Brava Raffle Correction

I spoke too soon. Please look on any gift to Brava's fund as a simple gift. You will not be entered in a drawing for the painting. The reason? We do not yet know enough about AZ gaming law to set up a raffle, and we do not want to violate any state gaming laws.

Please consider the raffle a future, separate event unrelated to this appeal. Thank you for your understanding and your patience.

Sid, red-faced in Phoenix

Brava: The Story of a Miracle

Brava (shown here the day before her surgery) touches everyone she meets. People seem to recognize her huge spirit and enormous courage, and are drawn to her. Her eyes are so soft and loving, and she is so receptive to people that she’s like a four-legged angel. She makes me want to try to be as loving and forgiving a person as she is a dog. It’s risky saying that out loud, I know, because I also know I can’t possibly live up to that. But I’m just saying: That’s the effect she has on me, and I believe that is her gift to us all. She’s an incredible being, and she is a miracle.

This is what I know of her story. Directions for how to contribute to her care follow at the end of this post.

On July 21, I learned that a gorgeous, well-bred red Doberman, cropped and docked, was on the execution list at a Phoenix animal shelter. Later I learned that she had been left chained in a yard, unattended. For days or weeks, the chain wrapped around her right rear leg, strangling her foot. She must have chewed it off then, for when I rescued her that day, she had been walking around on a raw stub for so long that her leg had begun to atrophy.

What I saw almost made me scream: a stump with three inches of exposed, baked, dirty raw flesh. There was no skin and no fur; just naked meat and protruding bone. Someone had allowed her to live like that.



Somehow she escaped. She became a stray. Someone called Animal Control. “Velvet”—we know her slave name—had been micro chipped. Animal Control found her owner, who denied responsibility, said he couldn’t afford to care for her, and turned her over to the shelter to die. But she survived.

The 20-mile journey from the shelter to the vet seemed to take forever, though I was driving 80 mph or more. Most of the way she was kissing my cheek, and laid her head on my shoulder. I swore and cried and swore and cried. Who could treat any living being so horribly?

I fell in love, and named her Brava.

Next came the awful amputation, and a very tough recovery. We almost lost her the day after because of bleeding. But she survived.

Oh, but there was more in store for Brava. As if all this weren’t enough horror, her IV tube was allowed to tangle around her inner thigh for hours until it wore a trough-like gash an inch wide and six inches long. Brava was again severely wounded. Our vet was livid and I was sick and cold with fury. Those responsible were terminated. But she survived.

We thought we were on the road to recovery, however after a week, Brava still had not stood--very unusual for canine amputees. Was it Exhaustion? Anemia? The hideous IV wound? The shock of surgery? The endless pain? Whatever it was, she couldn’t stand.


She tried: One morning I saw her rise to a sit and then stand for about 20 seconds before collapsing. She flashed me the biggest, proudest Dober grin, and I cheered her. We thought she'd soon be walking.

But then the IV wound split open, revealing raw muscle beneath her skin. I rushed her to the vet, expecting stitches, but en route, Brava began to bleed heavily from the surgical site. It was Von Willebrand’s Disease. The techs and I spent three hours putting pressure on the bleeding site to try to stop the blood flow, but there was nothing we could do. Brava was rushed to an emergency vet where she spent the next two days in intensive care, very, very close to death. But she survived.

So far she has survived, but Brava faces critical challenges in the days ahead.

Brava’s medical care already exceeds $3500. We expect additional costs of at least another $1500, for a minimum total of $5000. If you will help, please know that you are helping a miracle come to be. Her teaching is love despite everything, and courage in the worst of it. Her example is the purest nobility of spirit and heart. Brava belongs to all of us, and is the best of the best of a wonderful breed. I'm pleading with you to be a part of her recovery.

Those who wish to contribute may do so in any of three ways (scroll to the end of this post). If you have questions, please contact me privately at jsoliver@cox.net

1. Valley of the Sun Giant Schnauzer Rescue is my mentoring 501c3 rescue organization. I’ve worked under their auspices since I began Desert Harbor Doberman Rescue of AZ in January. If you wish to use a credit card to make a contribution to Brava’s medical fund, please use the orange PayPal button on the left side of the Valley of the Sun Giant Schnauzer Rescue website home page. Scroll down to find it. VSGSR will keep a tally of contributions for Brava. These funds will be totaled and used to pay for the enormous North Valley Regional Animal Hospital costs, where Brava was sent for emergency intensive care from the afternoon of August 8 through the morning of August 10. Contributions to Brava made via VSGSR are tax deductible.

