On Cooking and Dogs...

I love to cook.  My dogs love to eat. One of their favorite treats is potato peels!  Yep, potato peels.  However, they eat raw broccoli, carrots, lettuce and pretty much anything I would put in my own mouth – and lots of stuff I would not.  There are two labs who are simply walking stomachs and the other two are mutts who have learned to eat like labs FROM the labs.  It pretty much makes my garbage disposal obsolete which is of course good for my septic tank.  It also keeps my dogs trim and happy.  I don’t have to feed them fat-filled doggy treats to make them feel pampered.  A large Milk Bone biscuit is akin to a doggy Snicker’s bar. I won’t even go into the fat content of a pig’s ear.

So we were a happy bunch.  But this four-legged half of the Brady Bunch melded with the “here’s a story of a MAN named Jon” and is own four legged buddy Scupper.  Scupper is a culinary snob.  He turns his nose up at anything that is not MEAT, although he has an affinity for Cool Whip…don’t try to figure that one out.  Scupper would more often than not refuse to eat his own dog food.  Jon plied it with all the commercial “get your dog to eat anything” products – gravies, meat bits, canned tuna, you name it.  But Scupper ate on his own schedule and what he ate yesterday might not be on his list of “will eat” today.

Before I moved in with Jon and Scupper, I came and stayed and when I stayed I cooked.  Jon is an adventuresome and gratitude-filled eater.  He loved the idea of my cooking and it was something that I was pleased to be able to offer.  I can whip up just about anything from what’s in the cupboard…even a bachelor’s cupboard.  So I came; I stayed and I cooked.  At the time we had not introduced our brood.

What I never realized when I was cooking at home is that I never had to worry if I dropped bits of food on the floor.  In my house it was gone the moment it touched the floor.  My dogs have never heard of the three-second rule – nothing ever lasted that long anyway.  Although dog tracks and fuzz balls were a part of my life – food on the floor never was.  With Scupper as my new cooking attendant all that had changed.  He would sniff at tid-bits on the floor….maybe. I realized that now cooking was a lot more work!  I actually had to be careful and I had to clean up after myself, the travesty!

Fortunately, it was not long before love truly blossomed and we realized that introductions must be made and hierarchies established and accepted.  We all live together in a relatively harmonies balance. For the most part it all went well.  I am now back to my old style of cooking.  The kitchen floor has the dog prints, the hair and the scuff marks…but by God there is no food on it!  And even Scupper has decided he might even like broccoli!

A letter to a Congressman - How do we address Islam's Sharia Law

Dear Congressman Coffman -

I do appreciate your response and in reflection look at my initial outrage to the "Ground Zero" Mosque and have to admit I was feeling overly passionate!  I suppose my frustration (bordering on anger) is this.  It seems that "we" (meaning the current administration and its followers) have become so ultra sensitive to Islam and the faith that we allow all sorts of behaviors, practices and statements to made by and for Muslims -- and hear their cry of "freedom of religion" but when a Christian thought or idea even enters the public arena it is shut down and called oppressive!  The dominant and violent oppression from Christians is in the past -- the imposing of Sharia Law is very much in the present.

In school Christmas is now "winter festival" and yet all sorts of other cultures coupled with the religion that accompanies it are acceptable -- not only are they acceptable but they are studied and explored!  God simply IS a part of this country's founding -- those that founded it believed in God.  It does not at all mean anyone now has to (although it might be a good idea).  But the history is the history. As in the Koran burning incident, why is burning a book in the US by a few radicals a call for DEATH TO AMERICANS abroad -- yet we are supposed to accept that a handful of Islamic Radicals who killed nearly 3000 people are merely a fringe of that religion and we are told not to judge Islam for the acts of a few? See the double standard here?

We look at Islam as an "equal" and "reasonable" alternative religion. However, it is not.  It is a very different "beast".  It is not the same as comparing Judaism to Christianity, Buddhism to Taoist and Hindus to Native American religions.  It has some grave and fundamental differences.  How do we "allow religious freedom" for a faith/ideology that wants to eliminate us?  

From a statement made by Nonie Darwish (An American woman born muslim in Egypt warns the West of the dangers of Radical Islam and Sharia law).

"Very few people in the West know what is going on inside the Muslim world and what it portends for them. The fact is that through the dominant media, such as CNN, Americans are subjected to much of the same misinformation with regard to Islam that I grew up with inside the Muslim world. The result is that Americans are in the dark attempting to formulate their strategy of how to defend themselves against the threat of terror, domestic jihad and Sharia. While Americans get ridiculed for being “Islamophobes,” the Muslim world itself is undergoing a huge and painful awakening.

