Your Highness

Your Highness is royalty just waiting
to be a part of your family. 5x7 acrylic on
panel board.

Rose Cup

Rose Cup is acrylic on 8x10 panel board.

How Many Pups Should Yogi Bear?

Yes, that was the title in today's piece in the Sydney Herald-Sun.

Of course the article is quite good too, as it centers on the current Crufts winner and the problems that come from dominant sire selection.

Yogi, a Hungarian vizsla from Sydney, was last month crowned Best in Show at Crufts, the world's most prestigious dog show.

More virile than a coach load of Contiki tourists, Yogi has fathered 525 pups since emigrating to the UK almost five years ago, records show.

That translates to more than 10 per cent of vizsla pups registered in the same period - and his popularity is set to soar with his Crufts win.

Jemima Harrison, who prepared the documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed and obtained the figures, is alarmed at Yogi's gene pool dominance.

"Yogi is an absolutely beautiful dog who deserved to win," Ms Harrison said. "However the concern is that this dog has been massively overused as a stud dog already.

"As far as the breed is concerned it's a genetic time bomb."

True too. Every dog carries within it negative recessive genes, and if those genes are doubled up on long enough and often enough, things can slide into the abyss for an entire breed.
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Catching a Mexican Wolf With a Y Pole

Link

A few weeks ago I posted a bit lifted from Dr. Mark Johnson's excellent Feral Dog blog about dominance in wolves. It turns out there is some!

In fact Mark is smart enough to understand exactly what Marian and Keller Breland were talking about when they said:

"[T]he behavior of any species cannot be adequately understood, predicted, or controlled without knowledge of its instinctive patterns, evolutionary history, and ecological niche."

So how do you control a wolf if you have to routinely handle them for vaccines and captive breeding programs?

Well, as I have noted in the past, if the animal is a wild wolf that you have to trap for the occasional distemper or rabies vaccine (yes, many of our wild wolves are vaccinated), you might have to employ an offset leghold trap or snare.

With captive wolves, however, Mark has discovered that you can use the natural dominance-and-submission behaviors of the wolf to some advantage, as the video clip, above, suggests.

There are some nice lines in here.

"Feel how tense you are. If you're tense, the animal can feel how tense you are. So calm yourself down, breathe well, bring your energy down to your belly. That will calm the wolf..."

"The focus is to greet the animal, and my energy should be a combination of dominance and compassion."

One of the things that is going on here, of course, is extinguishing behavior -- the pole works best when biting the pole produces no draw back from the pole holder. Or, as Mark puts it, biting the pole produces no affirmation.

Extra points here for taking the rectal temperature and doing the microchipping. It appears that with a Y pole on a wolf, this can be done as easily as with a dog. Amazing.

Mark says this video will become part of a longer Y pole training video currently being produced by Global Wildlife Resources, Inc.
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Bend It Like Beckham

With music by Nina Simone.
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Playing to Lose

Obama is going to get his ass kicked on this one.

Which is exactly the idea.

Sometimes you play to win, and sometimes you play to lose.

By losing on the supposed "policy," Obama will win the political gambit, which is the real game being played here. After all, does anyone seriously think any tree-hugger is ever going to vote for the party of Dick Cheney, George Bush, Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney? Not going to happen. Ever.

And so there is nothing to lose, but perhaps some "moderates" to gain.

By launching his own incompleted play to "drill, baby drill," Obama hopes to remove a GOP talking point from the table and gain some ground from the center.

Will that work?

No, but it's a play with very little downside for him since NEPA and and EIS requirements associated with coastal drilling, and the court challenges that these will spawn, will likely take longer to process than his administration will actually be in office.

Just in case, however, the Obama Administration is exempting California from drilling. Memories of the Santa Barbara Oilspill, more than 40 years ago, still stain the collective memory of too many voters in that state, and there are simply too many electoral college votes there to take the risk. A good political player always hedges his bets a little....
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Stem Cell Collection

I am proud to say that along with my cancer co-pilots Craig, Mom and Dad, I made it through the first Smilow Cancer Hospital adventure. We found the right parking garage, navigated the elevators, the infusion check-in area, the lobby, the surgical floor of the main hospital and most importantly, I found where they sell Starbucks coffee. Over the past three days we got quite a tour of the place and became very familiar with it after a run of long days there. The great part is that we didn't have to navigate it alone. I have my own personal nurse/tour guide/organizer/personal assistant/appointment booker/patient advocate named Kathryn. I know already that she will be a God send throughout this process. She is Smilow's Autologous Stem Cell Transplant coordinator and wow, does she have it together. She whisked us around, explained everything and kept me on tract.

I have to say that the facility is beautiful. The main lobby boasts comfy black leather furniture, a water wall, beautiful contemporary artwork and even a piano that plays itself (and I understand they also feature guest pianists). Everything is open, airy and bright.

The medical oncology area is broken up into different pods. Each pod has four patient areas within it that are separated by half-walls with fogged glass and curtains that you can pull closed to separate yourself from the patient across from you if you choose. The rooms have huge windows so – I imagine anyway – that there is lots of natural light when it's not as gray and rainy as it had been during my time there, though it was calming to watch the rain drops stream down the windows. Each patient area has it's own moveable flat-screen TV, chairs for visitors and a recliner that even has a heating option to keep patient's buns warm, plus an overhead radiant heat option. The room's color pallete is pale yellows and spring greens and the floors are wood laminate so overall, you don't feel like you're at a hospital. And, they even offer you warm terry cloth blankets that come directly out of a heater. Volunteers come around to see if you want a drink or snacks and the IV poles are sleek and slim. It is very evident that this is a brand new facility. In fact, they've only been on the floor for five weeks so the nurses are still getting used to the space. The apheresis unit where I was on Tuesday had only been open for a week.

