Man, am I beat, and I’m not sure I know why. No, I do: 85 degrees, rain allegedly on the way but probably not. I love sun and summer as much as anyone, but a little cool breeze would be welcome right now.
On the other hand? Still summer.
I do feel like I’m a little empty after all the Leonard stuff, and so, let’s just go with some linkage, which has been piling up in the last couple of days.
A big talker around here today, still shocking to consider: There are an estimated tens of thousands of stray dogs in Detroit. The shelters can’t hold them all, the police can’t deal and in the midst of all this misery you can still find wonderful details like this passage:
Aggressive dogs force the U.S. Postal Service to temporarily halt mail delivery in some neighborhoods, said Ed Moore, a Detroit-area spokesman. He said there were 25 reports of mail carriers bitten by dogs in Detroit from October through July. Though most are by pets at homes, strays have also attacked, Moore said.
“It’s been a persistent problem,” he said.
Mail carrier Catherine Guzik told of using pepper spray on swarms of tiny, ferocious dogs in a southwest Detroit neighborhood.
“It’s like Chihuahuaville,” Guzik said as she walked her route.
Chihuahuaville!
Meanwhile in animal news, The Chronicle of the Horse has been sold, and the staff is not pleased. And while I know you don’t care, I thought this passage was funny:
Since Bellissimo, 51, purchased the Chronicle in mid-July, readers have been venting in the magazine’s online forum, a kind of country club for mannered and fanatical horse enthusiasts. To even register as a commenter, one must answer trivia questions like: “If Mr. Ed was an off-the-track Thoroughbred, we might have seen one of these when he was flapping his lips with Wilbur.” (Answer: Tattoo.) Or: “If the farrier shoes three geldings in front and trims four more, how many shoes does the farrier need?” (Answer: Six.)
Dogs? Animals? WENDY. Playing the crabapple game:
And if you missed the late comments yesterday, our own LAMary, playing “The Weakest Link” some time back:
Now, however, I have to go drink some wine. It’s feeling like medicine right now.
Dexter said on August 22, 2013 at 1:33 am
I feel compelled to share a moment of clarity . My friend Gilbert from down Fort Worth way just posted a link to an Amy Winehouse song. I just realized that without any doubt at all in my head, I believe Amy Winehouse was the best singer to come on the scene in the past fifty years. Like Janis and so many others, Amy is in the 27 Club, the club where you never see 28.
Yes I’m serious. Can I get a witness?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-I2s5zRbHg
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Dexter said on August 22, 2013 at 1:44 am
Oh, how cool is that! You did well, LA Mary.
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Deborah said on August 22, 2013 at 4:24 am
That Wendy looks so happy.
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alex said on August 22, 2013 at 6:47 am
Dex, it’s certainly one of the more haunting stories to come out of the showbiz world, and all the more so given that her signature song was “Rehab.”
On another topic, anymore I’ve come to expect our local network affiliates to practice lazy journalism, but this takes the cake. Why, they even use a sizable excerpt from the Sean Hannity Show as a stand-in for real reporting. At this rate, they might as well give Glenn Beck the first fifteen minutes of their show to hawk his worthless gold coins. Mike Huckabee railing against climate science could be their new weather segment.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 22, 2013 at 6:59 am
Mary, thanks for the video clip; that looks like a tough room. And Nancy, Rick Warren stole his Hawaiian shirt thing from ME.
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Mark P said on August 22, 2013 at 8:19 am
I was watching Wendy and thinking it was pretty funny, and then I thought, well, people juggle. What’s the difference?
As to the stray dog issue, I noted that most of the bites are from pets at home. My father worked at the Post Office for many years. He once walked a route with a letter carrier, and a little dog ran up and bit him on the leg. He was bleeding and holding the dog up by its too-long leash while the owner said, “He won’t bite.”
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coozledad said on August 22, 2013 at 9:00 am
I subbed on a route that covered one end of Range Road in Granville county. It was the access road for the artillery range at Camp Butner in WWII, and in the middle of nowhere. There was one house, a long brick ranch, whose yard proper was home to what looked like seventy or eighty semi-feral dogs.
You had to pass the house on the way to the next turnaround, which alerted the dogs you were coming, and by the time you pulled up to the mailbox, they were in order of battle. A couple of carriers told me they’d never hit a dog until they ran that route, then they might rack up four or five in a day. One sub told me he hit one, and as she was pulling away, in the rearview mirror she could see the pack beginning to pull it apart.
I always wondered how I’d deal with a car breaking down out there.
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Julie Robinson said on August 22, 2013 at 9:24 am
Wendy is adorable. She seems self-sufficient.
If you haven’t seen the Google Doodle today, it’s a charming interpretation of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. That’s all I got. Life is too crazy-busy this week.
