Note from Meryl: This made the rounds years ago. I received it from my friend JJA, and posted a link to it in one of my earliest blog posts, and again a couple of years ago. It’s worth re-posting on a regular basis.

Subject: I’m glad I have cats
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 23:38:10 -0700 (PDT)

(forwards removed….)

Recent thread in rec.pets…
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Anne V - 01:01pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1318 of 1332)
Okay - I know how to take meat away from a dog. How do I take a dog away from meat? This is not, unfortunately, a joke.

AmyC - 01:02pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1319 of 1332)
Um, can you give us a few more specifics here?

Anne V - 01:12pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1320 of 1332)
They’re inside of it. They crawled inside, and now I have a giant incredibly heavy piece of carcass in my yard, with 2 dogs inside of it, and they are NOT getting bored of it and coming out. One of them is snoring. I have company arriving in three hours, and my current plan is to 1. put up a tent over said carcass and 2. hang thousands of fly strips inside it. This has been going on since about 6:40 this morning.

AmyC - 01:19pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1321 of 1332)
Oh. My. God. What sort of carcass is big enough to hold a couple of dogs inside? Given the situation, I’m afraid you’re not going to be create enough of a diversion to get the dogs out of the carrion, unless they like greeting company as much as they like rolling around in dead stuff. Which seems unlikely. Can you turn a hose on the festivities?

Ase Innes-Ker - 01:31pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1322 of 1332)
I’m sorry Anne. I know this is a problem (and it would have driven me crazy), but it is also incredibly funny.

Anne V - 01:31pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1323 of 1332)
Elk. Elk are very big this year, because of the rain and good grazing and so forth. They aren’t rolling. They are alternately napping and eating. They each have a ribcage. Other dogs are working on them from the outside. It’s all way too primal in my yard right now. We tried the hose trick. At someone elses house, which is where they climbed in and began to refuse to come out. Many hours ago. I think that the hose mostly helps keep them cool and dislodges little moist snacks for them. hose failed. My new hope is that if they all continue to eat at this rate, they will be finished before the houseguests arrive. The very urban houseguests. Oh, ghod - I know it’s funny. It’s appalling, and funny, and completely entirely representative of life with dogs.

Kristen R. - 01:37pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1324 of 1332)
I’m so glad I read this thread, dogless as I am. Dogs in elk. Dogs in elk.

Anne V - 01:41pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1325 of 1332)
It’s like that childrens book out there - dogs in elk, dogs on elk, dogs around elk, dogs outside elk. And there is some elk inside of, as well as on, each dog at this point.

Elizabeth K - 01:57pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1328 of 1333)
Anne, aren’t you in Arizona or Nevada? There are elk there? I’m so confused!We definately need to see pics of Gus Pong and Jake in the elk carcass.

Anne V - 02:03pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1329 of 1333)
I am in New Mexico, but there are elk in both arizona and nevada, yes. There are elk all over the damn place. They don’t look out very often. If you stand the ribcage on end they scramble to the top and look out, all red. Otherwise, you kinda have to get in there a little bit yourself to really see them. So I think there will not be pictures.

CoseyMo - 02:06pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1330 of 1333)
“all red;” I’m not sure the deeper horror of all this was fully borne in upon me till I saw that little phrase.

Anne V - 02:10pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1331 of 1333)
Well, you know, the Basenji (that would be Jake) is a desert dog, naturally, and infamous for it’s aversion to water. And then, Gus Pong (who is coming to us, live, unamplified and with a terrific reverb which is making me a little dizzy) really doesn’t mind water, but hates to be cold. Or soapy. And both of them can really run. Sprints of up to 35 mph have been clocked. So. If ever they come out, catching them and returning them to a condition where they can be considered house pets is not going to be, shall we say, pleasant.

CoseyMo - 02:15pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1332 of 1333)
What if you stand the ribcage on end, wait for them to look out, grab them when they do and pull?

Anne V - 02:18pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1333 of 1333)
They wedge their toes between the ribs. And scream. We tried that before we brought the elk home from the mountain with dogs inside. Jake nearly took my friends arm off. He’s already short a toe, so he cherishes the 15 that remain.