2. OR, you may make credit card contributions directly to Brava’s home vet, Deer Creek Animal Hospital, by calling 602-404-0066 and designating ‘FOR BRAVA.” Deer Creek will keep a tally of contributions for Brava. These contributions will go directly to retire Brava’s still-growing Deer Creek account. Deer Creek Animal Hospital is incredibly supportive of our rescue and the Giants’ rescue, and her vet, the incredible Suzanne Higgins, walks on water.

3. OR, if you wish, you may send a check made payable to Desert Harbor Doberman Rescue of AZ and designated “For Brava,” to Desert Harbor Doberman Rescue of AZ, PO Box 97425, Phoenix, AZ 85060. I do maintain a totally separate bank account for rescue purposes.

4. Please contact me privately at jsoliver@cox.net, and let me know your name, address, and amount, and where you contributed, so that I can (1) cross-check the numbers with the VSGSR tally and the Deer Creek tally; and (2) can send you a thank you and acknowledgement.

[THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED TO REMOVE ANY REFERENCE TO A RAFFLE. PLEASE SEE THE CORRECTION ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE NEXT POST.]

Any donation, no matter how small, will mean a great deal to me and to Brava.

Thank you from Sidney Oliver, Desert Harbor Doberman Rescue, and Brava.

Seth, Day 2

This is Seth. He's doing a lot of sleeping this morning. That rescue bidness is tiring! In a minute, we'll be heading up to Deer Creek Animal Hospital for Seth's medical check-up. Paul's handling the details by phone from British Columbia.

Fetching Seth

The shelter at Casa Grande is down a lonely stretch of I-8, the interstate that connects Tucson to San Diego. The desert rises slightly, in a modest regime of foothills on the south side, to my left, and levels into a vast plane on the north. Either direction, saguaro cacti stand stark still in the noonday sun. It is hot as seven devils as I take the right turn onto the dirt road leading past a dusty corral and three pintos—one a young colt—to the Casa Grande Humane Society.

It is a white cinder block array, ugly and low to the ground, squatting inside a steel cattle fence. Dust rises from the red dirt parking lot as I pull up and park, facing a dreary shelter thrift store tucked into a small opening between the shelter door and the building's facade. Odds and ends: a 1970s metal TV tray stand, some computer cables, an assortment of small and very bad framed things, a few baseball caps, and a motorcycle helmet. Thin pickings.

The white wood door with its eight murky panes creaks open. Inside, to the right, a very heavy Native American woman leans on the laminate counter. In front of her, an Anglo thin as a copper wire paces back and forth, militantly waiting for the Mexican man and his daughter to wrap it up. I look around. A rack of yellowed business cards, a stack of those free real estate pamphlets, and a few dog leads and collars for sale. The Anglo, pale gray T-shirt dark with sweat, wheels in his jeans and cowboy boots and leaves.

Soon enough the Mexican family departs. Had they bought or sold? Not clear.

My turn.

“I’m here from Phoenix for Seth, the Doberman.” Lillian raises her moon-round, dark café au lait face and beams. Unusual for a Native American out here to smile at an Anglo, I think to myself. But then there’s not a lot to smile about, I guess. Especially not if you work at the Casa Grande Animal Shelter and it’s 110 outside. The white plastic fan behind her ruffles the blue print mu-mu thing she’s wearing and, mercifully, turns my way for just long enough for me to miss it when it turns back again.

She must be pleased that Seth is finally going home. Her long, straight black hair is pulled hard back into a knot on the top of her head. She looks like the Buddha.

To my right, an officer of the Animal Control Department of Pinal County is standing hip propped against the counter, talking on the Shelter's one line about a German Shorthaired Pointer. Charlese Theron should have her part. She’s got some mileage. She's tough but still attractive in her khaki and green Animal Control uniform. I picture her line dancing in some Pachecho cantina, tequila on the rocks in one hand. Salt and lime.

The one small room fills up with our body heat. I can almost see it lying like a meringue on top of the thickly layered white gloss paint that suffocates the wooden counter in the back of the area where Lillian reigns.

Behind me,through several large panes of glass over tiers of cinder blocks, we can see steel cages full of cats lining a dreary wall.

The fan tries, wanly but to no real effect.

I do the paperwork. Lillian does the Xeroxing. The officer and I exchange business cards. Now she knows there’s a new Doberman rescue in the city. Now I have two contacts in Casa Grande: Lillian and Linda. I hope there won't be many calls. It's a 130-mile round trip.

Lillian passes through some kind of curtain to the kennels, and in a minute, returns with a small, red Dobey boy. I look into his upturned face and wonder what he thinks as she hands his red nylon kennel lead to me.

