County Government can't get a DATE...

Update at the bottom...

I know I can't. But you'd think that when a COUNTY GOVERNMENT, at tremendous expense, prints a calendar to tout its accomplishments, SOMEONE would actually check that JUNE had the full thirty days.

My predictions- we never find out how much is spent on the calendars, no one is discharged, and thousands of dollars are spent on a reprint.

Because no one else gives away calendars in January. It's not as though people could get them anywhere else, so it's a critical government function to print and distribute calendars. At public expense.

I'm sure the printer was chosen at random, or the
bid was let. Certainly he's not a campaign contributor!

-UPDATE- Neither the electric nor dead tree newspapers covered this destruction of tax funds. The calendars were RECALLED, I wonder how much THAT cost. Not as though they could just be thrown away...

Yes, this is is the official Hamilton County, Tennessee calendar with the June mistake.

It's almost TELLTHEMDAY!

Love child of Postsecret and Talk Like A Pirate day.

Talk it up!

Hunting guilt...

When my hunt sends electric mail announcements- meet changes and such- the secretary always appends an "E Hunt Tip" at the bottom- don't let your horse kick hounds, things like that.

Today's message ended with:

"Editor’s Note: Because of the format of these e mails, and mostly because of the tremendous guilt with which each of you live, I receive many comments questioning whether the „E Hunt Tip“ is directed at you personally . . It is.

Happy New Year"

The mess that Greenspan made...

This post is by way of an introduction to themessthatgreenspanmade, a new blog roll entry. He's been warning about all this stuff for years now. Though to be fair, we statistically ALL wanted the money.

Free money. You get what you pay for.

Like anyone who understands that money's value is subject to supply and demand just like anything else (Thank you, Dr. Freidman!), I've seen the new inflation coming for years. The media have decided to call it a "housing" or "mortgage" bubble, but that's just merchandising.

As though mortgages were not just one of the conduits (like the war and the usual corporate, welfare, and medical subsidies/bribes) for pumping up the money supply.

Plus it will allow next year's class war candidates to talk about those "evil(R)bankers". You know, the ones who lent you "good (D) working people" money even though they knew you were deadbeats.

And of course it will create whole new swathes of dependents on government. Starting with the Chairman of the Deadbeat Bailout Administration.

But it's not a bubble, or connected directly to any commodity except fraud by our political servants. It's a plain vanilla money supply inflation- a general decline in the value of a particular currency.

Hold hard there, aren't house prices (the value of houses in relation to money)falling?

Yes, they are. At least the sales of houses are declining, I don't see them actually selling at a discount. But no other price is. U. S. dollars are sliding down the scale of value in relation to commodities and other non U. S. dollar controlled stuff like euros or gasoline.

Because the increase in the money supply drives down money's value, it took more and more to buy houses (and soldiers). While the newly created money was plowed into houses and blown up in humvees, its effects were less apparent. But gradually they have wormed their way into other parts of the economy, to the extent that people have stopped being the greater fool borrowing money, or have just decided to hold off spending it on non essentials.

The declining value money has stopped chasing houses, and started chasing dinner. At least that's my theory.

My projection? MORE inflation, when the bribe/bailout gives the deadbeats even freer money. And the war and subsidies are still driving merrily along.

Borrow to the limit now, buy solid assets, and pay back with less value cash. The same investment strategy that always seems to work in a fiat money economy.

Longer term, don't forget about the 401(k) Tax Forgiveness Act of 2012 (or 2016). The free money created to replace the deferred taxes the boomers won't want to pay will dwarf the mortgage write offs.

Anyway, welcome to the blog roll!

Hitler was right...

about tobacco, limited access highways, and Volkswagens.

If you are a vegetarian, he was right about that too.

If you're Senator Schumer or Boxer or Clinton, then you agree with him about the great public benefits of disarming the people.

Jackie Ballard or Paul McCartney? You are fully on the Fuhrer's team with that animal rights stuff.

And if you have ever espoused the "chickenhawk" argument, or believe that only soldiers should make military decisions, then Hitler is absolutely your man. Of all the significant twentieth century heads of state, he had far and away the most distinguished and serious combat record.

Poor Will Smith. Conservative yet?

As an aside, it interested me to see in one of the news articles a capsule biography of the late Chancellor. It said "Hitler's totalitarian leadership as Fuhrer during 1934 until his eventual suicide in 1945 resulted in the persecution of an estimated six million Jews in the Holocaust, and his invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the start of the Second World War."