Linda Hewitt - 02:30pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1336 of 1356)
Have you thought about calling your friendly vet and paying him to come pick up the dogs, elk and letting the dogs stay at the vets overnight. If anyone would know what to do, it would be your vet. It might cost some money, but it would solve the immediate crisis. Keep us posted.

ChristiPeters - 02:37pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1337 of 1356)
Yikes! My sympathy! When I lived in New Mexico, my best friend’s dog (the escape artist) was continually bringing home road kill. When there was no road kill convenient, he would visit the neighbor’s house. Said neighbor slaughtered his own beef. The dog found all kinds of impossibly gross toys in the neighbor’s trash pit. I have always had medium to large dogs. The smallest dog I ever had was a mutt from the SPCA who matured out at just above knee high and about 55 pounds. Our current dog (daughter’s choice) is a Pomeranian. A very small Pomeranian. She’s 8 months old now and not quite 4 pounds. I’m afraid I’ll break her.

Lori Shiraishi - 02:38pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1338 of 1356)
Bet you could fit a whole lot of Pomeranians in that there elk carcass! Anne - my condolences on what must be a unbelievable situation!

Anne V - 02:44pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1339 of 1356)
I did call my vet. He laughed until he was gagging and breathless. He says a lot of things, which can be summed as *what did you expect?* and *no, there is no such thing as too much elk meat for a dog.* He is planning to stop over and take a look on his way home. Thanks, Lori. I am almost surrendered to the absurdity of it.

Lori Shiraishi - 02:49pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1340 of 1356)
“He is planning to stop over and take a look on his way home.” So he can fall down laughing in person?

Anne V - 02:50pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1341 of 1356)
Basically, yeah. That would be about it.

AmyC - 02:56pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1342 of 1356)
>no, there is no such thing as too much elk meat for a dog.”
Oh, sweet lord, Anne. You have my deepest sympathies in this, perhaps the most peculiar of the Gus Pong Adventures. You are truly a woman of superhuman patience. wait — you carried the carcass down from the mountains with the dogs inside?

Anne V - 02:59pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1343 of 1356)
>the carcass down from the mountains with the dogs inside?
no, well, sort of. My part in the whole thing was to get really stressed about a meeting that I had to go to, and say *yeah, ok, whatever* when it was suggested that the ribcages, since we couldn’t get the dogs out of them and the dogs couldn’t be left there, be brought to my house. Because, you know - I just thought they would get bored of it sooner or later. But it appears to be later, in the misty uncertain future, that they will get bored. Now, they are still interested. And very loud, one singing, one snoring.

Lori Shiraishi - 03:04pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1344 of 1356)
>And very loud, one singing, one snoring.
wow. I can’t even begin to imagine the acoustics involved with singing from the inside of an elk.

Anne V - 03:04pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1345 of 1356)
reverb. lots and lots of reverb.

Anne V - 03:15pm Sep 9, 1999 PDT (# 1347 of 1356)
I’ll tell you the thing that is causing me to lose it again and again, and then I have to go back outside and stay there for a while. After the meeting, I said to my (extraordinary) boss, *look, I’ve gotta go home for the rest of the day, I think. Jake and Gus Pong are inside some elk ribcages, and my dad is coming tonight, so I’ve got to get them out somehow.* And he said, pale and huge-eyed, *Annie, how did you explain the elk to the clients?* The poor, poor man thought I had the carcasses brought to work with me. For some reason, I find this deeply funny.

(weekend pause)

Anne V - 08:37am Sep 13, 1999 PDT (# 1395 of 1405)
So what we did was put the ribcages (containing dogs) on tarps and drag them around to the side yard, where I figured they would at least be harder to see, and then opened my bedroom window so that the dogs could let me know when they were ready to be plunged into a de-elking solution and let in the house. Then I went to the airport. Came home, no visible elk, no visible dogs. Peeked around the shrubs, and there they were, still in the elk. By this time, they had gnawed out some little portholes between some of the ribs, and you got the occasional very frightening limpse of something moving around in there if you watched long enough. After a lot of agonizing, I went to bed. I closed the back door, made sure my window was open, talked to the dogs out of it until I as sure they knew it was open, and then I fell asleep.

