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Recent Battles
Queen Victoria
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Juicing The Sheep
09 April 2009 11:11 AM | No CommentsThe Journal of Queen Victoria Thursday, October 21, 1868 “Juicing the Sheep“ At a quarter to twelve I drove off with Louise and Leopold in the waggonette up to near the “Bush” (the residence of William Brown, the farmer) to see them “juice the sheep.”...
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Queen Victoria’s Border Collies
26 January 2009 4:40 AM | 18 CommentsFor well over a century the “Collie” name has been co-opted by show breeders who have created a monster whose face looks like a door stop with beady eyes set in triangular slits. These same people have co-opted the notion that Queen Victoria was deeply...
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Show Me the Collie
22 January 2009 3:38 AM | 1 CommentHaving established that Queen Victoria’s direct influence on the proliferation of the show Collie is insubstantial at best, let’s explore what impact the Monarchy may have, in fact, had on the culture of dogs during her reign. Five. If the show Collie owes more to...
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The Queen and the Collie
20 January 2009 2:57 AM | 2 CommentsThe old wisdom on the rise of the show Collie is that Queen Victoria met them on a trip to Scotland in the 1860s, became infatuated, acquired them, sponsored them in shows, bred them, and her abundant trend-setting prowess lead to their bountiful rise to...
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The Victorian Collie Myth
19 January 2009 8:03 PM | 3 CommentsThe prevailing creation myth among show Collie enthusiasts is that Queen Victoria’s infatuation with the breed set the ball in motion, elevating the humble farm dog to aristocratic splendor. Queen Victoria saw her first Collies in the 1860′s, and she enthusiastically began to sponsor them,...
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Juicing The Sheep
war Archive
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Kennel, Kibbutz, and Konzentrationslager
Posted on January 7, 2010 | 3 CommentsThe tools of Eugenics are very much alike: be it the dog kennel, the Kibbutz, or Concentration Camp. In philosophy, engineering, and practice the three institutions are highly correlated. While the modern sensibility would likely register disgust with the Concentration Camp and disinterest in the... -
Pacifist Hypocrite Shopping List
Posted on May 5, 2009 | No Commentsreprint I was out running some errands today and there were a handful of protesters at a busy intersection waving home-made signs like “honk for peace” and “no war for oil.” I laugh at the naieve banality of such idealists. First, that waving signs makes... -
Golden Eyes & Uncle Sam
Posted on December 20, 2008 | No CommentsGolden Eyes and Uncle SamNell Brinkley, 1918 This illustration shows a young woman, “Golden Eyes,” dressed in a khaki-colored dress and cap standing with a collie dog named Uncle Sam who holds a “Liberty bond” in his mouth. A nude kewpie-like figure bangs a drum... -
Too Many Working Dogs, Too Little Work
Posted on December 4, 2008 | 12 CommentsFrom Donald McCaig’s The Dog Wars, you’d swear that there were too few working dogs and too much work to do, thus the dire need to “save” the entire breed (all 35,000 new puppies per year) to preserve the working ability only. But it’s not... -
A Hero’s Welcome
Posted on October 5, 2008 | 3 CommentsFourteen months serving your nation and the greater good of mankind in a desolate, sandy hellhole half way across the world; putting your life on the line every day, all day, making decisions most others couldn’t or wouldn’t make; a freely chosen commitment of sacrifice... -
Pacifist Hypocrite Shopping List
Posted on March 19, 2008 | 3 CommentsI was out running some errands today and there were a handful of protesters at a busy intersection waving home-made signs like “honk for peace” and “no war for oil.” I laugh at the naieve banality of such idealists. First, that waving signs makes any... -
Final Words of a Dead Soldier
Posted on January 4, 2008 | No CommentsA soldier and a blogger died yesterday in Iraq. Months ago he prepared for this day by writing his final blog post, to be published only on the event of his death. Few of us think of such things and even fewer prepare. Hardly anyone... -
Waterboarding Our Border Collies
Posted on November 30, 2007 | No CommentsExtended metaphor is a difficult device to execute well. Very few things are so like another as to speak to each other’s situation, while at the same time one of the two is simple to understand and the other so complex that metaphor is required... -
Bring Military Mascots Home
Posted on November 28, 2007 | No CommentsOne of the laws of nature is that big things generally move slower than small things. So, you know that by the time a big group like SPCA International gets involved with a “bring the dogs home from Iraq” campaign, it’s likely that a smaller... -
No Border Collie Left Behind
Posted on November 25, 2007 | 3 CommentsYou know I jest with my “Border Wars” rhetoric, but there is a real war going on with real guns and grenades and casualties, and apparently there are real Border Collies in the middle of that war. Border Collies in Baghdad of all places; who...
Queen Victoria's Border Collies