percent from those against his White House predecessor.
But as we learned in Oklahoma City 14 years ago — or at the well-protected Holocaust museum just over two months ago — this kind of irrational radicalism has a myriad of targets. And it is impervious to reason. Much as Coburn fought an antiterrorism bill after the carnage of Oklahoma City, so three men from Bagdad, Ariz., drove 2,500 miles in 1964 to testify against a bill tightening federal controls on firearms after the Kennedy assassination. As the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote in his own famous Kennedy-era essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” these Arizona gun enthusiasts were convinced that the American government was being taken over by a “subversive power.” Sound familiar?
Even now the radicals are taking a nonviolent toll on the Obama presidency. Obama complains, not without reason, that the news media, led by cable television, exaggerate the ruckus at health care events. But why does he exaggerate the legitimacy and clout of opposition members of Congress who, whether through silence or outright endorsement, are surrendering to the nuts? Even Charles Grassley, the supposedly adult Iowa Republican who is the Senate point man for his party on health care, has now capitulated to the armed fringe by publicly parroting their “pull the plug on grandma” fear-mongering.
For all the talk of Obama’s declining poll numbers this summer, he towers over his opponents. In last week’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, only 21 percent approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling health care reform (as opposed to the president’s 41 percent). Should Obama fail to deliver serious reform because his administration treats the pharmaceutical and insurance industries as deferentially as it has the banks, that would be shameful. Should he fail because he in any way catered to a decimated opposition party that has sunk and shrunk to its craziest common denominator, that would be ludicrous.
The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.
In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.
You can link directly to the column here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23rich.html?_r=1
August 23, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Guns of August By FRANK RICH
“It is time to water the tree of liberty” said the sign carried by a gun-toting protester milling outside President Obama’s town-hall meeting in New Hampshire two weeks ago. The Thomas Jefferson quote that inspired this message, of course, said nothing about water: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” That’s the beauty of a gun — you don’t have to spell out the “blood.”
The protester was a nut. America has never had a shortage of them. But what’s Tom Coburn’s excuse? Coburn is a Republican senator from Oklahoma, where 168 people were murdered by right-wing psychopaths who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Their leader, Timothy McVeigh, had the Jefferson quote on his T-shirt when he committed this act of mass murder. Yet last Sunday, when asked by David Gregory on “Meet the Press” if he was troubled by current threats of “violence against the government,” Coburn blamed not the nuts but the government.
“Well, I’m troubled any time when we stop having confidence in our government,” the senator said, “but we’ve earned it.”
Coburn is nothing if not consistent. In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, he was part of a House contingent that helped delay and soften an antiterrorism bill. This cohort even tried to strip out a provision blocking domestic fund-raising by foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas. Why? The far right, in league with the National Rifle Association, was angry at the federal government for aggressively policing America’s self-appointed militias. In a 1996 floor speech, Coburn conceded that “terrorism obviously poses a serious threat,” but then went on to explain that the nation had worse threats to worry about: “There is a far greater fear that is present in this country, and that is fear of our own government.” As his remarks on “Meet the Press” last week demonstrated, the subsequent intervention of 9/11 has not changed his worldview.
I have been writing about the simmering undertone of violence in our politics since October, when Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential candidate of a major political party, said nothing to condemn Obama haters shrieking “Treason!,” “Terrorist!” and “Off with his head!” at her rallies. As vacation beckons, I’d like to drop the subject, but the atmosphere keeps getting darker.
Coburn’s implicit rationalization for far-right fanatics bearing arms at presidential events — the government makes them do it! — cannot stand. He’s not a radio or Fox News bloviator paid a fortune to be outrageous; he’s a card-carrying member of the United States Senate. On Monday — the day after he gave a pass to those threatening violence — a dozen provocateurs with guns, at least two of them bearing assault weapons, showed up for Obama’s V.F.W. speech in Phoenix. Within hours, another member of Congress — Phil Gingrey of Georgia — was telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC that as long as brandishing guns is legal, he, too, saw no reason to discourage Americans from showing up armed at public meetings.