(Yes, Hitler did that. All those cheering crowds were extras from Hollywood.)

I suppose fifty years from now the war will be a footnote to the camps. Or the war will have in the public mind happened because of them, like the emancipation of the slaves whoops, the enslaved- has become the reason the American Civil War came about.

Disturbing foods of France...

Most of the food was excellent. But this tea appears to be made from elephants.

And this, from woodchucks.

My first Christmas as an orphan...

Woo Hoo!

After two days in France,

struggling with the language, some people have difficulties. We were at the Boarhound meet, and one of the riders came by with some fairly odd spurs. R. pointed at them and said, "Look at those spurs, they have (holds hands up in fiddly gesture) round, round things on them."

"Rowels, R. I still speak English."

By the way, remember- low spurs mean high petticoats!

Christmas at Auschwitz...

Or maybe "Last train to Dachau".

Is it just me who thinks this Christmas plate is not as festive as it might be?

Reminders of War in the Hunting Field...

One of the interesting things about hunting in the north of France is that one constantly comes across reminders that the ground is consecrated and the flora fertilised by the blood of millions of men.

First are the names. Soissons, Chateau- Thierry, the Oise, the Aisne, the Marne. All names I heard as a child, from people who had not come here as tourists.

Then there are the memorials and cemeteries. Huge ones, of course- the American ones are immense, as are some of the French ones. It seems like every other sign directs one to the Carriere de l'Armistice.

In a way, even more powerful are what I call the solo pilot memorials. About a half dozen time this trip, I came upon these. They were all out in the woods, not signed or visible from a road, you wouldn't know they were there until you arrived. Each was modest and all different, probably put up by family, landowner, private subscription or local authority.

Each was to a single pilot who had crashed at that lonely forest spot. They gave details of name and date, sometimes a little more, but not much. The most elaborate, from 1940, still had the wig spar f the airplane there, with pictures of the pilot and his squadron. Trite but true, all so young.

Each one of these memorials was clearly being cared for by someone- they were cleared and clean. Whoever is doing t, thank you.

And then, there was this...

One day out hunting we barreled around a corner, up a road, and stopped. I stepped into the woods- right into a 105 howitzer firing pit. I looked left and right, and there were half a dozen. Across the road, another battery worth. Poorly sited, too- right along the road.

But they were still perfectly usable, all it would take would be cutting the trees that had grown up in them. I estimate these were from 1940, judging from those trees.

Just as spooky as could be.






I hope the men we gallop over rest in peace, if they can't share in the fun somehow. They made it possible after all- among his many awfulnesses, Hitler was an anti.

Rudeness, Thanking Service People and The Gratitude Campaign...

My penultimate day in England, I experienced rudeness and something good.

I stopped by a little pub, about quarter after twelve on a Thursday. It was cold and rainy, and the place was deserted- two women in their 60s running the place. I ordered lunch, which came cold.

How did they do that?

And wrong, too.

But the rudeness was in a couple of comments. "Well, it looks like we are going to have a depression because of your bad mortgages", and "I would never go to your country because I don't like guns."

No wonder the place was empty.

But toward the end of my lunch, an older man came in and started talking with one of the women about Christmas cards. He mentioned how pleased he was that he'd had a card from a Gurkha friend whom he'd met in India during the war, which of course meant 1939-45.

So naturally after I paid, I mentioned to him that I'd overheard his comment and that we were grateful for what he and his friends had done for us. Even though it was long ago and far away, lots of people are still mindful that exchange.

Which is by way of introducing The Gratitude Campaign. It's simple- the sign language word for "Thank You".

L'Amour des Sanglier...

Courtesy of F. These wild boar always looked prehistoric to my eye. But I love the "smile" on the near one.

The photographer is Stephan Levoye. The pictures he makes are beautiful. Here are a couple more:

I am injured again...

What is my problem? My friends up north have a new horse which suddenly refused to load. Really refused- turned backwards to the ramp over the leader, truly just defiant. It had always loaded fine before.

So idiot me offered to help. They had one of those heavy racing whips, and I stood to the side. When he reversed and backed up, I gave him a good thwack- at which point he swapped ends and kicked at me hard! Truly vicious, aimed right at my face with just one foot.

It's a good thing I have quick dodging reactions, but he still got my right hand fairly hard. Then of course he walked right up the ramp into the van. Just checking what he could get away with.

Too clever by far, this one.