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Bob (not Greene) said on August 22, 2013 at 9:38 am
Found the old, abandoned site of Camp Butner with what appear to be rifle ranges still intact. And I found Range Road, but word of those dogs must have gotten around, because there’s no Google Street View anywhere along that stretch. Middle of nowhere pretty much aptly describes it.
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Pam said on August 22, 2013 at 9:53 am
I once read somewhere (I think in National Geo) that packs of Chihuahuas can be quite deadly. They are smart dogs and I’m sure they can think up some serious strategies for attack.
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coozledad said on August 22, 2013 at 10:04 am
Bob(notGreene): One of the things that hinders development out that way is the unexploded ordnance. One of my coworker’s kids found a 20mm? 120mm shell while he was out playing and brought home and set it on the kitchen table.
Shit was hemorrhaged.
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Bob (not Greene) said on August 22, 2013 at 10:07 am
Cooze, I could see where that would make digging foundations a challenge. Where was the artillery range in comparison to the location of the actual camp area?
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 10:10 am
Happily ever after? Creative photoshop.
The Chronicle of the Horse is a journal of stories by Stephen R. Donaldson about equine Hansen’s Disease, right?
I’ve never delivered mail, but I certainly came across some mean dogs delivering the Detroit News years ago. Believe it or not, the worst were a pair of vicious black dachshunds. Miserable bastards, with an owner that would hide in the house on collection day and never tipped. To this day, I don’t trust dachshunds that aren’t that warm reddish brown they are supposed to be.
Wendy is tossing that crabapple the way terriers were bred to toss rats around until they were dead. Atavistic. Maybe she should go on ratdog patrol. We have feral chickens and a gone-feral peacock pair, and scads of feral cats, but no feral dogs. We also have a few feral swamp jennies that I’ve been lucky enough to spot occasionally. Some people own swamp jennies and race them on the beach. Beautiful, stout little horses whose ancestors pulled plows, and surreys and buckboards on Sundays.
All of this reminds me of a classic Joo-stan Wilson joke.
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Minnie said on August 22, 2013 at 10:27 am
Dexter, coincidentally, last night my husband and I were listening to a memory stick of music playing in random order. When an Amy Winehouse song came on,I reacted much as you did to her voice. Damn shame.
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coozledad said on August 22, 2013 at 10:40 am
Bob: I don’t know where they fired howitzers and mortars, but when I was a kid the ammunition storage bunkers were still visible near lake Butner (now lake Holt). They looked like a big hummock of earth accessed via a garage-door sized slab of metal.
I think the DOD is still looking into the cleanup.
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coozledad said on August 22, 2013 at 10:54 am
Bob(notGreene): http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/blasts-from-the-past/Content?oid=1188769
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Judybusy said on August 22, 2013 at 11:13 am
The mail delivery person, from the dog’s point of view. Our dog goes nuts and I feel bad for the letter carrier. At least she is inside, with a porch between them. When we’re home, we get her in the kitchen and keep her there when she raises the alarm, spotting the threat from across the street.
Very cute video of Wendy.
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 11:23 am
My mom had a lab named Buddy that was positively blase’ about the mailman but would go berserk at the site of a UPS truck. He was a damn good dog, with a strange quirk.
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brian stouder said on August 22, 2013 at 11:53 am
Speaking of strange quirks, didja catch on the news this morning the taped conversations of President Nixon with Governor Reagan? Darkly humorous, when you hear the drunk president say “Goddamn Ronnie – how’d you get such a cute wife?”. And speaking of questions preceded by the exclamation “Godamn” – didja hear the 911 tape of the school secretary, with the lunatic shooter yet? In a nut-shell, the secretary carries on a firm, friendly conversation with the shooter and with the 911 operator, and talks the guy down until the police arrive and grab him.
The shooter DID shoot several times, but not at anyone….and he had an AK47 and more than 500 rounds (five….hundred…rounds) of ammunition….and in the end no one was hurt. As the call concludes, after the police have taken the guy away, the secretary heaves a sigh of relief and thanks God and Jesus, and the 911 operator rightly and warmly praises the woman. Honestly, she should receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom (or whatever they call it); she’s a genuine hero
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 12:15 pm
Speaking of strange quirks, didja catch on the news this morning the taped conversations of President Nixon with Governor Reagan? Darkly humorous, when you hear the drunk president say “Goddamn Ronnie – how’d you get such a cute wife?”. Barf. Gag. Ralph.
Well he got her by impregnating her while he was mattied to Jane Wyman actually.
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 12:25 pm
married
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Charlotte said on August 22, 2013 at 1:34 pm
I grew up in a family so horsey that “The Chronicle” was a major source of news. Those people Do Not Like Change. Off to share with my old pal Kathy, who ran the AHSA magazine for years, and is now the marketing director for Breyer (“Plastic horses?” my sweetheart asked when they met. “Plastic horses are that big a deal?”)