I say, softly, “Well you’re a little guy, aren’t you? And you know what? It’s OK now, Seth. It’s all good. You’re outta here, boy. You’re going home, Seth, you’re going to your Forever Home and your Daddy’s name is Paul.”

“That’s it?” I ask Lillian.

“That’s it.”

“Well, OK then. Thank you, and thank ya’ll for what you’re doing here.”

The door slams shut behind me. Seth and I blink into the glare. In a minute, he’s in the back of the 4Runner and we’re headed back to Phoenix. He's a free man. I've made a small installment for the space I take up.

So Much Bull, So Little Time

In addition to everything I said in the earlier post on Sotomayor, it occurs to me that the giant smear of regurgitation known as the Republican Party is also attempting a sleight of hand, a bait and switch. Whereas Sotomayor herself never said her empathy is limited only to other Puerto Ricans, or even other women, or even other Latinas or only Latino/as, the GOP baldly distorts the record to say that Sotomayor's empathy is prejudice.

Where did Sotomayor ever say that her feelings of empathy and her life experience equip her only to hear one side of any given case? She didn't. The suggestion that she did is a lie intended to gin up a white male backlash--that is, to call out the base.

How can fellow-feeling for both the defendant and the plaintiff possibly be prejudice?

It can't be.

This is GOP bullshit, a phrase that I recognize comes dangerously close to redundancy.

The GOP is gambling that you and I won't stop and think, or pay attention, or even remember. Klan-loving SOBs like Sen. Jeff Sessions are trusting that it's impossible to underestimate the intelligence of the American people.

Unfortunately, too often they've been correct.

So if you're in an argument with one of those bottom feeders, what. you. need. to. do. is. listen. very. carefully. and. simultaneously. apply. common. sense. and. logic.

First, know the transcript. Don't ever take a Republican's word for it. Then you can contrast it with the GOP spin and Lord, what a revelation there'll be.

In other words, how do you know Orrin Hatch, Jon Kyl, Jeff Sessions, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Grassley are lying? If their lips are moving. If they're breathing, they're about to lie.

Whites Only, Men Only

Listening to Southern Senator Jeff Sessions blast USSC nominee Sonia Sotomayor for applying empathy and personal life experience in her role as a judge is a first-rate immersion in GOP intellectual dishonesty.

I agree with the definition given at that link, which says in part:

Intellectual dishonesty is dishonesty in performing intellectual activities like thought or communication. Examples are:

the advocacy of a position which the advocate knows or believes to be false or misleading

the conscious omission of aspects of the truth known or believed to be relevant in the particular context.

Rhetoric is used to advance an agenda or to reinforce one's deeply held beliefs in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence

The conscious omission of relevant aspects of the truth, and the advocacy of a position the advocate knows to be misleading are mainstays of the rhetoric of the Right. I hear examples of these things all the time and in fact would argue that these are policies of Fox News.

In this case, Sessions's argument that no judge ought should employ his or her life experience or powers of empathy on the bench depends for its impact on the unspoken contention that white men never apply empathy or life experience in their judicial decisionmaking. Much of early American legal history is nothing but the result of white male experience applied in empathy to other white males. What else can we calk the arguments that only white male landowners should be entitled to vote, that African slaves were only 3/5ths human, and that women, like dogs and horse carriages, were chattel, the possessions of men?

All these positions have at one time or another been embedded in US law. Not coincidentally, those were times when neither people of color nor women were at the bar, let alone on the bench.

And so it is clear that the problem eating at Sessions isn't the application of empathy and experience to judicial decisionmaking. His problem, in intellectually honest terms, has to do only with whose empathy and experience will be applied.

I hope that American women and people of color are listening carefully to the senators debate Sotomayor's nomination and are noting that Senator Sessions is calling this the conservative, Republican perspective. Their message is that if they have their way, none but privileged white males--and those who annihilate their own life differences in order to be as much like privileged white males as possible--ever need apply.

Arizona Bites Again

I read today of a measure pending in AZ that would allow official inspection of a private kennel upon a written complaint. I sent the article around to a local dog list and received this bit of enlightened genius (in part) in response:

It is clear, though, that there is continuing pressure every year in every legislative session to tighten animal control regulations and there are legislators who are cheerfully carrying the water for the activists that want them. For this, we may thank our friends at HSUS and PETA for their political activism and we may also thank our population of Latin Americans (mostly the illegals) who share a third world view of domestic animal treatment and who provide a continuing stream of animal abuses for law enforcement and the media to fawn over. A near-perfect storm.