NEW HUNTING REPORT RULE

I’m going to stop giving the names, locations, and dates of hunts. More on that later, but so it is.

@#$%^&*@#$%^&*#$%^&*#$%^&* antis.

To France...

We DROVE to France on Tuesday. So strange just to say it, never mind do it. In F.’s ride, a baby Jeep. They call it a Jeep Cherokee here. I suppose writing “Liberty” on the outside of a car contravenes some health and safety regulation. The tunnel is very smooth and an easy ride. We left Exmoor at six and were in our hotel at four.

Hotel is l’Abbaye at Longpont. Imagine my surprise when we arrived, it’s the place where I stopped to try to get dinner after the last day’s hunting there last year! A decent place, no flea bag.



Outside the hotel.

Most uplifting sight of the trip so far...

They came to the end of that bit of country and had to pick up to move to the next draw. In doing so we passed through Acton Turvil where I saw the most uplifting sight of the trip so far. Hounds went past the primary school, and it was recess. Every one of the children, fifty or so, lined the school yard wall to watch and cheer hounds. You can’t buy or force the grins we saw, or the whoops and cries of “Wicked!”

Most entertaining sight so far was the teacher. As her charges flowed like a tsunami from their usual games to the passing parade, she was obviously very upset. She shot a quiver full of disgusted looks at the brutal hunters, savage hounds, and deluded children. Then she turned angrily toward the building and stalked back. Clearly her pupils had failed to receive the message, and further indoctrination WOULD follow lunch.

Poor children. But eighty years from now, there might be some old old English man or woman who tells a child – almost secretly, because hunting is one of those things like slavery and the Empire about which we must appear to be ashamed- about the day the lovely hounds and powerful horses with their gorgeous riders passed right by the school grounds. Over there, where the MacTesco parking lot is now, beside the tower block apartments and the Mosque. And like the navvies and the knights, we will have become barely imaginable giants of the past.

Beaufort power changes...

Speaking of navvies, one of the feat-chahs of Badminton are the smoke towers. Back when the railroad came through, the old Duke gave permission on condition that the road be buried under the earth where it would otherwise be visible from the house. Since the smoke had to escape from the tunnels, big ventilating shafts were driven up to the surface. You see them in the midlands here and there, ten or fifteen foot circular walls (to keep the sheep from falling in, they are just the right height to overbalance a yokel) out in the middle of a field.

Well of course a round wall would just remind the Duke of what was underneath them, so he had crenellated towers built for a picturesque effect. A hundred and fifty years of vines nd trees have grown up around them now, and they look as though they really are medieval. Except for the odd proportions and straight lines.

As I looked at them, I reflected on the fact that the entire horizon was laced with electric pylons, and just behind me ran a four lane motorway.

Tempora mutantur.

East Cornwall meets the Beaufort...

Wednesday, we went north. A few months ago, Captain Farquhar was saying (at a hound show I think) that his hounds could hunt any country. The master of the East Cornwall took him up on it, and they traveled to Bodmin. Today the favor was returned, and the scrappy little rock crawling provincials trod the sacred soil of Badminton.

The meet was crowded. Some thirty ECH subscribers made the trip- TWO WHOLE HOURS!! There were another hundred and a few Beaufort people to add on. So it was about like one of their typical Saturdays. The ECH hounds were smaller and somewhat more varied than is typically found here, but they looked keen and were well scarred up. As all of my faithful reader know, I tend to like a hound with plenty of dings and nicks from getting in there and drawing. Dogs and bitches hunting together, too.

They found pretty quickly and hunted in a big loop around. Just as we do, they have a freeway right through the country. When it was built, the Duke of that day managed to insure that the wire along the verge was buried in the earth at the bottom. So it’s a physical barrier to quarry and hounds rather than an accident waiting to happen.

Hounds sounded wonderful, plenty of varied cry. It’s striking how after just one day under two hound rules in Somerset how much one misses the sound of a full pack.

So we hunted along some more, including a good long bit in a bog covert near the cross country course. Twice hounds came up to right where we were, but the quarry must have turned back. It was beautiful to listen to, though- the air was heavy and the cry really rang through the forest, that fragmenting and regrouping of sound waves colliding with the trees, the atmosphere, and each other. Just lovely.

When we stopped for second horses, I had the opportunity to meet Martin Scott, who is one of the great hound breeding experts of all time. He talked about the fact that the Beaufort had sent hounds to our pack in the 1930s. “But probably none of that line survive, because I believe there was a terrible distemper outbreak in your kennels a couple of years later.”