In April the Department of Homeland Security issued a report, originally commissioned by the Bush administration, on the rising threat of violent right-wing extremism. It was ridiculed by conservatives, including the Republican chairman, Michael Steele, who called it “the height of insult.” Since then, a neo-Nazi who subscribed to the anti-Obama “birther” movement has murdered a guard at the Holocaust museum in Washington, and an anti-abortion zealot has gunned down a doctor in a church in Wichita, Kan.
This month the Southern Poverty Law Center, the same organization that warned of the alarming rise in extremist groups before the Oklahoma City bombing, issued its own report. A federal law enforcement agent told the center that he hadn’t seen growth this steep among such groups in 10 to 12 years. “All it’s lacking is a spark,” he said.
This uptick in the radical right predates the health care debate that is supposedly inspiring all the gun waving. Nor can this movement be attributed to a stepped-up attack by Democrats on this crowd’s holy Second Amendment. Since taking office, Obama has disappointed gun-control advocates by relegating his campaign pledge to reinstate the ban on assault weapons to the down-low.
No, the biggest contributor to this resurgence of radicalism remains panic in some precincts about a new era of cultural and demographic change. As the sociologist Daniel Bell put it, “What the right as a whole fears is the erosion of its own social position, the collapse of its power, the increasing incomprehensibility of a world — now overwhelmingly technical and complex — that has changed so drastically within a lifetime.”
Bell’s analysis appeared in his essay “The Dispossessed,” published in 1962, between John Kennedy’s election and assassination. J.F.K., no more a leftist than Obama, was the first Roman Catholic in the White House and the tribune of a new liberal order. Bell could have also written his diagnosis in 1992, between Bill Clinton’s election and the Oklahoma City bombing. Clinton, like Kennedy and Obama, brought liberals back into power after a conservative reign and represented a generational turnover that stoked the fears of the dispossessed.
While Bell’s essay remains relevant in 2009, he could not have imagined in 1962 that major politicians, from a vice-presidential candidate down, would either enable or endorse a radical and armed fringe. Nor could he have imagined that so many conservative intellectuals would remain silent. William F. Buckley did make an effort to distance National Review from the John Birch Society. The only major conservative writer to repeatedly and forthrightly take on the radical right this year is David Frum. He ended a recent column for The Week, titled “The Reckless Right Courts Violence,” with a plea that the president “be met and bested on the field of reason,” not with guns.
Those on the right who defend the reckless radicals inevitably argue “The left does it too!” It’s certainly true that both the left and the right traffic in bogus, Holocaust-trivializing Hitler analogies, and, yes, the protesters of the antiwar group Code Pink have disrupted Congressional hearings. But this is a false equivalence. Code Pink doesn’t show up on Capitol Hill with firearms. And, as the 1960s historian Rick Perlstein pointed out on the Washington Post Web site last week, not a single Democratic politician endorsed the Weathermen in the Vietnam era.
This week the journalist Ronald Kessler’s new behind-the-scenes account of presidential security, “In the President’s Secret Service,” rose to No. 3 on The Times nonfiction best-seller list. No wonder there’s a lot of interest in the subject. We have no reason to believe that these hugely dedicated agents will fail us this time, even as threats against Obama, according to Kessler, are up 400 percent from those against his White House predecessor.
But as we learned in Oklahoma City 14 years ago — or at the well-protected Holocaust museum just over two months ago — this kind of irrational radicalism has a myriad of targets. And it is impervious to reason. Much as Coburn fought an antiterrorism bill after the carnage of Oklahoma City, so three men from Bagdad, Ariz., drove 2,500 miles in 1964 to testify against a bill tightening federal controls on firearms after the Kennedy assassination. As the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote in his own famous Kennedy-era essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” these Arizona gun enthusiasts were convinced that the American government was being taken over by a “subversive power.” Sound familiar?
