Excused Lame

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.

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.

• Philadelphia, 5 – Buffalo, 2
• Vancouver, 2 – Chicago, 1
• Montreal, 2 – Boston, 1

It was time last week to upgrade or cellphones.  My lovely bride was sick and tired of her old phone losing its battery power within a day or when she tried doing anything with it, coupled with Verizon’s unwillingness to do anything about it save at an exorbitant cost.  She also wanted better internet capability for when she is on the road.

We went to Costco and decided on a Droid X for each of us with the data plan.  I’ve been rather skeptical of smartphones up to now, associating them with hipsters, urban moderns and boneless teenagers.  Now that I have it, I find I love the thing and for a surprising reason.

Last year I bought my lovely bride a Nook so she could read at the doctor’s office or on the road at shows.  She also has her AKC standards stored on it so she can take it in the ring for consultation while judging.  Fine for her, but I didn’t much like the appearance of the type on the screen and so developed something of a prejudice against e-books in general.

What I found with e-books on the Droid – whether with the Kindle, Nook or Aldiko apps – was that the background was bright, the text easy to read – much easier and more comfortable than on a desktop or laptop screen – and turning pages and going to and fro in the book was very easy.  Stop the app, use the phone for something else, return to the book and I’m at the same page as when I stopped.

Delightful!  Many of the books I’m interested in or have always wanted to have are either in the public domain or are available at much lower cost than a physical copy:  for example, I can buy the Harvard Classics for $0.99 a volume.  Project Gutenberg has tons of stuff, all free and they have an app for browsing and downloading.

So now I’m busy downloading and enjoying some of the books I’ve wanted or always liked.  Right now I’m reading (more or less at the same time):  The Count of Monte Cristo, Hadrian the Seventh and The Good Soldier.

To Austin this weekend for the Austin KC shows, held at the Travis County Exposition Center.  This features a large covered arena where all the rings, vendors and grooming was held.  We walked through a door and were amazed to see quite a bit of grooming space on the opposite side of the arena from where most of the set-ups were.  We immediately found out why there were so few people in that area:  a thick layer of loose gravelly sand was put down there.  After three or four steps, my shoes had filled up with the stuff, giving me a clue as to what the Marines went through landing on Iwo Jima (without all the shelling and machine guns, of course).

Ilya played the fool on Saturday and went Reserve.  He settled down enough on Sunday to go Winners Dog for his first point.  Brother Dutch got spooked in the ring on Saturday, showed badly and went Best of Opposite Sex.  On Sunday he looked superb, moving out with confidence and going… Best of Opposite Sex.  Somewhat disappointing, of course, but his awards were good enough for his last two Grand Champion points:  he may now be styled GCh. Soyara’s The Flying Dutchman.

The 2011 Borzoi Club of America National Specialty was held last week in Lawrence, Kansas.  To spare as much of my lovely bride’s vacation time as possible, on Tuesday I drove Dutch and Ilya up there, a 13 hour drive through north Texas (including Dallas, which, judging by the billboards, must be the strip club capital of America), Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas.  My lovely bride flew up to nearby Kansas City on Wednesday and I flew home that afternoon.

Entering Kansas on I-35, I was greeted not by the usual state welcome center, where I could stretch my legs, go to the bathroom and get the boys exercised, but instead by a toll booth for the Kansas Turnpike.  Not that the toll for the 200 miles I traveled on it was excessive, but still…

I passed through the Flint Hills of southeastern Kansas, an interesting transit.  Not only did I not see any towns, there was no sign of anything anywhere.  No houses, no roads, no trees, not even cattle grazing, just grasslands (occasionally burnt) and the odd nodding donkey of an oil well head.

Ilya thoroughly misbehaved (in a playful way) in Novice class and placed fourth out of four.  He and Dutch redeemed themselves in Brace class by really putting on a show for the judge and audience, moving and standing as one and being named Best Brace in Show.  Not the kind of performance that I would have expected from their practice sessions!

