Gone too long

Please accept my apologies.  2013 got away from me, and I am quite embarrassed that this is my first post since - July?!

Since July, I have moved, gotten married, my wife and I both started new jobs, and I have continued to help my mother with her fledgling family enterprise while endeavoring to further my own start-up in the evenings.  I am not one for excuses, but I do believe my absence here is most understandably excused.

In 2014, I will strive to not let this blog fall by the wayside every time I get busy, which these days is nearly all the time.  What makes it difficult is that I am responsible for online content for two small businesses and a volunteer association of which I am a member, and I spend most of the rest of my working hours on the computer in other ways.  At the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is look at a screen any more.  And yet here I am again.

I hope that my illustrious return to the screen (the computer screen that is) is appreciated by all four of you who read this blog.  I will do my absolute best not to absent myself any more, and thank you for your undying loyalty.

More breaking news from Britain!

As if you didn't still have the taste of bubble and squeak lingering in your mouth from all the royal baby coverage, Britain keeps the hits coming today!  Now Tory Prime Minister David Cameron wants to censor pornography on the internet.

I realize Britain is a smaller country and not a federation like the United States.  I realize that issues that would be reserved to the states here and could not make it to the federal level in Washington can still be a topic of debate in London.  Still, it leaves me scratching my head over why the leader of the government of a G8 country would actually dedicate time to filtering the beat banks of his constituents.  Sorry.  "Wank banks".

Child pornography as well as pornography depicting rape should of course be outlawed and their producers shut down and arrested.  I wholeheartedly agree with Cameron on that part of his crusade.  However, aside from some bogus Focus on the Family moral argument, there really is no legitimate reason for a national leader to be engaged in a quest to censor sexually explicit content made for adults by adults.

As an American, however, I will say that I am a little relieved.  David Cameron is showing the world the ancestral homeland of American Puritanism and "family values" horse shit: England.

In honor of the Royal Baby

Right now, America and the whole world seem to be paying more attention to Kate Middleton's dilating cervix than even her own personal team of medical professionals. The fixation is disgusting.  For one thing, this is a private moment for Kate and her follicularly challenged prince. For another, the fixation itself is demonstrative of just how out of whack people's news priorities are.

So in honor of the world'st most watched fetus, here is a brief list of real fucking news stories and issues that are of more importance than the birth of a child to a couple thousands of miles away whom you will never ever meet.  None of the following is in any particular order.

International:

• Famine
• AIDS
• Climate change
• Desertification 
• Overpopulation
• Air pollution
• Access to clean drinking water
• Mass fucking starvation

Domestic (US):

• Corporate corruption of the entire political process
• Seizure of private property through eminent domain by private energy corporations
• Healthcare reform (ACA is only a first step)
• Corruption and conflicts of interest on the Supreme Court
• Wholesale purchasing of statehouses by ALEC
• Crumbling infrastructure
• Soaring youth unemployment
• Degradation of workers' rights

Or, if you want to stop thinking about any of these things, or even never begin thinking about them to begin with, enjoy your Royal Baby.

BBC World News

Home sweet home

As if the proposed Keystone XL pipeline across America and the fracking disasters above the Marcellus Shale weren't enough for the people and land of this country to tolerate, there is more bad news.  Large corporations have proposed pipelines and power lines which they would like to extend across the landscape, and even across your yard.

Closest to home here, one company is seeking to use an already laid pipeline, reverse the direction of its flow, and send Canadian tar sands through it from Montreal to Portland, Maine.  Of course the trouble is that while the pipeline already exists, tar sands are full of, well, sands, meaning that the new river of petroleum in the raw would be full of abrasive rock, scratching at the sides of the pipeline, wearing it down and bringing it ever closer to springing a leak.  Of course, while they would love to use the pipeline, the company has not sought to reinforce it.

Equally close to home is again another Canadian company, Hydro-Quebec, which is pursuing a massive land grab across beautiful stretches of northern New England so that it may bring its electricity from Quebec into the New England states.  This unfortunately means dragging high tension wires across family farms and mountain tops.  For those of you not familiar with the region, picture your desktop background or your fall time screen saver, then imagine it carved in two with massive high tension wires across your view.  Not so relaxing now, is it? 