Even now the radicals are taking a nonviolent toll on the Obama presidency. Obama complains, not without reason, that the news media, led by cable television, exaggerate the ruckus at health care events. But why does he exaggerate the legitimacy and clout of opposition members of Congress who, whether through silence or outright endorsement, are surrendering to the nuts? Even Charles Grassley, the supposedly adult Iowa Republican who is the Senate point man for his party on health care, has now capitulated to the armed fringe by publicly parroting their “pull the plug on grandma” fear-mongering.
For all the talk of Obama’s declining poll numbers this summer, he towers over his opponents. In last week’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, only 21 percent approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling health care reform (as opposed to the president’s 41 percent). Should Obama fail to deliver serious reform because his administration treats the pharmaceutical and insurance industries as deferentially as it has the banks, that would be shameful. Should he fail because he in any way catered to a decimated opposition party that has sunk and shrunk to its craziest common denominator, that would be ludicrous.
The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.
In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Advertising Perfection
A lot of these commercials with cute dogs aren't effective because I don't remember who the advertiser is. This one is great. Kudos to Travelers for one of the best commercials on the air today.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Homerville
Life is good in Homerville.
Homer was known as Gomer at the shelter. Changing his name was the right thing to do; everybody loves the name and it absolutely suits him. He was actually becoming quite famous up here as the nice dog that wasn't getting adopted. When Dana and I returned from our Charleston trip, we found a sweet little female Beagle mix at North Country SPCA, but then we stopped at Elmore SPCA and met Homer in person.
What a charmer he was. He is about one to one and a half years old and was housebroken within a day or two, which means that he had been previously housebroken. It was my good fortune to find another great dog at a shelter, but it could be your good fortune the next time you are looking for a pet. I have never purchased a dog and I never will. The fees at the shelters, SPCAs and rescues can get high, but there is a high cost to caring for the unwanted pets that people give up. And they are giving up more and more of them in these tough economic times. The amount that I get back in companionship, enjoyment of my dogs' funny and crazy antics, and the unconditional love will make me sacrifice whatever I have to in order to keep dogs in my life.
The thing that you get from a rescued dog is the sense that they know how lucky they are. I know it might not look like it when they are sitting there howling like a Beagle, or barking like the PIT that Bailey is (PIT is our code for Pain in the Tookus... no, Bailey is not a Pit Bull, but more on that in a second). But when Homer plays with so much gusto with his toys, or zooms around the back yard with his brother Fred, or tries to coax Bailey into playing with him (no success there just yet), or walks up to Miller and convinces the 16+ year old dog to play with him - for a short period of time because Mommy decides that Homer is playing too rough for the old boy - it's during these times when you really can see how lucky he knows that he is. Or when he dives ahead of his brothers to get the choice spot on the bed at bedtime.
Dana and I tried to adopt a Pit Bull once. The Animal Welfare Shelter in Voorhees, New Jersey is a place from which I have adopted a number of my guys over the years. What we found was that if the Pit Bull was over a certain age, and that age wasn't much beyond six months or so, that the damage that had already been done to these poor dogs from the bad situations they had been rescued from made them unfit dogs for having in a household with more than one dog. We found some wonderful, sweet animals; the shelter was doing a great job spending time with and acclimating them to being with people. But they all had that aggression thing that just broke my heart. I knew I could not adopt these dogs since I will always have several dogs at any given time. The thought of what these incredibly strong dogs could do to Fred, or Boo back then...
I couldn't do it. These Bull and Staffordshire Terriers are wonderful dogs. If I were to ever buy a dog I could see buying one of these. I have kissed these dogs, and they have returned the affection. It is so sad the image that they have in society because of the training, and sometimes miserably bad breeding, that has gone on.
So, I have Homer now, comfortably ensconced in my canine brood, and comfortably ensconced on what used to be just Fred's bed. But Fred and Homer are sharing nicely these days. It's just one more satisfying accomplishment in my world of dogs.
And don't anyone try to tell me that this dog doesn't look grateful for where he's landed:
Homer was known as Gomer at the shelter. Changing his name was the right thing to do; everybody loves the name and it absolutely suits him. He was actually becoming quite famous up here as the nice dog that wasn't getting adopted. When Dana and I returned from our Charleston trip, we found a sweet little female Beagle mix at North Country SPCA, but then we stopped at Elmore SPCA and met Homer in person.
