Author Archives: jame4357

SCIENCE SCHMIENCE

Back in the old days, before the 2008 election, there was a lot of talk from the Left about the need for a science-based approach to governance. The basic sentiment was that it was inconceivable a modern, powerful nation such as ours could or should ignore ‘facts’ that were utterly intuitive. This line of thinking has prevailed and we are now about to embark on a second term of the ‘science president’. Yippee.

The problem so far has been his inability to actually understand science and scientific evidence. It’s almost as though he’s never studied science. For all we know he hasn’t.
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SUITCASES

You know by now there are things the very sight of which will make my skin crawl. To a greater or lesser degree these include the leash, (kind of a love-hate relationship—I don’t like it, but it means I’m getting out of the house), the groomer’s van, (by the time I actually see it I’m practically inside it, so maybe I should direct my animosity more toward the groomer himself, or the sound the doorbell makes when he rings it, I don’t know, I need to think about that one some more), Mork and/or Mindy—my dad’s names for the two Sharpei’s next door whose real names are Ming and Mai, and the really old guy who walks up and down the street every day, looks and smells like a zombie, awful.

All of these are unpleasant but bearable. They pose no threat to my accustomed way of life. In fact, they offer the opportunity of a little entertainment from time to time. Barking at the old guy when he walks past my gate or going after the wrinkly mutts next door through the fence, for instance. But there is one thing, actually a few of them it turns out, different shapes and sizes, all diabolical, that not only make my skin crawl, but my hair stand up and my stomach turn. I believe they are called ‘suitcases’.
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More About the Rules

I got some flack about the comments I made regarding the ‘rules’, about how some people feel as though they need to be told what to do every minute of their lives in order for them to get through the day without killing themselves or someone else, and about how we ‘lesser’ beings in the animal world have somehow managed to survive the millennia by following the one, basic, rule that makes the most sense—namely, Don’t Be Stupid.

I was a little surprised. I figured that if so many people felt the need to have the terms of their lives dictated to them by someone else, the least I could do to help would be to simplify things. Pare down the number of rules. Eliminate some of the redundancy and contradiction. I guess I was wrong.
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Rules

Some feedback on my last posting about the park got me thinking. There were a few angry comments about dog discrimination, (no surprise), complaints about leashes in general and why people don’t use them on their children who come running at us and pulling our tails from out of nowhere with no concern for our well-being, a few suggestions from dog walkers about legal off-leash parks available to us, (right, so we can get into even more fights with the dogs they don’t supervise or with the other dogs belonging to weirdos and psychopaths who seem to enjoy the chaos), and one self-righteous remark aimed at me and how it sounds as though I live in a pricey neighborhood, live a life of exceptional privilege and therefore have nothing at all to complain about. (Whoever wrote that didn’t leave a name. Probably some rich liberal feeling guilty and trying to foist it off on me.)
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The Park

For almost as long as I can remember the humans and I have gone to the park every morning. It’s this place not far from our house where my pals and I can run around, chase and chew on each other, hunt for squirrels and generally have a good time for maybe an hour before breakfast. It’s great. The humans seem to enjoy it, too. Then one day, all of a sudden, we stopped going.

I was confused. Instead of driving to the park, or walking sometimes when someone, not me, decided he needed some exercise, we started taking actual walks. Every day. On a leash! Sometimes around the Canyon where we live, sometimes up to this other park that overlooks the ocean, where there are about a million squirrels that I can’t chase because of the stupid leash, sometimes, well, you get the picture. But never to the park.
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