“There are daily news reports of heart-broken Muslims who say they cannot believe what is written in Muslim scriptures and say that Muslims have been living under the greatest lie in human history."

"...the penalty for leaving Islam is death in all schools of Sharia, both Sunni and Shiite. Those who wrote Sharia centuries ago knew that keeping Muslims in total submission would be very difficult to maintain, and thus they established barbaric laws condemning Muslims to death for exercising their basic human rights to choose their own religion. Sharia never entrusted its enforcement only to the formal legal system. Islam promises heavenly rewards to individual Muslims who take the law into their own hands. Sharia also states that the killers of apostates and adulterers are not murderers and therefore are not to be punished. That is why, for Islam to achieve 100% compliance to Sharia enforcement, Muslim individuals are encouraged to take matters into their own hands."

(READ HER BOOK - .Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Sharia Law). 

Congressman Coffman, we are accepting Islam as though it was something we understood.

As Americans we have got to figure out a way to address Islam/Sharia Law and to get our heads out of the sand. How does a country such as ours whose FOUNDATION is rooted in the freedom to worship in whatever way we wish deal with this?  This is a real and genuine threat and the "moderate Muslim" is not what we are having to address.  A moderate Muslim is not Muslim at all by Shariah Law. When one looks at the definition of the "Good Game" (Prince Machiavelli) it must be a game that is "good" for the players yes, but also cannot do harm to those who choose not to play...  How do we address this growing issue in America?  When is it going to once again be "politically correct" to defend our country without being called bigots and racists and oppressionists?

We have got to do something.  What honestly are your thoughts on this?

Kyle Fenner

Acceptance -- Easy to Say, Harder to Do

So what IS acceptance?  I spent the last 24 hours in a lather.  I have been sending out resume after resume after resume and rarely even receiving acknowledgment that it was even received.  I am responding to posted job openings that I am qualified for.  I was frustrated. I was angry.  I was wondering why the hell I struggled through college as an adult to obtain a degree that, in that moment was feeling worthless.  I was feeling worthless.

I tried to pray.  I tried to breath. I tried to “let go and let God”.  But what does that mean? Let go and let God?  Well it means, in its very essence is Acceptance.  It means that if I do believe there IS a God. And I believe that God is all powerful and all knowing then I must accept what comes to me.  I must accept that whatever is going on is SUPPOSED to be going on.  It does not mean that I should stop sending out the resumes.  It doesn’t mean that the dream job will come knocking.  What it does mean is that all I have any power over is the footwork.  It means that once the “send” button is hit or the phone call is made and I have done all that I can do – I let go… The results are up to God. 

Whether it is in a relationship, a learning experience or a job search I can only do what a human being can do, a fallible, imperfect, human being.  God is God.  When I try to do God’s job the ONLY result I will get will be utter failure and profound frustration.  I just know he is up there chuckling at me.  I almost said he would be wondering when I was ever going to learn – but he already knows.  Maybe I will never learn – never fully.  I hope for that one day, but for today it takes that lather sometimes to get me to at last surrender.

So today was different.  Fundamentally, nothing has changed.  I still have no job.  I am still wondering when I will have a job but it was still different.  For today, I let go of what I could not do and did a few things I could do.  I started a blog. I met and talked with some like-minded friends.  I cooked pork, spare ribs. I combed out a dog in dire need of it (much to her displeasure).  I fed my horses and gave them some treats.  That for today is what I could do.  I did that and I turned the rest over to God.

Dogs Lie

And We Thought Man’s Best Friend Was Honest

Dogs lie like the rugs they fill with their hair.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am a dog lover, more than lover, I have 275 pounds of dog flesh in my house.  When I think about what they could do to me if they decided I was the bad guy is awesome.  But they are large, laid back and loving.  My soul is intricately linked to “dog”.  I will introduce you to by brood.

First there is Lily.  A highly neurotic yet focused yellow lab.  She fixates on light bulbs, “floaties” in the air and bubbles.  One has to forcibly restrain her from joining you in the shower.  She is lovable and slightly off.  Then there is Truman, a stately, black lab, hound cross who has dodged more bullets in his life than most Vietnam vets.  He has survived a mountain lion attack, an encounter with a rabid bat – which he thought was a new toy – and a mysterious ailment that nearly killed him.  We never did solve that one, he simply bounced back.  Then meet Sadie.  A medium sized, yellow, pom-pom, mutt.  She was dodging cars one night just outside of Cripple Creek, Colorado and I had to rescue her from a grizzly fate.  I intended to find her a home…and I guess succeeded in that endeavor. She is an angel and seems simply grateful for everything in the world from daisies to truck rides.  She has a ball playing in the horse trough and rolls onto her back for my Gelding Cash to sniff her belly.  It has been three years since that night I picked her up and she is part of the family.  Finally, meet Fargo.  Fargo is Lily’s spawn and it the antithesis of his mother.  He is large, gentle and sensitive.  A hairy-eyeball from me sends him into deep remorse.