My mom, Craig and I arrived on Monday morning eager to start the stem cell collection process. After morning blood work came back it was determined that I needed some blood transfusions before I could start the collection. My platelets had dipped too low and with a deficiency there is worry for excessive bleeding as without enough platelets, my blood could not clot efficiently. My red blood cells and hematocrit were also very low - they dipped lower than they ever have. This left me very anemic, weak and lethargic. It explained the naps that I had needed in the days previous. The drop in counts wasn't at all unexpected - this is what happens after the ICE chemo (and what is also hopefully happening to the cancer cells).

I have never received a blood transfusion in my life and had no idea what to expect. Let me tell you, I never would have thought that platelets are yellow or that I could have an allergic reaction to the blood cells because of something the donor ate that day. I had several nurses throughout the day, and luckily each were very happy to answer all of our questions and were able to put me at ease about the whole process. It was mostly Sunshine, a young nurse with a cute Victoria Beckham haircut, blue fingernails, a quick wit and blunt nature who took care of me. She was straightforward and funny – and liked to pick on Craig. We hit it off immediately.

I received the platelet transfusion first. The bag was hung and the blood cells were sent in through my port. They gave me pre-meds of Tylenol and Benadryl anticipating any kind of reaction I might have. I didn't feel anything as it entered my body - just woozy from the Benadryl, which I don't do very well with, especially on an empty stomach. I hadn't eaten since the night before and wasn't allowed to until it was determined whether I would need to go through a catheter placement procedure. The transfusion took close to two hours. During that time I also received another Neupogen shot. The nurse (not Sunshine) sent the meds into my arm painfully slowly trying to avoid it burning but it made it a lot worse and I was left with a big 'ol bruise.

The PCA, Wade, kept us entertained through much of the day. He is a spunky little guy, always cracking jokes and has a very obvious passion for his job. For example, yesterday he told me that I have the "vital signs of a pimply faced teenager." The day before he brought over a deck of cards and performed a trick for me. On day one he brought us over a list of their DVD collection and would pop over to check where we were in The Truman Show. I drifted in and out of sleep in the heated recliner under my cozy blanket until the last yellow cell dripped in.

Then it was down to the apheresis floor where I would get my stem cells collected. At this point, we had gotten the results back from the lab saying that my CD-34 indicator was 20, meaning that I had plenty of stem cells to be able to collect - great news. We'd first have to have the apheresis nurses look at my veins to determine if they were useable. Otherwise, I'd have to get a catheter placed in addition to the red blood cell transfusion.

The nurse, Winsome ("You Winsome you lose some" she said as she introduced herself) gave me a stress ball and started examining the action. I squeezed that sucker with all my might, but to no avail. She needed a big vein to work with as the apheresis machine pulls and inserts blood at a great velocity and a skinny vein wouldn't be able to handle it – never mind one that was full of scar tissue.

"Sorry hun," she said. "Great white blood cell count, but not so great veins."

She assured me that it would be better in the long run because with the Quinton catheter would allow me to have my arms free during the process and I wouldn't have to worry about holding still for four hours at a clip. Whatever, all I could think was that this meant yet another surgery, yet another scar. And, more time without eating. I don't do well when my blood sugar is low - ask my husband.

It was off to surgery in the Interventional Radiology area of Yale New Haven Hospital. At this point it was already nearly 2pm and chances of actually being able to collect stem cells that day were slim to none. Oh, and did I mention that my stomach was still grumbling? I forced Craig to give me a piece of gum even though I wasn't even supposed to drink anything because I was so dehydrated and weak I couldn't take it. I sucked all the sugar and the one calorie out of that watermelon mint Trident like it was my job.

I had to change into a familiar hospital johnny but was allowed to keep my pants on – always a plus! Suddenly I got very itchy and noticed hives starting to creep up. This was something that I was told to immediately alert a nurse about as it could be a reaction to the platelets. One on my arm ... one on my chin ... one on my forehead ... the back of my neck. The pre-op nurses were concerned and had to call back over to Smilow. More and more time passed before I got clearance to proceed as the hives faded.

I was extremely wary about the idea of having a cathether inserted into my neck and turns out, my nerves were justified. It was right up there with my first bone marrow biopsy as one of the most unpleasant experiences of this entire bout with cancer. It was just plain awful.

I was told that 90% of people do it without sedation so I thought, what the hell? If old people and little kids can get through it, so can I. Well, it wasn't easy. I was laid out on the surgery table and they placed draping over my head so that I had about a six inch window of light and fresh air.

"Are you claustrophobic?" They asked. "No, thank God," I thought, as this would be a claustrophobic's nightmare.

While under my tent of sterile draping they cleaned and sanitized a huge area at the right base of my neck prepping it to be sliced open. I kept my iPod playing in my left ear hoping that it would calm me and that it would drown out some of the sounds of what was happening. However, that didn't really work as everything took place so close to my right ear.

The surgery fellow who performed the procedure was extremely kind and friendly though he kept calling me "Ma'am," which I know is supposed to be respectful, but it made me feel old. I didn't have the energy to request another salutation. He stuck a needle into my skin several times in several areas to numb it all up. Similar to when a dentist slides a needle into your gum before a tooth extraction – and equally as pleasant. Then, once my neck was numb, he would talk me through what was going to happen so that I'd know when to expect a "pinch" or "pressure". The "pinches" came when he sliced open my skin over the vein, then again when he stuck in yet another needle in two different places to sew in the sutures. Even though it was numb, I could feel my skin being pulled along with the fiber as if it were a torn shirt being mended. The "pressure" came when he was jamming the plastic cathether down into my right interior jugular vein. It was kind of like sticking two straws into your vein. Sick, I tell you. I could hear the length of the cathether tubing being pushed down into my vein as it ran alongside my right ear. A quick whipping noise akin to reeling in a fishing line, but thicker.

"We've just got to widen up your vein here," he said as the second tube went down beside the first.

It took everything in my being to remain calm, to keep my head turned to the left, to keep breathing and not freak out. I knew that if I moved I'd risk him slicing my jugular – you know, what Jack Bauer does to torture people with a slow, painful, blood oozing death. I gripped my mala beads and moved around the circle: "one bead, one breath," as my boss, Garret, told me to do. It relaxed me immensely and I would focus on my tense neck and try to release the muscles as best I could while Jack Johnson island tunes played in my ear and I visualized myself being anywhere but on that cold, steel table.

Luckily, the whole crew who performed the procedure were very cool and very laid back. All men - so there was a lot of talk about funny, raunchy movies. We talked a lot about Rocky - well, as much as I could through my little tent, about music, about Reggae. This helped to keep me at least mildly sane.

After about an hour it was all over. All I could think about was getting something to eat. At this point I was seeing stars as all I had in me were drugs and I was loopy from the strength it took to make it through that placement.

Now after 3 p.m., I was wheeled into post-op where Craig was waiting. When he asked me how it went, all I could muster was "I got through it and that's all I can say right now." I got teary even thinking about trying to explain it and had no desire to even know what this new outgrowth of my neck looked like.

The nurse brought over a boxed lunch and it might as well have been foie gras tossed in caviar with a truffle sprinkle. I devoured that chicken salad croissant sandwich with abandon. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted, though at that point, even elementary school cafeteria brand meatloaf would have been melt-in-my-mouth luxurious. My headache faded and my shakes stopped.

Half-way through my sandwich Kathryn was back to get me for the red blood cell transfusion. I had to ask her for some time. I needed to get dressed, to eat, to breathe. It had been such a long day. We'd been at Smilow since 7 a.m. She gave me 20 minutes before I had to be back up on the medical oncology unit. I chewed and breathed and got my bearings back.

We reconnected with my mom who had been waiting patiently in the lobby and were back to the heated recliner in a different pod this time. These nurses were not happy to see that I was there for a transfusion that late in the day. They certainly did not want to stay past their shift. I was so tired that I had no strength to feel offended. But my mom and Kathryn took care of that, ensuring that no, my blood bag would not be taken down at 5 p.m. and that there would be a late nurse there to care for me.

It was more Tylenol and more Benadryl then one unit of red blood cells. Kathryn told me that after the effects of these transfusions set in I would feel like a demi-God the next day and then a super hero when I received another unit the following day. I did not believe it at the time that's for sure as I felt like a slug that had been shriveled on concrete after a punky kid dumped salt on me.

It was 5:45 p.m. and finally the IV beeped that the transfusion was over. Sunshine came and took my temp - 100.2. She was just as upset as I was knowing that this was not good. I begged that they didn't have to keep me. Luckily, it was cleared that I could go home with instructions to take my temp that night again before bed. If I spiked a fever I had to call the on-call fellow and would likely have to come back to Yale.

On the more than one-hour drive home in the rain all I wanted was pepperoni pizza. I have not eaten pepperoni in years. My dad obliged when we called him from the car and by the time we arrived home, there he was at my house with a piping hot one from Little City.

As tired as I was, it was hard to sleep with the two prongs sticking out of my neck and the worry that if I turned the wrong way, the whole catheter would yank out. I think both Craig and I slept with one eye open. But good news was that I was fever-less.

On Tuesday it was back to Yale and with all the pre-work that was done on Monday, it was finally time to actually collect my stem cells (after a transfusion of one more unit of red blood cells). On this day, morning blood work showed that my CD-34 indicator had risen from 20 to 103 overnight. This was a great sign and showed promise that I would easily have enough to collect in likely just one day on the machine.

My nurse was Winsome, the same woman who had examined my veins the day before, a wickedly smart woman with an easy and contagious laugh and a musical Caribbean accent. She answered myriad questions that Craig and I asked with well explained answers and gave us a much greater understanding of how the whole process worked. She also had fun teasing Craig (it seems all the nurses do), worried that he wouldn't be able to handle all the blood and the set-up as he kept getting all smily and giggling. She jokingly threatened to kick him out for fear of him making me nervous. But she quickly learned that Craig is always smiling and laughing – that's just how he rolls. And that he has a deep fascination of all the gadgets, needles, tubes, dressings, drugs involved in all of this.

After she got me all hooked up to the apheresis machine, she said from that point on it would be like watching paint dry. To us, it was fascinating. And, I got two blankets out of the warming oven, plus another delicious boxed lunch on the house. Just as Kathryn said, I did feel like a demi-God with so much more energy from the transfusions.

Turns out, the CD-34 predictor was right. In just four hours, they were able to collect from me 12 million stem cells to be frozen for my later use. This is much more than I'll even need, which is 7.5-10 million, to have enough to recover from the chemo. I was so relieved and feel confident that this is a sign of more good things to come from this whole stem cell transplant process.

Yesterday, it was back to Yale, but this time I was excited because I was going there to get the Quinton catheter taken out. The doctor took me into a private room and with lots of disinfecting ointment, a clip of the sutures, and a swift yank while I had to "hold my breath and bear down like I was having a bowel movement," my jugular was once again free. The doc immediately jammed gauze backed by his two strong fingers into the hole in my neck and held the pressure for a solid five minutes to stop the bleeding then dressed it in more thick gauze and clear covering. Being able to sleep on my right side again without the worry of waking up in a pool of my own blood last night was heaven.

Step one is over and I couldn't be happier with the results.

Craig videotaped me explaining the whole stem cell collection process in the embedded You Tube video. It is much easier to describe with a visual as the whole collection is not necessarily an intuitive process or one that's easy to wrap your brain around. Hopefully this is mildly helpful:

Old Dogs That Have Now Gone to Heaven

I found this old picture in a box this morning. The Border Terrier is Haddie, the black dog is Barney (a terrier mutt) and the Welsh Terrier is the original Stuff, my folks' dogs. This must be around 1985 or so.

Barney was not the most useful dog I ever owned (that would be Sailor), but he was certainly the smartest. In fact, Barney was so smart, I think he could have done my taxes!
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GOP Mayor Blasts Obama on Gun Control

Michael Bloomberg, the Republican mayor of the largest city in the United States, has come out to blasting Barack Obama for not doing more to support gun control.

Of course, as I have written in the past, gun control in and of itself, does nothing to stem violence; it is a false cure for deeper social problems.

And, as I have noted in the past, Barack Obama did not campaign on gun control; in fact he promised that his Administration would do nothing in that arena.

Of course the NRA bed-wetters cannot be placated by fact and observed history. Fear, after all, is the only thing they have left to sell.

• Related Links:
  ** The Liberal Case for Gun Ownership
  ** Support Mental Health or I'll Kill You
  ** Bed Wetters and the Second Amendment
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Prince

Prince is a joyful little mug. Acrylic on 5x7
panel board.

How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?

A few days ago, I mentiond Edward Tufte's great book on the visual display of quantitative data. Tufte also has a web site that celebrates good data presentations, including these three produced by New York Times illustrator Megan Jaegerman.
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Basenji's: A Classic Tale of Kennel Club Defect

Modern African Basenjis after a hunt.

In correspondence this weekend, a reader wrote to note that not all was darkness in the American Kennel Club.

For example, when Basenji's began to present with jaw-dropping rates of hemolytic anemia in the 1970s, a test for the disease was developed and affected animals were then culled.

Unfortunately, the now smaller gene pool came down with a new disorder, an eye problem called persistent pupillary membrane, which was quickly followed by a kidney disease called Fanconi syndrome, and IPSID (a fatal malabsorption syndrome).

To combat these three diseases, it was decided to open up the U.S. Basenji registry to increase genetic diversity within the breed.

That does sound like a positive thing, doesn't it?

Sadly, however, the tale does not survive scrutiny.

In fact, it underscores the real problem with Kennel Club thinking.

To start with, let's state the obvious: the Kennel Club did not create the Basenji.

This breed has been around since before recorded history, and is a landrace dog used for hunting in the tropical jungles and scrub brush regions of central subSaharan Africa.

Point two is as important as point one: this breed is not about to go extinct in its native lands.

Basenjis are still used as hunting dogs throughout central Africa, and it takes little or no effort to find excellent specimens in nearly every local village.

So exactly where is the dog in trouble, and why?

The short answer is that the Basenji is only in trouble in the western industrialized world, and it is only in trouble because of the kennel club's closed registry system.

The full story is told here in a paper from the July 2007 Bulletin of the Basenji Club of America, but suffice to say that in the U.K. the breed was founded with just 7 dogs, while in the U.S., the breed was founded with just 9 dogs.

A few more dogs were added in to the mix over the years but, as the paper notes:

"[T]he Basenji modern population was derived from 18 original progenitors, with varying degrees of gene representation."

Even this overstates the genetic variability found within the modern Basenji, however.

As the Basenji Club of America notes, much of the founding stock in both the U.K. and the U.S. did not contribute much in terms of get. In addition, due to the popular sire effect, the true male "founder" side of the breed is really no more than four or five dogs. In fact, just three dogs -- Bongo of Blean, Wau of the Congo, and Kindu -- are estimated to represent over 95% of the Y chromosomes in modern AKC dogs!

In response to the collapsing and inbred genetic mess that is the Kennel Club Basenji, the AKC has now decided to open up the registry to dogs imported from Africa provided they can pass a 10-step hurdle.

Of course, no one is asking the most obvious question: Why do we need Kennel Club Basenjis at all?

The answer, of course, is that Kennel Club Basenjis are needed so people can win ribbons showing these dogs, and perhaps make a little cash breeding them as well.

Is there any other reason to ever own a Kennel Club dog?

Of course, some folks are always looking for a "project" or a cause, and the Basenji serves them well in that regard.

If they tell the story right, they can convince themselves and others that they are trying to "save" a rare breed, and never mind that the dog is not rare and does not need "saving"!

And so the push is on, once again, to import a few more dogs from the Congo, Benin and Cameroon.

And what will this achieve in the end? Not much.

Yes, the rate of genetic collapse of the Basenji within the AKC may slow down a bit, but the numbers imported are going to be so low that they will only change the velocity, not the direction, of the curve.

And, of course, the registry is not going to stay open forever, is it?