This is what passes for thought in Arizona.

OK, one, who knew Latin Americans have a monopoly on cruelty to animals! Dang! It wasn't Ernesto Vick who got busted for vicious cruelty to pit bulls.

Two, who knew that it's "mostly the illegals" who pressure our legislators to carry the water for PETA and HSUS! I guess that must be just after they crawl out of the arroyo into the voting booth, huh. Right in front of Shurf Joe, even! Shee-it, man, they've got 'nads, don't they?

Three, I personally rescued a Doberman a couple of months ago who had been shot in the testicles by some white-boy brain-dead bubbas up in Flagstaff. I call that "animal cruelty," don't you?

It's not surprising to get this kind of trash. What's surprising is that it has become commonplace. This is the face of backlash stoked by the Republican religious Right.

The thing is, a country can't stoke these flames without getting very badly burned.

No justice, no peace.

Church Outlaws?

Interesting discussion going on here. Seems that the Methodist Church of Great Britain is banning members of the British National Party (BNP), which is a whites-only political party, from joining the denomination.

So this raises again the question, what is the proper role of a Christian denomination when it is confronted with the fact of an officially racist or antisemitic party? (This one won two seats in Parliament.)

Warning: You are embarking on a stream-of-consciousness exploration of this headache. It ain't no place for sissies.

If it is proper for a denomination to ban racists and antisemites, what about pornographers? Homosexuals? Women who have abortions? Bank robbers? You see the problem.

On the other hand, if a denomination espouses certain values, shouldn't it stand up for them? If it has, say, ten commandments, shouldn't its members be made to abide by them? After all, they're not the ten suggestions.

We all know that some Catholic clergy have insinuated themselves into the voting booth on the matter of Democrats' support for a woman's right to abortion. Do we think that's kosher (you should pardon the expression)? Are we in favor of that?

And if not, shouldn't we dislike banning racists from our denomination just as much? What's the dif?

That's what I was wondering.

If there's a problem in the British Methodists' or the American archbishops' approach, where does it reside? Is it in the nature of the behavior that's indicted? Is there something inherently different between racism and having an abortion that makes banning adherents of one OK but not banning adherents of the other? And can we apply that difference--if any--axiomatically, to help us decide which behaviors to ban and which to ignore? For instance: Since everybody knows racism is terrible and so is adultery, therefore a denomination is right to ban racists and people who commit adultery. Right?

Not comfortable with that? Me, either.

So maybe the problem doesn't reside in the nature of the indicted behavior. Maybe the problem resides in the nature of the establishment--in this case, in the nature of a Christian denomination. In the nature of the Church.

By nature, I mean its authentic mission.

I haven't reached the end of my ruminations and I'm no expert on church order and discipline. I'm still thinking about this. but for now, I suspect it's not in the authentic mission, or role, of a Jesus church to attempt to impose morality by force--which is what punitive action comes down to.

Well, but what about excommunication. And defrocking.

Did you know that excommunication is construed to be the act of removing oneself from "communion with God," and not as the imposition by the church hierarchy of punishment for one's misbehavior? I didn't.

As for defrocking,, or laicization, this is a hierarchichal judgment of a priest or ordained minister's grave misbehavior. Laicization--returning the cleric to the status of lay person--can apply only to clery, by definition. Accordingly, it should be seen as a means of enforcing the church's authority over its priests--with whom it has a particular and special relationship.

OK, then, what about the fact that some established, mainline denominations do impose punishments on lay members for behaviors seen as grave sins?

Some do. But apparently not many do, and I don't think that's an accident. Cults, on the other hand, appear to do so fairly regularly. Maybe the reason cults do and most mainline denominations don't is because such punishment is a means of enforcing authority, not morality.

I don't think morality can be enforced. And that's why I don't think withholding membership in the denomination of British Methodism is an appropriate response to members of the BNP.

Who should deal with racism, then?

I think it's the role of religious denominations to teach and inculcate values, and the role of the criminal justice system is to enforce the law.

All the jaw-flapping on the Right about "Christian nations," Western laws just aren't exact embodiments of Christian values. I don't think I've seen a law against hating thy brother. If you want an exact correspondence, I give you Sharia. I don't think we want to go there, do we?

Given that law is secular and religious values are, well, religious, it follows that the role of political parties is to advocate for principles of law and government, not for religious do's and don'ts. Not for scriptural values per se, but for the good order of a society. It also follows that the role of religions is to advocate for religious principles, nearly always grounded in some holy writ.

