A Hospice Tale, of Smoky and Mr. P

Five years ago, I accepted a bedraggled, abused, elderly (enormous), shaggy, frightened, shell-shocked male Malamute, whom his rescuers dubbed"Nobel," into my home. He was in sad shape when he was rescued: a groomer shaved 30 lbs of matted fur. He was weak and aloof. Rescuers thought he might have six months to live; I was able to stretch that out to 20...

And I changed his "home" name to Smoky or Mr. Smokes because of his grey, black and white coloring, and because he moved so silently through the house. 

Smokes was, expectably, not house-trained (at first, though he learned pretty fast). But at first, not so much; so I attached a bell to his collar. I'm a light sleeper so I could hear the bell when, at night, he started moving around. Movement usually portended the need to excrete. This enabled me to prevent many "accidents" by directing him outside. 

Eventually--after close to a year--he began to warm to me, but he never became "affectionate, though we did learn to play, especially after NMDOG, the rescuers, sent along a "companion,"  a young, tri-pod husky named Tasha, who taught Smokes to "dog" all over again. He was doing very well, until his hind legs started to fail him.

Smoky went on ahead in August 15, 2018. I kept Tasha until April, 2019, when I shattered the humerus in my left arm and could no longer keep up with her, and I had to relinquish her back to NMDOG. Sometime later, NMDOG recovered Piggums, who came to me as a hospice in June, 2019.

There are things to know about animal "hospice. The situation is fraught. Abused dogs require a long time to re-acquire the capacity to trust humans, and it will try your patience. 

Don't let it:
1: When accepting a hospice dog, don't expect them to take to you like a puppy would. Older dogs will have "human trust" issues which may be resolved in time, but may not. In 18 months, Smoky never rolled over for a belly rub, because exposing yer belly isn't easy for a dog. He was starting to be more affect-ionate (stet) in hisa last summer. I've had Mr. Piggums for 18 mos, and he's still reluctant, though he can be cajoled.

2) The "Loss" Thing

I've thought about this a lot. Before anyone accepts a hospice dog, one MUST accept that "losing" such a companion in the relatively foreseeable future is an inevitable part of the deal. You HAVE to have that knowledge before you take in an old or injured fur-being. It cannot intrude in loving them, because that's what you're THERE for: love and comfort.

Related: Over the many years of having dogs and their meeting their sad but necessary departures, I've found it really helpful to regard these duties the way the Hopi regard the deaths of their elders: They are going (and I am sending them) on ahead. 

OVERTAKEN BY CHEATS

 The Price of Exceptionalism

Americans are prisoners of myth and fantasy:

Y/our "exceptionalism."

The "best ever," the "greatest ever," the "freest ever," and yadda-yadda. Repeat that stuff long enough, and without any countervailing, critical narrative or correction, and you're gonna end up with a pretty distorted idea of your situation. whuch we have (see above).

The emergence of "Critical--Legal, Race, Educational, Economic, Historical, etc.--Theory" has spotlighted what the exceptionalist propaganda has elided almost from the first: the disjuncture between the principles "we" espouse and the deeds we commit.

The overwhelming majority of y/our compatriots have absolutely NO fucking idea about how the country and the economy AND the Empire actually "work," and have no interest in--or capacity for--learning.

Yet they have zero hesitation about furiously and bitterly criticizing and inveighing against that about which they know embarrassingly little; or, worse, blindly following the shrillest, meanest-spirited demagogues who most loudly spew what they need to hear to sustain their fantasies and amplify their grievances.

It wasn't always this way--though the current conditions were always immanent within the system--and it is turning out that the commentators who have warned that the Constitution could become a mutual suicide pact might be correct, after all.

It was/is a system predicated on an ideal of "honor," on "playing fair," which had/has no way of dealing with a concerted, "popular" effort to cheat.

And we have been overtaken by cheaters.

To Reiterate: "The Press" Is Not Your Friend

 Anent the "Free Press": The "Press" NOT your friend, or your ally, nor is it a friend or ally of "democracy" or "popular sovereignty!" It serves the "corpoRat" interest, exclusively.