Think I am being melodramatic here my fellow American?  Do a quick Google search of "Hydro-Quebec" AND "Cree Nation". 

At least in the case of Hydro-Quebec, the private corporation in question is offering to buy family farms one by one.  In Vermont, Vermont Gas, another energy company, is looking to extend a gas pipeline through part of the state, under one of the nation's larger lakes, and into New York State.  And how do they propose doing it?   I mean, not the construction, but the legalities, the real estate transactions?  Apparently, they are applying for a "Certificate of Public Good" so that they may use the state's sovereign power of eminent domain to seize people's property interests (namely the right of exclusive possession) and build their pipeline across their farm or their yard. 

To avoid delving into a lengthy explanation wrought with legalese, I will simply put it in the following terms: if this private company obtains this certificate, wants to extend its property through your home, and you do not consent, tough shit.  They apparently can apply to obtain that "right".

This is a touchy and indeed touching subject.  Anyone who ever took a middle school civics class learned at some point about eminent domain, which is to say, taking for the public good.  If the government needed to build a road for all of us to use, and your land were in the way, they could take what they needed, and pay you the value of what they took.  Of course now even before this Vermont Gas story, the Supreme Court took an extremely broad view of the term "public use" (or was it public good?) when it ruled that the government could take private property and give it to a private corporation, as long as it deemed that seizure and redistribution to be for the greater good.  Apparently your family isn't doing much good, so we'll need to take your land and give it to some real job creators! 

Whether you are young or old, rich or poor, renter or owner, this all should have you very concerned.  We are now living at a time when corporations are once again apparently able to apply for (or buy?) a governmental power, and use it take and destroy one's own family home.  I say again since this all smacks of the rampant abuses of railroad companies some hundred-and-fifty or so years ago.  So regardless of what your living situation is, stay informed and speak up for yourself and for your neighbors.  If we do not work together to litigate in the court of public opinion, we have no hope.  We already know what the Supreme Court has said about taking your home. 

Double our rate today

If you are lucky enough to not have any outstanding student debt, you may have missed today's news and what it means for millions of us.  Even if you are part of our unfortunate lot, you may have missed it.  Today is, however, the day on which student loan rates are set to double if Congress does not act, which in light of the laughable members of which it is comprised, is about as likely as the world ending before dinner.

Two articles are out today worth a quick read, despite their questionable publications of origin.  One is by Joan Walsh of Salon, while the other appeared in USA Today online and was shared via social media by Senator Bernie Sanders' staff.  Both are sobering to say the least, and to be quite frank, I would actually discourage you from reading either one of them if you feel as though your emotional and mental health are anything short of rock solid these days.

The hard truth is that the numbers do not lie, and a college degree - especially an undergraduate degree - may not even be worth it anymore.  This of course flies in the face of the past few decades' conventional wisdom.  Young people have been told for years things like "it will all be worth it in the end" and "it's an investment".  That may have been honest advice when the debt assumed in undertaking one's studies was under five digits and the lifelong benefits were measured by almost exponential gains in income.  Now, and indeed for some years leading up to now, this "investment" argument has become disingenuous, as debt burdens have creeped into the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars while the increases in lifelong earning potential have stagnated.  What was sound advice for students of the past became something akin to fraudulent inducement.

I will not launch into a preemptive rebuttal of the obnoxious "personal responsibility" argument today, as I am about as short on time as I am on money.  I will say, however, that if we truly had a meritocratic system of education in America, this would not even be an issue.  Instead, we have a system where the hard workers have to not only work hard, but also go into debt, all while a lucky few are given an education, whether they work for it or not.

Bear in mind also that this is not typical debt.  It can no longer be discharged in bankruptcy, and very often cannot be refinanced.  Your wages can be garnished, you can be harassed, and you have little if any recourse for any injury you suffer.  Your lender can sell your debt away and force you to deal with another party with whom you never had an agreement, but try to tell them you have sold your end of the deal to a third party and see what happens.  This is the the closest thing we have to indenture in the modern era.