Encyclopedic knowledge does not begin to cover such a mind. Here he was in the middle of a field and upon being introduced to some American visitor, immediately upon finding out to which pack he belonged, was able to whip out information connecting the visitor’s pack with his own.

Nor does civility begin to cover his bothering to do that. Just to let a visitor feel noticed.

So at horse change, we stood around and waited among the hounds. They were a bit varied, smaller than the usual English hounds and more lightly built. I pointed out one bitch who was very like the black marked strain in our pack.

There was a girl there, a groom or hanger on, who was just lit up being with hounds. Very difficult to watch.

So off we went, and hounds drew hard into the first covert. Out came the quarry, and we watched it off across two fields into another wood.

Then there was another clear illustration of my pet variability of scent from hound to hound hobby. Hounds came out of covert on the line, and checked at the fence line. They milled and then cast themselves beautifully around the crossing spot. Only a couple of the 20c or so even noticed the line, which was at most 3 minutes old in cool, damp conditions across an empty grass field. (And the leading hound was the black one I had pointed out, thank you.)

And on we went, hounds hunting hard but most of them just couldn’t hold on to anything at all for long. A pity, their cry when rolling was beautiful.

And afterward, a feed in the village hall. The Beaufort was very welcoming and generous, once again defying the stereotype our enemies paint of us as exclusionary aristocrats.

#$%^&* BBC !

So all day I've been driving in England. Every half hour I hear, "A gunman opened fire on a crowded mall in Omaha Nebraska, killing eight. The gunman, (annoncer says name) left a note saying he wanted to go out in style".

ONCE AGAIN, from April 17,

Wouldn't it be fine if Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, or the editor of the Chittlin' Switch Morning News issued a statement like this?

"We hereby announce the following policy concerning coverage of mass killings. The people who commit these crimes will receive absolutely no coverage in our outlets. Their names will be unspoken, their goofy pictures unshown, their silly notes unread. Their lives will not be explored. Their trials and tribulations will not be exposed. Their families will not be interviewed. They are unpersons here. Anyone employed here who violates this policy, or refers to such killers with any terms other than killer, trash, coward, or loser will be discharged forthwith.

Go ahead and kill people, but you won't get any fame here."

My thought on all this is, doesn't just ONE media outlet have the decency and courage to not give the killer fame? These people do these slaughters because they know everyone will finally see and hear them. We'll read their rants, torment their parents and friends,know their names and faces.

The next mass killer is watching, too.

Last Hunting Day in France...

As usual, please click on these pictures- they have lots of detail in the larger versions.

The next day, stags at another forest. This was the pack that got me premonia last year in the mighty Oise. This time we met some distance away, in a somewhat rougher forest. The day was clear and warm, and the people very welcoming and friendly as they had been last time.
Even the ones who recognized me. R and F riding again, on rougher looking horses than day before yesterday.

Last year, I recall the huntsman telling me that they had several D&S hounds. I told him I could tell which ones, and pointed to several. “’ow did you know?”

I just pointed to the ones with one eye, or an ear off, missing teeth.The French hounds were all preeeeetty, ours looked like they had been in a lifetime of bar fights.

So on that day, they had been cussing and swearing at “Mascot”, a D&S transfer. At the meet this time, whose name do I hear?”



“Arrrrette, MASCOT!” He must hunt like crazy.

Off we went, I was in a car with three generations- grandfather, son, and grandson, all chasse followers. The youngest was even named Hubert!

They drew a recently cut area first.

I had a bit of excitement when a stag jumped from cover so close that he spattered mud on me! Not a huntable one though, too small. Then they picked up and moved, and I saw te only western style rider on the trip.





Moved on, to find in another block of forest. This one was less well maintained and parklike than Compiegne, and far hillier. The first stag was too small, a “dague”, what we call a pricket. Then they jumped a foursome- a good stag and three prickets. And, off! Hounds ran off and on, but they could not really hold tightly. One run was longish and fast, in a big loop. But it petered out, to be followed by long draws.

Some of the hunters were not so thrilled.


French hunters don't drink while out like we and the English do. But smokes were snuck.


It was an awfully pretty day.


Clearly there was not much scent, and hounds soon couldn’t cope. There was one point where a hid and calf crossed a hill side only a minute or two before hounds drew the same spot- not even a head down.


