Jasper

How a dog can change your life
and what’s wrong with ignoring the needs of the U.S. auto industry!
By Charlie Leck

A reader posted a comment on one of my recent blogs, telling me she also has a dog named Jasper.

Odd? I think so, because it’s an odd name. I don’t ever remember hearing of another dog with that name. Now I learn that an old and good friend has a Jasper also. [Molly, we’ll have to have them meet up some day!]

I certainly hope her Jasper is as wonderful as mine. She writes that her dog doesn’t have strong loyalties and that the grass on the other side of the fence (literally) always looks greener to him. When she lets Jasper out, he immediately goes over to the neighbor’s house, eats the cat food and finds a comfortable bed on which he can rest.

My Jasper has been wonderful for me and it was very bright of us to get him. He exercises me daily, something that I had gotten out of doing. My first walks with him were of about a quarter mile or so. Now it’s no problem to walk with him for 3 or 4 miles. The weather is having some impact on our exercise. Neither of us likes these very frigid conditions and he’s had it with the great outdoors after 5 minutes or so.

Last weekend the weather turned balmy, so we were able to take him over to the dog park for a couple of hours. I got a nice long walk in and I immediately realized how much I miss those strolls.

This wonderful guy has literally changed my life. For the last couple of years I’ve spent nearly every day at home by myself, reading or writing. Both my muscles and spirit had begun to atrophy. That’s not good. Now I have a responsibility to him. He needs his exercise and I don’t have options about that. We pick the warmest part of the day and head for the trails and spend an hour or so wandering together. I chat with him all along the way. He’s not a great conversationalist, but he gives every impression that he is a good listener.

When I sit at this desk, writing, he likes to lie right at my feet and sometimes directly on top of them. That keeps my toes warm. His snoring is gentle and rhythmic and doesn’t bother me.

Today’s Star-Tribune (the newspaper of the Twin Cities) has a good column by our former U.S. Senator, Mark Dayton, about how to fix Minnesota. He criticizes our Governor’s “no new taxes” pledge. If ever there’s a time to raise taxes, especially on the upper-income citizens, it is now. Tough times, like these, call for those of us who can afford it to make sacrifices and contributions to the general good of the entire population. That’s always been part of the American spirit and it’s wrong not to tap into that character now.

Jasper is in complete agreement with me on this matter. Instead, we are both afraid that our state legislative bodies with curl up in a tight fetal position and, to the detriment of us all, do nothing.

Lorie Sturdevant’s column about the U.S. Senate election recount process here in Minnesota was certainly worth reading. Jasper and I hope this incredibly close race teaches people that it is crucial to exercise your constitutional right to vote. I am astounded when I meet people who don’t vote.

Jasper also agrees with Rick Taft’s letter in this morning’s local paper.

“Those senators who want to guard the taxpayers against the auto industry never batted an eye when sending this country into perpetual debt bondage to make war against a country that never did anything to us. What a bunch.” [RICK TAFT, WOODBURY]

I agree with Taft. We’ve only dropped a cool 3 trillion dollars in Iraq alone. That’s not a misprint – trillion – 3 of them to pursue an absolutely stupid and unnecessary war. However, we can’t pump 15 billion into the auto industry. Japan has a long history of subsidizing its auto industry, to help it compete against us. It would, I think, have disastrous affects if we allow the U.S. auto industry to go under.

I’m not a William Kristol fan, but I read him regularly to try to retain some balance in my thinking. Kristol’s column of today (15 December 2008) has an interesting take on Congressional assistance for the auto industry. It might be worth your time to read Kristol’s opinion on this matter.

“Now there are other ways to explain the disparate treatment of G.M. and Citigroup. Finance is different from manufacturing, and banks from auto companies. It may be that the case for a huge bank bailout was strong, and that the case for a more modest auto package is not. Still, it seems to me true that the financial big shots haven’t been treated nearly as roughly in Congress or in the media as the auto executives, who have done nothing remotely as irresponsible as their Wall Street counterparts.” [William Kristol]

Well, the warmest portion of the day is approaching, so I’m going to take Jasper out for about a 45 minute walk.

Come on back tomorrow!

