Dog Pics

Just for fun.

A new one of granddog Nemrah, from Lash and Ky, courtesy Monica Stoner east of the mountains....

And an amazing pic of coursing borzois in Cal from the always amazing camera of Herb Wells.

Bill Wise, 1938- 2007

Pictured: Bill Wise and Floyd Mansell

My friend (and a personal hero) Bill Wise, of Harrington Delaware, died on the 24th of February. I wrote about him a bit here.

After breaking his neck in a surfing accident in 1965 he went on to live a life more adventurous than that of most people who have no problems. He never lost his sense of humor or his courage. He will be missed, not only by Rosalie and his kids but be all his many friends and fans. He was a constant inspiration and a reminder that we should live life to the fullest, as he did.

Below is his official obit.

WILLIAM A. “BILL” WISE

BORN 9/22/38

Attended the University of Delaware. Achieved the rank of Specialist E-5 in the Delaware National Guard. Was employed by the U.S. Postal Service in Harrington. With Partner established one of the first surfboard shops on the East Coast in 1962 called The Eastern Surfer located in Harrington DE and Ocean City, MD and later in Rehoboth Beach, DE. Was instrumental with his wife in operating Likewise Bikini Shops in Ocean City, MD that fit and manufactured bathing suits of Hawaiian fabrics for their customers.

Mr. Wise was a lifelong sportsman. He was a charter member of the Diamond State Skin divers, a spear fishing and archeological dive group. He passionately participated in outdoor activities, especially hunting and fishing. A surfing accident in 1965 severely paralyzed him, wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. Mr. Wise was a member of the Delaware Maryland Paralyzed Veterans Association for more than 25 years. From 1979 through 1984 Mr. Wise served as President of the Board of Trustees of the Delaware Trapshooting Hall of Fame, and was a respected sporting firearms historian.

A writer and photographer, Mr. Wise’s work appeared in international periodicals, books and newspapers. He wrote weekly columns for the Milford (DE) Chronicle and The Beachcomber papers in Delaware and Maryland.

In 1996 Mr. Wise was inducted in the East Coast Surfing Legends Hall of Fame for his lifetime contributions to the sport of surfing. He was widely known in international sporting circles.

With a zest for life he traveled widely, flew gliders, swam with dolphins, and observed nature from a unique perspective.

Mr. Wise was preceded in death by his parents, Byron E. and Helen McKenna Wise.

He is survived by his wife Rosalie T., sons and spouses, Ben E. and Connie of Chestertown, MD, J. Eric and Linda K. of rural Henderson MD, Todd A. and Shelly C. and Christi and Ken Boots of Andrewville, DE, sisters, Luanne Wise of Slaughter Beach, DE and Lora McKenna of Philadelphia, PA. Nine Grandchildren; Parker, Grayson, Erika, Zachary, Jessica and Julia Wise, Harbour, Londin, and Kaden Boots.

Family and Friends may call from 10 a.m. to Noon Tuesday, February 27; with prayer service following at Melvin Funeral Home located at 15522 S. DuPont Highway, Harrington, DE 19952. www.melvinfuneralhome.com

Burial will be private at Hollywood Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions to Hunt of a Lifetime.

(6297 Buffalo Road
Harborcreek, PA 16421)

The Zumbo Flap

First, read Tam here for the background:

“On Friday evening, a gunwriter who was apparently tired of his 42-year career put his word processor in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

Old hunting writer Jim Zumbo called semiauto rifles “terrorist guns”, and said they should be banned.

Dumb, and ignorant. As anyone who knows me knows, I disagree with Zumbo.

I do not support the 1994 "Assault" weapons ban. I am an NRA Life member. I own a Russki SKS.

BUT.

In Gun Nut, his old friend Dave Petzal, WHILE DISAGREEING, posted a limited defense of his old friend. Last I looked, there were over 400 comments, most insulting. Here is a sample.

"I am honestly starting to believe that a lot of these hick hunter types are actually socialists who found a copy of Mao and would like to see America fade into socialist aristocracy."

["Hick socialist aristocrat" may be the most unlikely and oxymoronic combination of words I have ever seen.]

"FUDD [ie, hunter] ignorance is a DANGEROUS thing to firearm ownership."

WTF???

I agree with the commentators below.

"1. The last time I was around anything this vicious, my mother-in-law was going after the last beer at my wedding reception.
2. We don't need enemies, we got each other.
3. Now I understand the Salem Witch Trials.
4. Could some one arrange a truce before the NRA convention in April? I have enough stress in my life."

And:

(On Petzal’s affection for .50 caliber Barrets): "So here's Petzal, espousing something I disagreed with completely. I thought he was dead wrong. I thought it was a dangerous idea, treasonous even, a slap to the very core values of fair chase. I even tried to cajole him into debating it on his blog.

"What I didn't do was suggest he commit suicide, or wish him a painful death, or post his address and phone number with the implication that someone should pay him a visit. I didn't gleefully participate in the destruction of his livelihood and then dance on the smoking embers of what used to be his life while backslapping and high-fiving the rest of the mob.

"Nope, despite the fact that I thought on this particular subject his head was clearly ensconsed way up his ass, I spoke my piece and moved on.

"I agreed to disagree without threat of legal action or violence which is apparently a disappearing art in this viral age. Now it seems no one is satisfied with less than the complete silencing and utter destruction of any opposing views.

"The fanatics among us (and what else can you call them?) have taken what should have been just a few unthinking, destined-to-be-forgotten remarks from an admittedly ill-informed and apparently less-than-tactful hunting writer in the perigee of his career and turned them into some kind of twisted pogrom that has attracted the very kind of attention from the antis it never would have done...if all you vociferous dumbasses out there had just shrugged it off and gone on, like sane, rational people do."

And:

"This will not end well."

Yes, I AM asking for civility.

John Derbyshire comments here,here, and here.

The money quote is from one of Derb’s readers: “One thing gun owners have learned the hard way is we got to stick together. The antigunners want to separate the hunters, from the pistol guys, from the Military rifle type guys-- divide and conquer.”

Amen. We had best learn soon.

Doom and Gloom

American this time, and maybe too slight and early to blog. But I was reading James Lileks this morning and came to a mention of what Minneapolis grade school kids would like for us all.

"...the other day when I went to read a book in her [his daughter's] class I noted the exhibit outside the classroom. The theme: “If I Were President.” It’s an interesting exercise; you can learn a lot about a kid if you give them Ultimate Power. Most of them wanted peace and no war and no hurting animals, and at least a third banned smoking."

It IS the times-- I guarantee my (and my classmates) responses would have been different in the Fifties.

I sort of want to go to live in Kazakhstan. And smoke. Camels. Now.

Dad's B -17

Reid's post below on the weather vane reminded me of a sketch he and Matt and other visitors have seen in my library.

In 1941 my father was a scholarship student at the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston. A year later he was a first lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, a bombardier and navigator in a B17 flying over Germany. I believe he flew 26 missions.

Here is what you get when an art student flies bombers:

And here is the young lieutenant himself:

Update: my brother in law, who has researched my father's military career, says:

"Joe actually flew 34 missions-- 3 Aug, 44 to 11 Dec, 44-- and lived to tell about it!"

Reid Moving Update

I told you all back in mid-December that Connie and I are moving to Denver and at that time gave our ETA as sometime in January. We made a house hunting trip in December but couldn't come up with anything. In the subsequent weeks our attempts to continue looking were interrupted by the holidays, the pressure of some work assignments, and a series of extraordinarily bad storms in Colorado (ask Chas Clifton about them!).

We finally returned to Denver the first week of this month and have a contract on a house that we like. We are due to close on the house March 9. We are scheduled to pack and leave Santa Barbara on March 14.

As our office is at the south end of town (in the Denver Technological Center for those who know) we had been looking in the southeastern area. Our house is just south of the town of Parker. It's on the high plains (6,270 ft.) and to my delight (not so much Connie's) it's located just east of a stream named Moonshine Gulch. The picture above is a view of Pike's Peak from the new house.

Pluvialis Abroad (Again)

Pluvialis is at large again in Central Asia. She blogs on the road from Tashkent and tells us she's on her way to Khiva. Pluvi is giving many of us a bad case of travel envy.

A Parrot for Life

Congratulations to Rebecca O'Connor who has a new book out on raising and training parrots, "A Parrot for Life." Get your autographed copies here.

Weather Vane

While house hunting in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, I saw this unique weather vane on a barn outside of the town of Parker.

A very realistic model of a B-17!

Tool Making Chimpanzees

We've know for quite a long while that chimpanzees use expedient tools - rocks to crack open things and twigs to pull termites out of mounds. But a new report on chimps in Senegal takes this to a whole new level.

Female chimps there have been observed making spears and using them to hunt bush babies. From the story:

"The chimps choose a branch, strip it of leaves and twigs, trim it down to a stable size and then chew the ends to a point. Then they use it to stab into holes where bush babies might be sleeping."

Males never use the spears, only females and juvenile chimps.

"The observation that individuals hunting with tools include females and immature chimpanzees suggests that we should rethink traditional explanations for the evolution of such behavior in our own lineage ........................The multiple steps taken by Fongoli chimpanzees in making tools to dispatch mammalian prey involve the kind of foresight and intellectual complexity that most likely typified early human relatives."

Fascinating stuff and I can't wait to read what feminist writers will make of this.

Neanderthal Doom

According to this piece in the BBC News, some late Neanderthalers were wiped out by a cold snap even they could not survive:

"...a climate downturn may have caused a drought, placing pressure on the last surviving Neanderthals by reducing their supplies of fresh water and killing off the animals they hunted."

(Snip)

"These creatures (Homo neanderthalensis) had survived in local pockets during previous Ice Ages, bouncing back when conditions improved. But the last one appears to have been characterised by several rapid and severe changes in climate which hit a peak 30,000 years ago.

"Southern Iberia appears to have been sheltered from the worst of these. But about 24,000 years ago, conditions did deteriorate there.

"This event was the most severe the region had seen for 250,000 years, report Clive Finlayson, from the Gibraltar Museum; Francisco Jimenez-Espejo, from the University of Granada, Spain; and colleagues.

" "It looks pretty severe and also quite short," Professor Finlayson told BBC News.

" "Things like olive trees and oak trees that are still with us today managed to ride it out. But a very fragmented, stressed population of Neanderthals - and perhaps other elements of the fauna - did not."

(Snip)

"But a rare combination of freezing polar air blowing down the Rhone valley and Saharan air blowing north seems to have helped cool this part of the Mediterranean Sea, contributing to the severe conditions."

HT Paleoblog. (And while you are there, check out the report of possible effects of early modern humans on cave bear populations during the same era. Those were "Interesting Times").

Not a Vegetarian

The ever- carnivorous John McLoughlin sends a quote, which he attributes to one Jethro Trogo:

"If ever the world will be ruled
by vegetables, I can truthfully say,
"I never ate your kind willingly."

Kazakhs respond to Borat

According to the Moscow Times (link may now be behind firewall), Kazakhstan has decided to counter Borat with a bit of reality.

"The Kazakh ambassador has embarked on a tour of universities around the United States to counter the outlandish portrayal of his home country in the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

"The fictional character played in the popular satirical movie by comic Sacha Baron Cohen portrays Kazakhs as addicted to horse urine, fond of shooting dogs, and viewing incest as a respectable hobby...

" 'There were a lot of funny things in it, but it has nothing to do with the real Kazakhstan,' Kanat Saudabayev, the country's ambassador to the United States and Canada, told students at Yale University this week.

"Kazakhstan has placed ads in U.S. newspapers and on television to tout its rapid economic growth and immense oil reserves, describing a country of cash machines, sushi bars and high-tech conference centers.

"Kazakhstan, which has a population of 16 million but is the world's ninth-largest country by area, recently led an effort to proclaim the Central Asian region a nuclear-free zone.

"The ambassador portrayed the diverse country as a model in many ways, saying it voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons, saves its cash from oil for the future, is working to diversify its economy and wants to enact more democratic reforms. The country survived and has thrived when many experts predicted it would fail, Saudabayev said."

All true-- though I suspect people will continue to prefer Borat. Sigh.

New posts

Series of new posts from Steve below. Some of these I've had to add photos to (Steve's connection is positively Magdalenian) so appear out of order. Please scroll down a bit for the first post.

Best,
Matt

More Doggie Descendants..

AKA "granddogs"-- the latest in a series.

These are of Dutch Salmon's lurcher girl "Mona" from Plum and Lash, who caught 30 hares in her first year-- and who would be sterile (and illegal to breed) under the new law mentioned below.




Photos courtesy Dan Gauss.

Another Mauser

I posted a while back on a beautiful classic Mauser. Unfortunately, it had hidden problems and ultimately it went back.

I kept my eyes open and eventually found another 7mm. Mauser, this one a fifties- style custom gun on a Czech military action, with a Belgian Fabrique National sporter barrel, for half the already cheap price of the other.



It is of vintage 50's styling-- the Alpha E says I should hard- chrome it and get a sling with a pic of late- period Elvis.(He actually advised me to buy it-- Jonathan is no cheap snob).



But you know what? I shot 1 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards with it right out of the box, and its worksmanship is impeccable. I'm keeping it.

I could modify it to be more "classic" in style, but Lib reminds me how much it will irritate yuppie gun snobs...

More Pigeons-- Flight Art

Pigeons with flute and camera

Artist and pigeon fancier Timothy Hume of of the Lord of the Isles Loft and Dovecote Gallery on Salt Springs Island in BC has been collaborating with another artist, Annie Dunning, to create more flying "Sky Art". They really need a website of their own to do it justice, but basically they have been making music flying Timothy's homers with homemade Chinese- style pigeon flutes and also cameras to see what the birds see. Here are some samples.

Timothy & Annie with flute on pigeon:

White pigeon with flute:
Loft From Air (shot from pigeon-mounted camera):

Photo art:

Update. Timothy says:

"Thanks for the post.
We will make a site eventually.
It's always just the time thing.
I'd be happy to answer any questions if peculiar wishes to write."

Why Pigeons?

Another guest post, this one by semi- regular commentator Jake Sewall.

The "Why" of the Pigeon

Sometime in the not-too-distant past Steve made a comment about looking at racing pigeon mags periodically and not finding what it was that initially attracted him to pigeon racing. Which, if you look at the way it is practiced now, does indeed seem to be very far from the way that we seem to enjoy our pigeons. But that comment got me thinking, along with the way I have approached birds recently, about what exactly it was that attracted me to pigeon racing. I came to some rather interesting conclusions. The most counterintuitive of them being that I'm not actually a huge fan of watching pigeons fly. Maybe that is because racing pigeons aren't the most aerially interesting birds. But mostly I think it is just personality. Don't get me wrong, I love the sight of a team up there in the blue, wings twinkling. But I don't have the attention span, or feel like I should be doing other things, to just sit and watch birds fly for an hour or more. But I do enjoy "flying" birds -- sit down show pigeons, other than as interesting gene pools, don't grab me very much.

All striking me as rather odd until I thought about *how* I got into birds, not just pigeons, but birds period. I was 9 and I wanted a falcon something fierce. There was a book in our school library. A story. About a girl whose family moved to a rundown country house for the summer. When they moved in she found a young kestrel in an attic room and spent her summer raising, training, and hunting the little falcon. I was captivated. Not so much by the hunting (grasshoppers didn't seem like that exciting a prey) but by the concept. The ability to have, hold, train a bird and release it to fly, and then return. I read everything I could get my hands on (which amounted to snippets in 3 or 4 books) on falconry. And from that great children's book "My Side of the Mountain" (also responsible for a proliferation of woodland shelters, deadfall traps, and rabbit snares behind our house) I learned to tie a jess knot. I didn't have anything to apply them to. But a local "resource center" (lots of "junk" that could be recycled for other uses) provided dozens of leather straps and jesses proliferated in the household (a couple of years later I would try to fit one of my first pigeons with a pair with spectacularly unsuccessful results). What I wanted was a falcon. Just a Kestrel, but a pint-sized lord of the sky nevertheless. What I seized upon were finches (Zebra) as some friends had a few and they were lively little birds. By the time my Quaker Cornmeal container with the slit in the lid and "Finch Savings" on the side was full (my grandmother would pay a quarter for shoveling her driveway, raking leaves etc. so mounting up $15 took some time), the intended expenditure had converted to a parakeet which materialized as a green female (I believe) named "Tiercel" and I had my "falcon".

I carefully started training Tiercel (whose legs proved too fragile for jesses) by clipping her wings as some books suggested. My training was a flop. She wouldn't ride around on me. And clipping her wings at a young age ended up rendering her almost flightless (she was rather plump and I assume that her wing muscles never had the opportunity to develop enough to support her body weight) such that when she was released she would "fly" about just off the ground, sweeping the floor with her tail. Needless to say, my interest in cage birds quickly waned though the parakeets (my sister had a companion bird name "Jr. Blue" who was an aerial menace. An agile flier with a burning desire for escape, a sharp beak, and a strong dislike of humans) lingered for years.

At this point I discovered racing pigeons and finally I had my lords of the air. Birds that I knew by name (or at least number), that I trained, that gazed at me regally out of brilliant eyes and swept the skies each morning only to return punctually and trap on command. And that, for me, is the "why" of the pigeon. I wanted a bird that I could train and interact with, that I could release for flight, that was powerful and agile in the air, and that would return to me. That is the magic of all pigeons, but maybe the racers in particular, that you release them to freedom in the sky and they will return to you. While I gloried in their flight, it was the training and the "team" -- the interaction between me and a working animal -- that really grabbed me and was the attraction to racing in a way that other flying birds can never quite capture. While the sport was a part of it, it was never the "end" of it. In fact, the sport was more the "means" to the end. The only racing season I can really remember is the year I flew one cock (It started as a team of 9, but the others were all lost) through the entire old bird series to 500 miles. He was a yearling and I carried him to the club each Saturday in his little crate, wooden, about a foot cube, with a doweled front -- approximately the same size as my clock. I always pooled "last place" (my first bird was the "last" first bird to a loft each week) for $0.50 and enjoyed "winning" the $5 or so on Sunday. But what I enjoyed most was getting that bird home. I was ecstatic when he came in on the 500 after 5 days. I loved that pigeon not because of the sport, or because of the winning (which he didn't) but because I could let him go, he would conquer the sky and the elements, and come home. And because the sport gave me that, I loved the sport and I loved the pigeons.

Somewhere, somehow, the sport of racing pigeons became the SPORT (a la NBA and NFL) or racing pigeons and the men who fly them morphed from sportsmen into "competitors". No one ever plays to lose, but sometime they play to play and winning is a part of playing. Racing pigeon mags today are glitz and glamour. The writing is of technology, antiseptic lofts, pills, powders, price tags. The racing pigeon is a formula one race car to be dialed in to WIN. The home built, dirt strip dragger is no more and no one runs "what they brung" just to run. And so pigeon mags today don't have what attracted me to the sport, or you Steve, and presumably not you either Patrick. The new writing is all technical, without feeling. The "old" books had feeling. Read Alf Baker "Winning Naturally". Read Piet de Weerd "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter" -- I've never seen the actual text, but in the late 80's the (now long gone) American Racing Pigeon News published one of the 12 chapters each month and I managed to scrounge together 10 of them. Delightful reading. Read even the late Steve Spinks' writings which, while they reveal a fierce competitor, have a strong flavor of the sportsman and pigeon man (a great series is here: http://www.boglinmarsh.com/noviceindex.htm ).

Falconry still appeals, but the pigeons are, well, pigeons and have their family life, and genetics, and personalities and falconry has more bureaucracy than I care to wade through. Diving pigeons (Dewlaps only, both because they are flown mated and because the others -- Doneks, Wutas -- are too damn ugly), might be contenders for training, control, mastery of the air. But racing pigeons and pigeon racing hooked me because the birds disappear and then they come home. Pure and simple. Somehow the "control" of that freedom imparts some of the freedom to me and sporting is a cherry on top. I could give a shit for "thoroughbreds of the sky" and one loft races, but if you gents move in down the street I'll drive 'em 50 miles myself and put a buck on my red checker cock to blow the doors off whatever you basket.

Jake

Spay Neuter

Our friend Dutch Salmon has allowed me to post this urgent op- ed piece from the Las Cruces Sun News here in its entirety. Take it away, Dutch.

Spay/Neuter Bill is Anti-Hunting Law

By

Dutch Salmon


A bill in the State Legislature relating to the spaying and neutering of pets would seem to be something we could all support. However, the current model contains enough mischief that it qualifies as a genuine menace, especially to those of us with hunting dogs.
House Bill 1106 (HB-1106), sponsored by Rep. Joni Gutierrez of Dona Ana County, has the dubious distinction of being authoritarian, wrong-headed, and discriminatory all in one package. It is authoritarian in that instead of seeking to help those who wish to spay or neuter their pets, it requires the neutering of virtually all pets statewide, regardless of the quality of the animals or the wishes of their owners. It then offers exemptions to the requirement to spay/neuter, exceptions both poorly reasoned and discriminatory.
For example, exempted from the spay/neuter requirement are “purebred” dogs registered with a national dog registry, like the AKC. This is nonsense. Congenital health problems are rife in many AKC breeds, due to excessive in-breeding and emphasis on show standards, and most working dog owners avoid these animals like the plague. Street-wise “Rover,” lacking “papers,” is often the smarter and healthier animal; all he needs is a home. Why force Rover’s owner to put his dog, and not one with “papers,” under the knife?
Also exempted are certain working dogs including stock dogs, police dogs, and, as an apparent sop to hunters, the dogs of registered outfitters. From the New Mexico Dept. of Game & Fish I learned there are a mere 280 registered outfitters in the state, a portion of whom have dogs. Yet there are about 106,000 licensed hunters in the state, plus an unknown number of unlicensed hunters who hunt animals where no license is required (e.g., jackrabbit and coyote hunting). Many of these hunters use dogs but their much more numerous animals do not come under the “working dog” exemption in this bill.
Thus if your Brittany spaniel is brilliant at finding and pointing quail, but unregistered, expect HB-1106 to force him under the knife, his progeny and talents lost forever once age takes him away. No exemption for him; it’s in the law!
HB-1106 was inspired, and takes language from, the animal rights (AR) agenda, not from people who know the history and worth of dogs where virtually all the strains and types began with a useful purpose.
Consider Steve Bodio of Magdalena whose book Querencia is one of the finest in the pantheon of New Mexico literature. He made several expensive and arduous trips to Kazakhstan, a remote southern province of Russia, to do another book, Eagle Dreams, on the tough local populace that still train golden eagles to take fox and hare and antelope. There he also discovered the Tazi, an eastern variation of the Saluki, dogs as swift and tough as the huge wild raptors and used on the same game. There was no canine equivalent to the Tazi in America, as they had come down through the millennia uncorrupted by registries or dogs shows but rather self-selected solely by work.
After several journeys and incredible red tape Steve was able to import three Tazi hounds and prepared to start a line of singular running dogs, equal to the task on New Mexico’s own super-swift and ubiquitous blacktail jackrabbit. These breeding programs are life-long quests to the devoted but Steve’s efforts will be truncated as soon as HB-1106 becomes law for his Tazis lack “papers” and do not come under the bill’s exemption of “working dogs.” The AR industry likes it that way.
Or consider my own current pride and joy, Angie. Under HB-1106 Angie would have never been born. Her mother, Phoebe, is a greyhound of the Cunningham strain, unregistered running dogs developed by a ranch family of that name in eastern New Mexico. Her sire, Snake, was a greyhound/Saluki cross. It is said that 7 jackrabbits eat as much grass as a sheep. Too many jackrabbits is not good, every predator tries to eat them, yet they are anything but scarce. By my experience they are nearly impossible to catch, even with a trio of hounds. But we try. As the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gassett wrote: “The only natural response to a creature that lives its life attempting to avoid capture, is to chase it.”
Angie was a revelation for, on occasion, she could catch a jackrabbit by herself! I have a recipe for jackrabbit posole and between me and the dogs nothing goes to waste. Angie also stands on her hind legs each morning, looks me in the eye, and licks my face. For me, more than 30 years of sighthound breeding have come to fruition. But Angie is far from “exempt” under HB-1106 and due to go under the knife. If so, there will never, ever, be anything like her again.
What to do? First, we should take HB-1106 out behind the barn and pound it down a badger hole where it belongs. Next we should take the $1 million per year consigned to the bill and contribute it to spay/neuter clinics and shelters to help those who wish to sterilize do so, and make those dogs put up for adoption (they should indeed be sterilized) more affordable. I have adopted out countless strays myself, many being rescue greyhounds, and never had to put one down for the simple reason I don’t charge for the dog.
But act quickly. HB-1106 is due to come before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday February 21st. Rep. Gutierrez and the other committee members have numbers and email on line. All are well meaning individuals I’m sure and are open to public input. Indeed, I will concede that HB-1106 is no doubt well intended by most of its sponsors; it simply misses the mark.
There is a difference between animal welfare, which fosters concern and care for our animals, and animal rights, which fosters misunderstanding and coercion against any animal ownership or use. Angie is a wonder and, as a breeder, I take a measure of pride in her creation. She and her possible progeny still have a great future, but not if against her own protest and mine she is forced under the knife by State coercion and has her uterus yanked out like a bad tooth.

Catching Up

I have received some complaints about light blogging. I have been deep in the New Mexico AR battles, especially the as- yet- in- doubt one against mandatory spay- neuter. (I will post a Dutch Salmon op- ed on that one above). I have also just completed two long articles and a short essay-- a piece for Gray's Sporting Journal on Clovis Man and dogs, one on Mongolia's roads for a new four- wheeler journal edited by the Alpha Enviro, and an essay for a forthcoming book on "Dream Hunts" for James Swan.

So I haven't been completely lazy!* Though I must warn regular readers: as warm weather comes I feel an overwhelming urge to get OUT OF THIS CHAIR.



Meanwhile, around the web:

Here is a very funny and true piece on writing workshops.

Peculiar and Mrs. P. visited and took some good pics. If you click on the one with the goldfish tank you will see in the backgound one of the better shots of the landscape we hunt in-- the often mentioned 100 plus square miles of "Lee's ranch".

I spoke of "delicious Martinis" below but Roseann may have an even better one-- sorry, Bruce!

More to come on dogs, guns, pigeons, and other good stuff.

* And Reid is busy moving.

Godzilla, Vampires, and Moby Goshawk?

Darren has been busy-- he has the first of his promised vampire posts up, and one on the science of Godzilla.

In a comment in the second, I learned of the derivation of the monster's name:

"Godzilla of course is a corruption of the Japanese Gojira, which is a portmanteau of gorira (gorilla) and kujira (whale): Gorilla-whale."

I commented:

"Re "Gojira": a falconer friend has just moved to Kyoto, where he made the acquaintance of a Japanese falconer who flies an enormous Siberian Goshawk of the white albidus subspecies named "Takajira", "Taka" being "hawk". We thought its name meant "Hawkzilla", but perhaps it means "Whale- hawk?" Does that make it a white whale?

"The falconer is a professor of something, so both are possibilities..."

Bodie?

Now I just hope that Darren will deal with the biology of Cthulhu.

Delicious Martini

A while ago I posted a link to Winnie the Pooh with a (non- drinkable) Martini. In response, Bruce Douglas sent me pics of the most wonderful example of that venerable British colonial rifle I have ever seen. I WANT one!

He wrote: "Great silver work and goatskin sling are tasteful (by Khyber standards)... A friend thought it started out life as a sporting rifle--not a cut-down military. It weighs a hair under 7 1/2 lbs. The only markings (other than in the picture) are on the falling block--1ooks like your standard Birmingham proof, the other single small mark probably stands for "Clive has a job here too." My sense of this rifle is that it was once owned, carried, and used by a man who truly appreciated it...well worn, but mechanically in very good shape, and adorned tastefully. One of the weak points is the silver sling-swivels--they just don't wear well."

Needless to say, I'd take it anyway.

Black Hole

Reader (and writer you should read-- see here and here and here, for some examples) John McLoughlin has just visited a most amazing store in Los Alamos.

He writes:

"Here's a fun place to visit. I've appended some images from today's trip to the Black Hole down in Los Alamos, an eerily amazing place that sells surplus laboratory equipment from the vast government laboratories up there. You can find all manner of weirdness here. I go down about twice a year when I get cabin fever.

"Here's a view of the Black Hole's yard, with a bomb and a short length of solid stainless steel pipe (standing on end to immediate right of bomb, behind flags). The church building in the background among the trees was bought by Ed Grothus [owner]
and is used for storage of more Black Hole stuff. He calls it the Church of Annihilation."

"Here's a Bombflower welded together by the Black Hole's owner, Ed Grothus. He's about 84, and quite a character, a former Lab scientist who turned into a peacenik scavenger."



"Another view of the Black Hole yard. That big pipe is the same stainless steel stuff as in the prior photograph; I can walk through it standing up. You could buy some if you wanted, and keep it in your living-room, just for fun."



I need to go there!

Wrestling Dogs of Central Asia

Today, several friends sent me this link to a New York Times piece on Asian "fighting" dogs.

I put "fighting" in quotes because the practice of testing wolf-guarding flock dogs, non-lethally, is an ancient one in Asia, pre-dating the mostly Islamic societies that now practice it, and is more akin to wrestling than fighting. The dogs signal when they have "had enough", a signal honored both by their canine opponents and by their owners, who have no desire to have their herd guardians crippled. But owners will generally not breed to a dog that will not stand up to an opponent. (I should mention that wolves are as common in most Central Asian back country as coyotes here, but more dangerous).

You might consider the practice a form of field trials for wolf- protection dogs.

Even scientists in the Stans and the Caucasus test their herd (and Border Patrol) breeders thus. I am in possession of a paper by two Azeri scientists (as yet unpublished so I can't post it yet) defending these matches while still deploring western dog fights.

Mary Scriver wrote: "Fascinating, Steve. Sounds like they are more like St. Bernards or Kuvasz or Great Pyrenees among the dogs we know. But the dogs look as though they'd just as soon skip the brandy kegs and knock back some vodka."

I replied: "You are exactly right. I suspect these are the ancestors of all that stuff. Similar ones also in Turkey-- here is one in the distance with a spike collar and a collar in a shop."








Matt also saw the St. Bernard resemblance:

"These dogs in the story look like tough customers. I was looking at their faces and kept thinking they looked familiar. Then it hit me: St. Bernards! What a dog the St Bernard must once have been...."

Me: "All the same descent I'm sure-- what the Romans called "Mollossian dogs" when they first came to Europe.

"I'd rather see them wrestle than be turned into drooling decerebrate mutants like modern show St. Bernards any time."

More pics; Libby with a tobet, the Kazakh version; and a good pic of the same dog. Fierce only when they have to be.

Matt here with a notice about the elephant in the room...

Steve and I were just musing on the significance (if any) of living in the last two states in which cockfighting is legal. I don't think it will be the case for long. I am not an advocate of pitting animals, but I think I understand it: the basic principle, and even the basic appeal. The few cockfighters I know are not simpletons, thugs, compulsive gamblers or drug dealers. They love their animals (no hyperbole) and know them very well. Moreover, these men are part of an actual native culture which---anymore---I am finding to be of value almost regardless of context.

I asked Steve, "Can we blog on this?"

He replied, "Yes. I've been thinking about how."

It's tricky, a little. I don't think you can dance around the AR and hunting and dog breeding and coursing and falconry realms and not in good faith address pit fighting.

My own position would NOT be in knee-jerk opposition, just to offer up a sacrificial lamb. For one, I don't really care much about pit fighting either way. It's just not my thing (which, incedentally, is how I replied to our city's animal control officer when, in a very cordial discussion some months ago, he asked me directly how I felt about it. My main concern---and part of the reason for that meeting---is that falconry not be confused with cockfighting. Let the two activities defend themselves from separate charges, at least.)

But more importantly, the "sacrificial lamb" theory doesn't work. The falconers who, in California some months ago, wanted to let the coursing enthusiasts twist in the wind should take note: The animal rights crowd wants it all. They are insatiable. They are not out to split hairs on these issues.

Consider the idea that these Russian dogs are being tested (and not "pitted" for its own sake). These dogs have a tough job (defending sheep from wolves!) and need to be demonstrably tough in order to make the grade for breeding. But instead of accepting that important distinction, the AR position would predictably be: "So what? A 'legitimate explanation' for an illigitimate job (sheep protection) is no argument at all."

Put simply, the animal rightists would rather have NO sheep to protect! And thus, no protection dogs needed.

Which begs the question: "OK, but what should these rural Russians eat, if not the meat of the sheep in need of protection? What should they wear, if not the wool of the sheep in need of protection?"

And to those questions, regardless what answers they give in debate, their real answer is, "We don't care."

Steve agrees, with the caveat: "But that's the argument they can't make to the public!"

Around the Web...

... first, then a bit more. Some new work completed to deadline-- more about it when accepted. And maybe it is time to announce that there is a book contract in play. Or maybe I'm crazy to even mention it, since it has been in negotiation since September with no resolution (I will NOT answer questions yet!)

Anyway...

Chas has an interesting post indicating a Central Asian origin for skiing. I snarkily commented that everything originated in the Altai; Peculiar did me one better by linking to several of my posts demonstrating this thesis (be sure to click on each separate word in the phrase "anything good they didn't invent")

I keep insisting that eagles are serious predators. At Never Yet Melted, David Zincavage links to a story about two Wedge- tailed eagles attacking a paraglider. I am not shocked.

Bad news; A typical jury (no comment) has found the PETA functionaries who lied about their intentions and killed and dumped 83 adoptable dogs and cats innocent of animal cruelty. If killing AND EATING chickens is "Holocaust on a plate" what in God's name is surreptitiously killing 83 animals and putting them in a dumpster? Maybe it's OK if you just throw them away (with the best of motives) and don't eat them. Read The Whole Thing, please. O tempora!

More Decline and Fall. Could this be the most amazing piece of post- modern Brit wimpery yet? Advice from Tony McNulty, the "Minister for Police and Security", on what to do if you see an old lady being mugged:

"Jeremy: You see a young man looking aggressive, shouting at an old woman, what do you do? You retreat and ring the police?

"Tony McNulty: I think you should in the first instance. It may well be the simply shouting at them, blowing your horn or whatever else deters them and they go away.

"Jeremy: He’s now hitting her and the police haven’t come, what do you do then?

"Tony McNulty: The same the same, you must always ...

"Jeremy: Still wait?

"Tony McNulty: Get back to the police, try some distractive activities whatever else.

"Jeremy: What, jump up and down?

"Tony McNulty: But I would say you know, sometimes that that may well work."

And, to leave you on a cheerier note: John Carlson of Prairie Ice has just returned to Montana from the Antarctic via Chile and Florida. Enjoy his cultural, ecological, and climactic jet lag!

Around the Web

I am deep in writing a (paid!) piece on among other things the help dogs gave to Clovis man in his invasion of North America, so will still be posting lightly. But there are some things out there you should see.