The huntsman tried hard, but had no luck. They overran a baby boar, which apparently does happen. After the self serve pork chop lunch, they did very little. Again not for want of trying by the huntsman, who really did make an effort. You can see from these pictures the sort of country with which he had to contend.







There was some confusion when he had to pick up hounds and move in response to viewings of deer in other places, too.

Then about three thirty it came on cool, and they struck. A quick run through the woods and toward a village, but again scent failed.

They kept trying, though. The run died out at the edge of some broad water meadows, a lovely end to the day.






Still a beautiful and interesting day.

Exmoor courtship...

While putting a log in the stve, F. was explaining how a local young lady of her acquaintance was trying to seduce a local young man. The friend had dressed in something slinky, put on music...

And at that moment the stove gave a thump. I said, "Whoa!"

And R. said, "That's more effective on Exmoor. Forget the lingerie, she can make fire!"

Cathedral and art musings...

Sunday, to Exeter at 110 mph! It’s a rental… Went to the Cathedral. It looks small and dense from outside, but as always glorious inside. The fan vaulting is a joy to gaze at, peaceful and powerful at once. As always, a marvel that they were laid out and built by men who had no conception of area, volume, or angles. They didn’t even have the numbers to do the math if they had thought of it!

Perhaps one day people will look at a Saturn V and make a similar comment.

Some think of these as means of social control, saying to people in mud huts “Look what our God can do!”

But I don’t know. The people did the actual construction work, and they would have known that the priests needed them to do it. I’m still inclined to see them as cooperative efforts of praise. To my eye and mind they are too graceful and welcoming to be the work of slaves.

Another thing occurred to me, reading about and thinking what it must be like to be an artist. Last week I was in Salisbury Cathedral, and yesterday the one in Exeter. Both are magnificent beyond description.

But I can imagine someone who designed one coming to visit the other. "Oh, this is so much better than mine! This vaulting is more delicate, and there is so much more light! I am awful!"

Whatever drives us to our best natures also shows our worst to us in the harshest light. That's the deal. Like violence or evil, the artistic end of the bell curve can't exist without the self critical. You wouldn't rather be stupid, insensate, and accepting of the ordinary, would you?

It seems to me that artists- people who envision, express, and make those real- must have it rough. That thing inside them has to be like the steam in an engine, expanding almost beyond control, driving them with a force they can't really contain. If they don't convert it to something, they will blow up like a boiler would.

R. said tonight that a particular artist was "disturbed", meaning mentally ill. But I wonder if artists are innately disturbed, that there is somehow too much inside them- the disturbance is internal and an element of who they are. A couple of people in my own life have been like that. So huge in the present moment that there was neither past nor future, just now. It's great to feel that way- sometimes I almost can again- but it's awfully strong.

Nothunting a fox...

Next day with the D&S. Two hounds of course. A pretty day on the moor, hounds tried and did succeed in flushing hinds. It really is amazing how “exempt hunting” is able to provide sport still.

Friday with foxhounds. Again hard hunting hounds in lovely country. Fine loud cry and plenty of drive with precipitous coombes. Like this one...



Under the new dispensation of course we are nothunting foxes, so there is no holloaing of foxes. Since we are nothunting them. So imagine my difficulty when we heard hounds running about a quarter of a mile away down the end of the coombe. And then…



Up and over he came. And just after he slipped over the ride, along came a whipper-in with half the pack! Uh oh…

Nothing. Ten or twelve couple went right over that fox’ track no more than half a minute after he crossed, and not even a sniff! Talk about no scent! Yet the other halfish of the pack was roaring right along. Not on this fox I might add, their quarry went along the coombe at the other end.

First day with the Quantock...

A half a mile down the road! We met a local fellow who once hunted actively, but had a bad brain injury. He had walked, in the cold rain, a couple of miles to hunt! We took him on board and carried him around through the day.

This day was “flushing”, that is, according to the Court’s judgment, we’re supposed to push deer toward guns. Here’s how ignorant the court is- how many guns? One for every deer in the woods. Sheesh.

Weather was drippy rain and cold. Very Homehunt like in that we were right in the forest, with no visual contact at all. Still both hounds worked hard. Two hinds were shot, I helped drag one out- backwards, with no rope.

One interesting incident happened at hanged man’s tree,a little forest clearing. We were waiting there, and a couple of little old ladies parked too- one was the bag lady. It’s an irritant to me that "those damned foot people" park their cars in such a way as to partly block the roads, angering and endangering every non hunting voter who comes along.