In Best of Breed competition, Dutch, despite being one of the youngest specials in the lineup, surprised the dickens out of us by garnering an Award of Merit.  My lovely bride said he performed wonderfully and got rave reviews from the peanut gallery.  The Beeg Boy is still a year or so from real maturity; right now he’s a little underweight and out of coat and condition.  I think next year he’ll be a real brick if we can develop a real show personality for him.

Ilkka writes:

The case of the Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones nicely, uh, illuminates the principle first pointed out by Jussi Halla-aho, that the relationship between Western progressives and Muslims is disturbingly similar to that of a dysfunctional family with the elephant in the room that one of the family members is a violent alcoholic. The rest of this family walks on eggshells trying not to provoke him to rage and violence, and in fact blames each other for any violent outbursts.

It’s an interesting analogy.  Why, the excuses almost write themselves!  “He’s only like this when he gets tired” (“Not all Muslims are terrorists”) , “He’s really a good provider” (“Our Western civilization owes so much to Islam”), “I probably said something to set him off” (“You said something to set them off”).

I’m somewhat mystified as to why Western progressives – humanists and secularists all! – are so eager to succor and defend radical Islamism, its terrorist acts, its theocratic reach and its hostility to gays and women.  Perhaps with Communism a dead letter and the socialist experiment in peril, the tranzis, the tenured, the tax-eaters and the trash need a new weapon in their war on the West.  The enemy of their enemy is their friend.

The peril for them is that come the day their erstwhile allies will now become their nemesis.  “We’ve hired Hitler!” Franz von Papen crowed on January 30, 1933, thinking that his old guard would serve as a check on any dictatorial tendencies.  A year later in the “Night of the Long Knives” Papen had to flee for his life.  Other allies like Hugenberg and Duesterberg were ousted when Hitler consolidated his power.  And that’s the good scenario.  Are our progressive Goodthinkers destined to be the Schleichers, the Zinovievs, the Bukharins and the Molas of the New Day?

To Navasota this weekend for the Brazos Valley KC shows:  as pleasant a drive as can be imagined with the wildflowers beginning to bloom and, as a contrast to the coastal plain, rolling hills in Waller and Grimes counties with ranches on either side of the road featuring new calves and foals.  Our own little part of Kentucky here in Texas.

These were Ilya’s first shows since the 2009 BCOA National Specialty (which was his first show).  Although a big, imposing dog with a nice body, his inexperience in the ring showed and he placed second in a class of two both days.  Brother Dutch was Best of Breed both days for six more points to his Grand Championship; with 24 points he needs but one.

Nothing in the group either day, not with Brian Livingstone’s Pharaoh Hound and Gerry Thornton’s Saluki there.  Looking back at Lacey’s show record, she didn’t pick up her first group placement until she was well past three years old.  Dutch just turned three in January and still has some maturing to do as well as acquiring the winning attitude that made his aunt such as success in the ring.

Brothers Dutch and Ilya are remarkably closely matched in size, structure and coloring (amazingly so for Borzoi), so my lovely bride will be showing them as a brace at the BCOA National Specialty next month.  She was in Louisville last week judging an Otterhound sweepstakes and while there she had Mike McCartney run us up a caricature of the two with my lovely bride trying to keep up.

A true miscarriage of justice in Houston:

A woman who pleaded guilty in the shooting death of her husband and was sentenced to probation on Friday after reaching a deal with prosecutors is now telling her side of the story.

Charlene Hill shot her husband Danny Hill on Nov. 14, 2006 in their Richmond home.

For two trials Hill claimed self defense. In the first trial, the jury hung 11 to 1; and during the second trial Hill agreed to plead guilty an instant before the jury told the judge they had found her guilty unanimously.