If any of this has made you feel compelled to give your Representative on Capitol Hill a piece of your mind, you can find all the contact info you need here.  Best of luck.

Pardon the absence

Well hello there.  Long time no see.

I want to apologize for my absence this past month.  Life has been hectic to put it mildly.  However, perhaps even more important to explain my absence is the fact that I am temporarily living in a place with sporadic access to the internet.  Oh, and the fact that all of my writing time has been devoted to a book I am working on.

Anyhoo, I will still try to write here as much as possible, though it may be with decreased frequency.  After working on a book and going to an actual job, it really can be a struggle to upload content here, especially when it often needs to be from my phone or through one of those dinky wireless internet USB cards.

No worries though.  There will be more to come soon.

The Entitlement Generations

We have all heard candidates and office holders rail against so-called "entitlements".  We have all heard debates about these "entitlements".  We now even hear pundits, moderators, and journalists use this famed GOP buzzword to refer to many programs to which citizens contribute by paying into them money which they earn by working.  Entitlements indeed!

We have also heard the youngest generation of adults - meaning those in their twenties and perhaps a bit older - referred to as an "entitled" generation, one that whines about the lack of opportunities today and one which feels as though it is entitled to something better than a $10/hr job after obtaining a degree or two.  We hear that that same generation moves back in with its parents, has no aspirations, and wants things handed to them.

Really? Is that what is happening?  Let's look at some facts.

When the housing bubble burst and the markets tanked under  George W. Bush, during  the 2008 campaign, and before  the 2009 inauguration, some one who is 25 years old today would have been an undergraduate in college.  Now, if you want to look more at the culture of greed and corruption that lead to this whole mess, another big marker was the Enron scandal of 2001.  At that time, the same 25 year old would have been, at best, 13.  Finally, if you want to look at the advent of the culture of "greed is good" and "government is the problem" which has brought us to this golden era in our political and economic history, you would have to look at the Patron Saint of Specious Arguments and Rewritten History, Ronald Reagan.  Some one who is 25 today would have been born, most likely in the last year of Reagan's two-term presidency.

Add five or even ten years of age to the hypothetical person above to see where a 30 or 35 year old today would have been at these times, and you will see that young adults - and even young-ish adults, had literally nothing to do with the mess we are in today.  They just are in the enviable position of having to enter their theoretically most productive years of life during its aftermath and cleanup.  Suddenly the pessimism and living with the parents has a different context.

Now let's look at the people who caused the mess, sat by and were complacent during the mess making, and/or now get paid to comment on the mess.  While we're at it, let's look at the people who, though private individuals who never have been on television news shows, feel compelled to give unsolicited and condescending advice to those younger than them.  Let's look at them all.  And since no feelings were spared by the individuals at whom we are now looking, none will be spared here.

For those who contributed to - and indeed now professionally comment on the current economic mess - there really is not much to say that has not already been said.  Matt Taibbi has given us more research, analysis, and eloquence in his take downs of the excesses of Wall Street and the culture of corruption than I could ever dream of doing, and for that I am grateful.  What I will say is simply this: these few elite individuals are disgusting, have caused  the citizenry's faith in the federal government and private institutions to fall to the lowest levels in a century, and would be in prison if federal laws were not tailored to their socio-economic class.  Permitting them to continue their reckless behavior in the financial sector and to allow their accomplices to comment on the matter on nationwide news and opinion shows only adds insult to injury.

For the regular people of the two generations preceding the dubiously dubbed "millenials", there are some very simple facts which are all too often ignored and which we can ill afford to forget.  Because of this forgetfulness and/or ignorance, discussions are frequently far off center and miss the point.  To be absolutely clear, these are often individuals who had nothing to do with the creation of this economic mess.  However, they have availed themselves of every possible benefit the economic system and the federal government have to offer, and have then rebuked their children and grandchildren from hoping to do the same.  This begs for a rebuttal. 