Once it closes, dominant sire selection will again raise its ugly head, and the gene pool will once again choke down, and inbreeding will continue apace.

In the interim, a few dog dealers will have made a profit selling "outcross" dogs imported from Africa, but not much else will have been achieved.

The good news for the Basenji is that the survival of this breed does not depend on Kennel Club "saviors."

Darwin and the hand of God are still working, as they always have, to save and preserve the Basenji. As Susan Shott has noted:

The owners of African Basenjis do not provide veterinary care for their dogs, and they do not interfere with their dogs' breeding. This insures that African Basenjis are subjected to the rigors of natural selection. Dogs with genetic problems that reduce their fitness early will be much less likely to breed than healthy dogs. For this reason, African Basenjis are less likely than American Basenjis to have serious genetic health problems

Right. But there's more to it than that isn't there? You see, the working African Basenji was not created in a closed registry system, and today's healthy dogs are not maintained in a closed registry system.

Let's not forget that.

And let's not forget that today's unhealthy, non-working American and European Basenjis are a byproduct of a closed registry system that has resulted in nothing but genetic defect cropping up within this breed.

But thanks to God and Africa, we can say: No loss. The Basenji is still alive, well and thriving in its native land.

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End Note:

Novus sends an email (thanks!) with some data (and links!) which I will summarize:

• Fanconi Syndrome. While the Basenji folks themselves said they though it was just 1 or 2 percent dogs in 1979, a 1990 survey with 624 respondents, heavily skewed to reputable breeders, found 10 percent of of all Basenjis involved in the survey had Fanconi syndrome, and of these dogs, 76 percent were still breeding their dogs.
• Hemolytic Anemia. When testing was started, twenty per cent of all dogs had the recessive gene. A cull of about 18 percent of the dogs seems to have ensued, a phenomenal reduction in a gene pool that was already very narrrow, as noted.
• Hyperthyroidism. As of 2005, there were forty-four (44) basenjis registered with the OFA Thyroid registry, and of these, 15.9% have been diagnosed as having hereditary autoimmune lymphocytic thyroiditis putting the breed very high up for thyroid problems
• Persistant Pupillary Membrane: "PPM is a very common problem in the basenji breed."
• IPSID (ImmunoProliferative Small Intestinal Disease) is also called "basenji enteropathy." Novus reminds me of my dicta: "Avoid any breed with a disease named after it."
• Bottom Line: There's a reason they have (twice!) opened up the registry to African stock
  
  
• Related Links:
  ** Basenjis, Diamonds and Magic Meat
  ** An Ancient Breed of Dog?
  ** When Did Your Breed Show Up at Westminster?
  ** Inbred Thinking
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Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

This is Lucy, my son's very young dog. She's a light-bodied Pit-cross who has terrific green eyes and a much redder coat than this picture suggests. I think she is going to end up looking quite a lot like a small Viszla. She loves Austin (who doesn't?) and curls up next to him to sleep.
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Crab Boil

Hey Hey Hey! A medley of seafood and

great food. Acrylic on 10x20 panel board.

Acrylic Painting

Hi, I just wanted to write a little about things I have learned. I needed some new paints and went to an art store at Birmingham. Forstalls Art Center. The nice gentleman there suggested that I try Golden Heavy Body Acrylics. I bought about 6 tubes which are quite expensive. What I learned is that they are worth it. They have high pigment and they dry slower allowing more time to work before they dry out. I am loving them. They are like thick butter consistency. So far so good. Of course I still use a fine atomizer to keep them moist.

Fly With A Peregrine Falcon And A Goshawk

The Goshawk footage is particularly good because, of course, all birds share this perspective as they zip through the trees.

Remember, as fast and nimble as a Goshawk is, there are birds that are a bit faster and a bit more nimble, otherwise none would ever escape!

Of course, few birds are as persistent as a Goshawk. Not for nothing did Attila the Hun wear an image of a Northern Goshawk on his helmet!

Along with the Northern Goshawk found in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, there is the Grey-bellied Goshawk, the Crested Goshawk, the Sulawesi Goshawk, the Red-chested Goshawk, the African Goshawk, the Chinese Goshawk, the Spot-tailed Goshawk, the Grey Goshawk, the Brown Goshawk, the Christmas Island Goshawk, the Black-mantled Goshawk, the Pied Goshawk, the Fiji Goshawk, the White-bellied Goshawk, the Moluccan Goshawk, the Grey-headed Goshawk, the New Britain Goshawk, the Black Goshawk, Henst's Goshawk, Meyer's Goshawk, Frances' Goshawk, the Gabar Goshawk, the Dark Chanting Goshawk, the Eastern Chanting Goshawk, the Pale Chanting Goshawk, the Red Goshawk, the Chestnut-shouldered Goshawk, and Doria's Goshawk.

Though the Northern Goshawk was mostly driven out of Maryland by logging around 100 years ago, there are a few pairs nesting in Garrett County in Western Maryland. I may be wrong, but I think I saw Steve Huy, a reader of this blog, on a TV show climbing a tree (a prusik knot and Jumar ascender rig) to weigh one year's batch of semi-fledged chicks.

More Goshawks are occasionally seen in Virginia and West Virginia, which serve as the southern terminus of their expected range.
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Spring is Sprung

With deep, deep snow preventing access to farms, followed by soaked ground, a storm-shattered house and greenhouse, and then a period of bronchitis-like illness (just recovering from that), I have been out of the field for a few months. About to fix that. This picture is not from this year, but the fields are starting to look a little green again. Time to get out and get digging!
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Day Off

SOLD
Day Off is an acrylic painting
on 10x20 panel board.

angelasacrylics@yahoo.com

The Stanley Milgram Dog Show

From the BBC comes this article about how the French have recreated the Milgram Experiment and put it on national TV as a game show:

A disturbing French TV documentary has tried to demonstrate how well-meaning people can be manipulated into becoming torturers or even executioners.