Our news here is that the 70-acre fire the USFS didn’t put out in July, surprise! blew up and is now 10,000 acres and growing. They could have doused it, but instead they let it smolder until August, when, as always, the humidity dropped, the winds came up and it blew up. There we were, watering the roof as a 30,000 foot plume blew up — they’re claiming they didn’t have the funds to fight it, but they had the funds to build a 400-person camp, grade and oil the road, and do a bunch of other shit while the fire smoldered. The neologism of the day in our house is that they nursed it like “firedough starter.”
Also, can’t breathe.
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 1:52 pm
One man’s trash is another man’s art.
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Kath said on August 22, 2013 at 1:58 pm
I agree that small dogs are the most vicious. In my brief career in the newspaper business, I was a paper carrier for the West Central Daily Tribune. I was attacked by three toy poodles, one of whom jumped up and bit me on the neck. Granted I was only about 10 so it didn’t have to jump that far. I hate toy poodles to this day.
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Dexter said on August 22, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Antoinette Tuff. We put up with “Doctor Drew” and “Doctor Phil” and Maury and Jerry and all the rest to get inspiration on how to deal with problems, and a school bookkeeper shows us how, in textbook fashion, how to disarm a crazy fucking lunatic with an AK-47 Kalashnikov automatic rifle and hundreds of live rounds. Except she never read a book or studied terrorist crisis management in any way, except probably a school workers’ seminar after Sandy Hook. Now there will be books written about her techniques, her special ways of dealing with this crazy motherfucker. She’s smart, she’s intuitive, she’s transparent…she’s our hero. She’s probably a little mad at Piers Morgan; he called her “an older woman.” She doesn’t appear to be very old at all.
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brian stouder said on August 22, 2013 at 2:21 pm
Dex – that tape put tears in my eyes.
She is superb; she is a hero.
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coozledad said on August 22, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Republicans have nothing but contempt for democracy, never wanted it, never will:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/17/1231845/-Watauga-County-NC-All-Hell-Broke-Loose-at-the-Board-of-Elections-Meeting
Pay special attention to the greasy piece of mountain trash with the sunglasses on his mullet.
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brian stouder said on August 22, 2013 at 2:34 pm
Cooze – ol’ Rachel Maddow has been focusing on your state for the past couple evenings, and tonight she broadcasts from there….so I’ll be watching for you!
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Deborah said on August 22, 2013 at 4:06 pm
I bought an Amy Winehouse CD at Starbucks I think, I’ll have to dig around for it and listen to it again.
I bought “Rum Punch” at the local bookstore here, the woman who checked me out said EL books are flying off the shelf since his death. Now I have to keep myself from reading it before my trip on Saturday. I saw the movie Jackie Brown a long time ago but don’t remember much about it. If I finish it before my Beaver Brook trip is over (and if I really like it) I’ll buy an EL ebook to get me through the trip back, I assume they’re out there.
Well we have skunk living out behind the Santa Fe building. We’ve kind of been smelling it for awhile, but Little Bird saw it last night. We think it might be living under the gardening shed. Great.
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Connie said on August 22, 2013 at 4:14 pm
I’ve not watched Mad Men, but I was surfing the channels the other night and stopped to watch a few minutes. I was pleased to see Dean Norris as a main character, as he also is in Under the Dome. Dean was the valectorian of my sister-in-law Ann’s highschool class at Clay High School in South Bend. He comes to all the class reunions and she says he is not a bad guy at all, he just looks like one.
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Brandon said on August 22, 2013 at 4:19 pm
“[w]hile I know you don’t care.”
Don’t assume that. You might have some horsey people amongst your readership.
@LA Mary: Congratulations!
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MarkH said on August 22, 2013 at 5:42 pm
Charlotte —
Do you honestly think they’re lying when they say there is a lack of funds of fighting wildfires in the West? It’s been an issue all summer, from Sun Valley to Palm Springs to Park City. From just today:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/budget-to-fight-wildfires-is-depleted/2013/08/22/047f1310-0aa1-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html
While your assessment is “they could have doused” the Emigrant fire earlier on, this account from the incident fire commander via the July 23 Billings Gazette should tell you it’s not that simple. It did start July 16 and grew quickly to almost 500 acres in steep extremely rugged terain:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/emigrant-fire-grows-to-acres/article_8fad23ef-3acd-535c-9666-c19b1b8df5e4.html
Wildfires are managed individually, based on proximity to and danger to human life and property, then isolation, than its rehabiltative potential to the area. The Emigrant Fire has become the Miner/Emigrant Complex, due to its merging with three other smaller fires nearby on the peak. In addition, you have at least two other fires burning to the immediate west of your valley. There are a total of 386 personnel working these fires in your area, so it stands to reason that the USFS would commission a camp with the requisite road access to house up to 400 firefighters. As a 30+ year resident veteran observer of multiple fires in the Teton-Yellowstone region, including a negligent-neighbor-caused fire right in my back yard that threatened the town of Jackson last year, I know that things are not always what they seem from the public view. You can be assured they are all doing an incredible job containing the fires with what they have. You may have already seen the inci-web site that sumarizes every fire in the West, but here’s alook at the Galatine area fires:
http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/3657/
Sorry for the link-a-palooza, Nancy.
