RIP: Frisco (2004 - 2010)

FRISCO

About five years ago, I can't tell you the precise date, (but my wife could as she writes these sort of events down on a calender and files it away for future reference) we adopted Frisco.  And, since I'm being careless with the the exact date, I may as well admit that adopt is probably not the exact word for what happened between us and Frisco.

Maybe rescue, or liberation, or even intervention in a death sentence would be the more exact term for what happened between us and Frisco.  He was in the pound, condemned to die and up against his penultimate day on earth when we went to check him out.

I can't tell you why we went there after I saw his picture in the newspaper..  Fate?  Whim?  No, not that--we're not the sort that takes on a pound dog based on a whim.  We even took our dog Daisy with us to see how they would get along, observed him with the kittens and asked twenty-gazillion questions.  No, it was not a whim.  Maybe fate, as there were weekly pictures of beguiling dogs in the newspaper each week and we never before, or since, felt compelled to act on those.

Frisco, was, at best reckoning, a "street-dog", cast away and probably on his own for six months or so.  He was a survivor and maybe, at some level, I identified with him--a tough former street kid used to getting by on wit and moxie until the Marine Corps straightened me out.  Maybe I thought I could be his Marine Corps.

I'm fairly good at handling dogs and quickly had Frisco responding to all the basic obedience commands and some very rigorous deprogramming of targeting and attacking our cats.  But, there was a glitch in his wiring somewhere that made him exceptional, and not in a good way.  It wasn't just that on occasion he would "drop a command response" and not in a way that it was a training issue; he would make an obvious choice of disobeying.  Now, part of this could be attributed to the breed.  You see, he was a Pyrenees-Golden Retriever mix and Pyrenees are noted for this trait...some less informed see it as obstinacy.  It really does not anthropomorphize in that way.

Pyrenees are one of the earliest breeds, if not the first, and have been breed through the millenia to be autonomous and to decide who or what lives or dies.  Their wiring is that basic and simple.  Thus, Frisco never really adapted himself to the rules of the "pack" as most other dogs do. He was 120 pounds of autonomous animal with jaw strength of at least 3,000 pounds.  I worked with him a lot and truly believed that I had him under control, but was always very cautious with him: head-halter, muzzle, short lead and always, always, always under observation.  Cautious the way one is with a loaded gun.

Frisco trained to a crate, we called it his "hooch", and each night at 8:00 he would be handed a treat which he would carry to his "hooch" gurgling in delight before settling in for the night.  He wanted nothing more, except he really would have liked to climb up in my lap like a puppy...someone, in his puppy days, had encouraged that behavior, I think.  He was a "talkative" dog and never hesitated in offering up an "opinion" about whatever was going on.  In his best moments he was a delight...but, the gun was always loaded and cocked!

He never gave up his habit of targeting cats and once bit my wife and last week turned on me with a snarl and bite attack.  I was nimble enough to avoid it, but later that day he attacked our other dog, Daisy, and gave her a nasty gash over her eye. A half-inch another way and she would have lost that eye!

The cocked gun was becoming a short-fused time-bomb.

The next day, while he was left alone in a room with the door closed he attacked and mauled one of our cats who unbeknown to me had been under some furniture in the room.  I managed to get him under control and the cat ran out (we have not been able to find him since) and I got Frisco crated.  It had become obvious that Frisco was a danger--what if he got out and attacked neighborhood children or pets, or a child come to the door in that split second when he was off leash en route to his crate, would he burst through the door and attack?


Without a doubt, he would and no amount of "training" would reverse that.  It is just how Frisco was wired.

The situation was deteriorating and after talking with a couple of trainers well-experienced with the breed we decided there was no recourse but to have him euthanized.

Our vet gave us some tranquilizers for him and I rode in the back seat with him in my lap for the ten mile journey to clinic.  He was so sedated that I wasn't certain that he knew that at last he was getting his way, and lying in my lap.  I held him as he died and I cried as I am crying now.  He was my dog, and as difficult as he was, I loved him.  He was my dog...and I loved him.

I dug him a grave, as big and deep as a human grave.  He was, after all, 120 pounds. And I buried him with his food bowl and a treat for the journey to Rainbow Bridge where there are several very worth animals waiting to welcome him and to ask about how I'm doing.

Today, I took apart his crate, burned his blankets and vacuumed the few stray hairs and found one of his old treats he had stashed under his blankets.  He shared my extra-bedroom turned office with me and now he is gone and someday soon the tears will stop.  But, for now..they flow.

Retiree Leader Sets Deficit Commission Straight on Social Security

Testimony Transcript: Ed Coyle, Executive Director, 

Alliance for Retired Americans

 

My name is Edward F. Coyle, and I am the Executive Director of the four million-member Alliance for Retired Americans.  We are a grassroots organization of retirees from labor and community-based groups.

Retirees are deeply disturbed by talk coming out of this Commission about cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age.

Social Security is one of America’s greatest success stories.  It has kept generations of seniors out of poverty.  It did not, I repeat did not, cause these deficits.  The fact is that Social Security currently has a surplus of $2.6 trillion. 

The federal government does not fund Social Security - it is a fiscally conservative, self-sufficient program with a dedicated source of revenue. It is an efficient, rock-solid program, with only one percent of funds going to administrative costs.    I challenge the Commission to find a federal program run as efficiently and effectively as Social
Security, and one that is financially solvent for many years to come.

No one dislikes the federal debt more than today’s retirees.  They do not want it to be the legacy they leave behind to their children and grandchildren.  Is our federal budget deficit too large?  Yes.  Is it Social Security’s fault?  No.

Earlier today you heard from America Speaks.  Retirees are greatly disturbed that they are recommending increasing the retirement age to 69.  Not only would this reduce benefits which, as I said, have nothing to do with the budget deficit, but it would be devastating to American workers, particularly those who work in physically demanding construction and service sector jobs. 

Americans in their late 50s and 60s are already bearing the brunt of layoffs and benefit cuts from the recession.  Raising the retirement age would inflict further hardship among a group of workers who are struggling to keep or find jobs.  Many people this age face health
problems in these years.  Simply put, many workers cannot continue in their jobs until they are nearly 70.

The Alliance for Retired Americans strongly rejects the gloom-and-doom, sky-is-falling predictions that Social Security is going bankrupt.  Not only is this factually untrue, but it is a malicious scare tactic to divert attention away from the root causes of our deficit - unwise tax
and spending decisions by Washington over the past decade.

To further strengthen Social Security’s financial structure, the Alliance for Retired Americans supports raising the payroll tax cap - currently at $106,800 - for the wealthiest Americans.  Right now, someone like Bill Gates is paying the same in Social Security taxes as a
$106,800 worker.  Experts have said that raising the cap to 90 percent of all wages would fill one-third of a projected shortfall over the next 75 years in the Social Security Trust Fund.  This change would only increase taxes on six percent of all workers, but would further
strengthen Social Security benefits for the remaining 94 percent of workers when they retire.

In conclusion, retirees care about more than just themselves.  They worry about their children and grandchildren in these difficult times.  Will they ever get to retire?  And if so, what will be there for them? At a time of rising cynicism toward government, particularly among young people, it is more important than ever that our nation fully honors the
promise of Social Security.

B.P. Headlines In 2111

JUST A RANDOM NOTION OR TWO TODAY

Am I the only one who has noticed that it is the same collection of mindless yahoos that used to shout and chant "Love It or Leave It" with high dudgeon , who then morphed into the self-rightious, post 9-11 uber-patriots who tripped over each other racing out to K-Mart and Wal-Mart to buy their yellow-ribbon, stick-on patriotism and who so often sported (improperly) waving flags on the windows of their gas-guzzling SUVs, who are now sporting the "Secede" bumper-stickers.  Same bunch of crack-brains, I'd say.

Same collection of damned-fool, self-contradictory, nimrods showing off their pathological and congenital stupidity!

I had a chance, last night, to meet Tom Berry, who is challenging Republican, Jeb Hensarling  for the (TX-5) U.S. Congress.  Berry, a retired working-class guy, had a lot to say about how and why we need to get the lobbyists' money out of the election process.  I found that particularly to the point, since Hensarling is currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for contributions from lobbyists that give the appearance of vote buying by the lobbyists of an industry to be affected by Hensarling's upcoming vote.  In fairness, we note that Hensarling has denied any wrongdoing and others on the same committee are also under investigation.

The same lobbyists also have made contributions to other politicians who are not under any sort of investigation, which merely shows, in my mind anyway, that the money gets spread around like grass-seed and if some of it takes root...well, you know the rest I guess.

And, I'm imagining lead stories like this in whatever form the 2110 media takes:

Scientists Find Hint of Life in Bayou

Researchers from Texas A & M University yesterday revealed that they have found what they believe to be living organisms in the brackish waters of Black Begonia Bayou, thirty miles east of New Orleans.  Flander Flapdoodle, the lead scientist on the Opec funded research project said, "We're very excited to find what we are certain is amoebic life forms that were taken from scrappings of rocks on the shores of the bayou".

"It's been pretty much a "dead-zone" for the past ninety-years or so", he said.  "Oh, there's some of those crazy Cajuns that stuck it out, but there's honest debate whether or not they qualify as a life form."

Nettie Boudreaux, a longtime bayou resident, scurried on her six legs out to the road to tell reporters that, "She warn't surprised none, because she's had at least five dogs, twelve kittens, the neighborhood gator, and two children eaten by something or other over the past two-dozen years or so."

"It ain't just those savage howls and green glow at nighttime that scares me, it's them there fireflies as big as eagles thet git thet job done", she continued.

As the reporters were leaving, she shouted out, "Don't go yet, I jest heard a great new Aggie joke!"

Officials the British oil company, B.P., called a press conference at their villa on the Riviera this morning to announce that they believed they had a final solution to the century-old oil spill...the well was running out!  An unidentified executive said also that Nettie Broudreaux was a gadfly out to cash in on a piece of the company's $500-trillion world indemnity fund.  He went on to state that her claims were ridiculous and that her "weirdness" was not from environmental damage, but due to her being a descendant of several carnival side-show freaks who had dangerously inbred.

"Besides, we're protecting our investors, the American public and our stockholders by maintaining a system that has not paid out a single claim in one-hundred years", he said.  "That fund started at a few billion a century ago, and now it is all the way up to $500-trillion, and we didn't get there by paying claims or honoring commitments.  By God, let them eat tar balls if they don't like it!"

My Jaws Are Locked: Our Kids Are In A War & Who Cares?

WHERE IS THE HOME-FRONT SACRIFICE???

My jaws are locked, or as I  said as as young, hard-charging Marine Corps non-commissioned officer, "My friggin' jibs are jacked!"  Why?

It's the stupid war(s) stupid.  And, just to set the issue straight, my anger and outrage is not new and part of the new-found sense of protest that seems to be coming alive in America.  You want some proof?  Cool.  Here's a column I wrote for the Columbia Daily Tribune back in March of 2002.  CLICK HERE

I offer it simply to affirm to you, dear reader, that I was among the early few whom from the git go, were standing up against our dry-drunk, sociopath-in-chief, who, amidst a cheering populace waving flags and adorning their houses and vehicles with yellow ribbons from K-Mart, launched a war of invasion and occupation against a non-combatant--and, in world law and diplomatic terms, "non-belligerent", sovereign nation that had done us absolutely no harm.  Unless you think sitting atop a large percentage of the world's remaining oil reserves is a great wrong.

We have lost to death in Iraq, so far, at least 4,413 of our young men and women serving in the military who often were on multiple, endlessly extended and under-armored deployment.  Somewhere around 32,000 have been maimed, wounded, blinded, scorched, injured and afflicted with PTSD.  And, we've identified a whole other new (initial-tagged) result of  combat, TBI-Traumatic Brian Injury.  It is estimated that somewhere around 30% of returning troops suffer from the devastating injury!

We have squandered at least $925-billion in tax-payer money to cost of war, missing, stolen, or lost monies, missing, stolen, or lost weaponry and equipment, contractor malfeasance, misfeasance, over-charging, and questionable billings (Cheney's Halliburton).  CLICK HERE FOR DETAILED ACCOUNTING 

In Afghanistan, where, if you recall, the mission was to capture or kill Bin Ladin, drive-out Al Qeada, and remove the supremacy of the Taliban.  Except for our dismal failure to hunt down and kill Bin Ladin (what good would a dead arch-enemy serve?) we were fairly successful  in the others until Bush diverted our attention and resources to Iraq.

