From “Zlateh the Goat”

First seen hanging in College V "Old House" Room A447 (then hers; later mine; splendid chambers—never better, really) at this time 36 years ago; now handsomely framed on the walls of the Crumbling Manse™.

In praise of dogs

They ask for so little, really.

Late this morning, as I was attempting to get some things done—well let's be honest, I was thinking about attempting to get things done in those moments I wasn't devoting to reading the political blogs—the dogs were pestering me, which I rather resented. "C'mon!" they were saying (I here essay a rather simple and un-nuanced translation from dogspeak to idiomatic English) "C'mon! It's a beautiful autumn day!" (It was: warm in the sunlight, crisp in the shade. Gorgeous. The Bay Area typically partakes of the Goldilocks' Porridge of North American weather on any given day of the year about three hundred samples out of 365.) "Let's go, let's get out, let's do something!"

I reluctantly put aside my preparations to "get some things done" and drove to the nearby "Linda Dog Park" in Piedmont, a nearby enclave of privilege and distinct municipality surrounded by some of the better districts of Oakland (who are nevertheless forbidden the privileges of Piedmont's separate school district, a policy, living as I do across the street from an Oakland middle school, I cannot bring myself to deplore). There the three of us—elderly Napalm, going on seventeen, and two year-old Ravi—passed the early afternoon from noon to 2:30 as an assortment of dogs and people transited the park. Napalm doesn't ask much of these excursions anymore: a rich assortment of olfactory signals along the main trail provided ample information for his leisured evaluation. Two year-old Ravi had over the course of our hundred and fifty minutes half a dozen playmates, including a couple who helped drain his batteries in games of chase/flee/posture all around the park.

We left shortly before noon and returned here, sundry additional errands run, by 3:30. Napalm sleeps, but at his age that's what he generally does of a given hour. Ravi, who was earlier bouncing off the walls, also slumbers, his batteries discharged for the nonce, in the safety of his "crate." Left to my own devices I would likely not have ventured outdoors for this splendid autumn day. I'm glad that the dogs drew me out. The "things to be done" can be done another time.

How it happens

So a long-established rightie blog "Newsmax" runs this provocative little piece (reproduced courtesy of TPM) and then withdraws it, perhaps on the advice of counsel, saying "John Perry? Who? Never heard of him." Yeah, right.

The point is to infect the public discourse with this meme of domestic military intervention. This will shortly come to seem like a subject on which reasonable people might reasonably disagree. Do you doubt it? Reflect that at one time (in living memory!) torture seemed an unambiguous evil. The bad guys (the Nazis; assorted Southeast Asians north of armistice lines) did it and we didn't, and back in the day no one suggested that the line was blurry, or that there might be circumstances under which it was permitted to step across even a smudged boundary. Nope. But over the course of the Cheney Shogunate, our political discourse became debauched by degrees, advanced by just such initially outrageous salients, with evil increments creeping behind them. We may accordingly look forward to pieces in the Washington Post along the lines of "Military coups: Obviously not an optimal solution, but hasn't the Obama administration invited consideration of this option?" Then, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer: "Next up, Mark Shields and David Brooks on whether proponents of the armed overthrow of the Obama regime have been a little intemperate in their rhetoric, or whether a few leftist bloggers are just too thin-skinned." Just wait.

Another one over the side

The Cronk. A shame he couldn't have made it just a few more days to the moon landing anniversary.

Niece blogging

My youngest niece and I have just returned from a rather inefficient road trip that took us to Victoria BC and back. She made the ordeal a pleasure. The spousette and I promise that when next we conscript her for a vacation, it will be better planned.

Hell's Kitchen

When we acquired the Crumbling Manse™ a decade ago we were pleased that most of its craftsman details had survived over the ninety years since the house went up as part of the post-earthquake building boom. The wainscoting and box beams and the pocket door in the front of the house were all intact, and had escaped the inexplicable vogue for painting these features over that had apparently seized the popular imagination at some point during the past century. All to the good. Toward the rear of the house it was a different story. There had been...questionable remodeling decisions made. We would explain to guests that clearly the kitchen had been reconfigured in the 1980s, and that the "Home Depot look" had been initially essayed, but that the option had ultimately been discarded as too pretentious and upscale. The kitchen, a large room, had been done up with the cheapest, shoddiest available counters and cabinets, sink and fixtures, and the feng shui was no great shakes.

The kitchen floor always felt a bit dicey in spots, as though it lacked the confidence that, for example, a sentient sidewalk might feel about its mission. It consisted largely of tiles, and many of these had cracked. Accordingly when the Life's Companion approached me ten days ago on this issue she had little difficulty securing my consent to rip up the shabby fractured old tiles and replace these with handsome new ones. Easy!

And ten days later I feel as though I've invaded the Soviet Union.

I had some initial concerns about the expense. These have been, ah, relegated. The dicey floor was scarcely there, so aged was the wood. The perimeter foundation at the rear of the house had some issues, and needed significant reinforcement. The shoddy cabinets had remained upright more out of respect for custom than from any structural integrity, and largely fell apart as they were moved. And you know what?

I'll pay anything. I just need the disruption to cease. I realize now that I'd be no good in a refugee camp.

Mary Barnsdale has a birthday

We were briefly an item, back in the day. That it didn't work out was entirely due to my ongoing post-divorce nervous breakdown, which took the form of a sudden spasm of agoraphobia as the 1990s began. We have remained friends, and I've always looked back on our liaison as a providential meeting in exile of two citizens of a common country. My warmest wishes go out this evening...