 It's a capitalistic profit center which might occasionally and accidentally do something for the people, but that is no longer (if it ever truly was) the institution's purpose.

"The Press" hasn't been an "independent voice for the people," thus earning their Constitutional protection, since 50 years and the end of the Vietnam war/Watergate era and the onset of officially sanctioned "monopolization," euphemistically known as "media consolidation," which began in the 70s, directly in the aftermath (and in consequence) of Watergate.

After that period in the 60s, when the Press problematized and then helped end the war (Kronkite), and brought down Nixon, and promoted civil rights, the decision was made in the highest councils that the Press would NEVER have that kind of power again.

Now safely enfolded in the toils of the capitalistic profit structure, it will NEVER be the public's servant it was intended to be.

To summarize: "The Press" is NOT the friend of democracy or popular sovereignty. It has unarguably become an accessory to and a tool of CorpoRat power: It's a capitalistic profit center which might occasionally and accidentally do something for the people, but that is no longer (if it ever truly was) the institution's main purpose. 

The "PRESS" Aren't "Y/Our" ALLIES!

 

Please note:

It is both futile and fruitless to complain about the "media."

The "Media" are NOT on "our" side. They are NOT the "friends" pf liberty or demicracy. Their ideology and inclinations are 'center-right' (NBC, CBS, ABC, and their satellites) to "far Right" (e.g., FauxNooz, OAN, etc). The last vestiges of "free press" were erased in the consolidation-monopolization era of the 80s an 90s, under Raygoon's gunsels and the Murdoch invasion.

It's institutional: they ALL lean, all of those which do not totally tilt, to the ideologies and policies of the corporations which OWN them because (as you really SHOULD have recognized by now), they are now ONLY vehicles for 1) corportate propaganda, 2) corpoRat profit and 3) preserving/promoting the political, economic, social/cultural status quo.

ThePress puts on assorted "First Amendment" airs And garments, sometimes, to project themselves as the friends or guardians of the people (which they are not), which they have to do to preserve the appearances. It's the essence of their business model.

But any commitment to popular issues which might trouble any established apple-carts or THEIR owners is paper/pixels thin.

The corporate media are inherently, structurally and ideologically opposed to any deep social or cultural change.

They WON'T help. They WILL intrude to surreptitiously put a thumb on the scales of public opinion.

"The Press is free to them who own one." A.J. Liebling, 1946.

That is, there is NO "free press."

It is captive of the interests of those who own it.

In effect, the 'free press' wrote it's own obituary when it brought down Nixon. It had always, theoretically, been possible, But Katherine Graham and the WaPo she'd inherited, proved it, and once that occurred, the PTB were NEVER going to permit it to happen again.

There was plenty of reason and evidence to prompt them to "go after" *TFG as they did RMN. There wasn't the instiutiutional will...

At LSU, 1984-5

I immodestly think this may be the best photographic record ever made of my physiognomy. It accompanied a short bio in the LSU Gumbo yearbook in 1985, the year I got the Masters in Journalism (I was 38.). I was teaching writing...I know, right?

In that period, I had a teaching assistantship in the J'School, and I had the chance to possibly have prevented Rod Dreher from continuing his 'journalistic' efforts, as he was in two classes I taught. I've regretted every time I've come across his name in print that he presented me no opportunity for further discouragement.

(Yes, I was wearing a choker. The jacket was salmon-colored denim. The hat was tan, the band was fawn. I had that hat a long time. I was probably wearing jeans and boots.

PingPong in Dallas

 

A "Christmas Story," from an Old Man's Brain

Actually, it was pre-New Year's, maybe Dec. 30, '64; I was in the USAF, in Wichita Falls. A girl I'd met the previous summer, while lifeguarding at La Fonda's little pool, had indicated that, if I showed up in Dallas for New Year's, I'd be welcomed. I did. I wasn't, whence endeth the tale.

It begins a little earlier.

