As Always, Neglecting to Drown

On my neighborhood's listserv:

Dan is going to put Charlie to sleep if I cant find him a home. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEAS?? Please write or call whomever you can that might be able to help -- Charlie's days are numbered. his new family -- with two small kids -- dont like charlie and charlie doesnt like them. the kids are too young and loud noises and loud commotion bother him.

I would take him but he doesnt like me. He wont come out of his kennel when around me. AND He hates my neighbors and their kids so they cant help me walk him when I am not home. so I dont know what to do.

Anyway -- let me know ASAP if you can think of an idea yourself. this dog has major mental problems from being negected and abused by his last house. But, with training, he might be able to be socialized. I found a trainer that would take him in but it would cost approx $1200 a month. he is used to living around other dogs, cats and parrots.

Ideas? Anyone has Ideas?

Yes, no-kill rescues, and I sent her links. And fuck motherfucking puppy mills and the motherfucking crackers that support them because they hate the Humane Society.

An acquaintance told me he and his wife have found a new apartment, one where they can have pets, they're getting a purebred terrier and a bluepoint cat from reputable breeders, and no, I didn't ask had they considered rescues because what would asking have served beyond satisfying the scold in me.

Whoa, on Obama's mendacity of hope:

I’m not sure Gibbs has a coherent idea of what he means by the “left,” but if opposition to permanent war, extrajudicial assassination of American citizens, boundless state secrecy, and unlimited corporate bailouts constitutes “leftism,” then so be it. True to their Clintonian principles, President Obama and his advisors have spurned the Democratic Party’s liberal base and have sought to govern by appropriating the policies of the Republican right. Just as Bill Clinton enacted NAFTA and destroyed welfare, Barack Obama has pushed through a health-care program that was inspired by the Heritage Foundation and largely written by the insurance lobby—and he shows every sign of being willing to vandalize Social Security in the name of deficit reduction even though the program has nothing to do with the federal budget deficit. Obama has embraced the Bushite war on terror and has refused to roll back the unconstitutional executive usurpations that so outraged his supporters. And yet Democrats expect liberals to toe the line and shut the hell up lest the Republicans take advantage of their dissent. In fact, for the most part, the “professional left” of policy intellectuals, public interest advocates, and opinion journalists have done just that.

All good and fine, but then he adds:

What’s fascinating about the Democrats is how consistently they have squandered enormous political advantages. The party’s leaders have apparently internalized Republican propaganda to the point that they feel they do not deserve to rule; consequently, when Democrats come to power, they always negotiate with themselves prior to meeting their opponents, make the tough-minded decision to betray their most loyal supporters, and profess shock and anger when the GOP—which never makes the mistake of publicly spurning its base—refuses to accept the purported bipartisan compromise. What results, of course, is that the Democratic Party, over and over again, enacts some version of the Republican agenda.

And that sums up the rube I try but fail to finally shed, the rube who gets screamed at because I don't quite want to shed it enough, the rube who gets lectured to by my dearest mentors who remember when progress (defined in their case by the civil and labor rights won post-Depression) was not only demanded and expected but achievable, the happy, fat, and domesticated rube who likes to play at being feral.

• Napoleon is a wonder cat, Frankie the funniest cat I've know.
• Give to a rescue. Get your next pet from a rescue. Please.
• As the world burns.
• Bigot-whisperers.
• Republicans are shitty, and no amount of Democratic shittiness changes that essential truth.
• No fucking duh.
• Chasing Fox.
• UPDATE! The poverty of partisans.
• Comic genius of Yggie Wiggles.
• On the above.
• Behavioral conditioning.
• Perhaps Pastor Sanctimonious' most bullshit column ever.
• Blankfein blackmail.
• Economic subversions.
• Ireland is our future.
• Three balls, two strikes.
• Breakfast Club, part 6.
• Treehouse of Love.
• Oops.
• UPDATE! Debating Obama's mendacity.
• Obama unveils -.06% less-shitty argument.
• Daily obamapostasy.
• On the above.
• Pervasive.
• Joementum, 2010-style!
• UPDATE! This will happen if he's far enough behind in the polls in January 2012, and who knows, it might work.
• Howie Fucking Kurtz leaving Your Fucking Washington Post.
• Last week's news.
• National digital library?
• On college majors.
• Hey! thanks! for the Kind.
• If not Earthgirl's favorite artist, top three:

• Fat New Jersey pig to endorse Maryland pig.
• Gray appeals to whites!
• BRAC, or: My Future Hell.
• Clarksburg!
• Ambulance fees and repercussions.
• Slots.
• Hirshhorn redo.
• UPDATE! This? is awesome.

• Ngugi wa Thiong'o now odds-on-favorite to win Nobel. I read and liked a lot but promptly stopped thinking about Wizard of the Crow. (Cormac McCarthy is now second favorite.)
• C, con't.
• The greatest novelist the 1950s has to offer.
• UPDATE! Lawrence Durrell, who I hadn't thought about in years.
• Roth whines about technology. Roth is for the old.
• Obscure Sound's Best of September w/MP3.
• This week's new releases, w/MP3.
• It's Fall Drive week at KEXP. If you listen, throw them some tribute. This drive's gimmick? They asked listeners to vote for their top music acts, solo or band, ever. Who will be number one, Beatles, Radiohead or Arcade Fire?
• The messenger who shoots back: Albini v Sonic Youth.

SUCCESS COMES TO COW CREEK

James Tate

I sit on the tracks, 
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants 
none. It's been nine months 
since I last listened 
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he's the fire hydrant
of the underdog.

When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the edge, and peeks
for meaning in the
ripple it brings. He
scowls. He speaks: when you 
walk down any street 
you see nothing but
coagulations
of shit and vomit,
and I'm sick of it.
I suggest suicide;
he prefers murder, 
and spits again for 
the sake of all the 
great devout losers.

A conductor's horn 
concerto breaks the 
air, and we, two doomed 
pennies on the track, 
shove off and somersault 
like anesthetized 
fleas, ruffling the 
ideal locomotive 
poised on the water 
with our light, dry bodies. 
Gerald shouts 
terrifically as
he sails downstream like 
a young man with a 
destination. I 
swim toward shore as 
fast as my boots will 
allow; as always, 
neglecting to drown.

This was in my head yesterday afternoon as the 102 degree fever was crashing. counterstream has been playing a lot of contemporary choral music lately, so you are forewarned, though I've listened to Monk for years and this is one of dozens of my five favorite songs ever: