Three Old Dogs Minus One

We buried Corky yesterday, he died just after noon in his sleep. Corky was an old schnauzer dog, how old, no one really knows. Our estimate was 16 but that could have been off by as much as two or three years. The first thing that any of us know about Corky was that he showed up at Mrs. Taylor's house in the Memphis TN. area. He was already a grown dog at that time. No owners ever came to claim him so Mrs. Taylor took him in. Mrs. Taylor was a customer of my uncle who was a veterinarian in the Memphis area at that time. When she got too old to care for Corky, she asked my uncle to find him a home. My folks had recently lost their schnauzer dog Buck to cancer so my uncle offered them Corky. At first my dad was reluctant but my mom said they would take him and she would take care of him. My dad had loved Buck and I think he did not feel like another dog could ever take his place. Soon, Corky had won him over. I'm am pretty sure that he loved Corky as much as Buck and quite possibly more. One of his favorite expression when he was talking about Corky was "That little boy, he's a little man."

My dad had a stroke in 2001 followed by several other strokes that eventually left him bed ridden. He passed away in July of 2002. By that time, my mom had taken over as Corky's caretaker. She had an accident in November of 2002 and died, and Corky came to stay with me. He was still young enough when he came to live with me that he could do all the things dogs do. He barked, jumped on the furniture and played with toys. The subsequent years since 2002 had taken their toll. By the time he passed away yesterday, he was blind, deaf, stiff with arthritis and slept most of the time. I know some folks would have had him put to sleep a long time ago but with all his problems, he never gave any indications that he was suffering. Up until the last month, he had maintained a fairly steady routine of eating and sleeping and he would still nozzle up to you when you rubbed him between his ears. On his last vet checkup in November, his doctor was concerned with his weight loss. I tried changing his diet and feeding him more but he just didn't seem to have a good appetite. Also over the years he had developed several food allergies and was limited in what kinds of food he could eat. I did manage to get him to gain back a couple of pounds but after that he just went down hill. He had a good day Monday, the best day he had had in the last six months but then Tuesday morning, he just wanted to sleep. I got him up and he drank some water and then went right back to sleep. His breathing was shallow and slow. Just after noon he stopped breathing completely. Linda and I took him down to Slickhill and buried him with the other dogs and cats. He will be missed.

35 Inconvenient Truths

If you are like me and have always found man-made climate change a bit implausible then you should find the paper 35 Inconvenient Truths by Lord Christopher Monckton very interesting.

Or if you are someone who has been convinced that man-made climate change is real, you should find 35 Inconvenient Truths very enlightening.

And finally, if you are among that group of people who see man-made climate change as the basis of a new age religion then don't waste your time reading 35 Inconvenient Truths . You will just think it blasphemous.

Is Nullification Our Last Best Hope?

In this article Michael Boldin talks about various states using nullification to fight over reaching federal laws. Has our societal pendulum finally begun to swing back in the direction of sanity?

Telling It Like It Is

This lady tells it like it is:

Alabama Poutine

Last year, when I drove the Alaska Highway to Alaska and back, I spent several days in Canada. I had been to Canada one other time in my life in 1962, but that was just to Kenora, Ontario and I didn't remember all that much about it, besides, a lot has changed everywhere since 1962 so I really did not know what to expect.

I found that Canada is an interesting country with interesting people. They may share a continent with us, but they certainly have their own culture. Virtually everywhere I went, the people were very nice and fairly laid back. In a lot of ways, they reminded me of folks from the southeastern USA.

Every since I got back from my trip, I have been kind of keeping up with Canada. I've been watching CBC newscasts via internet, reading articles about Canada and things Canadian in the Wikipedia and this year I even listened to the Grey Cup. I have learned alot and come across some interesting things. Recently I discovered a uniquely Canadian food, poutine. For those of you that are like I was and have never heard of poutine, it is a dish that was developed in the province of Quebec and seems to have spread throughout Canada. Basically it is fried potatoes sprinkled with fresh cheese curd and topped with gravy.

Now no one likes fried potatoes any better than I do and gravy is a staple in my household, but cheese curd? If anybody makes cheese in Alabama, I don't know about it. Fortunately my daughter is a cheese guru so I called her up out in Texas and asked her where I might get some fresh cheese curd. She said that the closest place that she knew of to me was Sweetwater Tennessee but that I could probably get the same general effect from fresh mozzarella and that I should be able to find that at the Publix down the street. Sure enough I went to Publix and there was the fresh mozzarella, See, I told you she was a cheese guru.

Anyway, I brought the mozzarella home and diced up some of it to about the size of the cheese curd that I had seen in a picture of poutine on a web page. I put some frozen french fries in the oven to cook and set about to make some gravy. Now you probably noticed the title is "Alabama Poutine." There is a reason for that. In addition to using mozzarella instead of cheese curd, I intended to use gravy of my own design. Many of the webpages that discuss poutine mention using canned gravy. I had a different idea. I was gonna use home made tomato gravy. So I put a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of flour in my little cast iron skillet and started to stir. Fifteen minutes later I had a fine little roux. To that I added about 2/3 cup of beef broth and 2 tablespoons of chipped up tomatoes. I let the gravy simmer while I retrieved the french fries from the oven and sprinkled them with the chopped up mozzarella. Next I spooned some of the tomato gravy over them. Voilà, Alabama Poutine. Not a bad dish. I went back for a second helping.

Sending A Message

I like to think of myself as a fairly easy going guy. I am sure that there are those that would disagree with me being easy going, especially if they knew me several years ago and have not been around me lately. As I get older, things that used to wind me up tight not longer have the same affect. There are a lot of things in this country that I find distasteful and many that I find troubling but I try to remain philosophical and if it does not affect me directly, I attempt to let it slide.

But, there is one thing that will put my piss in a boil faster than a match will light a open container of gasoline. I hate, loath and despise the expression "sending a message." Everywhere you turn, there is some jackass talking about doing something to "send a message" or not doing something because it "sends the wrong message." What the hell does that mean anyway, send a message? What do I care what message something sends. We need to make decisions in this country on the basis of right or wrong, not what kind of damn message it sends. Of course, therein lies part of the problem. We long ago got away from considering what is right and wrong. Now we worry about what is legal and what is illegal. Well I can tell you one thing; right trumps legal every time. If what you are doing is wrong, but legal, sooner or later its gonna come back to bite you in the ass regardless of the message you are sending.