Sometimes, sleep is a mistake, no matter how tired you are. And especially if you are very very tired, and some of your dogs are outside, inside some elks. Because when you are that tired, you sleep through bumping kind of noises, or you kind of think that it’s just the house guests. It was’t the house guests. It was my dogs, having an attack of teamwork unprecedented in our domestic history. When I finally woke all the way up, it was to a horrible vision. Somehow, 3 dogs with a combined weight of about 90 pounds, managed to hoist one of the ribcages (the meatier one, of course) up 3 feet to rest on top of the swamp cooler outside the window, and push out the screen. What woke me was Gus Pong, howling in frustration from inside the ribcage, very close to my head, combined with feverish little grunts from Jake, who was standing on the nightstand, bracing himself against the curtains with remarkably bloody little feet.

Here are some things I have learned, this Rosh Hashanah weekend:
1. almond milk removes elk blood from curtains and pillowcases,
2. We can all exercise superhuman strength when it comes to getting elk carcasses out of our yard,
3. The sight of elk ribcages hurtling over the fence really frightens the nice deputy sheriff who lives across the street, and
4. the dogs can pop the screens out of the windows, without damaging them, from either side.

Anne V - 09:58am Sep 13, 1999 PDT (# 1401 of 1405)
What I am is really grateful that they didn’t actually get the damn thing in the window, which is clearly the direction they were going in. And that the nice deputy didn’t arrest me for terrifying her with elk parts before dawn.

AmyC - 09:59am Sep 13, 1999 PDT (# 1402 of 1405)
Imagine waking up with a gnawed elk carcass in your bed, like a real-life “Godfather” with an all-dog cast.

Anne V - 10:01am Sep 13, 1999 PDT (# 1403 of 1405)
There is not enough almond milk in the world to solve an event of that kind.

Note from Meryl again: And here is the author herself, expanding on what happened.

Compare and contrast:

The Israeli army suspended an officer and five soldiers involved in wounding a Palestinian man in the southern West Bank and put all of their unit’s operational duties on hold, the military said Friday.

In the incident Thursday, Palestinians in the village of Dahariya said soldiers shot and seriously wounded a man. The army denied involvement at the time, saying only that troops evacuated an injured Palestinian from a military checkpoint to an Israeli hospital.

But in a statement Friday, the army said the six-man patrol entered the village Thursday, took over a Palestinian taxi and shot a Palestinian man they believed to be suspicious. The soldiers did not give first aid to the wounded man and didn’t report the incident, the army said.

The step of immediately suspending soldiers and freezing their unit’s operations is unusual and indicates that army commanders believe the incident involved a serious violation of orders.

There will be an investigation, and if laws and procedures were broken, there will be a trial and punishment.

Now let’s look at a story that also took place in the West Bank:

A university student shot during a brawl between supporters of Fatah and Hamas at a West Bank university died of his wounds Friday, hospital officials said.

The student, 20-year-old Mohammed Radad, was shot by Fatah-allied gunmen on Tuesday, when students aligned with the rival groups clashes on the campus of An Najah University in Nablus. Palestinian security forces intervened, accompanied by Fatah men in civilian clothes, wounding three students with gunfire.

Witnesses said Radad, a Hamas supporter, was shot in the head by one of the armed men.

I’m going to take a wild guess that there will be no investigation, no trial, and no punishment. Possibly the student’s relatives will seek out and kill the man who shot him, since tribal justice is all the rage in the Middle East. This is the state that Olmert is about ready to create next door—one that resembles the Wild West more than any kind of civil society. Or perhaps a thugocracy.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s closest confidants said Friday that Israel should withdraw from “most” of the West Bank in a negotiated deal with the Palestinians and that a previous plan for a major unilateral pullback was no longer viable.

Vice-premier Haim Ramon, one of the politicians closest to Olmert, told Israel Radio that he favored reducing the Israeli presence in the West Bank to the “large settlement blocs” and that NATO forces could replace Israeli troops in the areas evacuated.

No way anything good can come of this. When Olmert’s “closest confidant” is openly talking about withdrawing from the West Bank, you can pretty much bet that Olmert has already drawn up the plans. This disengagement policy has been a disaster, and yet, he’s willing to go one step further and put uncontrolled enemies on Israel’s every border.

The IDF security services say the PA is actually turning over information about terrorist attacks.

Palestinian security organizations loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have transferred information on terrorist plots in the West Bank to Israel, Israeli security sources said. The information served Israeli security services in countering plans to carry out terrorist attacks.

