Old Dogs

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.

I slowed up during the run and Rainey turned back and looked at me.  It seemed almost accusatory.  “What the hell,” she seemed to say, “Are we going or not?”  Hey miss birddog you are the one who practically pulls my shoulder out of joint when you feel the need to stop to point at some bird in a bush, I would think.  She has a beautiful feathered tail that would flip back and forth like a metronome.  Her trot was graceful and effortless. After the run we sat outside Starbucks.  I drank coffee and she lounged like a princess as she took in the compliments, “Such a beautiful dog.”

We got up before sunrise.  When she got to middle age she went day blind.  Couldn’t see past her long nose in the daylight but in the twilight she could see perfectly and so we, as my dad would say, got up with the chickens.  We ran for up to an hour. Years passed and we ran for 40 minutes. A couple of years ago I pared the runs down to half an hour.  Last year I would take her out for about 15 minutes and then I dropped her off at the house and then finished my run. The runs ended some months ago and when I would get up she would get up as well, “Sorry girl, you can’t. Go back to bed.”

It's The Ideology

It wasn’t a gun.  It wasn’t a bomb. It wasn’t a machete.   It was a truck.  2 -3 minutes.  84 now dead, including 10 children. Do you understand now? It’s not the weapon.  It’s the ideology. ~  A viral Facebook post.

I’ve had an epiphany. Yes, I totally understand now.  If someone with a twisted ideology or some random radical Islamist wants to take out a crowd of people then he’ll find a way.  It might be fertilizer rife with ammonium nitrate, it might be a box cutter, it might be a baseball bat (as happened in Deltona Florida in 2004) or it might be a simple kitchen knife as happened in Osaka in 2001.  Most recently of course, it was a truck.  "Where there's a will, there's a way," goes the old saw.

140 Characters and a Meme

We’re two weeks removed from our nation’s 240^th Independence Day and the founders' great experiment is experiencing an upheaval unlike any that I can recall since the protests of the Vietnam War over 40 years ago. 

Over two centuries ago, America was the revolutionary undertaking that a doubting old world viewed with a bemused expectation of imminent collapse. For more than two centuries America has weathered the storms of war, strife, corruption and a temporary sundering. It's managed to put some issues behind it. But one issue, one wound will not heal. Whenever we think that the scab might fall off we manage to pick it and open the lesion afresh. It's our trauma that's scarred the nation since before it was a nation. 

It's the can that the founders and their successors managed to kick down the national road for over 200 years.  And once again, for that umpteenth time, we stand with that can before us with the decision to pick it up and finally dispense with it or kick it for another generation to deal with.  That can is of course race relations and the can kickers have been our nations leaders; by and large old white guys. The original can kickers couldn't come to agreement despite their reputation for being enlightened and ahead of their time. 

Trumping America

"It's amazing to me. A guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup.”  "Donald is not going to 'Make America Great.' He's going to make America orange!"

~ Marco Rubio on Donald Trump

Historically presidential election years are characterized by truths and half-truths, partisanship, accusations, a fair bit of slander and enough melodrama to fill up several seasons of daytime TV.  They’re a Machiavellian daytime soap.  It’s popular to look back longingly at elections past and glorify them for having the dignity that never was.  And so we always try to lean on that nostalgia and the pretense that each upcoming election will rediscover statesmanship.  Yeah this election has squashed any hope of decorum. This election year a process that has at least historically pretended to having dignity has all of the decorum of a rolling barrel of random trash.  And that barrel was set in motion by the antics of one Donald J. Trump.  He came onto the political scene with all of the grace and tact of an exploding gasoline truck. 

Brief Notes from a Political Dreamer

I’m a dreamer apparently.  I’ve always thought of myself as being pretty matter of fact; pragmatic to the point of being stodgy.  I guess not.  Since I’ve hitched my political wagon to one Bernard Sanders I’ve been relegated to the ranks of the starry eyed idealists; Utopians with big ideas and small chance for success.  I’ve been told by the Hillary crowd that a vote for Sanders is tantamount to a vote for the GOP.  “We like Sanders," they say in that patronizing, I'm talking to an 8 year old tone.  "He’s got good ideas but they aren’t realistic.  Hillary has a better chance of beating Trump.”

The Quadrennial Games

It’s time once again for the quadrennial party.  You know the one.  That over the top orgy of backbiting, name calling, sore losers, graceless winners, allegations of cheating, actual cheating, xenophobia, jingoism, backroom deals, payoffs, under the table money and other assorted bad behavior.  Thought I was going to write about the Summer Olympics didn’t you?  Maybe another time.  This is about the presidential elections. 

Fixing the Internet (or call Al Gore)

Sunday evening and the daughter was indignant, “The internet isn’t working,” she called down from the corner upstairs bedroom.  The whole internet or just ours?  I wondered if Al Gore would be available on short notice.  I mean who better to call to fix the internet than the guy who (apocryphally) invented the damn thing.  It had been a long, hard day of moving.  The house was a mess.  There wasn’t one room in the place save the bathrooms that wasn’t piled with boxes and bags.  I’d just been on the internet earlier in the day so I tried to ignore her and hoped the whole issue would go away.  I don’t like fixing electronic things.  Then again I don’t like fixing plumbing things, metal things, wooden things, mechanical things or automotive things.  Yeah, I’m not the DIY guy.  If I ever win the lottery I’m going to put a DIY person on retainer.