Don’t Put a Sweater on a Pit Bull

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Police in Florida say a dog named Scarface attacked a family who tried to put a sweater on it.

Tampa police say the pit bull mix bit a 52-year-old woman who was trying to dress it Friday and her husband was attacked while trying to pull the dog off her. Police say the couple’s 22-year-old son was attacked while trying to stop the dog by stabbing it in the neck and head.

The three people escaped the house and left the dog in the backyard. They ended up in the hospital.

— Miami Herald
Italian greyhound

Woman attacked when she tries to put a sweater on the dog, husband attacked when he tries to pull the dog off his wife, son attacked while trying to stab the dog in the neck and head . . . meet your average, run-of-the-mill pit bull owners.

Folks, if you feel like you really must put a sweater on your dogs and you don’t want to end up in the hospital or the morgue, the dog of choice is the Italian greyhound. Those shivery little fuckers love to wear sweaters.

Visit any dog park in the fall or winter months and you’ll see IGs prancing about in sweaters, often hand-made by the owners. It is a match made in heaven.

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Why Do We Need the Sign?

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I saw this in the men’s room of Bright Angel Lodge at the Grand Canyon . . .

Bright Angel restroom sign

Why is that sign necessary? Were people complaining, “The toilet water in the men’s room tastes a little off“?

“Yes, that’s because it’s sewage. Man, we gotta put up a sign.”

Granted, there’s no bottled water sold in the national park (because of the plastic) but there are other options available before you resort to drinking toilet water.

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2016: The Year in Books

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These are the books I read in 2016, roughly in the order listed. I got off to a good start then had a kind of a breakdown later in the year.

The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion.

Books of the Year: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (fiction) and For the Time Being by Annie Dillard (non-fiction).

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Carrie Fisher, 1956-2016

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Carrie Fisher

She died from complications of cardiac arrest. Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, is 84 years old and still alive.

If I believed in God, I would pray to him that I do not outlive my child . . . My main, and perhaps only, contribution in life is raising a son who surpasses me on every conceivable metric, so that when I’m gone and he’s still here, the world will be a better place.

RIP Carrie Fisher

Update: Debbie Reynolds died the following day.

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That Was Then, This Is Now

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That was then:

Top Republicans must reject the ridiculous notion that a national election can be ‘rigged.’

— New York Times editorial, Oct. 18, 2016

This is now:

[President-elect] Trump should be leading the call for a thorough investigation, since it would be the only way to remove this darkening cloud from his presidency. Failing to resolve the questions about Russia would feed suspicion among millions of Americans that a dominant theme of his candidacy turned out to be true: The election was indeed rigged.

— New York Times editorial, Dec. 11, 2016

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Another Reason I Don’t Believe in God

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Thomas Merton

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

— Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Catholic writer and Trappist monk at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky.

His inspirational quotes turn up on Facebook and elsewhere. (I saw the above quote on Facebook this week.)

It’s a beautiful quote, I have to say that.

Do you know how Thomas Merton died? If you find Merton inspirational, it may be better not to know how he died.

He was electrocuted by an electric fan. He stepped out of a bath and was electrocuted by a fan.

I can’t help thinking about that when I read quotes like the above.

— Dear Lord, I know you will lead me by the right road . . .

— Yep no problem Tom, got you covered.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTT!

— Oops, watch out for that fan.

I don’t want to ruin it for you if you like Merton . . . but if you believe in this kind of a heavenly arrangement, you’ve got to believe God is one heck of a practical joker.

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When is Refusing to Accept Election Results Not a National Outrage?

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It seemed like phony outrage at the time, when it was generally assumed that Trump would lose the election . . . wildly out of proportion to what he actually said.

Now contesting the results is considered a principled strategy. What happened to the seamless transition of power? It all depends on which candidate in refusing to accept the results.

Hypocrites!

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Huntington Library

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Taking the Fun Out of the Game for Cam Newton

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton said Sunday that he plans to take his grievance with no-calls on late hits to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

“It’s really taking the fun out of the game for me — honestly, it really is,” Newton said. “At times, I don’t even feel safe. Enough is enough. I plan on talking to commissioner Goodell about this. It’s not fun, and I don’t know what I have to do.”

— ESPN

I can’t imagine why this is happening to a fun guy like Cam Newton . . .

No, wait — yes I can! Because he goes out of his way to show up opponents and it’s not surprising that the opponents have started to push the envelope as far as what constitutes a legal hit on this guy.

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Aside

What am I kidding myself about today? A lot of things, probably . . .

Praying for Sleeping Bags

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Praying to the Madonna of the Rosary, by Carav...
Praying to the Madonna of the Rosary, by Caravaggio, 1606-1607

I was having a conversation with someone last night about the efficacy of prayer . . .

“Prayers are always answered,” I was informed, “but sometimes the answer is no, or not right now.”

If God issues his edicts with perfect foreknowledge of the future, then prayer is pointless.
Some prayers would be granted and some wouldn’t, depending on whether you prayed for something that God has already ordained is going to happen.

Has anyone done a study on this? A control group wants things but doesn’t pray for them, a second group prays to God for what they want, and a third group prays to a random entity — maybe a shopping cart.

Would there be any difference in results between the groups? I’m going to say no.

It’s also hard to assess the efficacy of prayer because people rarely pray for anything tangible.

My son as a kid went on a camping trip with a church group where they wound up short of sleeping bags. I asked him did the church leaders pray for more sleeping bags and he said no.

People will pray for so-and-so to recover from brain surgery but they won’t pray for more sleeping bags.

The brain surgery patient being prayed for is going to recover or not. If not, that gets filed under “sometimes the answer is no.”

But everyone knows damn well that praying for more sleeping bags is foolish because it’s not going to work.

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