Blog wonkery: we are now on "New" Blogger. I (miraculously) have not had much trouble but Reid and many others have.

Recent evidence of megafauna extinctions in Australia once again confirms that no human culture is innocent of the tendency towards "overkill", despite PC claims. (This has a lot to do with my work- in- progress).

As California tries to ban trans- fats, Arizona day- cares forbid fresh fruit and garden produce. HT Roseann, who also has alot of new stuff up you should read.

DEcline and Fall: from Gates of Vienna comes this amazing tale of the English police. Not only were they unhelpful to the victim of a burglar-- they threatened to arrest him if he offered a reward to get his stolen goods back!

"“Then a couple of weeks later I got a phone call from the police warning that I could be prosecuted for trying to buy stolen goods.

"I said that they had not done very much to get my things back.

"They said that they had everything under control, but I pointed out to them they had not even come round to take the serial numbers of the computers.”

"Under section 23 of the Theft Act 1968, it is illegal to advertise rewards for return of goods stolen or lost using words to the effect that no questions will be asked.

"Anyone convicted faces a fine of up to £100 and will get a criminal record."

If you have not yet visited Dr. Hypercube's "Diary of a Mad Natural Historian" let me tempt you with this entry on elephants and Howdah pistols and this one on parthenogenetic (?) frogs.

More in a little-- I actually AM suffering from some buggy problems that make it hard to
link without typing out URL's.

Later if I finish a draft of my work: photos including of a friend's new Ferruginous hawk and a couple of another friend's unusual rifle.

Letter from Istanbul

Our foreign correspondent, Phillip Grayson (a Magdalenian, I say with pride) is finally settled in Istanbul and sends a letter on the Hrant Dink matter.

Dink was an ethnic Armenian and a liberal in the best and true sense. He insisted on his Turkish as well as his Armenian identity and was no mere spokesman for the Armenian diaspora. A liberal in the true sense, he denounced the French law not allowing one to deny the Armenian genocide as well as the Turkish one denying it.

Here is Phillip:

Istanbul is mourning the death of Hrant Dink. The reporter was shot dead in front of his paper’s offices by a seventeen-year-old man. Conspiracy theories abound. It was Armenians trying to pull the country apart, French agents trying to ruin Turkey’s EU bid, so on, so forth. A massive swarm of mourners followed his corpse through the city to its grave. Many of the same people who protested outside Dink’s trial, calling him Anti-Turkish, an enemy of state, as he was convicted of violating law 301, the increasingly famous anti-free speech law that prohibits, “insulting Turkishness,” the same law that ensured Orhan Pamuk the Nobel Prize when he was tried under it, worded vaguely enough to convict almost anyone and interpreted even more loosely throughout the country. Essentially the law is used by the government to turn the Turkish people against liberal intellectuals. It worked very well with Dink, an ethnic Armenian Turk, succeeding in silencing him.
Conspiracy theories abound. The killer was arrested the day after the murder, wearing the same clothes, bright, distinctive hat and all, that he had been seen in through security cameras and numerous eye-witnesses, the same clothes he was wearing in images shown around the clock on every television channel in the country, carrying the gun he had used in the murder.
Conspiracy theories abound. The government denies that Dink had asked for protection before the murder. Two days before he was shot, Dink wrote that he felt like a pigeon, constantly looking over his shoulder, always on the lookout. It was clear to him, it was clear to everyone, that he was going to be killed.
Conspiracy theories abound here because the truth is obvious and illegal to state. Hrant Dink was murdered by Turkey, through article 301, because he wrote articles opposing the current administration.
It’s difficult for me to say what this means for Turkey. The shows of sympathy are encouraging, but plainly hypocritical. Pamuk remains largely despised throughout the country because of propaganda issued against him and the anti-Turkish stigma so easily applied with 301, so damaging in the eyes of a surprisingly touchy brand of nationalism. Dink was even more hated. The most encouraging message to be found from the entire situation seems to be that the Turkish people do not want to see opponents of the government murdered in the middle of busy city streets, they simply want them jailed or driven into exile.
I wanted to say that Istanbul straddles two continents, stretches from the Middle East to Europe, the Muslim world to the modern world, et c et c. I wanted to write about a girl in headscarf on the subway, whose long dress lifted slightly as she sat to reveal strappy spiked heels. This is a city of contradictions, that’s still true, but now, they seem more like conflicts.
It’s such a bizarre feeling, walking through this modern, civilized, often exhilarating city, and realizing that the government is still killing people over freedom of speech issues. It’s as though there is some dark tension straining to hold these vastly different worlds together, or perhaps struggling to push them apart, to take a more hopeful view.
So Istanbul is mourning Hrant Dink, and I mourn a little for Istanbul, and hate it a little, because the time for being heroic by speaking freely is long gone. There should be no need for courage in these matters. But apparently there is.

Riding High

This picture of Lauren age 13 and Travis age 9 on Connie's mare Squirt was taken just off of our front porch in Tehachapi. It's one of my favorite family pictures.

I was reminded of this by Heidi's post about horses and her family. Of course, I said before there have been other horsemen in my family.