The hugely controversial Game of Death was broadcast in prime-time on a major terrestrial channel, France 2, on Wednesday.

It showed 80 people taking part in what they thought was a game show pilot.

As it was only a trial, they were told they wouldn't win anything, but they were given a nominal 40 euro fee.

Before the show, they signed contracts agreeing to inflict electric shocks on other contestants.

One by one, they were put in a studio resembling the sets of popular game shows.

They were then asked to zap a man they believed was another contestant whenever he failed to answer a question correctly - with increasingly powerful shocks of up to 460 volts.

I have written about the Milgram Experiment before. In that earlier post I raised the question as to whether a different kind of "Milgram Experiment" might be going on with dog breeds and breed standards:

People know that breeding very large dogs and very small dogs results in a very high, and very predictable, amount of painful canine pathology, ranging from cancer and bloat to syringomyelia.

People know that breeding achondroplastic and brachycephalic dogs results in a very high, and very predictable, amount of long-term breathing problems, joint problems, and heart disease.

People know that breeding Bloodhounds results in dogs that will often be in pain due to bloat, gastric torsion and cancer, and that more than half of these dogs will be dead by age 7.

So why do people do it?

Simple: they are simply "following directions."

The directions are written down in a "breed standard" created by a nameless, faceless group of people who claim "history" as their guide even when the history is entirely invented.

The directions say that no dog can be bred outside of the Kennel Club's closed registry system.

The directions say that a pure breed dog is better than a "mongrel" gotten from the pound

The authority is the Kennel Club.

The pain administered to the dogs is minimized by "expert breeders" and Club potentates who spend considerable amounts of time and energy denying, rationalizing and explaining away defect, deformity and disease in their breeds, and who also routinely lie to potential puppy buyers about breed longevity.

Deaf dog? Never had one.

Uric acid stones? Not in my line.

Heart problems? Oh, that occurs sometimes among "backyard breeders" but never in the kennels of the board members of the breed club.

Cancer, skin conditions and eye problems? That just comes with the breed.

In fact, only the best Chihuahuas have moleras, and only the best Finnish Spitz's have epilepsy, and only the best herding dogs have the merle gene which is so often linked to deafness.

Defect is proof of quality!

In a world in which people will administer killing levels of electric shock to other people on voice command alone, it should come as no surprise to find many people are able to rationalize breeding dogs that will be in pain or discomfort for much of their lives.

After all, it's not like every dog in even a deeply troubled breed will have a painful defect.

And if it happens, it can easily be fobbed off as a "bad break" . . . for the owner of the dog.

And yes, that is how we say, isn't it?

Oh your [cancer prone breed] is dying of cancer? I'm, so sorry for the terrible expense.

Your dachshund has to be put down with a spinal cord injury? I'm so sorry for your loss.

Are you getting another one?

Oh good! It would be a shame if you let that one dog change your opinion of the breed!

• Related Links
  ** Kennel Club Dog Owners "Just Following Orders"
  ** Does the Breed Standard Require a Rape Rack?
  ** Deformity and Disease Due to Exaggeration
  ** The Dalmatian Club Embraces Purity and Pain
  ** The Boston Terrier: Defective by Design
  ** The National Dog Show Salutes a Genetic Wreck
  ** Breeding Dogs for Intentional Defect
  ** Great Scots Magazine: Pushing for Better Health
  ** Massive Recall of Defective Pugs
  ** Inbred Thinking
  ** Making and Breaking Dogs in the Show Ring
  ** The Kennel Club: When Truth is Inconvenient, Lie
  ** Kennel Club Inbreeding: Data Revealed
  ** The AKC, Facing Extinction, Banks on Misery Pups
  ** AKC Registrations Down 53 Percent in 15 Years
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The Call of the Pileated Woodepecker

A Pileated Woodpecker calls while excavating a nest hole near Creston, B.C. The Pileated Woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in North America, with a wingspan of almost 3 feet. The woodpecker in the video is a male -- you can tell by the red stripe on the side his face (i.e. the "malar" region) and by the fact that the very front of his forehead and crest is red. In females, these regions are black.
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• Related Posts
  ** Knock, Knock, Knocking on Heaven's Door
  ** David Sibley on Ivory-bills, Science and Priorities
  ** God's Mortising Machine
  ** A Pileated Woodpecker Was Here
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Entering the Unknown ... Again

To say that I'm not a little anxious about the start of this stem cell transplant procedure tomorrow would be a lie. The hardest part of preparing myself for it is that I really can't prepare, at least not mentally.

I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around it all and there are still so many unknowns and so many variables. I am a planner by nature and am also a very visual person. I like to know what I've got coming at me. But tomorrow, we'll be on the road at 5:30 a.m., arriving in a brand new cancer center that I've never been to filled with nurses I've never met and spaces I've never explored.

It's possible that we'll arrive tomorrow (I'll have Mom and Craig in tow) only to find after my bloodwork is read that my blood cells aren't ready for retrieval. If this is the case, we'll have to turn right back around – try again tomorrow.