Hill, whose case became a courtroom drama that hit national news magazines, maintains she was abused for nearly 30 years by her husband, an ex-con. Hill received probation and 600 hours community service, with no prison time.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hill was not available to tell his side of the story.  Like the Mary Winker case, a woman murders her husband and then says that it was in “self defense” due to spousal abuse.  Might be true but it also might not.  There might be other motivations (greed, financial mismanagement, etc.).

In any case the husband isn’t around to defend himself.  The ya-ya sisterhood rallies around the poor widder woman.  A light sentence – maybe not even jail time! – is handed down for a crime that a man would go if not to the death chamber then to the clink for the rest of his natural days.  Could he claim spousal abuse (more common than you’d think if you only watched the Lifetime channel)?  As though anyone would believe it!

Revolting, in a word.

Last summer we took in four rescued Borzoi, one from the Houston area (quickly re-homed) and three from Oklahoma, two bitches and a neutered male.  The three Oklahoma rescues were in terrible shape when we got them:  rotten teeth, black with flea dirt, badly matted, suffering from skin problems and full of parasites.  While not starved, they were all undersized and clearly suffered from malnutrition.  They all went directly to our vet’s for treatment:  the girls were spayed, their coats were cut off, any bad teeth extracted, vaccinations given and tests run for heartworm.

The male, whom we called Smoke, was the very worst off temperamentally.  At the vet’s, he tried to hide under chairs and benches or in cubbyholes.  He lay flat to the ground and wouldn’t raise his head to look us in the face.  We have no doubt he was abused by a man since he would have nothing to do with me.  Never had we seen such a woebegone, defeated dog.

When the rescues came home, we set them up in large, comfortable crates in the breakfast area off the kitchen.  Smoke was given a crate nearest the traffic so that he would become accustomed to our comings and goings.  A nearby door gave quick access to an exercise pen outside.  Smoke would huddle in a corner and not want to come out but my lovely bride, whom all animals implicitly trust, was able to coax him out.

All the rescues had unlimited access to food and water.  One of them – Nethie, a bouncy, happy girl – thought she’d hit the jackpot; her head was always in a food bucket.  In the morning and evening I’d fix a meal of kibble and canned meat for them.  I and only I would feed Smoke.  The television in the next room was usually tuned to the Baseball Channel so that Smoke would hear mostly male voices in a comfortable, non-threatening environment.

Smoke never became outgoing but he learned to trust even me not to harm him.  One of the girls, Ahnor, went to a new home in Florida and Smoke and Nethie went out to the kennel.  Smoke was in the same pen as Alan, who basically ignored him.  He lay on his hammock and, if not outwardly happy, at least lived a tranquil life.  He would even bound off his bed to come to the gate when I handed out evening treats.

On Sunday, Smoke went to his new home here in the Houston area.  He’ll get to live in a house with a couple of rescued Afghans and a brace of rescued Italian Greyhounds.  His new owner has given him the name of Stan and says that while he’s unsure he’s settling in without major incident.

Good luck and God bless, Stan.  You deserve it.

My lovely bride is in New York today for the Westminster Kennel Club show.  She was handling Dutch and, while the Beeg Boy didn’t get any awards, he made every cut to the last.  Quite impressive considering that Dutch was among the youngest of the entries.  He’s at least a year away from being truly competitive at the breed/group level so while this isn’t everything we could have gotten, it’s about what we might have expected at the best.

The judge, Espen Engh, was kind enough to ask my lovely bride whether Lacey was still alive.  Mr. Engh gave Lacey her last and greatest Best of Breed win at the 2006 Borzoi Club of America National Specialty.

Congratulations to Casper (Best of Breed), Annie (Best of Opposite) and to Gennady, Sean and Mandalay Bay (Awards of Merit).

Historically, Westminster has combined the spacious comfort of the Black Hole of Calcutta with the hospitality of the Bataan Death March.  This year, I understand, was even worse.  There are renovations taking place at Madison Square Garden and the usual benching wasn’t used.  Not mentioned in the premium list was that all dogs have to be crated instead of being allowed to lounge freely at their designated spot.  This created something of a panic as our party had only two crates for four dogs.