First, if we are to use the current definition of "entitled" as enjoying government programs and services meant to better the lives of individuals and families, the people who enjoyed life between the end of World War II and the "Reagan Revolution" have been the absolutely most entitled people in American history.  Period.  No wait, correction: the white people who enjoyed life during that time enjoyed more government benefits than any other generation in American history.  Selective use of the G.I. Bill and discriminatory housing practices made damn sure it was those generations of white people who benefited. The same people who rail against "immigrants" or "the poor" or "these young people" in news site comment sections and on national television opinion shows are the same who had their lives, from birth to retirement, from public education to pension, planned and provided for them.

These are the people who, though employed at a grocery store or public utility, came to own real estate (don't understand the reason for my emphasis? Google the terms "feudalism", "Gilded Age", "Railroad Company" among others to see how land and property had previously been divided and handled)! How did these common citizens come to such great fortune? Hard work?  Well, in part, sure! They showed up and worked every day.  Then again, so did a miner fifty years before then and so does a Wal-Mart employee now.  Neither is a landowner for sure.  So how did the shopkeeper or electrician come to own a house after 1945?  How did little one-family houses pop up by the millions across the country? Answer: government programs like the FHA, the hands-on extensions of an overarching federal policy of homeownership set in place after the Second World War.

Homeownership was not the only government-backed and (at least partially) government-funded policy enacted for the public good after World War II.  Public education was still actually publicly funded, even at the university level and brand-spankin' new superhighways were built across the United States.  What was amazing about all of these was that they were open for everyone to use - and indeed almost everyone did, even those who say they did everything for themselves.

It is against this backdrop that two generations built lives, raised families, and acquired wealth.  It is thanks to this government foundation that they were able to build their personal and professional successes.  And though I am sure millions of people felt like they were given nothing and were going it all alone when they spent weeks pounding the pavement looking for their first job or searching for their big break, they must remember that there was at least fresh, new, even pavement to pound in the first place.  They were not hitting the now-proverbial, once-very-real dusty trail, nor were they tripping over the potholes and frost heaves of our crumbling infrastructure as we would do today.

I write this not to bash an entire generation or two, not do I do it to slam an entire social class.  Far from it.  I write this to expose, in very plain terms, the hypocrisy of certain individuals and groups within the past couple of generations.  They do not comprise the entirety or the majority, however, their numbers are great enough that they attract a great deal of attention.

So the next time you see a harsh comment on a news story, hear an ageist critique on television, or endure a snide remark made in person, do not get angry, and do not dispair.  Rather, just remind yourself that the person making such remarks is in possession of an incredible lack of perspective, and has little to no grasp of modern - or even personal - history.  Take comfort in this fact, and realize that nothing you can say or write will change it. 

Take a deep breath, and move on.

Legal lunacy

This is a scary story I just saw being shared on social media this afternoon.  The Supreme Court has apparently ruled yet again in favor of Monsanto, the corporation which sued a farmer for planting second generation seeds, some of which were descendants of their patented crop.  To hear the farmer's attorneys tell his side of the story, it went a little something like this:

"...he bought some ordinary soybeans from a small grain elevator where local farmers drop off their harvest. ... He knew that these beans probably had Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene in them, because that's mainly what farmers plant these days. But Bowman didn't think Monsanto controlled these soybeans anymore..."

Aside from rendering me hopelessly angry, this article also reminded me of a sobering conversation I had a year ago with a good friend of mine.  We talked about how, especially after the dreadful Citizen's United decision, the center really began to bottom out in this country's political culture, and that for the first time in either one of our lifetimes, the left and right in this country began to sing the same tune - not about the economy, immigration, or issues of race - but about their feelings toward the increasingly callous and distant federal government in Washington.  We both saw that people from opposite ends of the political spectrum agreed that it is now often difficult to defend the legitimacy of the federal government's institutions when they will rationalize anything to suit an agenda, especially when that agenda always puts the public good in second place.  Perhaps no institution is more guilty of this right now than the Supreme Court. Looking to examples such as the State of Montana enforcing their own election laws despite Supreme Court rulings (taking a you-and-what-army? approach) we agreed that the ramifications of the federal government undercutting its own democratic legitimacy could take years to come to fruition, but could be quite frightening in their intensity and scope.