If my bloodwork is good then the nurses will examine my veins for their viability and determine if they're strong enough to handle the apheresis machine process. If they're determined to be too scarred, too difficult to work with, then it's in for yet another surgical procedure. Hence, I can't eat or drink tomorrow morning, one of my least favorite directives. They'll have to put another catheter into a large vein in my chest, a temporary one called a Quinton catheter, which has an in and an out valve.

So, as you can see, the order of events and really what those events are is all up in the air. I'm just trying my best to let go of control and let whatever needs to happen happen. I hope the nurses are prepared for a peppering of questions as I try to understand all of this.

It's not just tomorrow's possible procedure and the whole harvesting process, but it's also the fact that now I'll be receiving my care at Smilow Cancer Center, a behemoth of a place that I have never stepped foot in before. It's a brand new facility, which is exciting, but I don't know the city of New Haven at all; I don't have the lay of the land; I don't know any of the people that work there; and I've only met my new oncologist for a brief 15 minutes back in February.

This is a far, far cry from what I am used to. I know Hartford Hospital in and out because, well, I work there. I know all of the lab techs, secretaries, and nurses at the cancer center and they all know me by name, they know my case, they know where I'm coming from and where I'm going. I know who gives the good shots. I know who to ask for when I need something. I know all the procedures and how the place runs. I have the phone numbers at the Avon and Hartford offices memorized. I even know all the valet parking attendants at the cancer center. I don't even need to hand them my stamped ticket, they just know my car and go and get it for me. And of course above all, I'm going to miss Dr. Dailey and the rapport and understanding we've established.

Now it's time to get used to a whole new world. I just hope that I can turn these unknowns into understoods. I just have to remind myself that this is how I must have felt last May when I was first diagnosed and had no idea what chemo really was, had never heard of Hodgkin's disease, never mind a port-a-cath, platelet count, prophylactic antibiotics, anal fissures, skin burns, embryo creation, and bleomycin side effects. I did my studying and have passed the first set of exams. I guess it's time for second semester?

We'll start with finding the right parking garage.

The Carol

Painting this boat reminded me of an

old shrimp boat my dad used to own.

We, my dad, brother, sisters and I set

out for a nice day of shrimping. A tremendous

storm came up and almost capsized our

53 ft shrimper. I have never been so scared

in my life. Acrylic on 10x20 panel board.

Marines Say Enough is Enough

No more Semper Fido.

Nine months ago, Marine bases across the nation laid down the law: Marines owning full or mixed breeds of pitbulls, Rottweilers, wolf-dogs mixes or any breed with "dominant traits of aggression" would have to register their dogs by April 1, 2010 and apply for a waiver if they wanted to continue to live on base and get taxpayer-subsidized housing.

The order came from General James Conway, the Marine Commandant, and stated the reason for new rules:

"The rise in ownership of large dog breeds with a predisposition toward aggressive or dangerous behavior, coupled with the increased risk of tragic incidents involving these dogs, necessitates a uniform policy."

Now, with only a few days to go until the deadline, Camp Lejeune reports that only about a quarter of the 200 dogs in the "vicious breed" category known to live in base housing have been registered.

Meanwhile, at other bases, dog trainers report that some dogs that have come forward to be trained for a Canine Good Citizenship certificate have proven to be more vicious and more poorly socialized than the trainers expected.
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Some enchanted evening.....

In a little greenhouse in a garden...
among the rows of twisted grapevines.....
near the Northern coast of California......
Magic was spun with lanterns and lights, flowers and faerie dust, fabulous food and fantastic friends.....
as we toasted my dear friend Patricia and celebrated her birthday. Life is good.
Beautiful photos and decor, courtesy of Pat and Greg.

The Life and Death of a Plastic Bag

Link

Struggling with its immortality, a discarded plastic bag (voiced by Werner Herzog) ventures through the environmentally barren remains of America as it searches for its maker.

Yeah, I know, a little long, but pretty good all the same. Plus, it's Werner Herzog as a plastic bag! It starts off looking for its maker, but ends up looking for the vortex. And in the end, the plastic bag wishes for just one thing ....

Hats off to Ramin Bahrani who wrote, directed and edited this little masterpiece.
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Clichés

As a writer I try to avoid clichés, phrases that are at times so overused that they become meaningless. But lately, I find there are a few that I ponder often for their veracity. I've come to realize that they've become clichés because they succinctly say "it". "It" being what we're trying to convey, wrapped in a tight phrase, tied with a neat bow, for a package that's easily relatable to anyone. So today, I'm letting my cliché guard down and am going to give credit to these phrases that have passed from generation to generation for a reason.

"There's No Place Like Home

I couldn't say it better myself. Home is where the heart is ... . I love, love, love our home. I love its covered porch. I love its big picture window. I love its dining room skylights. I love its gingerbread trim. I love that it's a hybrid space of old and new. I love thinking about what happened in the 1800s Baptist church that it once was. But most of all, I love how I feel when I'm in it. We've decorated it freshly and eclectically – our personalities on display. I feel so comfortable here, and there is no place I'd rather be, especially when I'm feeling awful. I love that I can snooze on our sectional couch – a fantastic Craigslist find – and gaze at the georgeous Japanese maple outside the living room window. I love that our bedroom is so airy and filled with sunshine when I awake each morning. There's nothing better than sitting in my rocking chair reading on the front porch or talking with our neighbors – neighbors that are beyond what one could ask for.