Alert: Read Frank Rich’s Column of Today

Op/Ed writer, Frank Rich, identifies Blagojevich as small-time fraud compared to the stuff that went on in the White House of George W. Bush
by Charlie Leck

I’m tagging on another blog this morning just so I can urge you to read Frank Rich’s NY Times column of today. In Rich’s opinion, the Illinois political scandal is small-time stuff compared to the crap George W. Bush gave us over the last 8 years.

“If you want to trace the bipartisan roots of the morally bankrupt culture that has now found its culmination in our financial apocalypse, a good place to start is late 2001 and 2002, just as the White House contemplated inflating Saddam’s W.M.D. That’s when we learned about another scandal with cooked books, Enron. This was a supreme embarrassment for Bush, whose political career had been bankrolled by the Enron titan Kenneth Lay, or, as Bush nicknamed him back in Texas, ‘Kenny Boy'"

Ectopia

Here’s a hint for Christmas!
by Charlie Leck

Sometimes stories are just too wonderful! No?

Sometimes they also seem highly unlikely – something you wouldn’t find believable if it were the plot of a novel – but then you find out said story is actually true and happened precisely the way I am now going to tell it. Wow!.

Such is the case with the story of the book, Ectopia, which, because he couldn’t find a publisher, was first privately produced by its author in the early 1970s. It became a bit of a cult novel and sold nearly a half-million copies. The dust jacket contained a blurb from Ralph Nader. Its author, Ernest Callenbach, seemed something of a dizzy dreamer.

What I find so wonderful here – get this straight – is the story about the book and not so much the story in the book.

The book’s story is about the secession of the Northwestern United States from the Union – Oregon, Washington and Northern California.

What really caught people’s attention were a whole bunch of real goofy ideas – recycling receptacles everywhere (including on trains), a national sustainable economy, hanging ferns and small plants on the public transportation vehicles, and, funnier than everything else – a woman president of this new nation in the northwest.

Now – in 2008 – the book is being assigned as required reading in many college environment classes. Thought of as fantasy in the 70s, it is thought of as highly possible today.

At the time he wrote it, the book was rejected by every publisher in front of which Callenbach could get it. “The environment kick was over,” they told him. After he sold over 2,500 privately published copies, Bantam decided to publish it and the first printing sold out. So did the next.

Scott Timber, in the NY Times, explains the essential character of the book…

“Set at what seems to be the turn of the 21st century, and told through the columns and diaries of a reporter from the fictional New York Times-Post, the novel is not especially literary. Its characters are flat; its prose — well, call it utilitarian. And the plot, in which the narrator drops his skepticism and settles into Ecotopian life, thanks in part to a love interest, lacks sophistication. And yet the book has managed to find its place in the here and now.”

What makes Ectopia so sensational today? Well, it seems to have predicted Portland – creative public transport, slow growth, local foods, organics, and neighborhood restaurants that prepare with local, fresh foods only.

Problems? There are plenty of them. Black people withdraw into their own Soul City. I can see the effect of the Black Power Movement on thinking like that. It was written during the birth of that movement.

Some women’s groups don’t like it either. Sometimes I want to tell them to get a sense of humor.


Callenbach says he wouldn’t write the book the same way today, under terribly different social conditions.

Yet, this is a dream story, this story about the book. Today it is being read in college classrooms all over the nation and not just up there in the drizzly Northwest. People are inquiring about it in bookstores all across our country – the real nation, that is, -- in all 50 states.

Santa, I want a copy for Christmas!

POSTED SUNDAY 14 DECEMBER 2008 (7:53 A.M.)

Fred the Fruitcake


I hate to say it, but we may have to do something about one of my readers!
by Charlie Leck

I guess I’m seeking advice from some of my readers about another of my readers. I don’t know what to do about him anymore. I think, early on, I gave him too much encouragement to respond to my blogs with comments.

He’s been particularly taken by my blogs about my dog, Jasper, but here’s what’s going on now that has me worried about the stability of this reader.

He claims that my dog, Jasper, is sending him emails. Can you imagine? And, that the dog also catches replies to his email and takes them off-line before I can see them. He claims my dog is a very good reader and has an extended vocabulary. Granted, my dog is very smart. As I told you the other day, he has his M.A. in dog obedience. The woman of the house, against my objections, is pushing him toward a PhD.

This reader in Denver is claiming that my dog is complaining about the academic and scholastic pressure! Jasper also is telling my friend that he is Jewish and is not happy about being in a gentile home, especially when the Christmas tree went up a couple of weeks ago. He also tells me that my dog is complaining about the food, that there is really nothing to “nosh” on and that in a good Jewish home there would be food out for him all the time.

The reader is threatening to have the dog knapped and taken away to his own home in Denver.

The fellow has really gone round the bend. He’s talking about the “dogland security agency” showing up at my door and putting “a black bag over your head and abduct Jasper and take him to the land of happy dogs… where he’ll learn what good living is all about.”

When I first started communicating with this fellow, he seemed innocent and sound enough and completely rational. Now, he’s gone round the bend and I think I must lodge some complaints about him with the proper authorities.

I guess all of this is one of the hazards of the blogosphere.

Dick Cavett Asks the Essential Question

He blogs about the Governor of Illinois!
by Charlie Leck

Unless you’ve been hooked on a particular blog or a series of blogs, you don’t know what it’s like when you have to go without them for a while. Dick Cavett’s blog, the Talk Show, is a good case in point. For some reason, he hasn’t written for over two weeks. He must have a wonderful arrangement with the NY Times.

Well, anyway, here this morning was a notice on my computer that one of Cavett’s blogs had been posted (I have a notification service that alerts me when a new blog is posted on any of my favorites.). It might seem I would be disappointed that he writes about the tribulations of the Governor of Illinois, but I wasn’t at all. Cavett has such a unique way of approaching such subjects.

In this case, he raises the essential question: “How did such a specimen ever get elected?”

Now, I’m curious about that interrogative! How did the people of Illinois ever….? How did the Democratic Party of Illinois ever…?

You know, it’s one of those really general, but vital questions. “How could such a muck-up ever get enough votes to become Governor of one of America’s largest states?”

“It’s as if a soldier, tested for his fitness as [a] potential combat leader, passed his physical despite scurvy, pyorrhea, Jake leg, leprosy, the quinsy, contagious influenza and at least two trick knees.” [Dick Cavettt]

Cavett gives us a heavy dose of humor about Blagojevich even though he admits humor is probably quite out of place in this entire matter.

Doctor Willard Gaylin, Cavett’s own former psychiatrist, tried to explain the characteristics of sociopaths to the comedian/writer. Among the primary symptoms of the behavioral aberration is “the absence of guilt or shame.” The sociopath believes he is immune from getting caught – thus Blagojevich’s challenge to “go ahead” and tap his phones...

Truth, according to Doctor Gaylin, is a curious element in the life of the sociopath. Such people don’t deal in truth for its own sake, but only when it serves some “often bizarre purposes of the teller.” Truth and reality get ultimately confused and intertwined in the sociopath’s mind.

The sociopath is not easily spotted. He is a great actor and can spin out complicated plots and charm almost anyone into believing his wildest of tales.

Cavett seems to promise us that there will be more surprises in store for us as we learn more about the Governor.

But, what about this original question? Most of the people I know down there in Illinois appear to be extraordinarily bright. How did they let this happen? Were they charmed out of their sox? (The only appropriate spelling in this case!) It’s what a sociopath can do, even to the best of us.

Don’t miss Cavett’s blog on Blagojevich!

___________________________________

Earlier this week I posted another blog about sociopaths. Just in case you missed it!

Chicken Soup for the Blogger’s Soul

Thank goodness I have readers who care! It’ll be chicken soup tonight.
by Charlie Leck

Fred, in Denver, read about my wrestling match with bronchitis. I think he found the blog because he thought it was about the Broncos (NFL football team in Denver). Then realized I was a goy suffering in Minnesota. He figured I needed a little Jewish wisdom, so he sent along a recipe for my my wife… “to get Charlie back…”

please follow these simple directions and charlie will return...

buy 1 whole chicken, 4 carrots, 4 pc celery, 1 onion and a little jar of "Better than Bouillon " chicken base... it's in the soup section near the crappy bouillon...

dice the onion, slice the carrots and celery and put everything in the pot (except the chic base) and poach on low, low simmer until the chicken and vegs are barely cooked... take out the chik, skim the refuse off the top, add dill, salt pepper and about 2 TS of chic base to taste...

cut up the chic and return to soup (except the breast, which will over cook and change from chicken to cork)...reheat the soup...

put into bowl with a piece of the breast, and put into charlie...

oh yah, say blessing, "blessed art thou oh lord, king of the universe, who keeps the price of chicken low."