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Danny said on August 22, 2013 at 6:40 pm
Close one eye, squint with the other, rub your tummy and pat your head… all while speed reading the headlines. The result:
“NASDAQ Trading Halts on News that San Diego Mayor Resigning for Allegedly Groping Chelsea Manning”
I feel updated!
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Sherri said on August 22, 2013 at 7:14 pm
A good technical (but very understandable) description of what we know from the Snowden documents, with some helpful context, from the IEEE Computer magazine: http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/pdfs/MakingSenseFromSnowden-IEEESecurityAndPrivacy.pdf
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Charlotte said on August 22, 2013 at 7:31 pm
Mark — that’s why we’re so skeptical this time. When the fire first broke out, they were all over it. The terrain is atrocious, but they did a good job putting in a fire line (probably doesn’t hurt that Dennis Quaid owns the big parcel at the base of Sixmile Creek). Daley Lake is at the bottom of this fire and after the first couple of days they pulled the helis with water drops off the fire. They seemed to put it *just about out* but not actually out and then just let it smolder. Because no one could have forseen that a smoldering forest fire is going to blow up in August. So it was 600 acres, now it’s over 10,000 and jeopardizing the historic OTO Ranch as well.
Meanwhile, there was plenty of personnel to set up a fire camp for 400 people, grade and oil the road to the fire they weren’t putting out, and wait until it blew up again. No one is explaining why this makes any sense at all.
Now, so far, we’re in better shape than the folks over in Lolo and Red Lodge.
And please, don’t condescend to me, I too have been in the west for 25 years in fire country and have friends who were smokejumpers, search and rescue, etc. So it’s not without an *enormous* sense of betrayal and anger that I’m watching this situation unfold.
Somehow questioning the USFS has become one of those things we’re not allowed to do anymore. We can only get all sentimental when they die. Why isn’t *anyone* investigating whether the sequester, and cutting the funds contributed to the deaths of those Arizona firefighters? Once again, it’s all “no one could have foreseen” crap.
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 7:45 pm
Nobody knows dick from anything Snowden spewed. That is actually funny Danny, and it owes obvious props to the stick out your tush scene at the end of Blazing Saddles. Wildfire suppression in the wild wild west,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uCAWUXYKUM,
is surely part of the calculus of sequestration, which represents a GOPer problem. And that is, big GOPer cash owns those mcMansions. They can convince Indiana rube Teabangers that because…Obama, but those bigtime donors that thought it was so funny when storms ate up Cape Cod’s shoreline know better. Bite this you rich aholes.
Sherri, what sort of assurance has anybody that anything Snowden presents is unaltered or unadulterated? The sociopathic weasel is obviously problematic psychologically. I wouldn’t trust the ahole as far as I could throw him and see no reason to alter that opinion. Look at his nitwit anti-Obama screeds. Not a stable camper. His backup is WSJ talking about something NSA did in 2002. What the hell?
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 7:48 pm
We do not know shit from Snowden. Guy is a monster liar and anything he says is likely bullshit.
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 7:50 pm
We do know Snowden is nuts.
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Sherri said on August 22, 2013 at 7:52 pm
Prospero, read the article. You can think Snowden is a monstrous traitor all you want, but that has nothing to do with the article I pointed to.
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Prospero said on August 22, 2013 at 7:56 pm
Sherri, I respect everything you say, but this is not the battle. Citizen’s United. That is where we are screwed. I know you are smart enough to understand that.
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Danny said on August 22, 2013 at 7:58 pm
Props, for some reason I never could stay awake through Blazing Saddles, so I wasn’t referencing it. OTOH, Young Frankenstein is one of my favs.
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Dexter said on August 22, 2013 at 11:27 pm
A friend’s daughter just presented my friend with her first grandson, named Mason, down in Fort Myers, Florida.
At the same time, my daughter’s Blue Heeler doggie began behaving sickly, and within a couple hours’ time was gone; he died of old age in Columbus. I help raise that dog as a puppy for about six months, so this hits me hard too, but my son-in-law and daughter are especially devastated. Now I am also thinking of my friend Lee, from Fort Worth, who also had Blue Heelers and was always asking me how our dog was doing. Lee died a year ago, only 65 years old.
So my friend enters grand-motherhood for the first time at the exact same time we lose a family dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ga_M5Zdn4
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