"This Too Shall Pass"

People often say this to me and I often say it to myself. It's one of those phrases that's hard to believe when you're in the middle of "this," but once you come out the other side you realize that nothing is forever. I felt so, so, so awful for several days following ICE chemo and at the time it was hard to comprehend that I'd ever get back to myself again ... but I did. It amazes me every single time how much my body can be knocked down and still have the capacity to bounce back. So it's true, no matter how much harder each step in this process has been, there is always an end and soon enough the pain is a distant memory – so distant that it's hard to even remember how badly I felt.

"Dog is (Wo)man's Best Friend"

I never feel alone because I always have Sammy's companionship. She's there laying on my feet when I'm curled up on the couch. Or, more often, laying right on top of me. She follows me into the bathroom. She sleeps on her doggy bed and watches me with one eye open when I'm feeling particularly bad and have to retreat to my bed upstairs.

A neighborhood kid summed it up best. Craig and I were sitting in our anti-gravity chairs on the lawn the other day and this little boy with dark chocolate skin and milk chocolate eyes and the bounciest tousle of dreds came into our yard and said:

"Excuse me. Can I play with your dog?," pointing over at Sammy who was rolling around in the grass with her tongue dangling wildly.

"Sure," we said.

They played for nearly an hour. They played fetch with the tennis ball. They passed the close-to-airless basketball treasure that Sammy once miraculously and instinctively dug up from nearly 2 feet underground beneath the pine tree. They chased each other around the yard.

While tousling her ears, we overheard the boy say to Sammy: "Sammy, if you were a human, you'd be a really good person."

I concur.

"What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Stronger"

I know now more than ever what I'm made of and that no matter what challenge I'm faced with, I can conquer it. I know this is a valuable lesson that will serve me well – it already has. I don't necessarily believe this cliche as it is, but more a modified version. I think that what doesn't kill us gives us the opportunity to realize how strong we already are. That it's not the adversities that make us strong. Instead, the adversities bring out the best in us. There've been many times that I've looked back on a particularly bad blood drawing session or a surgical procedure and thought, How the hell did I get through that? I'm sure there are many more of those moments to come, but it's tests like this cancer journey that has made me realize how strong, adaptable and resilient I am and truly believe that this is the case for anyone faced with something of this magnitude. If there is a good thing to come out of the war that is cancer, it's that you learn that you can conquer the battles.

"You Don't Know What You've Got 'Till It's Gone"

To say that I've learned to better appreciate everything in my life is putting it lightly. Going through these treatments that have knocked me on my ass at times has taught me how much I appreciate my body, my mind, my abilities, and my freedoms. Being tied down to a strict regimen of daily doctor appointments, being quarantined, and being out of my body and out of my mind at times has made me realize how good I have it. Not having full control of my life right now has allowed me to step back and take a look at myself and everything and everyone in my life from all different angles.

I'll keep these clichés in my back pocket to reflect on from time to time as this journey surely isn't over ... it's only just begun ... and won't be over until the fat lady sings. I've heard it through the grapevine that it won't be a walk in the park, but I'll look for the light at the end of the tunnel and keep on keeping on with my eye on the prize – one step at a time. I'll make lemonade out of lemons and find the silver lining in every cloud.

Coffee and Provocation

Pitbull Eats Police Cruiser:
Winston, a "pitbull mix" has left four cars -- two of them Chattanooga police patrol vehicles -- with flat tires and at least one with a missing bumper because of his aggression. Rather that order the euthanization of the dog, the court has ordered the owner to take Winston home and taken him to court-ordered obedience training. Anyone want to guess how this ends up after reading that the owner thinks it's amusing that his dog went nuts, ripped through two fences, destroyed four cars, and was pepper sprayed and tasered by the police?

Dogs as Guinea Pigs and Mutant Messes:
Here's a post on ten ways dogs have helped advance medicine. The bad news is that the dogs have mostly helped advance medicine because so many breeds are mutant messes that they readily present with genetic diseases thanks to Kennel Club inbreeding. Of course, dogs have also helped advance medicine because they are so easily bred and abandoned, meaning that they are cheap guinea pigs. Therapy animals would seem to fall outside of either bin, but I am not sure they actually qualify as an advance in medicine. What does qualify (and is not mentioned) are seeing eye dogs and other assistance animals.

Dogs are Not Pack Animals?
Dogs are not pack animals, we are told, and never mind the fox hound packs and packs of wild dogs seen all over the world. And this? Ceci n'est pas une pack!

Camera Trap Law Enforcement:
Camera traps are now being used as surveillance cameras to catch camp ground vandals, illegal dumpers, trespassers, pot growers, and poachers, and also to monitor deep-sea commercial fishing boats. Not only are camera traps a low-cost force multiplier, but they also provide evidence which is very hard to argue with in court.

David Allen Sibley Paints A Feruginous Hawk:
Check out this slide show to see how David Allen Sibley works. To order any of his books, click here.

My New Computer Desk Top?
Yes, I may switch to this one. The icons go on the shelf, with temporary save files on the bulletin board. Nice!

Napoleon's March into Russia:
Back when rocks were soft, I bought a first edition of Ed Tufte's book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, which has some great stuff in it. One of those great things is a combined map, timeline and troop count story of Napoleon's march into Russia. It's now available as a stand-alone poster. And yes, I am a geek.

Appropriate T Shirts for Caffeine People Like Me:
I like this one quite a lot, but would never wear it. I would wear this one for sure.

A Tribeca Coyote That is Not Robert DeNiro:
Yes, another coyote has been found in Manhattan -- this one a young female in Tribeca, between Greenwich Village and the Battery (where the World Trade Center used to be). Previous posts on NYC coyotes here and here.