To be clear, we discussed things we observed and our fears regarding their logical outcomes.  We did not discuss things we desired to see occur.

This particular story is just one of many in recent history in which a corporate entity could take what it wanted with the government's blessing, and it is still unclear how much farther these absurd decisions will go.  For that matter, it is unclear how much farther I could go in writing this, but I will stop now so that you may read the actual news story in question.  I just hope that in the meantime Mick Jagger doesn't drag me to the Supreme Court because I bought Goats Head Soup used from the record store when I was in high school.   

Nerd Prom

So in case you weren't at home to watch the White House Correspondents Dinner last night, or, like me, you don't have TV, here are the videos from C-SPAN, including the "House of Cards" spoof everyone is talking about.

While not the best ever, this dinner, like (almost) all of them, was hilarious.  Perhaps my favorite thing about the broadcast was not even the jokes themselves, but the fact that C-SPAN actually included the Nerd Prom hashtag (#nerdprom) on their graphics.  Its' nice to know in this age of technologically-induced informality and potentially-false perception of familiarity that cable's national government access channel is reaching out to all of us young civics nerds.  All twelve of us.


The "House of Cards" bit:




President Obama:




Conan O'Brien:

Springtime fun

Well, it really can't be all work and no play, though there are some that would consider a full day of intense yard work, well, work.  Still, it's hard to look at the results of this and feel that this was not at least some fun.

Of course, even if it is all work, there is the well-earned barbeque afterwards.  Yes, that is a chicken walking by.  At this point, she's just thankful to not be her cousin.

And how to you make a barbeque wicked New England?  Add in some maple!

 

Video: Colbert on the debunking of austerity

I can only do so much Colbert Report.  Honestly, I think the show really is a hit-or-miss, where the comedy in a given episode is either insightful and incisive, or incredibly blunt, and therefore tiresome.  This, however, is not just a great comedy clip; it's great news.

The Harvard "study" used to back austerity plans the world over has been debunked - and by a University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass) economics grad student.  This is awesome on so many levels.  Take a look:

The Colbert Report
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Elitism in America

From the time we take our first U.S. History or American Civics courses (if they even still teach those) we are instilled with the idea that America is an inherently classless society.  We learn that American culture, spawned from a violent rupture with the past and cultivated in the soils of a new continent, is simply too informal and modern in its nature to possess any entrenched class distinctions.  We learn this as though it is a given, something which cannot and need not be analyzed, and which is an inherently positive characteristic upon which so many of this country's successes have been built.

In our daily lives, however, there is still very much a struggle against elitism.  It is ubiquitous, and is indeed inherent to our present-day culture.  This fact has been brought to the forefront in recent years after very decisive election outcomes, however it is not that new.  Whether it a younger sibling ranting about the excesses of the "rich kids" at school, or a grandparent scornfully rejecting a product because they don't buy "nuthin' fancy", the tension is ever-present under the surface.  It is quite clear that the rupture with the past alluded to above may have not been as decisive as many would believe.

This points to one silent, underlying fact which American people of all backgrounds take for granted: that there is and always been elitism in one form or another.  True, hereditary nobility has been abolished, we do not have feudal lords reigning over entire counties or states, but then again, none of these antiquated signs of largess are even necessary prerequisites for elitism in the modern era.  The Industrial Revolution and its legacy have long since transferred the bulk of society's wealth out of real estate and into personal property.

None of this is news, nor is it truly insightful to note any of it. What is important to note, however, is how elitism in America is cleaved in two, with one form admired and revered, with the other scorned and hated.  This is what is truly interesting.