Being a very junior airman (E-2, one stripe), I had very little money, so I decided to hitchhike to Dallas. Outside the gate, I met up with another guy from my flight. As I recall, his name was Danny, and he was from Appalachia somewhere, spoke with an almost incomprehensible drawl and hadn't had "low quarter" shoes before enlisting in the USAF which, all unbeknownst to me, he was in the process of deserting, that cold, December night outside Shepard AFB.

We lucked out and caught a ride pretty quickly, a balding, semi-portly, middle-aged fellow in a new Mustang who was also going down to Dallas. We tossed our AWOL bags in the trunk and departed. We all traded names; the driver's was Guy.

We were all smoking cigarettes as we rode through the wintry, central Texas night with the windows cracked.

After about half-an-hour, the driver asked we'd ever heard of marijuana. We both said we'd heard of it but hadn't ever had any. He asked if we'd like to try it and both of us said yes, naturally. So he reached two, thin, hand-rolled 'cigarettes' from his shirt pocket and handed one to Danny and one to me and said, "Light up, but not like a Camel. You take a drag like a regular smoke, but hold it in your lungs as long as you can and exhale slowly."

I got the hang of it right away, and the ride unfolded merrily. Guy had a couple of six-packs of Lone Star, and we were all laughing and scratching all the way down to Big D. When we could see the lights, Guy asked us if we had a place to stay, and neither Danny nor I did. But as Danny was deserting, which he had revealed once we left Wichita Falls, he wanted to keep moving.

I guess it was about midnight, so I accepted the offer, inasmuch as I thought I'd have more than adequate accommodations the next night and several, before I had to return to duty. We drove somewhere in the city, near downtown, I think. It was a large, tall, apartment building. We entered the garage underneath, took an elevator to a high floor, where I entered a very large room full of art and antiques.

Guy asked what I drank, I said Scotch. He asked if I wanted another joint, and I accepted. He inquired about my home and family, asked about my life pre-USAF, why I was in Dallas, did I have plans.

At the time I thought I did and I said so. He seemed disappointed. But then he asked me if I needed money, and I assented, "yes I did." So, he said. he'd give me $200 if I would "help" him.

By this time, it was about 4AM. He told me what he wanted me to do. It was weird: He told me he was going to get undressed and get into his walk-in shower, turn the water on and start to masturbate, and he'd pay me $200 to stand outside the shower in my jockey shorts and hurl pingpong balls at him as hard as I could til he came. I could join him if I felt like it.

I didn't. But I flung a whole net sack full of multi-colored plastic balls at him as hard as I could.

I had got the money first, so I got dressed, got my gear, and split for a coffee shop.

As it would happen, my New Year's date stood me up, and I had to find lodging. In Dallas. On New Year's. With the Cotton Bowl crowds. Rooms were dear znd scarce, and didn't have means of locomotion except the Dallas Transit on holiday schedule, so I spent the 31st walking from hotel to hotel trying to find a room and when I did find one, it ate up a big chunk of the money I'd so nefariously got. I had enough for bus fare back to Shepard on Jan 2.

Jolly Holidays!!!!

Immediately...

 

>Almost every day I encounter a jeremiad berating "the Media" for NOT being "pro-democracy," at all or enough. This complaint expresses a misunderstanding ot the evolution of "the press.

>The media can't be "pro-democracy," because they are inherently "pro-Corporate," owned lock, stock and barrel and directed by boardrooms of mega (and not infrequently MAGA) corporations which, as we all know, are autocratic and authoritarian and thus hostile to equality.

>The Media Consolidation movement of the late 70s through the 90s--it might properly be described as "monopolization"--erased the public as its sponsor and turned to customers. The "free press" completed AJ Liebling's prescience when in the late '40s he wrote, "The press is free... to those who own one."

>Any "media-ted" communication is necessarily and unavoidably altered in the process. None of our experiences which we do not live in the existential moment are "authentic." All have been infused with the "intention" of the interests which own and control them. and those interests are inherently, at the minimum, passively aggressively hostile to democracy and equality.

>Nothing you/we have learned, essentially since birth, has been unedited except our raw experience. So, part of the purpose of a "good education" is to provide one with the tools necessary to deconstruct the edited versions, and make informed decisions about how to interpret them.

Yeah, adulting's hard.