Since the NJ decision regarding civil unions, and my parents are still married and I can’t marry my cat.
WTF?
RIP, Irie Cole
My sister’s dog, Irie, who, in many regards was the family dog, was put down today after a long, slow decline. Although physically he was not the same dog he had once been (a happy, frolicking mix of beagle and lab), mentally, he was still pretty with it, and this made the decision to put him down even harder.
Irie was a gentle, sweet, happy, and, well, stupid dog, and we all loved him for it. He was always happy to see his mom, and often times almost as happy to see the rest of us. Devon picked Irie up on the side of the road after he had been abandoned as a puppy, and he spent the next decade+ surgically attached to her hip.
He was an ornery dog- he would run away any chance he got, with the mix of beagle and lab giving him the ability to smell a rabbit at 4 miles and the speed to run away and catch it. He set the Guiness speed record for rolling in dead things, with an uncanny ability to get away, find something smelly, and then roll in it at somewhere under 17 seconds. And he was sweet to a fault, having never met a cat who wouldn’t bully him or pick on him.
He always managed to be in the way- if you stopped short, he would run into you, unless, of course, you were walking him. In that case, a walk around the block would take a good hour, because he had to smell everything in sight. He seemed to particularly enjoy taking his time when it was raining or snowing or nasty out, or if you were just in a hurry.
Irie was the one dog my cat liked- maybe because he was not threatening, maybe because he was calm and would lie in the same spot and Tunch could lie next to him and steal his warmth. Maybe it was because they both loved Tunch’s cat food, which Irie would immediately clear out the minute he got here.
In other words, he was the perfect dog, and I am really really sad to see him go.
Irie’s decline was a shame, and he had aged to the point where you needed to carry him outside and then hold him up so he could go to the bathroom. This afternoon, Devon took him to the family vet on a farm outside where we all grew up, and they placed him on the ground to put him to sleep. Ornery to the end, in his last act, the dog who could not walk anymore got up and chased the vet’s cat.
One last romp, one last act of mayhem. It was the perfect end for the perfect dog.
We’ll miss you Irie.
Open Thread
This is all the blogging that you will get out of me today. Discuss my lameness in the space provided.
Open Thread
By popular demand.
And Now For Something Completely Different
When I read the Washington Post story on the FBI’s struggle to find Arabic proficient agents this morning, it occurred to me again that what the country needs with this long war ahead is an academy dedicated to producing law enforcement/homeland security professionals who arrive at their first job with a skills package that includes the languages and technology training that the modern FBI/CIA/NSA/Homeland Security Agency need in alrge numbers. Recruiting from college campuses will always be necessary, just as it is for the military services who then send the able would-be officers off to OCS of one sort or another.
But if you want and need a particular type of young professional, the quickest and most secure way to get them is to buy them as the military does via the service academies. The midshipmen and cadets get a free education. The country gets their service for at least five years, and often for their entire careers.
The president should ask Congress to work with him to establish such an academy and to staff it and enroll a class asap. (No tenure for the faculty, please!) There are a legion of superb uniformed faculty at the academies who can get such a school opened, and scores of retired or nearing retirement professionals from the agencies that would be looking to the new academy for recruits who can assist in designing the specialized curriculum.
And Arabic, Chinese, Farsi or some other critical language skill would not be an elective, but a required course depending on the needs of the country’s law enforcement/counterterrorism agencies.
An interesting idea…
And Now For Something Completely DifferentPost + Comments (40)
Open Thread
If a tree falls in a forest and I’m too busy to blog it, it still crushed a squirrel. Discuss.
RIP R.W. Apple
An institution has passed:
R. W. Apple Jr., who in more than 40 years as a correspondent and editor at The New York Times wrote about war and revolution, politics and government, food and drink, and the revenge of living well from more than 100 countries, died early this morning in Washington. He was 71.
The cause was complications of thoracic cancer.
With his Dickensian byline, Churchillian brio and Falstaffian appetites, Mr. Apple, who was known as Johnny, was a singular presence at The Times almost from the moment he joined the metropolitan staff in 1963. He remained a colorful figure as new generations of journalists around him grew more pallid, and his encyclopedic knowledge, grace of expression — and above all his expense account — were the envy of his competitors, imitators and peers.
He led an interesting life.