Elitism in the form of measurable wealth is adored and aspired to in America in a way which is perhaps unique on Earth.  When some one here makes a name for his or herself by way of conspicuous consumption, a lavish lifestyle, and often the outsourcing of work to an impoverished country, their business isn't nationalized.  Protests are not held outside of their mansions.  Hell!  At this point, few people find it even politically feasible to have such individuals (who are very few in number) pay their fair share in income tax!  No, instead we give them a TV show and a photo op with the President of the United States.  Now that degree of deference, reverence, and admiration is truly unique.  Even in other developed, mixed-market economies, the view of the rich is a much more critical and skeptical one.

It is astounding that so many Americans see the abuses and excesses not as crimes out of which the super-rich buy themselves, but merely as earned privileges which they themselves would exercise should they ever attain the same level of wealth.  Many of us whose families have been in the United States for at least three generations are the very descendants of the impoverished, malnourished workers who wasted their lives away under the Rockefellers and the Carnegies.  Yet too many of us dream not of profiting from our own work and genius, but of becoming the next mogul.

There is, of course, another phenomenon other than the possession of material wealth which is deemed a form of elitism in the United States, and that is education.  Education, in stark contrast, is not revered and aspired to in the United States as is the acquisition of material wealth.  No, this is the despised and distrusted form of elitism.  Professors who are the veritable experts in their field of research are disregarded as being out-of-touch elitists.  Writers who take on the often unsavory task of holding up a mirror to society have their insights pushed to the side by those who would use that writer's very credentials to disqualify him or her.  And scientists, the people responsible for your comfortable standard of living and lengthy life expectancy, are subjected to 15th century-style charges of blasphemy and heresy.

So while true elitism - the kind of elitism that can allow a person to buy himself or herself out of the very struggle and suffering inherent to the human experience - is aspired to and respected, the honest pursuit of bettering oneself through education is viewed as tricky and dishonest, something to be the subject of scorn.

Part of me would like to view this curious split as an accident of history or perhaps a cultural quirk, that perhaps an entire culture misdirects its distrust of one powerful group of individuals toward a less powerful yet still, relatively speaking, elitist group.  I cannot, however, leave it at that.

It appears, rather, that the true elites - those who amass wealth and do so frequently without earning it - enjoy and profit from the misconception that the educated and critical are the ones to distrust and despise.  I would even dare say that they perpetuate this misconception for their own personal gain.  Why wouldn't they?!  If taking all the resources without earning them is threatening to the people, then the people should be opposed to it.  But the people must have knowledge and be capable of critical thinking in order to perceive that threat and react to it appropriately.  So how can this reaction be stopped?  Convince the people that knowledge and critical thought are the true threats, that the protection is in fact the danger and the danger the protection.

Of course, this cannot be the case every single time.  To say that it were would be to claim that all social interactions are controlled and predetermined, which is of course absurd.  What is far more likely is that the distrust of education - for whatever reason, whether because of its social implications, its tendencies toward complication and entropy - is a facet of an American culture which seeks at least a semblance of honesty and simplicity.  What is just as likely is that this cultural facet is honed in on and taken advantage of for the purpose of pushing the proverbial needle in one direction by a group or groups in order to suit their own objectives.

The next few years will reveal to what extent American society will engage in uncomfortable discussions about wealth and class in order to move its policies back (yes, back!) to ones which favor the middle class and nation as a whole.  I remain doubtful, however, about any significant progress being made until we look at the cultural underpinnings of our political views on wealth and class in America, which is to say, until we look at the way we look at this topic in our everyday lives.

There will be no rant on Boston

This post is more of a notice than anything else, and is something I feel obliged to write before adding anything else.  What I want to tell the people who are gracious enough to read my material is this: there will be no rambling, verbose rant on last week's events in Boston.

Last week was incredibly stressful.  I was lucky enough to be far away from danger, but I had family members who missed the violence at Copley by a matter of minutes.  My fiancée and my some of my friends were also in Boston.  Luckily, all of them were safe and my fiancée was able to get out of town before the lockdown on Friday.

Almost everyone with any sort of social media account, blog, or other means of opining online has posted something regarding the actual explosion at the finish line, the lockdown, the use of force, the treatment of the surviving suspect, Miranda warnings, or some other topic relating to this hellish week in Boston.  I will not join them.  For one, everything was a bit too close to home.  For another, no one - and I mean no one - has any perspective yet on what has happened.  The blood has only just been pressure washed off the sidewalks of Boylston St. and the prosecution of the bomber has not even yet begun.  Only with the passage of time, the analysis of the crime scene, and the trial of the surviving suspect will we be able to decipher last week's events.