So anyway, bag lady parked half in the road on a blind curve in the woods. Then suddenly I heard a groaning and moaning- here came a CEMENT TRUCK barreling along. Fortunately he swerved, but it was close. Ah yes, making friends.

The guns are something you wouldn’t see in the U.S. They are break open twelve gauges, but they have some sort of barrel constriction which takes them out of the “shotgun” class and into the “firearm” class. Shotguns are the least regulated class of guns here, requiring far less formality to possess. The barrel is short, less than 24 inches, which puts in in the class of “slaughter weapon”. This means that it can be used near a road. They have open sights and are loaded with buckshot.

Seems like a slug and a dot sight would do better.

Afterward we went back to kennels to watch the carve up of the deer. It’s interesting how little fat there is on an animal compared to even a fit human.

The Fall o Frome...

The Fall o Frome

Flight was uneventful, my seat mate was a ten year old boy of Indian descent, with his family traveling to London. Very quiet, I slept through all but five minutes.

Went to the car hire and signed off, an upgrade! A small car rather than a tiny one. And off!

On to Frome, where I spent the night. I stayed in a modern sort of hotel outside town, then went in to have a feed. You know this talk about binge drinking in our city centres? Even here! I went in to dine at the George Hotel, whoa! The bar room next door was booming, aggressively tarted up girls and criminal looking men staggering in and out of the door, shouting and screaming. THREE big burly bouncers! In FROME!

Overheard in England...

'I'm not as gay as I seem like I am',

and

'My French vocabulary does not extend to the names of ecclesiastical buildings'.

On separate occasions.

More tomorrow, I'm restricted to dial up.

Stripper goes to the psychiatrist...

"Doctor, I have this recurring dream where I'm at work, everything is fine and then suddenly I'm wearing slacks and a blouse..."


The other day I was driving along, musing on anxiety dreams. I too have dropped out of dream school, and quit dream work too. (So now that am I a dream illiterate bum, where's my dream welfare?)

Aaanyway, I was thinking about the dreams I once had where I'm at work, and everything is fine, and then I realise I'm undressed below the waist. No one else minds, that's how I know it's a dream.

And the thought jumped into my mind, if I were a stripper would I dream I had trousers on?

At what point would the dream adapt? When I was a groom, the dream was being unprepared- the extra girth not packed or the spare stirrup leather still in the trunk instead of on me. When I changed to a credentialed, grown up profession I became prepared but naked.

How about part time, this is just temporary strippers? Are they naked at the day job instead? Both? How about other naked(ish) workers- life guards, Olympic divers? Do ballet dancers dream of climbing boots?

I don't know any strippers, but the internet does, so I started googling and found Dreams From A Sleepy Stripper, which is now on the blog roll. I too am at times fascinated by dreams and what they, and the act of dreaming, and our shared dream worlds, mean. Good movie, animal, and death insights, too. It's worth a look!

I still want to know if strippers dream of wearing clothes, and now I have plenty of new things to think about!

Thank you, Google...

For recognizing Armistice day.
An Adrian helmet next time too, for our French, Italian, and Portuguese allies.

But thank you.

Speaking of social skills,

I was reminded of something my littermate said to me years ago, when I was first talking about divorce.

LM- "You know, a lot of the women out there have children. I'm... wondering... how you will deal with that."


SH-"Of course I will treat them just as well as I would anyone."


LM- "That's exactly what I was afraid of!"

Disgusting behaviour in the hunting field...

I cannot believe that this happened, in MY home pack! In plain view, even of children. What a terrible example to the hunters of the future.



I know, people pawing each other is perfectly unexceptionable.

But these two are married.

To each other!

Hunting is going to hell on a greased skid.

A commenter writes, "Pot Kettle Black".

SO not true. If married people want to be affectionate, there are plenty of places to do that. The hunting field is not one of them. Exhibitions of marital devotion will ruin the reputation we have fu-, er, worked so hard to obtain.

It's bad enough to see these giant mushroom helmets that make us look as though we are afraid of a little more dain bramage.

I once hunted with a Master who was proudly described by the members as "the greatest adulterer in England". If people start thinking we are all devoted and monogamous and stuff, then all we have left of the brand is drink and stupidity. We may as well be football devotees then.

HURRRRRRAAAAAHHHHH!

FMD restrictions are lifted!

Hunting holiday is BACK ON.

It looked as though I would have had to go to France for the whole time.