I've seen what confounding church and state can do. That's why I recommend that we keep our churches well clear of the business of politics and government, and our political parties well clear of the business of churches.

Let the political parties denounce and abjure racism, homophobia, antisemitism, and the like. Let them advocate for and enact the laws that punish these behaviors. But let the churches preach against them, attempting to influence the values of the citizens who will select the ruling party and thus determine the nation's laws and penalties. Keep the churches out of intervention in the democratic process, and the parties out of the business of the churches.

Musings on The Family's Values

That pillar of conservative Christianity, Sen. John Ensign, had an affair. With a staff member. The wife of another staff member. And then his mommy and daddy paid the staffer and her husband $96,000. Only out of concern for their wellbeing.

It happens every day. Is it not a fact that wealthy families hand over checks to suffering underlings so often that we tire of hearing about it? It's just not news. Not like Clinton's penis.

You know, I don't know what makes me sicker: the sleazy affair, the pay-off, the hypocrisy, the rank, sexist exploitation, or mommy and daddy bailing out their little Johnny. Or maybe Ensign's membership in The Family.

Moral rigor, ethical office practice, respect for the sanctity of marriage(s), reverence for family values, and the highest level of personal responsibility are embodied in Sen. John Ensign as in no other leader we know.

That must be why he was chosen by God, personally, to lead us wastrels into the paths of neo-fascist righteousness. EnterThe Family.

What is it about Christianity that first attracts authoritarians and fascists and militant capitalists, and then lends itself to their profoundest, most egregious, most antithetical distortions? Hitler cloaked himself in Christian rhetoric. The Klan perceives itself as an agent of the Lord. Sun Myung Moon is just another of the type. Men like Moon and the senators and Congressmen of the C Street house, aka The Family -- which includes disciple Mark Sanborn and residents John Ensign and Tom Coburn, among others -- not only support an almost certainly antisemitic, racist, and misogynistic authoritarianism, but also practice an unusually venal, rapacious form of capitalism, all as expressions of Christianity, no less, and see wealth as an index of God's favor: The wealthier the greater God's regard, ostensibly. And of course if that's accepted, it only follows that any social program that alleviates poverty is impertinent, sinful interference in God's predestined order. Calvin as pure GOP.

But if I remember aright, Jesus taught that it is more difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to gain God's favor, and taught us The Beatitudes from his own lips.

Which brings me to another question. How is it that these same types craft and implement decades-long wars on homosexuality, about which Jesus said Zip, Nada, Nuffink, but yet dedicate themselves to doing the very opposite of what he did say, and then call themselves "Christian"?

Why don't we rise as one and do as Bart Simpson does so well: Just point and laugh?

But of course we can't stop there. Time was when a version of Christianity much more in line with the teachings of Jesus held sway over a considerable segment of public policy. I'm talking about the 'seventies and Liberation Theology and its sibling progressive tenets. Way past time to head back in that direction. Militantly.

PS: Fascinating, isn't it, that Liberation Theology and similar anti-poverty/pro-justice iterations like Dorothy Day's Catholic worker movement emerge out of the Roman Catholic Christian tradition and not from Calvin-dominated Protestantism.

Life is full of ironies, n'est-ce pas?

Rhinestone Curtains

What to make of the nearly two-week media extravaganza since Michael Jackson's death on June 26? I'm looking for balance relative to other global events, proportion relative to their gravity, fidelity to the American public, and seemliness--quaint concept, I know--with respect to death, grief, sorrow, and loss.

I'm not finding them.

I don't begrudge the late entertainer the attention he's getting. What I resent is the blanket it has thrown over every other issue on the planet. The near 24/7 fixation on nuances of nuances to do with his childhood, family, career, mentors, tormentors, oddities, brilliance, influence, drug use, and death is just one of many instances in which CNN and MSNBC especially have abandoned the interests of the country in favor of making a quick and easy buck.

Unless you're of a certain age, you might not remember how it was back when there was news on TV and American media supported the quaint notion that a democracy depends on an informed public. But I do.

There's stuff going on out there. I want to hear about it without having to dig up the Jerusalem Post or the London Times. I want to know what Congress is up to, how the healthcare issue is coming along, what's doing on global warming, whether N. Korea is as dangerous as it seems, who's behind the attack on 35 federal websites, what's going on in post-Katrina New Orleans, what Obama is going to do about immigration, and whether the stimulus is expected to work or isn't. For starters. I don't want or need to know whether Catherine has control of Michael's estate, or that 7 was Michael's lucky number. Give me a break.