if it takes longer than 90 minutes to make the soup, you're being too fussy...stop fussy...

and when you're cutting up the chicken, it helps if Jasper is watching to show you which pieces are meant for him...

making chicken soup as described will make you, Charlie and Jasper all feel better, and your kitchen smell great.... and it will seem like i'm visiting (without having to entertain me)...love to all, f

From this it seems Fred is a nice guy, but he is actually not. Last week he wrote that he was convinced that Jasper, my dog, was actually Jewish and had no business being raised in a gentile home… He wanted to send Animal Rescue to the farm to save the animal and have him transferred to his home in Denver where a host of actually Jewish meals are always left out for the dogs to ‘free range’ through.

“Poor baby, what you need is a fat Jewish mama....” he wrote to Jasper last week. Fortunately, as bright as the dog is, he does not yet read and didn’t get all that information about the food, including Chicken soup, which is always left out for Fred’s dogs.

I’ve met Fred’s dogs and I will admit that they are really fed. I didn’t say “fed well” mind you! These are big, happy dogs that can only lumber along and Jasper would wonder why they don’t want to really put it into fifth gear and cruise.

Notes from Blog Followers

Responses to my blogs have generally been very encouraging and helpful!
by Charlie Leck

A lot of the readers of my blogs prefer not to comment publicly, so they send me email notes instead, asking that they not be published. It’s easy to do this because I make my blog email address public (keeping it separated from my regular email address). I've actually made some lasting friendships with other bloggers this way.

Recently (yesterday morning), the following response came in. I guess, sometimes, you cast your line into the sea and all you come up with is an old rotten boot.

NICE TO MEET YOU.
My name is Kadi. I am a female I was impressed when I saw your profile today on www.blogger.com and I will like to established a long lasting relationship with you. In addition, I will like you to reply me through my private email box kadi.aburey@yahoo.com) so I can give you my picture, for you to know whom I am and I believe we can move from here! Waiting to hear from you soonest.
(Remember the distance or colour does not matter but love matters a lot in life)
please contact me
here...
(kadi.aburey@yahoo.com)

Geez, it’s great being a successful blogger with adoring fans. I’ll tell you what: “I don’t want her, you can have her….”

But watch out, any contracted diseases or purloined wealth will not be my responsibility. If Kadi turns out to be beautiful and rich and a mate forever more,…. you owe me a finder’s fee!

A Bad Case of Bronchitis

Thank goodness for my love of reading!
by Charlie Leck

Sometimes I wake up Grumpy!
For years, my wife has kept this little sign above her desk. She thinks it’s cute. You be the judge…

“Sometimes I wake up Grumpy! Sometimes I let him sleep!”

Well, I’m laid up for a while. I’ve come down with a solid, miserable case of bronchitis. It started with a bad cold that wouldn’t go away. It just hung around and hung around and now it’s all settled into my bronchial system and I’m taking antibiotics to try to drive it out. This is not a good thing to happen just before Christmas, when I’m trying to finish up my shopping and get the house all ready for the big gift-opening ceremony on Christmas morning.

I cough so much that it tires me out and then I take to bed and sleep. When the cough is in neutral, I try to read. There’s no shortage. I have stacks of books I want to get through and the newspaper is always at hand and so is the Internet and the New York Times on-line and all those inviting, wonderful blogs.

Ross Perot and Freakonomics
For instance I just finished running through the Freakonomics Blog and its interview of Ross Perot about our current economic crisis and what he thinks of the Obama approach to solving it. It’s worth a quick read.

Tom Friedman: While Detroit Slept
Friedman writes about the new intensity of business competition in the world. In their youthful days, the big three auto makers only had themselves to compete against. Now, there is a whole world of innovation waiting to slam them if they doze. Well, Detroit didn’t doze, but it’s been in a long, long Snow White like sleep and there’s been no Prince Charming rushing to their sides to awaken them.

Sociopaths and Rod Blagojevich
My wife and I have been reading a lot of material about sociopaths lately. A joint study we’ve decided to conduct. Sociopaths possess natural charm and the ability to seduce almost anyone – intellectually, socially or sexually. Most of what we’ve read is pretty extraordinary stuff. Take a look at this list of the characteristics of the sociopath. Then if you’ve been reading about Governor Rod Blagojevich lately, think about how the characteristics fit him. [This list is from http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/index.html]

Narcissim
Glibness/superficial charm.
Grandiose sense of self-worth.
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Pathological lying
Conning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect
Callous/lack of empathy
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral controls
Promiscuous sexual behavior
Early behavior problems
Lack of realistic, long-term plans
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Many short-term marital relationships
Juvenile delinquency
Criminal versatility (Hare, 1986)

Blagojevich is a sociopath and should never have been elected to any responsible office; however, these personality types are great at fooling people and selling themselves.

