Calhouns Can(n)ons

Shoes! Shoes! My Kingdom For Some Shoes!

Had to work yesterday so missed the BOS meeting, but the picture on the front page of the Tribune was priceless. Shoes. Great piles of them. Shoes of Shame! Sandals of Silliness! Brogans of Bewilderment! All tossed at “The Three Amigos,” (Supervisors Ovitt,& Lenthall & Achadjian) who refuse to carry over the controversial Santa Margrita Ranch project until the new year, and hence until a new (likely) Board Majority is sworn in, thereby (likely) requiring the project to undergo extensive changes. Instead, the staff is charged with somehow reconciling these massive changes by Tuesday and bringing back something the Three Amigos can vote Yes on as they scamper out the door – with more shoes flying after them?

Well, it’s all apt, near as I can see. Lame Duck President Bush, the first recipient of the Flying Shoe of Shame, has been busy shoveling out all kinds of goodies to his cronies and changing laws right and left to benefit a few buddies and political interests – the old payback – as he gallops out the door – shoes flying after him, so why not SLOTown?

And IF the Planning Dept can show up Tuesday morning having reconciled the seemingly unreconcilable, well then, that will be a Christmas miracle of astounding proportions. And if not, then it’s my guess The Three Amigos will vote yes on this project. After all, ya gotta dance with them what brung ya .

Likely, lawsuits to follow.

No Fair!
Fascinating study testing the sense of “fairness” dogs feel. Found out that if you reward one dog for behavior both are doing, the unrewarded dog stopped playing. Since dogs are pack animals, descended from wolves who are keenly sensitive to pack hierarchy and rules and keenly sensitive to “unfair” treatment which can set up dissention in the pack that can spell doom to the pack as a whole, both critters are finely tuned to fair treatment.

And if dogs are aware of ‘fairness,” why not humans, you may ask?

Well, I give you Exhibit A: L.A. Times headline, “Jerry Brown urges court to overturn Prop 8.” The attorney General of the State of California has urged the State Supreme court to overturn Prop 8 because “Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification.” (That old compelling state concerns that even supporters of Prop 8 can’t seem to come up with.)

So, dogs are keenly aware of being treated differently (“He gets a Snausage, I get bubkis, what’s with that??”) so can we then assume humans are also keenly aware of being treated differently? (“He gets to get married and I get bubkis, what’s with that??”)

Well, we’ll see. Will the Supreme Court allow Prop 8 to stand, thereby stripping away the fundamental right to marry they had previously bestowed on gay couples with their original ruling ? Or stand by their original ruling and void out Prop 8? Or keep Prop 8 and end up with somehow having to rule whether Prop 8 then also strips away the nearly 18,000 same-sex marriages already legally performed and recognized, leaving California with a three-tiered system: Straight Marriage, SOME Same-Sex Marriages, and Sorry Bub, None for YOU non-marriag-s “civil unions?”

Stay tuned. Meantime, Kibble anyone?

More Goodbyes

The perils of having litter mates. First Bwana, now his sister, Ajabu. When their last brother Waseem, living up north, goes, that will be the end of M'tawi's Children.

Ironically, Ajabu was the one I was expecting to go first from the cancer on her jaw. But, true to the last, she chugged on her own stubborn little way in her own time to her own tune. When she stopped eating and drinking a few days ago, I thought I'd have to call it, but she suddenly and briefly popped up, incredibly frail but thirsty and hungry again for a few brief laps of broth. But it was her last hurrah. I kept her as comfortable as I could with medication and she went into a twilight sleep. Last night I piled her on the bed with the rest of the gang, all bundled up in a cuddler, told her what a wonderful little dog she was. Her breathing changed about 2 a.m. I dozed off for a brief while and when I awoke she was gone.

More doggie Basenji blossoms for the garden. Perils of having littermates. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. And I hope I'm done with dying for a while. It's certainly not the season for sad news. She was a good little dog and brought into the world the four "Hideous Georgia Babies," heh-heh, but that's another story for another time. Rest in Peace.

Your Saturday Poem
Year’s End
By Ted Kooser, from Sure Signs; new and selected poems

Now the seasons are closing their files
on each of us, the heavy drawers
full of certificates rolling back
into the tree trunks, a few old papers
flocking away. Someone we loved
has fallen from our thoughts,
making a little, glittering splash
like a bicycle pushed by a breeze.
Otherwise, not much has happened;
we fell in love again, finding
that one red feather on the wind.