me!

i've been nominated for photo of the month by buster! awww..buster, was it the flattering comment i made about your legs? go over to dogs with blogs to vote for me!

spend it like beckham!

david beckham is coming to america as the highest paid professional athlete in the WORLD. and if you do a google image search you will find 1) he was captain of the english national team 2) he is apparently averse to wearing shirts 3) he has had a stream of revolving strange haircuts and 4) he likes to kiss his teammates. (is he a fan of tofu?)

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- David Beckham signed a five-year contract worth more than $250 million to join the Los Angeles Galaxy, making him the highest-paid player in team sports.

The 31-year-old former England captain, soccer's top earner in the three of the past four years, will play in U.S. Major League Soccer beginning in August, the Galaxy said on its Web site today. His agreement with Real Madrid, which he joined in 2003, expires June 30.

this is great news for american soccer (footy!) though i am generally opposed to brits and i'm a partisan for les bleus. but since he's the most famous face of soccer, especially in the usa, it is likely to raise the profile of soccer and maybe we can get some darn footy games on the telly in the states!


but this raises a much bigger question. his wife victoria is better known as posh spice. and if they move to america what will this mean for the possible spice girl reunion? inquiring corgadors want to know!!

i scream!

here i am digging into one of my favorite snacks--soy delicious! it combines two of my favorite things, ice cream and puns! as the name suggests, it is soy based ice cream, no cows or goats involved.


we keep it around for a certain non-animal eating naked ape in our house. and just in case dennis kucinich drops by.


some minister with MegaShift Ministries (With an F. And yes, that's the actual name) has claimed that soy will make our boys gay by flooding their masculine bodies with estrogen-binding isoflavones. i suppose eating soy products with "purely decadent" on them makes me a candidate for queer eye for the straight guy.

if only my snout was a few centimeters longer. the joy of soy!

vocabulary lesson

troop surge (n): the act of sending more troops into a situation we never should have been in in the first place; a deliberate flaunting of the will of the people (ie, democracy) in order to avoid admitting a mistake and in a desperate attempt to vindicate one's own position; the #1 issue in the 2008 election

the great struggle

my sister and i engage in an epic struggle for control of the squeaky hedgehog (which is no longer squeaky and wears a santa hat even though it's totally out of season).








wally wins again!

sophie's choice

my grandapes are leaving for chicago soon to visit my onkel eric. sunday the seahawk apes will play the bear apes. my grandapes have a choice to make. they can root for my onkel's team, the bears, or they can root for MY team, the 'hawks. i have nothing against the bears, in fact i look like one. and by that i mean grizzly bear type-bears, not like william "the refrigerator" perry bears. however, i've waited a long long time for the 'hawks to finally get to the stupor bowl and it's about darn time they win one. so, you have a sophie's choice. do you love onkel eric or do you love wally?

which face is more loveable--the bear?


or the poor beleagured seahawk fan?

hogzilla!

a second hogzilla has been killed!

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A giant wild hog claimed to be bigger than the near-mythical "Hogzilla" caught in southern Georgia a few years ago has been killed in a suburban Atlanta neighborhood.

The hog hung snout down from a tree Friday in William Coursey's front yard, not far from where the avid hunter said he shot the beast. He said he hauled it to a truck weight station, which recorded the hairy hog at 1,100 pounds.

But Coursey believes his behemoth surpasses the famed super swine shot and killed in 2004 that weighed in at half a ton on the farm's scales. A team of National Geographic experts later confirmed "Hogzilla" didn't quite live up to the 1,000-pound, 12-foot hype, saying the beast was probably 7 1/2 to 8 feet long, and weighed about 800 pounds.

The news of Coursey's kill got people are talking about the enormous beasts that roam the state.

i had no idea georgia was such an exciting place, a land where gigantic mythical pigs roam the earth! and here i thought it was all peanut farmers and michael vick. bring on the bacon!

from the mouths of dogs...

my friend boomer has a really interesting and thoughtful post today. and i'm not just saying that because i'm in it. ok, maybe a little bit.

animals and god

this is my best curious look--head cocked and eyes inquisitive.

MSNBC has a month-old story about pets in Saudi Arabia. Apparently the government has passed a seldom? enforced law against the selling of cats and dogs as pets, apparently as a consequence of pressure from conservative forces who say that pet ownership is excessively Western (amusing because the story beneath it is about "yappie hours," about yuppie pet owners gathering for cocktails and for their dogs to meet. mmmm...western decadence). I'm a little skeptical of MSNBC's reporting on international issues anyway since sometimes issues of great complexity get reduced down to fairly simplistic and formulaic arguments. like this article has a second-page teaser "Mohammed was a cat person." Um, ok. And Jesus was a fish fiend? Anyway, it does have some interesting discussion of hadiths in which Mohammed appears to have given the thumbs up to goddamn cats:

Once, he let a cat drink from the water he was going to use for his ablutions before prayers. Another time, Muhammad said a woman who kept a cat locked up without feeding it would go to hell.

and there's even mention of dogs who, though considered dirty, are still considered appropriate objects of charity:

Still, in another instance, he said that a prostitute who carried water in her slipper to a thirsty dog would go to heaven, her sins forgiven because of her kindness.