I will stop myself now before this ends up being the rant I decided not to write.  I will close with one request though: please, do not create, incite, or contribute to any conspiracy theories at this time.  To those who could not resist doing so while the drama was ongoing, consider taking a step back for a moment.  This I ask not out of my own annoyance, but out of respect for those whose friends and family were not as lucky as my own last week.

View from the office

It is pretty damn hard to get too stressed at work when this is the view from the path behind the office.  When it is warmer - and a lot less windy - I would love to find a way to park an Adirondack chair right here and do my work against this backdrop.

Maybe if I fitted the armrests with a cupholder and swing-out desk...

Flashback

So it is the first week of April.  I am back in Western Mass.  And when I was out early this morning, it started snowing!  In April!  This can only mean one thing: I am stuck in a timewarp, I am eleven or so years old, and I am now very, very late for school.

That was the last time this happened.  In fact, back then the snow was even worse.  It was April 1, I was in fifth grade, and my classmates and I all missed April Fool's Day at school because we woke up to so much snow, no one would have been able to have made it in that morning.  Instead, we all drank hot chocolate and went sledding all day.

In fact, never mind.  That was freaking awesome.  Yay April snow!

Technical difficulties

Those of you who have wandered onto this state-of-the-art blog more than once may have noticed recently that the banner has been, well, downgraded. This was not by choice, and believe me, it will be returned to normal as soon as possible.  The fact is, this downgrade is due to a technical error which has been beyond my control thus far.

A week or two ago, after neglecting this reputable source of rants and raves for a short time, a gentleman asked me to show him the page.  When I attempted to load it, every graphic was missing and was replaced by an image resembling a stop sign of the European roadway persuasion.  Needless to say, I was a bit peeved.

Now luckily, it was easy to replace the wallpaper.  A clip of the same plaid, a few minutes on MS paint, and there it was, re-plastered in all its lumberjackian glory.  The same could not be said for my banner, which was a custom made labor of love.  What's more, the file needed to reinstate that illustrious graphic is stored in a computer 100 miles away - and I thought I had kept a copy on my laptop this whole time!  Now the one presently featured is merely an impromptu quick-fix, the result of a prototype image contained on my laptop's hard drive, reworked and fudged to fit into the blog's otherwise vacant heading.

Sadly, resetting the appearance of this blog to its former glory is outside of my control for at least another week or two.  In the meantime, thank you for bearing with me and settling for marginally adequate writing with entirely inadequate and obviously-zero-budget graphics.

If anyone out there has had this or a similar experience with blogger, please let me know.  I'd love to know why this happened and if there is a quick fix.  Really.  The whole incident just seems rather rude considering the $0 and few hours per month I spend here.

A Geographically amusing photograph

This was not of own making - and it certainly was not intentional as far as I know.  But am I the only one who sees that this superfluous piece of scratch paper bears a striking resemblance to the state of Utah?

Well, this was too great of a coincidence to not share it with the world.  Have a great day everyone and enjoy the spring weather!

Of dogs and leashes

This is Cupid.  She is just over three years old.  She is a half Beagle, half Dachshund mix.  She has a memory like a steel trap, the biggest personality (in a very small size) and an amazing hound dog howl.  She is fiercely loyal, and cannot bear to spend a night without cuddling with one of us.

She was also almost brutally killed last Thursday.

Like every other day, I leashed up Cupid with her red leash and harness.  At the sight of her matching set, she howled up in the air as if to announce the exciting beginning of the fox hunt, and after jumping into her harness, she led me out the door and down the road. 

Our walk was relaxing and proceeded without incident, until we approached a house at the end of the road.  A large dog leaped out of the front door almost without warning.  Just a second later, a young woman exited the same door.  I called to her, asking her to call off her dog.  Unfortunately, she replied with the same line I have heard far too many times: "He's fine!"  I started to walk the other way to avoid the dog and respect what he perceived to be his territory.  Still, the young woman did nothing.  What was to ensue was simply horrifying.