I want the information that I need in order to be an informed citizen and a competent voter. I want a diet that's 60% brain food, not 95% National Enquirer.

But I don't know how to get it. Do you?

PA State Sen. Eichelberger: "We're allowing them to exist."

From John Morgan at The Pennsylvania Progressive:

"State Senator John Eichelberger says 'we're allowing [gay and lesbian couples] to exist' in a recent radio debate. Today twenty of us confronted him with petitions asking for an apology and he steadfastly refused and ducked behind security so as not to answer questions. The story with video: http://tiny.cc/DFCXI

"This is an important story we need to get viral. This is as outrageous a homophobic statement as anyone can say. He implies he and the state also have the right to deny our existence. Sen. Eichelberger has introduced legislation writing discrimination into the state constitution by denying the right to marriage and equal rights for GLBT people."

Pretty rad. I'm intrigued. Who's "we"? The PA House? The PA Legislature? The Far Right in PA? In the USA? "We" hets? Who? Exactly who does he mean when he says "We're allowing [gays and lesbians] to exist"? I mean, I think I have a right to know. I do have a pretty big dawg in this fight.

I want to know, because I've long taken seriously the fact that the US Constitution applies to me. Whatever else I am, I am an American. I have certain inalienable rights. Until and unless I am convicted of a felony, I have all the rights enumerated in and implied by the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights.

Predicating this argument on my queerness evades the core point that I am an American. Still more fundamentally, most fundamentally, it evades the core point that I am a human being.

Force a shift in this argument. This isn't about whom I love. This is about who I am.

Seen in that inescapable light, Senator Eichelberger's comment becomes, "we're allowing her to exist." This is both a direct existential threat and an act of treason against the United States Constitution. It is both an implicit promise of violent extermination if his mood changes, and a violation of the one set of principles that makes an American an American.

The reality is that we're allowing Eichelberger to govern. That's profoundly disturbing.

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

From AlterNet: "On Saturday, Pat Buchanan hosted a conference to discuss how Republicans can regain a majority in America. During one discussion, panelists suggested supporting English-only initiatives as a prime way of attracting 'working class white Democrats.' The discussion ridiculed Judge Sotomayor for the fact that she studied children’s classics to improve her grammar while attending college. The panelists also suggested that, without English as the official language, President Obama would force Americans to speak Spanish.

"One salient feature of the event was the banner hanging over the English-only advocates. The word conference was spelled 'Conferenece.'” [Emphasis added.]

And look carefully at the caption. If you've harbored any fantasy that white racism is a fringe phenom, think again. It's a growing segment of the mainstream posing as concern about illegal immigration and liberalism. Teach your children well, or there will be hell to pay.

New Chi on the Block

This is Gus. Have you ever seen a more photogenic dog? Gus is our new Chihooeyhooey. We have Gus because the Yuma Humane Society sent out an APB recently begging state rescuers of any breed to help out with an overflow of dogs. Like a fool, I agreed to take three Chis, thinking (if I can call it that) that three Chis would be less trouble than one Doberman. It doesn't work like that, but anyhow. . . .

This is Gus. I don't know how he got to the Yuma Humane Society, but I know he's one wonderful pup. Gus illustrates the chief hazard of rescue: It's damn hard not to keep 'em all.

Welcome home, Gus!

Back

I'll be amazed if anybody's still here after my unexcused absense, but I'm going to pretend you're there anyhow. I'm humoring myself.


OK, I admit it. I haven't posted much lately partly because I've been up to my eyeballs in rescuing abandoned Doberman Pinschers, and partly because I've been FURIOUS at Blogger for not helping me fix my previously disappeared righthand column. A glitch like that takes the wind right out of my sails.

If you've visited here before today, you may have noticed that all the wonderful photos and features that now appear on the right side of the posts had disappeared. They actually plunged to the bottom of the lefthand column. This pissed me off just enough to feel sick at my stomach when I thought I might like to post something. I mean, it's not like I didn't spend countless hours of my life working on this site.

So now it's back. YAY!! I found a very nice guy -- The Laughing Idiot -- who knew exactly what I needed to do, and I fixed it just now. Thanks, Laughing Idiot. You rock! I looked for a stranger upon whose kindness to rely, and there you were! Please, let me know if you're up for it. I'll find a way to thank you.

So now that there's a lull in Doberman rescue, and now that I'm snit free, I thought I'd post for a while. I hope you're still there.

So what about Obama?

I've enjoyed the last few months of relative sanity. I'm speaking of the post-election period. How wonderful to ignore the world and to rest at last, assured that Obama can't screw it up as much as Bush did even if he tries. I really needed that break. We all did.

