Excused Lame

Starting the New Year Right

Greg Hlatky — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:33:19 +0000

The Dallas Cowboys plunge to ignominious defeat 31-14 at the hands of the New York Giants and are eliminated from playoff competition. Folks, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Just Delightful

Greg Hlatky — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:08:16 +0000

A Grand, Grand Overture for orchestra, organ, three vacuum cleaners, electric floor polisher and four rifles by Malcolm Arnold, as performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson.

Merry Christmas

Greg Hlatky — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:29:04 +0000

Merry Christmas from me, Madame and all the Hounds of Soyara:

Diva (BISS Ch. Soyara’s Beautiful Dreamer)
Alan (Ch. Soyara’s Singer of Songs)
Belle (Ch. Soyara’s Southern Belle)
Sarge (Ch. Soyara’s Ace of Spades)
Stanley (Soyara’s Gandalf of Dana Dan)
Smudge (Ch. Soyara’s Smoke and Mirrors)
Tess (Ch. Soyara’s Cunning Little Vixen)
Ali (Ch. Soyara’s The Force of Destiny)
Chance (Soyara’s Against All Odds)
Dutch (BISS GCh. Soyara’s The Flying Dutchman)
Ilya (Soyara’s Ilya Murometz)
Carmen (Ch. Soyara’s Carmen Fantasy)
Aida (Ch. Soyara’s Celeste Aida)

Plus Talker the Whippet and Fluffy (God, what a name!) the cat.

Rarer than a Photo of Bigfoot

Greg Hlatky — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:45:46 +0000

A picture of 1) me, 2) winning at a dog show. Little Aida goes Winners Bitch at the Cen-Tex KC show in Alvarado, TX. The judge is Tim Robbins.

A Grooming Tip

Greg Hlatky — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:48:54 +0000

When showing dogs, please remember to dress appropriately.

By their fruits ye shall know them

Greg Hlatky — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:39:57 +0000

In the later novels of his “Advise and Consent” series, Allen Drury introduced the character Edward M. “Ted” Jason, an ambitious but shallow Governor of California, lauded to the skies by a fawning and uncritical news media, who is elected President. A frightening démarche by the Soviets after his inauguration reveals Jason to be a man adrift, devoid of ideas how to deal with it, the few he has being catastrophic to the country.

Our present-day fawning and uncritical news media lauded our current President to the skies based on his reputation for being the smartest guy in the room. But what’s this reputation based on? In the words of Victor Davis Hanson:

I am searching for a shred of evidence to substantiate this image of singular intellectual power and known erudition… At Chicago, did lecturer Obama write a path-breaking legal article or a book on jurisprudence that warranted the rare tenure offer to a part-time lecturer? (Has that offer ever been extended to others of like stature?) In the Illinois legislature or U.S. Senate, was Obama known as a deeply learned man of the Patrick Moynihan variety? Whether as an undergraduate, law student, lawyer, professor, legislator or senator, Obama was given numerous opportunities to reveal his intellectual weight. Did he ever really? On what basis did Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan regret that Obama could not be lured to a top billet at Harvard?

The President is a man who rose without trace, going from a do-nothing stint as Harvard Law Review editor to a do-nothing stint as a lecturer at the University of Chicago to a do-nothing state senatorship to a do-nothing term as junior senator from Illinois. In all that time he never produced anything that would earn him a reputation as a man of ideas or vision. All he did was get his ticket punched in the right spots.

Even in the highest office in the nation he’s produced little but bad ideas transformed into bad law by Congressional spoilsmen. He’s never said anything notable or quotable. Ultimately he’s an empty suit, a Ted Jason made flesh. Let’s hope that his term isn’t ultimately as damaging.

Good Riddance

Greg Hlatky — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:28:34 +0000

So, Christopher Hitchens is dead at 62. Much blubbering from the sinistrosphere about this stout ally of the United States against Islamofascist terror.

Well, as Sam Goldwyn said, include me out from all these breathless encomia. I had no use whatever for Hitchens in life and refuse to have anything nice to say now that his biochemical processes have ceased and now he’s a decomposing (or incinerated) mass of protoplasm. For me he was little more than an unrepentant apologist for the USSR, a left-wing Jew-baiter and an anti-religious bigot. His support of the invasion of Iraq is likely more a consequence of his hating a religion that would refuse him a drink more than any affection for the Anglo-Saxon political order.

I for one won’t miss him in the least.

News from the Show Scene

Greg Hlatky — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 22:36:50 +0000

Well, now that I’ve woken up let me regale you with a few items from the show scene.

Little Aida finished her championship by going Winners Bitch at the Trinity Valley KC show in Dallas under Rita Bell. She now may be styled Ch. Soyara’s Celeste Aida. Aida is the third of her litter to finish and is the second one this year after her sister Carmen.

As for her brother Ilya, at the Sunday Conroe KC show Madame’s pain medication was affecting her balance. As Ilya was entered in Bred-By I was the only other person who could show him. I did and – a sign of the coming End Times – won the class over competition. I then handed him to Rudy Ayala for Winners, which Ilya also won. Rudy was to handle Carmen in Best of Breed, so Ilya was given to Rudy’s wife, Brooke Young, to be shown in Breed. And at the end, we had a picture taken of Ilya’s Winners Dog win, with Madame holding him. So in the end Ilya was handled by four different people in the space of about five minutes.

We put entries for Dutch and Carmen for the 2012 Westminster KC show without much confidence that either would get in. Because of renovations to Madison Square Garden the entry for 2012 has been cut from 2500 to 2000. To our surprise and delight, both entries were accepted. This means a solid two months of my taking them out for roadwork and conditioning.

And finally, Madame was elected Region 3 Governor for the Borzoi Club of America. This is Madame’s second stint of the Board: she previously served as Governor for Region 6 when we lived in Ohio.

For Today

Greg Hlatky — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 02:36:05 +0000

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Notice to Exhibitors

Greg Hlatky — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:28:00 +0000

If, in the future, any of you complain about my voice being too loud when I’m stewarding and it upsets your poor little Snookums, my response will be, “I’m sorry your dog has such a bad temperament. Maybe you shouldn’t be showing it.”

Of course, if you are actually paying attention to what’s going on in the ring, if I see you standing at the ring entrance waiting for your class is about to go in, if you’re ready when it’s time, I won’t raise my voice at all.

But no, no. When your class is being called, you’re having a grand old time yakking with your friends. Or, between the time I gave it to you and the time you should come into the ring, you’ve managed to forget what your armband number is or in what class you’ve entered little Snookums. Then, if not megaphonically notified, you’d completely miss your class and your $25 entry fee would vanish into the vapor not unlike that inside your head. Of course, that would be my fault too.