Whooooooooo WOOP!

Madness? This is Staghounds!

Madness? This is Staghounds!

Which movie was this quote from?

Odd Russian pistol...

Oleg and Tam should know about these!




I wonder if these are firearms in New York?

The OSA sidesteps this technicality by billing itself as a non-lethal weapon, a sort of beefed up BB gun. But BB gun it ain't. The OSA is a bonafide kinetic energy weapon that can cause some real damage at close range. Although it doesn't shoot metal-tipped bullets, it shoots just about anything else: rubber bullets, flares, and small shock grenades (which are capable of blinding and rendering an entire room of individuals unconscious). Any Russian citizen can buy one.

Magnet school madness...

Please help me understand here. I read this article, and the "Magnet School campers" were mildly amusing. Good to want a child to learn, and all that.

But then I got to the antepenultimate paragraph, and had a question. I thought "magnet schools" were supposed to be success greenhouses?


And then a bigger question. I thought this was AMERICA, and we had done away with public priviledge based upon inheritance. I mean, the NEA is always talking about how great public education is.

So why on earth are highly competed for places at this special first rate school reserved for

siblings of current magnet students, children of teachers and students who are held back?!?!????

National Enquirer versus the New York TIMES...

So the Enquirer has alleged that the Breck Girl is carrying on. I don't know, but I will say this.

If I had to bet on the accuracy of a NE story over a MSM one, the NE would get the wager.

In my own experience, when I have been personally involved in stories reported by them, the NYT, WaPo, or network's story will contain a mistake- ranging from significant errors to easily fact checked things like names and dates- about half the time.

On those occasions when I have been personally involved in NE reported stories, they have been dead right in every detail. Often their stories are exactly the sort of thing that will cost them millions if they are wrong. They don’t often get sued.

Handling dynamite makes one careful.

The great midcentury Tory traditions...

"...carrying forward the great midcentury Tory traditions of duty, plain speaking, courage, male companionship, reticence, decency, scorn for affectation and pretense, skepticism of government, dislike of intellectuals and religious enthusiasts, love of gossip, and dedication to tobacco and booze, into an age that cherished all the opposite things."



Not a bad epitaph.

This SHOULD be Columbine 's most famous student...

But he won't be. No one will write books or make movies about him. No talking heads on the stupidity machine will yammer on and on about his childhood, his difficulties, his motivations. No one will "try to understand" him.

He didn't murder anybody.

"Luke came home, sat in the dark with his mom and cried, saying that he was done going to memorial services and talking about the shooting..."

Fake mysteries...

In trying cases, I often have to guard against jurors' desire to create a mystery where none exists. Sometimes things ARE exactly what they appear to be, and sometimes the mysterious is just random.

Here's an interesting post on that whole idea, starting with a famous naked woman and including Faust, x ray analysis, supermarket displays, and horoscopes.

...take a dull thing, like some broken Chinese plate, and jump from there to talk about the soul.

Yes, I know hunting people's brains are mostly between our knees and our breast bones, but some of my reader could be stuck with nothing to do. So perhaps boredom might inspire some above the neck thought.

Since we're not hunting BECAUSE OF @#$%^&*#$%^&*#$%^&* DEFRA and its evil overresponse to foot and mouth.

#$%^&* global warning...

It's supposed to look like this by now!

The Fug Girls just sold me a CD...

Thank you!

The last of the wildlife doom set...

Pass the cream, please!

More wildlife doom pottery..,.

Pass the sugar, please!

Mmmm, mmmm!

Obama Girl's military song...

Military motivator posters...

Sorry, truth hurts.

Thanks to:

the military motivator

and

despair.com

http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php

I think I remember this plate...

There's a whole field of collecting built around children's alphabet plates. These nineteenth century teaching tools had the alphabet around the rim, and when the meal was finished the little one saw whatever the maker had put in the middle. Sort of a reward.

Sometimes didactic...

Or a pretty genre scene, perhaps to associate learning with pleasant times. Like this one...

or this one?

Yes, that's what it is...

"Eat your porrige, so you can see the seal clubbing!"

World's most beautiful libraries...

This sumptuous volume contains Höfer’s famously ascetic images of the British Library in London, the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum and the Pierpoint Library in New York, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Villa Medici in Rome and the Hamburg University Library, among others.

Thank you, Coolhunter!

$%^&* lawyers...