So. Are we out of Iraq yet? Do we have universal health care? Has the President put the Department of Homeland Security back on the tracks of the law and the Constitution and is domestic spying without a warrant once again really illegal? Can gays serve proudly in the military now? Are we happy? Having fun yet?

No. I still like him but like Bill Maher said, "A Socialist? Jesus, he's not even a Liberal!" OK I knew that. I did. I knew when he enlisted Rahm Emanuel that we weren't going to see anything like FDR. But still I'm disappointed. I expected more than I've gotten.

What I think is that this President isn't a Boomer. He's of the next generation, the anti-radical generation. This President was born in 1961, and was in his formative years when American radicals captured the decades of the 1960s and 70s.

Like my partner who was born in 1955, Obama is of the generation for which it was obligatory to react to the radical agenda, just as, for my generation, it was obligatory to react to the conservative agenda represented by the 1950s.

It is not in his character or in his cohort to react to anything with radical fervor. Not the outrage of warrantless spying, not the latter-day ghettoization of GLBT constituted by DOMA and DADT, and not the murder of Neda in the streets of Tehran.

Yet the media are populated with my peers. We and they do expect fervor, passion, steel and flint. We expect sparks. At least once in a while. We do. We just do.

Measured rhetoric slammed up against the bewildering babble of a George Bush is one thing. But measured rhetoric up against five previous months of measured rhetoric is just possibly a tiny bit flat. Disappointing. Deflated. Oomphless.

And that's a dilemma for O. For O's popularity ratings. The accident of birth that makes him so measured, so deliberate, may cause him to disappoint us from time to time. That's not so bad. What's unfortunate is that if he disappoints us, the Right will pound him with it, distort him, and try to work its wicked will.

He needs someone who gets that.

What about Obama? I like him but I'm not happy. I really hate the bailouts. I don't know if the rationale is true or not. What do I know? What does anybody know? But bu God if we're going to make the little people live by free market, the big shots ought to have to live by free market too. It's what Gore Vidal said. We have socialism for the rich and free market capitalism for the rest of us. (Well, that's a paraphrase.) What I do know is that if he doesn't get us decent health care, fix this depression, and get us queers out of the military and marriage closet, he's toast. Congress won't take the rap. Obama will. And with considerable justification. The reason? Because he will not have wielded his personal power and the power of the presidency well.

We The Un-People Salute SCOTUS

So, now that the California Supreme Court has ruled that a disinformed majority of voters may declare that some of the people are second-class citizens without equal constitutional rights, what's next? Can any majority now withhold anything it pleases from any minority? If not, exactly where was the line drawn?

Until today, I had blissfully supposed that the courts protected minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

But no. After forty-plus years of sitting in the back of this bus, not by choice, I've begun to get it that in the US of A, the Constitution is not for me.

This was an incredible ruling. The only other legislative catastrophes of comparable dimensions (in my lifetime) have been DOMA and the obstinant refusal of US states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

Funny how they all cluster around WSEX on your radio dial. Meaning around the enforced alignment of your gender identity with your biological sex, and the social ramifications that follow from that.

It's the quaint but pervasive notion that homosexuality is a mis-alignment of biological sex with [inherent] gender roles that makes homophobia just another manifestation of sexism. This, then, makes the watchful among us wonder who benefits from keeping queers down.

So anyway, back to my rapidly disappearing legal personhood.

What's next? Does this not mean that he who has the gold (to fund voter propaganda and finance voter turnout) will win the civil rights lottery? If he who has the gold rules, look out, people. The Baptists, the LDS, and the Vatican are not paupers.

And does this decision not invite a 100 Year War of the Propositions in every state?

What would that mean for us at a practical level? Should we plan to move like ping pong balls whenever the majority in state we’re in votes to declare that we’re second-class persons? Will I have to re-file my taxes with each and every reversal? Married. Not married. Married. Not married. And what if I’m in the hospital when a vote comes down? Would Catherine have to leave the room?

People can’t be partly equal. And state-based solutions obviously can’t work.

Specter the Weather Vane

Arlen Spector's decision to leave the Republican party and join the Democrats means most, I think, in the context of US voting trends overall.

When he noted that he couldn't hope to win in a PA Republican primary, Spector merely confirmed what we all know. The Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the far Far Right. In PA as in all other states except TX, UT and a handful of Dixieloons, the GOP has now completely alienated its moderates.

However, in so doing, it has also completely alienated the American voting majority.

