Our pithy Patrick Burns, the irascible Terrierman and dogged policy wonk, appeared this week on the prime-time ABC news magazine Nightline. The story by Nick Watt titled, “Best of Breed? Pedigree Dogs Face Disease” picks up on the saga of Kennel Club and Cruft’s dog shows recently put on the defensive by a BBC expose …
Author: Matt Mullenix
Photos from Henry
I hope he doesn’t mind. It might have helped to ask… But Henry sent some nice photos from our Blogger meet-up last weekend, and I wanted to share. I posted some cell-phone quality videos of the squirrel hunting below; here are better images of the hawking portion of the trip. First stop, a walk across …
On Sale Now
Over a Terrierman’s Daily Dose, Patrick has enlisted Darwin himself to help thumb his nose at the dog show world. Need a tote bag?
Poetry
The Chronicle Review brings us another interesting editorial, this one on “poets’ puffery,” the phenomenon of grade inflation as it relates to the reputation of contemporary poets. Evidently, the calibre of poetry today is uniformly “excellent,” at least according to its own press. In contrast, author Jeffery Gray, professor of English and editor of The …
Blogger Meet-up
One of the Moodys of Moody Ranch Outfitters met us with a smile and a handshake, then led us inside to sign our “Dick Cheney papers” (his words). Fortunately, our hunting party held no lawyers nor vice presidents. I’m back today from a weekend with friends Gregg and Soo Barrow of Covenant Kennel, in Montgomery, …
Wrong On So Many Levels
From the AP this morning. Maybe you saw it? VIENNA, Va. – Thomas Shepler, a hand surgeon, shot a hawk to death in his backyard when he said the bird was eyeing a young squirrel that he and his wife had helped raise.Shepler, 65, said the hawk had previously killed an adult squirrel near his …
An Important Public Service Announcement
One of the news feeds I receive at the office is the Daily Report from The Chronicle of Higher Education; it covers a broad range of issues relating to university administration, faculty development, fundraising, legislative news relating to academia, and the occasional rave or rant about “kids these days.” The related Chronicle Review offers space …
Merry (belated) Christmas, etc.
We are generally opposed to political correct-ness and euphemism here, but I am sympathetic to the notion that Christmas is not for everyone. So: “Happy Holidays,” y’all.
Passage Peregrines
Thanks to Rebecca for sending news from the USFWS on their final decision–a long time coming–to allow a limited take of first-year migrant (a.k.a. in falconry, “passage”) peregrines. From the Service memo: “…American peregrine falcon populations continue to grow in the U.S.,especially in the West. The northern, or Arctic, peregrine falcon was delisted in 1995, …
In Defense of Hunting
At his good blog Sometimes Far Afield, Mike writes a post on the benefits of hunting, especially those we must articulate to others (in the vast majority) who do not hunt. He opens by responding to another blogger, who takes a civil libertarian tack in his reasoning on the issue: (“…hunting has, for many people, …