Trying to sell my late dam's house, I had a lawyer yesterday spend twenty timed minutes telling me that I couldn;t get something done in the next hour. Maybe if you would stop saying there isn't enough time...

They can cause more trouble than they are worth.

"But Staghounds, YOU are a lawyer!"

No, I have a law license. A law license doesn't any more make me a lawyer than a driving license makes me a driver.

Post FUNeral reception...

At the risk of further offending all my reader-

So, after the funeral there was a reception, and we worked the room as we were supposed to do.

Two funny things happened.

My sire died when I was little, some 30 years ago. (That wasn't funny, wait for it.)

Of the mourners, maybe two dozen came up to me and said the same thing, something along the lines of:

"I was sorry to hear about your mother. I knew your father, he was really something."

Delivered as a nine year old might say,

"I finished brushing my teeth. And TOMORROW"S CHRISTMAS!!!!

Interesting that at her funeral, he was the one on their minds. Both my littermates remarked on the same phenomenon, so it's not just me this time. About twice a year, someone seeks me out or hears my name (I'm actually Staghounds III, he was Staghounds Jr.) and tells me what a fine fellow he was. He must have been.

The second funny thing, a former neighbor a few years younger than the departed came up to me:

FN- "I was sorry to hear about your mother."

Staghounds- Yes ma'am, thank you for coming."

"I heard that you divorced a few years ago, is that true?"

"Yes, ma'am, it is."

"Well (name of daughter) always thought you were cute, and she's not attached either. Here's her number, give her a call if you like."

Come to think of it, there was another daughter-of-a-friend-of-the-departed who was decked more for a club than a cathedral, and who was awfully friendly.

(Not that I'm looking, but a compliment is always welcome.)

We are practical and direct people. I like that about us.

And the pineapple was ripe and fresh.

Later we went to the old drug store by our neighborhood. My sister sat beside a stranger who had tater tots, a delicacy unavailable in her flash European capital of residence. So she asked him for one and he said "What?"

"Come on. We just went to our mother's funeral."

Later, she looked around nostalgically and sighed.

"Ah, the drug store. Yet another place where our mother us in public."

Good times.

Putting the FUN in funeral...

First, for the sensitive soul among my reader, let's just say that my littermates and I used to dream that we lived in the warm emotional peace of 426 North Bristol Avenue.

(Pre death, my littermate said to the doctor, "Isn't there something you can do to... send her off?")

So anyway, the funeral came on and there were many laughs. To start with, the obituary. The dam had a sister, call her M, and a Brother, call him E. My littermate wrote the obituary. When we got to the cathedral M went up to Littermate.

M- "You left my name out of the obituary."

LM- "Sorry, I didn't know sisters and brothers had to be mentioned."

"You left my name out."

"As I said, never did this before."

"I thought you did it on purpose."

"No, just didn't know."

"You left E's name out too."

"AS I said, I don't write many obituaries. I'll do better next time."

Staghounds- "The torch has been passed."

So, into the cathedral. The ashes, in their 9x9 inch cardboard box, were on a stool up by the altar, covered with a white cloth. The service wends its way to the "homily", the saying of nice things about the star of the show.

The dam was very, um, unreconstructed in her racial attitudes. She didn't dislike black folks, but she thought of them as domestic animals. Teaching them to read or allowing them to vote were just bad ideas.

So the priestess who was preaching the homily, after an advert for the Wednesday healing service ( not so effective, in this case) said,

"I am reminded of a poem by May-a Angelo (Yes, pronounced that way).

After I mentally corrected the pronunciation, I looked at my littermates. All three of us were chewing our tongues and checking the ash box- I SWEAR I heard it rattle a bit.

Then I looked back at the crowd. One could tell which of them knew the old bat AND knew who Maya Angelou is, because those people were also chewing THEIR tongues and looking for the ash box to explode.

It was PERFECT. The departed hated the very IDEA of Maya Angelou. I can't imagine anything that would have angered her more than to have old May-a quoted at her funeral.

So after it was over, out we went. I was carrying the ashes, and walked up to the car.

Pop the trunk, threw in the box. THUNK.

Closed the lid, WHUMP.

Staghounds- "THAT was satisfying. Let's hear that again."

Pop. THUNK. WHUMP.

SH- "Wish we could have done that ten years ago."

LM- "It wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying, what with the flailing arms and the screaming."

As I said, putting the fun in funeral.

Tomorrow, post funeral reception giggles.

What a joy it must be to make music like this...

Jo Ann Smith on the autoharp.