What a charmer he was. He is about one to one and a half years old and was housebroken within a day or two, which means that he had been previously housebroken. It was my good fortune to find another great dog at a shelter, but it could be your good fortune the next time you are looking for a pet. I have never purchased a dog and I never will. The fees at the shelters, SPCAs and rescues can get high, but there is a high cost to caring for the unwanted pets that people give up. And they are giving up more and more of them in these tough economic times. The amount that I get back in companionship, enjoyment of my dogs' funny and crazy antics, and the unconditional love will make me sacrifice whatever I have to in order to keep dogs in my life.
The thing that you get from a rescued dog is the sense that they know how lucky they are. I know it might not look like it when they are sitting there howling like a Beagle, or barking like the PIT that Bailey is (PIT is our code for Pain in the Tookus... no, Bailey is not a Pit Bull, but more on that in a second). But when Homer plays with so much gusto with his toys, or zooms around the back yard with his brother Fred, or tries to coax Bailey into playing with him (no success there just yet), or walks up to Miller and convinces the 16+ year old dog to play with him - for a short period of time because Mommy decides that Homer is playing too rough for the old boy - it's during these times when you really can see how lucky he knows that he is. Or when he dives ahead of his brothers to get the choice spot on the bed at bedtime.
Dana and I tried to adopt a Pit Bull once. The Animal Welfare Shelter in Voorhees, New Jersey is a place from which I have adopted a number of my guys over the years. What we found was that if the Pit Bull was over a certain age, and that age wasn't much beyond six months or so, that the damage that had already been done to these poor dogs from the bad situations they had been rescued from made them unfit dogs for having in a household with more than one dog. We found some wonderful, sweet animals; the shelter was doing a great job spending time with and acclimating them to being with people. But they all had that aggression thing that just broke my heart. I knew I could not adopt these dogs since I will always have several dogs at any given time. The thought of what these incredibly strong dogs could do to Fred, or Boo back then...
I couldn't do it. These Bull and Staffordshire Terriers are wonderful dogs. If I were to ever buy a dog I could see buying one of these. I have kissed these dogs, and they have returned the affection. It is so sad the image that they have in society because of the training, and sometimes miserably bad breeding, that has gone on.
So, I have Homer now, comfortably ensconced in my canine brood, and comfortably ensconced on what used to be just Fred's bed. But Fred and Homer are sharing nicely these days. It's just one more satisfying accomplishment in my world of dogs.
And don't anyone try to tell me that this dog doesn't look grateful for where he's landed:
Friday, August 14, 2009
Dog Fighting
You see, I feel so passionately that Michael Vick doesn't deserve a second chance in the NFL that I have lost what very teeny tiny feeling I had left that there was anything at all redeeming about the sport of football. I guess some of the reason that Vick's welcome by some Eagles fans has been met by indifference at best, and that he'll probably be good for the team at worst, has to do with the violence of the game. I see violence in the game; I recognize that not everybody does. But it seems a seemless line between football violence and how these men could do what they did with these dogs without blinking. You have to assume that the Eagles care not one iota about being role models when they can want to have someone like this on their roster.
And please, spare me all that drivel about the man having paid his debt. He didn't because his sentence was not enough for the crimes that he committed. And it's obvious from his statements that he really is only remorseful to the extent that he got caught. Have we seen Michael Vick out there speaking fervently about the horrors of dog fighting? Have we heard him passionately explain why he got involved in such a despicable business (remember, he was the major funding in this disgusting venture) and how going to prison has made him a changed man? He should have been all over the news in his run-up to try to get a spot on a team, speaking all over the country every day about how horrible the dog fighting business is, how kids should treat animals properly, how he got into it and about what can be done to stop this horrible practice. He could have been the spokesperson for really seeing the light. He could have proven to us all with his words and actions how amazingly changed he is.