"There are psychopathic personalities in the highest echelons of government, and even within religious hierarchies in America. You can t just assume that a person with the title judge or hospital orderly got there honestly and won t manipulate the hell out of you." [Psychologist Schreibman]

Schadenfreude
Residents of other states around the union are taking some sort of perverse joy in reading about political corruption in Illinois. So are members of the Republican Party. Let’s not forget, however, that this governor had a 13 percent approval rating in Illinois, so there wasn’t really anyone who thought very much of him. Sure he’s corrupt, but, more than that, he’s also crazy, whacked out of his mind nuts. As one of my daughters, in an email from Chicagoland, said: “Yes, humiliating, but not a surprise whatsoever. In fact, it's somewhat a relief. He's terrible!”

Bobby Jindal watch!
The Indian-American governor of Louisiana is worth keeping your eyes on. One can only hope he doesn’t get too caught up in the politics of the region and its corruption. Jindal looks like a promising star of the future for the Democratic Party. Tobin Harshaw writes about Jindl at the Opinionator.

Chutzpah
Chutzpah is a great word isn’t it? It’s probably the best of all the gifts we’ve been given by the Yiddish vocabulary! How else could you explain Governor Blagojevich right now? He’s got some Chutzpah!

Best and the Brightest II
I wrote last week about Obama’s ‘best and the brightest’ approach. It continues with the appointment of his new energy secretary who just happens to be Nobel Prize winner, a physicist and the former chief over at the Environmental Pollution Agency (EPA). Steven Chu will be named to the cabinet post today or tomorrow. He’s currently director of the Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory. Chu is a personable guy as well as a genius. He’ll win easy approval and his appointment indicates how serious Obama is about global warming and the development of alternative energy sources.

Mass Murders in the Congo
These are the kinds of stories I’d just as soon pass up. Rebel forces and U.N. peacekeepers are clashing in the eastern Congo and it is not so certain that the U.N. is winning. This is an ugly and complex story and it is difficult to figure out what we should be doing about it as a nation – not that we’re loaded with resources and capabilities right now. The current NY Times story is about as thorough as anything in the press today. It’s not pleasant reading, but I think it’s mandatory.

Helen and Margaret
Now, are all of you out there reading Helen and Margaret regularly? Old Helen can produce some down-right good stuff. (I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that this blog isn’t some kind of hoax and that it really is written by these two old ladies. I’d be terribly embarrassed to find out I’d been jived.) Well, if you aren’t reading them you are missing one of the really hot and popular blogs on-line these days. I wouldn’t thinking of missing out on what these two broads have got to say for themselves these days: Here’s a little taste (a short clip from a very good and lengthy blog):

It seems that Palin is my cross to carry… my burden to bear. Clinging to what’s left of its dying reputation the Republican party has credited her with the Chambliss win down in Georgia. Delivering that win makes Palin the new Republican torchbearer. I don’t know about you, but I am impressed. If Palin can get an old white guy re-elected in Georgia, I would imagine walking on water is right around the corner. But maybe she’s not really carrying the torch as much as she has struck a match and is now playing with fire.

Folks, is anyone else out there laughing? You just can’t make this kind of stuff up. Well, I take that back. If I have learned nothing else these last 8 years, I have learned that the Republican party can make shit up… a lot! They made up weapons of mass destruction and suddenly the concept of “preventive war” became part of our foreign policy.

Now before I go any farther, I am going to ask each of you to do a little research on preEMPtive war, preVENtive war and the Bush Doctrine. When you finish you will have accomplished three important things. First, you will know that preEMPtive wars are a slippery slope. Second, you will know that preVENtive wars are really an oxymoron that only a moron like George Bush could rationalize. And third, you will
know more about US foreign policy than Sarah Palin did when she was running for Vice President.

So are you done with your research? Good then let’s continue.

So much from my sick-bed.
I’ve got to take a nap. I feel really grumpy right now.