As well, I was watching the Red Wings – Rangers game yesterday afternoon and suddenly realized it was being played at MSG.  So along with desperate exhibitors trying to get set up under conditions even more crowded than usual there were hockey fans wandering around.

Something really should be done about this.  The Westminster Kennel Club isn’t some impoverished club just getting by, it’s the most prestigious and wealthiest club in America.  Why conditions have to be so unnecessarily miserable for exhibitors is a mystery.  Don’t expect the dog press to be concerned as they’re too busy going to glam parties to think much about it:  “Pity about the lower classes… Something should be done… Yes, I’ll have some more champagne…”

Actually it’s from last week, but where else would it be than the New York Times?  From Wen Stephenson’s review of Mark Hertsgaard’s Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth:

The American social context too often remains the largest obstacle, Hertsgaard observes, not only to adaptation at home but to cutting emissions globally. It’s not clear how to change this, but an honest, urgent, grown-up national conversation — beginning in Washington — would be a start.

When someone of the Left urges a “national conversation” they don’t really mean a two-way discussion of an issue.  What they want is a show trial where they dictate the ground rules and then deliver a lecture that their opponents must only agree with.

Well, as a AGW skeptic (or a “denialist” to use the Left’s term) here are my questions that should be answered in this “honest, urgent, grown-up national conversation”:

• Are temperatures across the globe increasing?  What are the measurement methods used and are they robust and reliable?  Are the data open to all?
• If global temperatures are increasing, are they within or outside historical variations?  How are those historical variations measured?
• If global temperatures are increasing, what dangers and what benefits might result?
• If global temperatures are increasing, what are all the possible explanations – natural, astronomical and anthropogenic – and to what extent to these contribute?
• If global temperatures are increasing, will the increase continue linearly, exponentially or are there natural corrective mechanisms that will moderate the increase?
• If global temperatures are increasing, is it better to adapt to it or act to try to correct it?
• What is the ideal temperature we should want the planet to be?
• If there are corrective changes to be made, what are they, who will be affected and to what extent?
• If, after we undertake corrective changes, global temperatures continue to increase, what would that say about the original AGW hypothesis?

Of course, none of that will come up in our “honest, urgent, grown-up national conversation.”  The narrative has already been written:

• Global temperatures are increasing!
• Mankind is responsible!  Well, not all mankind.  Not those poor Third Worlders, nor China or India.
• The West is responsible!  Well, not the Europeans; they’ve issued bold memoranda and held heroic meetings on the problem.
• The Americans are responsible!  Well, not all of them; after all, the Left has made sympathetic noises about the problem and we wouldn’t want to deny them their trips to exotic locales to discuss it.
• Then it’s Republicans that are responsible!  Yes, that’s it!  Republicans!

One of our clubs, the Fort Bend Kennel Club, had its shows this weekend.  Dutch was Best of Breed both days, picking up more points toward his grand championship.  On Saturday we were surprised and delighted when the Beeg Boy went Group 3 under Pat Trotter for his first group placement.

Dutch’s sister Carmen was entered on Sunday.  She thoroughly misbehaved out of sheer exuberance.  I could see that the judge really wanted to give her Winners but when she acted like that I wasn’t surprised in the least when she was Reserve.

Well, all of that may be unfortunate but we’ve had some brighter news on the show scene.

Dutch, the Beeg Boy, finished his championship at the Cen-Tex KC shows in Alvarado in late November by going Best of Breed over specials under Michael Loller; he may now be styled Ch. Soyara’s The Flying Dutchman.  Dutch is the first of our Virago x Faith kids to finish.  Now on to brother Ilya.

In addition, Knight finished his Grand Championship in early December at the Conroe KC show under Pat Murphy.  Knight is the first of our dogs to obtain the new Grand Champion title.

Both these boys are entered at Westminster in February.  We’re sure they’ll do us proud.