I have no idea how accurate or important these are, not being a religious scholar myself, but I am interested in the relationship between religion and animals because i am one. an animal, that is, not a religion. though i'd like to be one. (i've posted before about my sister's worship of me). anyway, i'm mostly familiar with the animal/religion relationship via eating--ie, shunning certain animals as sources of food. and i know some religions are more sympathetic to animals than others. and i know that all dogs go to heaven because i've seen the movie.

i've read some pragmatic arguments about animals and religion--that many of the prohibitions were based on practical concerns. animals that were more prone to carry or spread disease were to be avoided. and, at the time most religions were formed, i'd imagine animals were serious competitors for food and water sources and potential threats to human animal livelihood. though, interestingly, it appears pet ownership has pretty ancient roots since we know, for example, the ancient egyptians had dogs (and cats) who were dead ringers for my sister ethel (if their hieroglyphs are accurate representations). and i posted a few months ago about a site in south america where they found a very very old burial site where someone had been buried with their dog.

i've also read mary douglas's arguments (as an anthropologist) that the concerns were less practical in nature and more symbolic. now, i'm trying to remember what i read and my memory is imperfect but i seem to that recall that in examining the food prohibitions in the across a variety of cultures (including the abrahamic faiths), she argued that they were based on notions of purity--that things have a natural place (like on land or in the sea, or on two legs or on four) but those things that crossed boundaries were unacceptable because they were impure and idea that became clean vs. unclean--taboo things don't conform to the natural order of separation. i suppose this might also have something to do with pet ownership. you naked apes put a lot of time and effort into maintaining the boundary between human animal and other animals--always strutting your supposed evolutionary superiority and advanced language acquisition and civilization and what not. and you denigrate naked ape groups you don't like by calling them "beastly" or "animalistic" (often because of violent behavior which I really don't get since you are far and away the most violent animal on the planet. but i digress). in order to bring us into your homes as something other than meat you have to elaborately anthropomorphize us--give us human names, talk to us, make us eat from human-like receptacles, remove our bodily functions from your view and sometimes even dress us up, or give us blogs, or even give us voices as if we talk back to you (my editor is looking uncomfortable. i may have hit on something close to home). in order to bring us into your spaces you have to make us more like you which seems to be really messing with those natural boundaries.
egyptian god anubis? or my sister ethel?

but i digress. i'm curious if anyone knows any good texts on animals in religious traditions. it's interesting how we play an important symbolic role in your human-making laws (ie, how you're constantly reinventing "humanity")--whether in judging one another, regulating your behavior, or even as a sign of cultural decadence. a dog is never just a dog.

for your consideration....

here's today's corgador, ready for adoption! but, you say, this is a boo-dog in a bathtub! technically, yes, but he is an honorary corgador for today. why? because he needs a new home and his description on petfinder made my mawma all teary. (i didn't ask why she was looking on petfinder--and at boodogs--but she is a bit of a slut and will fall in love with any dog no matter how weird looking). so, some nice lady (he doesn't like boys) needs to adopt him:

Bubba is a 5 year old male bulldog in great health. Unfortunately, he has not had a very great life. He is fearful of men and can only be placed in an all-female household (no exceptions). We can only speculate what has happened to him since he can't speak english (how we wish he could)! We know he was tied to a porch for some time and he does not like being tied up or restrained. He is very good on a leash however. We also know that he has been in few homes in his lifetime, so we want his next home to be the last. Bubba is very sweet, loving and affectionate but has shown signs of fear aggression when being reprimanded by men. He is going to need a very dedicated and loving new home that is willing to work with an animal behaviorist to ensure that he and his new owner can understand each other's communications. He needs someone with time and patience who is willing to grow the bonds of love and trust. He needs to be secure in knowing that he will not be hurt again. He gets along with other animals just fine, but we prefer he be the only dog in the home. He also seems to like children, but because of the fact that he needs to be handled with care, he will not be placed in a home with children. He has a lot to offer - he gives kisses and hugs, and is learning to play with toys. He LOVES to go in the car for trips to the pet store or the park. He's very physically fit and active (you might think he's much younger than 5). Do you have the home this sweet boy needs? A forever home? If so, please fill out an application and learn about our rescue group at heavensentbulldogrescue.com. Bubba's adoption will be limited to the NJ/PA/NY area. Please visit http://www.heavensentbulldogrescue.com to complete an application, and send it to us at hsrescue@aol.com.

serial killer in YOUR neighborhood!

no, i'm not being alarmist. there is probably a serial killer in your neighborhood--a goddamn cat! according to npr (which mawma insists is national public radio and not national pet radio) the american bird conservatory suspects that goddamn cats may be the biggest predator of birds and they want info about how many critters your goddamn cats are killer. hear the story here. (look at me and my homonym!)

bones!

since we are now just one month and two weeks away from my burpday i am doing part two of my ongoing series--things i want for my burpday! this installment is about bones! i got bones! for christmas and again for the playoffs, partly to distract me from company so i wouldn't be a grumpy old man. instead our company got to watch me tear gristle from the bone. i'm a good host.


genius at work.


ethel got a bone, too. here she's acting all delicate but really she's a beast when it comes to bones. it's okay if she gets a bone for my burpday, so long as it is smaller than mine.


can you imagine a more manly scene than this? two dogs chewing and football on the teevee. and me on my binky.


look at the squeaky squirrell look on in horror as i disembowel the bone. mmmm.

i *heart* football

it was a GREAT weekend for wally. i went to the p-a-r-k TWO days in a row. and it was so hot on saturday that i overheated! so, i've started blowing my winter coat. big black tufts are coming out. mawma tells me it's too early to get out my spring wardrobe but i'm darned hot! 70 degrees in january!

and my football teams did great--seahawks AND eagles won and i got a BONE during the eagles game (pictures to come). both were decided by a field goal so there was lots of shouting and obnoxious behavior in our house this weekend. my friend rene came to watch the beagles and he brought us bully sticks even though i growled at him for getting on MY couch.