The dog jumped Cupid, picking her up into the air in one swift movement.  He pierced her ear and the side of her neck with his fangs and violently shook her from side-to-side, attempting to break her neck under the weight of her own body.  The entire attack was so fast it was almost a blur.  I kicked the attacking dog once in the ribs - entirely ineffective as he was already moving in the same direction as my foot.  I screamed at him to break his concentration, which also failed.  Luckily, almost soon as the attack started, the same young woman came from behind the dog and pulled him away as my dog was thrown into the dirt, looking into my eyes while howling and screaming in agonizing pain. I fear that if the attack lasted a half second (or one thrash) longer, little Cupid's neck would have snapped.  To be completely honest, I am still astonished I did not spend Thursday night burying her. 

.  .  .

Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated incident.  In fact, the only thing that makes it unique is the violent extremes to which another dog went in its attack.  You see, almost every single time I walk my dog, we are both confronted by other dogs whose owners have refused to keep them on a leash, despite being in public areas which demand the leashing of dogs at all times.  Every single time, I hear the same refrain from the owner: "He's fine!"  At least half of those times, he is very much not fine.

It has become an absurdity how often I am left to fend for myself as I break up dog fights initiated by an animal owned by a complete stranger.  What is just as absurd is how often other dog owners become angry with me over my frustration with them and their out-of-control dog.  I was even once told, "Geez, he's a nice dog!"  Niceness is not something I think about when a pair of fangs is just inches from my femoral artery.

Regardless of where you stand on the ridiculous should-you-leash-your-dog debate, the simple fact remains that anyone, whether with a dog or by his or herself, has the right to walk in a public place without being assaulted.  Period.  If a human were to jump you on a sidewalk or trail, you would promptly find an officer of the law and have that individual arrested.  Still, many dog owners do not see the parallel, and they allow their dogs to run ahead and jump other people or their dogs.  I am very much a dog person, but it is never my responsibility to control your dog.  It is yours.

This attack is also unique in that for me, it is the absolute last straw.  It was bad enough having to be worried about being jumped by out-of-control dogs, but now my own dog was almost killed, and the long-term extent of her spinal injuries have yet to be determined.  I used to half-joke that I would stop worrying and the next time we are assaulted, I would just sue the owner whose dog drew first blood - especially if the blood were my own.  I now have a different approach.  Now I walk with a heavy, sturdy walking stick - and not just because the uneven terrain of the hills and woods is my favorite place to walk.

Of course, I would rather not ever have to resort to self-defense.  I would rather that other people simply follow the law and local municipal ordinances.

.  .  .

If you have a dog, or have friends who do, please see to it that they are leashed.  Everyone's dog is a good dog who would never be violent - that is never to its own family. And lest you think I am whining about nothing or that I am being melodramatic in my plea here, scroll back up and look at Cupid.  Now imagine a large dog who was "fine" and who was "friendly" - and who was trying to tear off one of those ears and snap her neck in mid-air.

That was my Thursday afternoon walk.

Snow in March

So this is it!  It is already mid/late March, officially spring, and this is what it is looking like in New England.  I do love winter, but this is a bit much considering it will be April in a little over a week.

One thing is for sure: I take back any complaining I did at the beginning of this winter for there being a lack of snow.  Winter may have come a little late this time around, but once it arrived, it did indeed make itself comfortable.

Maple syrup addiction: an international crisis

This is why I cannot make fun of Canada.  As a New Englander, I really, truly feel I do not have a leg on which to stand.  How could I?  Snow, beaches with water too cold to swim in, aaaaaand this:

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To be completely honest, if I didn't get so damn hypoglycemic, I would drink the stuff straight from the bottle, put it in my coffee, and pour it all over every meal, three meals a day.  For that matter, my life will not be complete until I distill from the sacred maple tree a beverage all my own - preferably at or above 7% ABV.