Of all of these dogs Fargo is the most unlikely candidate as a guard dog, although all would fail miserably in this career. Lily is too fixated on “things” to give a darn about people. Truman has a deep, hound-like bawl but that is the extent of his bravado.  Sadie will invite you in and show you where we hide cash and the silver and Fargo, one would assume would hide under the bed.  Don’t let his tender demeanor fool you.

I came home one day to find a large, burly man in a work truck waiting patiently outside my dog yard.  He was from the electric company and was attempting to access my meter in order to install an updated, digital version.  I greeted him and asked what he was waiting for.  He said to me, “I ain’t going in there!”  I thought that amusing because the little lady who reads the meter each month just goes on in, wearing her huge, palm, sun hat that dwarfs her five-foot-nothing, figure; she greets everyone and they welcome her in.  I queried the burly man why exactly he wouldn’t enter the yard (although I blame no one for not wanting to).  He said, “that yellow one won’t let me!”  I pointed to Lily and said, “Her?  What did she do?”  He shook his head and pointed, “No THAT one”.  He pointed to my timid, shy, Fargo.  He said, “That dog is Cujo!”  I had to say to myself “Right on!”

I caged the beasts and he was in and out in a flash.  It made me ponder, dogs lie.  They tell you one thing and when you are not around they say something else.  There are myriad theories on dogs and dog behavior.  That small dogs are yippy, that a wagging tail means “all is okay” and that a bark means I might bite. More often than not it means “I am scared of you. Please stay away because I wouldn’t know what to do it you kept coming”. But I have learned what you THINK you know about your dog may be very different when you are not around.  It makes me feel lucky I don’t have teenage kids!  If dogs tell you what you want to hear what would a kid tell you?  Well we all know what WE told our parents, I know what I told my parents! So with no kids in my future I will have dogs, many dogs, loving dogs and dogs that lie!  God love them all!

What about being an American?

What happened to the American Culture?  Why is tribalism, multi-culturalism and the support of maintaining "seperate-ness" embraced? Why are those of us who have been raised IN this country made to somehow feel like our culture is bad, evil and to be NOT discussed or celebrated as a culture at all?

Why has the word "assimilate" become a dirty and oppressive word? The great American melting-pot used to be that... people came here to BECOME AMERICANS, as much as you may not like the word, they assimilated -- now they do not, they only want to bring their culture here and live it as though they were in their county of origin. They come and reap the benefits and freedoms of the American way of life without becoming an American?  I welcome all who want to come to America to become Americans to come... Bring your individuality yes, bring your uniqueness yes but if you are coming here to stay, please come to become a "part of".

To be an AMERICAN means nothing any more.  The risks and dangers of this continued tribalism is detailed in historic failures all over the globe (read: The Disuniting of America, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.) The glue that held this country together was being "American" first.  Now we are African-Americans, Irish-Americans, etc.  We are and should be Americans of whatever decent – but Americans first. 

In a review of The Disuniting of America by Heather MacDonald, a lawyer who has written for Partisan Review and other publications, she says: 

"One of the most pernicious effects of multiculturalism has been to destroy the linguistic ground necessary to debate it. For such a debate would have to invoke terms like “we” and “commonality.” Yet multiculturalists, aided by the sophisticated deconstructive efforts of literary theorists like Stanley Fish and Barbara Herrnstein Smith, reject any such appeal to an American “we” as an act of imperialist violence. The only language that remains is that of an increasingly narrow “us” versus an increasingly alien “them.” This is the language of civil war."

So we are racists and oppressionists the moment we begin to speak...

This was once a great nation built on pride, hard work and perseverance and peoples from many countries and ideologies.  Now those three adjectives of our founding are replaced with selfishness, greed and brutality.  We are not unique in the brutality of our nation but we are unique in the perpetual persecution we face and the willingness to continue to apologize for it.  We have become so gracious and self-deprecating that we are subjugating ourselves and apologizing for being American. 

I am proud of what my country was founded on and am not at all proud of what my country is or has become.  I am unapologetically American and everyone one of our leaders should be as well.