How, indeed, Michael Vick, are you a changed man? You've got far more explaining to do before I'll ever believe that you are rehabilitated.
No. I'm not there on the bring Vick to Philly bandwagon. I will happily be on the sidelines, rooting for all my heart that the Eagles opponents are victorious for every week they play that Michael Vick is on their roster. For me, this is what I will always see when I think of the Eagles:
And please, spare me all that drivel about the man having paid his debt. He didn't because his sentence was not enough for the crimes that he committed. And it's obvious from his statements that he really is only remorseful to the extent that he got caught. Have we seen Michael Vick out there speaking fervently about the horrors of dog fighting? Have we heard him passionately explain why he got involved in such a despicable business (remember, he was the major funding in this disgusting venture) and how going to prison has made him a changed man? He should have been all over the news in his run-up to try to get a spot on a team, speaking all over the country every day about how horrible the dog fighting business is, how kids should treat animals properly, how he got into it and about what can be done to stop this horrible practice. He could have been the spokesperson for really seeing the light. He could have proven to us all with his words and actions how amazingly changed he is.
How, indeed, Michael Vick, are you a changed man? You've got far more explaining to do before I'll ever believe that you are rehabilitated.
No. I'm not there on the bring Vick to Philly bandwagon. I will happily be on the sidelines, rooting for all my heart that the Eagles opponents are victorious for every week they play that Michael Vick is on their roster. For me, this is what I will always see when I think of the Eagles:
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
If I Can Dream
This is one of the best performances ever captured on tape, in my opinion, and definitely my favorite song that Elvis ever recorded. I liked Elvis Presley so much as a singer. I think a lot of singers today just don't get the emotions of a song. Elvis really felt the music.
Here are the lyrics, not that you need them with this performance. But they are wonderful in their own right. The song was written by Walter Earl Brown. It was purported that after Elvis Presley heard the song for the first time he said, "I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in. I'm never going to make another picture I don't believe in."
IF I CAN DREAM
There must be lights burning brighter somewhere
Got to be birds flying higher in a sky more blue
If I can dream of a better land
Where all my brothers walk hand in hand
Tell me why, oh why, oh why can't my dream come true
There must be peace and understanding sometime
Strong winds of promise that will blow away
All the doubt and fear
If I can dream of a warmer sun
Where hope keeps shining on everyone
Tell me why, oh why, oh why won't that sun appear
We're lost in a cloud
With too much rain
We're trapped in a world
That's troubled with pain
But as long as a man
Has the strength to dream
He can redeem his soul and fly
Deep in my heart there's a trembling question
Still I am sure that the answer's gonna come somehow
Out there in the dark, there's a beckoning candle
And while I can think, while I can talk
While I can stand, while I can walk
While I can dream, please let my dream
Come true, right now
Let it come true right now
Oh yeah
Here are the lyrics, not that you need them with this performance. But they are wonderful in their own right. The song was written by Walter Earl Brown. It was purported that after Elvis Presley heard the song for the first time he said, "I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in. I'm never going to make another picture I don't believe in."
IF I CAN DREAM
There must be lights burning brighter somewhere
Got to be birds flying higher in a sky more blue
If I can dream of a better land
Where all my brothers walk hand in hand
Tell me why, oh why, oh why can't my dream come true
There must be peace and understanding sometime
Strong winds of promise that will blow away
All the doubt and fear
If I can dream of a warmer sun
Where hope keeps shining on everyone
Tell me why, oh why, oh why won't that sun appear
We're lost in a cloud
With too much rain
We're trapped in a world
That's troubled with pain
But as long as a man
Has the strength to dream
He can redeem his soul and fly
Deep in my heart there's a trembling question
Still I am sure that the answer's gonna come somehow
Out there in the dark, there's a beckoning candle
And while I can think, while I can talk
While I can stand, while I can walk
While I can dream, please let my dream
Come true, right now
Let it come true right now
Oh yeah
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Oh, Sounds Like Birther Talk To Me
"This is a scary time in Washington," he said. "It's a very frightening time. I see Barack Obama is creating an enemies list of people who oppose this miserable health care plan. I think that's frightening. That's from a guy that can't even show a long-form birth certificate. I think we all ought to be prepared to fight that."