Well, while it is difficult to put an immediate figure on the total accruing cost of this particularly misguided adventure in nation-building, it is known that congress has just authorized another $80-billion and at least, to the moment I am writing this, nearly 1200 troops have died.  And, to set the record straight, as far as we know, Bin Ladin is still alive and kicking, the Taliban is in resurgence and the narco-terrorists are still racking in profane profits from the opium fields while Hamid Karzai (elected president in a bitterly corrupt election) functions as little more than the mayor of Kabul! 

Yet, we drone on with our platitudes and good-guy, bad-guy world view in the nightly news while we at home feel no pain and make no sacrifice. 


And therein lies my anger and I've got to tell you, it is an immense anger.  I'll not go into all the CIA World Book reasons for why we should be fighting this war--look at a globe, look at China and Russia and then look at where we're digging in, and think of the game of RISK--I really think it is that damned simple.  And, I'll not burden you with all my left-wing reasons for why we need to extract ourselves from this particular lash-up, forthwith.


These wars have nothing to do with terrorism as such, but they do have to do with global position and strategy to contain and maintain our access to oil and other strategic interests, included new bases.  All of which will work to enrich the profits and further the global goals of our oil and defense industries.  But, that is not what has my jaws locked, hell that's the way it's always been.  Underlying every patriotic platitude of every war lie the  economic truths--corporate profits.


The thing of it is this, you and I, all of us and each of us, are cruising along as though nothing was happening out of the ordinary.  Where are the bond drives or special taxes to support and pay for the wars? where is the home-front mobilization? where is the rationing to reduce our demands for foreign oil? where is the day-to-day realization that we've set our warriors to their deadly tasks? where is the daily front-page reports of our progress? and for crying out loud, how is progress even measured anymore?

Yep, that's what has me pissed.  Our kids are fighting (they think for us) but, we're so cynical, so lazy, so self-absorbed that we can't even maintain a daily awareness of solemnity of their daily deaths, woundings and sacrifices.  My friggin' jibs are jacked!

Unemployed? Send Your Resume to Congress & POTUS!

TAKE A STAND - SEND YOUR RESUME TO CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Since May 31, a short month ago, more than 1.2-million American unemployed workers (maybe an oxymoron-can you still be a worker if you're out of job) have lost their unemployment benefits because they have been unemployed for longer than 6-months.  Shame on them, lazy bunch of layabouts.

According to Nevada's Tea-Party (I am so happy to see that it is not Texas alone that breeds these insipid idiots) senatorial candidate, Sharon Angle, there are plenty of jobs out there, but "We have spoiled Americans so that think they can make more on unemployment than they can working".  Now, this is not the first time this comprehension incapacitated idiot has tripped over her tongue.  The simple truth is this:  There are roughly 5 workers for each single available job.  And, more horrifying, there are probably at least 5-million long-term unemployed who don't actually get the benefits even when the program is in play.

I will not belabor the complexity of those available jobs, except to say that the majority of them are entry level jobs traditionally filled by the young who, if left without jobs, often find the devil's work to fill their idle hands.

Yesterday, for the fourth time, the United States Senate said to unemployed working men and women, "Screw You!" and voted down re-authorization of extended benefits for the long term unemployed.  Yes, it is the Republicans who stymie this social safety net that provides minimal survival level income for the unemployed which is quickly spent to circulate and turn over several times to invigorate an exsanguinating economy.  But, it is also the ineffectual Democrats who manage to summon up crocodile tears but not the needed vote that deserve our attention.

Similarly, president Obama, remains isolated, aloof, and silent on this issue preferring, one supposes, to engage in photo-ops of stuffing his face with junk food of one sort or another.

While not quite rising to the level of genocide, the situation is one of cruelty and an affront to human decency.  We can't let this stand without a fight.  Here is what I recommend.

Today I e-mailed people I know in Washington that are closely associated with the labor movement to encourage AFL/CIO President, Richard Trumka, to launch a a nationwide campaign encouraging unemployed workers to e-mail, mail, or fax their resumes to Congress and the White House.  I would also suggest that you send a copy to the governor of your respective state as the program, while funded by federal dollars, are actually administered at the state level.

If you, or someone you know, is unemployed and wants a job send your resumes or letters of application to these addresses:

U.S. Senate; Click here for assistance

U.S. House;  Click here for assistance

The White House; Click here for assistance