However, Israeli security sources emphasized that the Shin Bet does not rely exclusively on Palestinian security organizations for intelligence, and recognizes the limited nature of this information.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority have resumed limited security cooperation in recent weeks, considered to be the most significant exchanges of this type in the past six years.

Palestinian security sources also confirmed that limited coordination has been resumed with Israel. However, they complained that Israel is not interested in full and extensive security cooperation and charged that senior IDF officers are trying to avoid meetings with their Palestinian counterparts.

A serious gap in expectations is also apparent in the Palestinian request for the transfer of some West Bank cities to the control of PA security organizations, Palestinian sources said.

This happened years ago, when Arafat wanted to look like he was cooperating. Mahmoud Abbas learned at Arafat’s feet. I am unconvinced that this means the Palestinians are willing to forego terror.

Another report, however, is making me think that perhaps—just perhaps—a turning point is on the horizon. “Guarded pessimism” is what I would use to describe my feelings about this:

The Palestinian Authority government published its platform on Friday, which for the first time does not include a reference to armed struggle against Israel, Israel Radio reported.

Nonetheless, the government stressed that it is committed to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ call for a “popular struggle against the Israeli occupation.”

The Arabic word muqawma, which literally means resistance and has appeared in all prior PA governments’ platform, is generally understood to mean armed struggle. The term “popular struggle” includes, among other things, demonstrations and political activism.

Wordplay, however, is the least of what needs to be changed. A whole generation’s mindset has been poisoned. When Abbas stops the incitement in the schools, on TV, and in the Palestinian newspapers, then I will believe they are truly willing to change.

For now, I’ll take the extra help on terror attacks and expect much, much more.

Tired of the bias and inaccuracy of the mainstream media? So are a lot of people. And they’ve started a new Wiki called Media Mythbusters so there is a source that can counter the media bias. The objective:

To be the Internet source of comprehensive facts and links chronicling major journalism’s treatment of certain stories in which questions have arisen regarding facts or methods of reporting. These treatments of news events by major media have direct and significant impact upon public opinion and upon policymakers. Careful consideration of the way these stories were handled by the media is essential to both a well informed public and policy, and are intended to contribute to a more reliable and responsible major media desired and needed by all. The goal of this site is to be a reliable resource, accessible to all, to provide news consumers with a tool and information to allow them to determine how best to process information they receive through major media outlets.

We have CAMERA, and MEMRI, and other sites that cover the media’s many inaccuracies and biases. Now we have a Wiki that can collate the errors (Fauxtography, Jamil Hussein, and now, the TNR Scott Thomas case) and put it all in one place. With hard work and an adherence to strict guidelines, Media Mythbusters can be a powerful force for making the media actually mean what they say when they claim to be objective. Or at least, that’s my hope.

In any case, I have joined the Media Mythbusters. I look forward to linking to my first entry there.

This, rather mundane these days headline, is repeated every week or so:

The U.N. Mideast envoy warned Wednesday of impending economic collapse in the Gaza Strip unless Israel reopens the Hamas-led territory’s main commercial crossing to the outside world to ease international isolation.

I’m sure that the writer did not mean anything but well, same as Michael Williams, the quoted UN envoy. And that the statement in its published form was crafted for brevity and for maximum impact. So, putting that “unless” on paper, the author of the statement had a tough choice to make. Either go the fool-proof, short and easy way (which was the eventual decision, obviously) or to make an effort and to say that unless:

• Hamas stops the attacks against Israel - both by its own members and by the other gangs
• Hamas stops the incessant attacks against and digging under the border crossings
• Hamas starts cooperating with Israel and international organizations that try to feed and to cure the people of Gaza

the tragic situation of 1.5 million citizens of Gaza will get worse and worse.

It must be said that, surprisingly, the UN envoy referred to some of the salient points:

Williams said Palestinian militants fired 192 rockets and mortar shells at Gaza’s crossings and into Israel in the last month. He said Hamas’ military wing was responsible for most of the attacks on the crossings, while Islamic Jihad fired most of the rockets and mortars into Israel.

However, the AP hack conveniently placed this text way down, where most of the readers do not arrive, getting first slightly incensed by the intransigence of these cruel Jooz and then bored by the whole damn subject.

And so the wheel turns…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.