Another way to look at it is that Specter (who, if moderate is emphatically a mercurial, not to say loose-cannon moderate -- I'm not over his role in the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas matter, thankyouverymuch) cannot win either

within

the Republican Party or, if he runs as a Republican, a popular election, either.

Yes, it's important how Democratic Senator Arlen Specter voters on big issues yet to be decided, such as health care and the right to organize. But in two years, this is not going to be such a big deal.

Eighteen Republicans are up for re-election in 2010. And I'm thinking that, barring a catastrophe at home or a disastrous economy error by the Obama administration, the country is of a strong mind to keep Democrats in power for the foreseeable. As more and more youth come of age, and as more and more of us age and notice our dependence on a national healthcare program, and as more and more minority voters enter the picture, the country in fact is likely to increase the Democrats' majority in both houses if the GOP keeps on keeping on the way it has been keeping on.

Let's hope it does. Ladies and gem'men, encourage Governor Good Hair (Perry of TX) and the idiots at Fox News. We've got 'em by the short and curlies.

Another Day, Another Guy Goes Berserk

Where did we lose the notion of honor? There was a time when men killed THEMSELVES when they despaired. Or killed only each other in Ire Rampant, as on the occasion of a divorce "for cause," or attempted bankruptcy.

Not now. No longer. Now the Thing to Do, apparently, is to take out everybody else and THEN kill themselves.

I can easily understand how the desire to kill stockbrokers, investment advisers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and preachers might overwhelm. The rest? Not so much.

Now I'm no fonder of teenagers than anyone else, but I really don't understand slaughtering one of mine own. If I wanted to kill one, I'd go to the nearest pool hall (male) or high school cheerleading practice (female). I wouldn't open the door to my own home and take out my spawn.

Nor do I grasp the appeal of treating a family reunion like a turkey shoot. Heck, I don't even like shooting turkeys. So what's with shooting Aunt Frances and Grandma and Uncle Bo and the nieces and newphews? It's not like you live to get extra insurance money.

No, to me the American concept of male honor leaves something to be desired. Like, honor. This is one of the problems with English-only nationhood. We desperately need an infusion of alien constructs of honor, like hari kari. Now THAT takes guts.

Could You Just Die, Already?

"Bar Bush learns that her nurses in ICU were relocated to Houston after Katrina...."
From Dependable Renegade

The Post-Consumer Society

My wife, Catherine, says that the difference between this depression and the last one is that this time, we're entering the post-consumer society. It isn't going to get back to the way it was. There's no there there. We're zooming past mallworld, on a trajectory somewhere to a place Americans have never been before.

I agree. We can't buy enough bluetooth thingies and digital garbage cans to get out of the fix Bush et al. put us in by sucking every last cent out of the economy. We can't. Even if we had the money, which we don't.

We're in a post-consumer society now. And what that means is -- well, we are once again thrown back on our own wits, only the question du jour is whether we have any.

Potpourri

I probably have no readers left, and it's my own damn fault.

One thing about me: When I take the plunge, I take the plunge. Ever since I started rescuing stray and abandoned Dobermans on January 6, I've been doing little else. It can't be helped. There's learning, and transporting, and scrounging extra gear, and nursing the spayed and the neutered, and supervising the herd, not to mention picking up the leavings. There are adoption forms to the written and contracts to be devised and homes to be checked and references to be called. And if you're lucky enough to have donors and volunteers, there are thanks to be delivered. If you're new, there are lists to join for advice, and experts to call, and veteran rescuers to locate and network with. And shelters to visit. And shelter and pound staffers to woo. It's a full-time job and it's worth it all. Just to see the happiness on the faces of a new family and the mug of a dog who's found his or her Forever Home makes it all worthwhile.

So if you can, forgive me. I've got a life now. I'll write as I can.

And some things are irresistible.

New Balm for Persecuted US Christians
Now, in retaliation for Kosher salt, there's--wait for it--Christian salt. Don't trample each other in the rush to the grocery store.

Rush the Greaser
That picture of Limbaugh at CPAC, the recent gathering of adults born to cohabiting siblings, underfed in infancy, and beaten regularly at puberty (otherwise called "conservatives") was just the best. Someone said he looked like a bouncer on the afternoon shift at a Penthouse whorehouse. Who could top that? It was partly the shiny black shirt, partly the open collar, partly the Popeye the Sailor Man earring, partly the greasy curls at his neck. (Makes ya wanna . . . puke. Rush, there may be clues here about why women don't like you.) Whatta guy.

"Socialism"?
If you're somewhat at a loss for responding to the leaky crock the conservatives hoist aloft every time we get close to a sensible approach to healthcare, read this. It'll help you get started.