This is from Congressman John Sullivan, R-Oklahoma. Now, maybe this report says more about the idiots in Oklahoma than anything else, except for that pesky poll a while back that showed that 53% of Republicans either do not believe or are not sure that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. 28% answered a firm no, that they did not believe that Obama was born here. Of course, considering how stupid the right looks over this and so many other issues these days, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't realize that Hawaii was a state.
And what exactly is so "scary" about having a difference of opinion? Jerks.
This is from Congressman John Sullivan, R-Oklahoma. Now, maybe this report says more about the idiots in Oklahoma than anything else, except for that pesky poll a while back that showed that 53% of Republicans either do not believe or are not sure that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. 28% answered a firm no, that they did not believe that Obama was born here. Of course, considering how stupid the right looks over this and so many other issues these days, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't realize that Hawaii was a state.
And what exactly is so "scary" about having a difference of opinion? Jerks.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Yay Melissa
Melissa D'Arabian won The Next Food Network Star. I loved her from the beginning, even if she wasn't the most polished and didn't have the chef credentials. Her cooking was smart and always sounded flavorful and I believed that she knew what she was doing. She thought on her feet, and especially in the challenge when she had to prepare the three course meal for all of those culinary stars, she absolutely showed her metal, switching out the orzo for the potato, fixing the orzo when one batch was too salty. Making two pastries when one of the great and reknowned bakers of french pastry was right there in the room. She is definitely no wallflower. Going down to the wire she finally overcame her nerves and never freaked out when she found herself in a dilemma. And despite what the judges said, I think her story was the most compelling. I think she's very smart, and I do like smart.
Congratulations Melissa
Congratulations Melissa
Lazy, Rainy Day
I've spent much of today in "my" chair. I mowed the lawn this morning, just before the rains came. It's been raining ever since. I've watched a little golf: The Women's British Open, where the first person ever from Scotland, Catriona Matthew, won, just ten weeks after giving birth to her second child. That's very impressive, don't you think? And now I'm watching the U.S. Senior Open. I've also been surfing the net. And I've also been watching the dogs play and sleep, time I really do enjoy. It's getting later in the afternoon, and Miller, the 16+ year old, is staring at me because he knows it's time for me to get up off my butt and take him and his brothers out so that he doesn't end up eating dinner late. He is pretty funny, and has an amazing appetite for an old guy.
I made dinner last night for four: my sister Dana, my sister Deb, her boyfriend Darryl and me. I made thyme roasted chicken, skin on, bone in, and I'll probably never do chicken in the oven any other way again, except for changing out the herbs. Maybe. I made sage mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables sauteed in garlic and olive oil: broccoli, a red and yellow bell pepper and a zucchini from the garden. The thyme and sage were also both from the garden. We enjoyed a delicious New York State wine with dinner. We also had a lemon/coconut cake for Dana's birthday and a sort of cheese course: a lovely cranberry-walnut bread, toasted, with mascarpone cheese. Yum.
Tonight I'm cooking a pork roast with green beans from the garden and jasmine rice.
Okay. I've got to go. Miller is still...hovering.
I made dinner last night for four: my sister Dana, my sister Deb, her boyfriend Darryl and me. I made thyme roasted chicken, skin on, bone in, and I'll probably never do chicken in the oven any other way again, except for changing out the herbs. Maybe. I made sage mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables sauteed in garlic and olive oil: broccoli, a red and yellow bell pepper and a zucchini from the garden. The thyme and sage were also both from the garden. We enjoyed a delicious New York State wine with dinner. We also had a lemon/coconut cake for Dana's birthday and a sort of cheese course: a lovely cranberry-walnut bread, toasted, with mascarpone cheese. Yum.
Tonight I'm cooking a pork roast with green beans from the garden and jasmine rice.
Okay. I've got to go. Miller is still...hovering.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
