What Do I Know?

Friday Cow Blogging

Cows, possessed of a forgiving nature, agree that crisp apples mitigate the sins of barky dogs.

Today Sparky reminded me I hadn't taken any photos for Friday Cow Blogging this week. When I let him out, he went to the fence and started barking at the cows, who scattered at the sound. Way to remind me I need to photograph the cows, Sparks. 

I put him inside, grabbed a bag full of apples, and headed out to the fence, eager to make amends. Fortunately the bovine nature is a forgiving one, and they came back to welcome me and my apples. 

I'm still figuring out how to control Sparky's barking. Other than using his excellent recall to call him in when he barks, I'm stumped. I think we need to seek arbritration with the cows. Surely he'll come to an agreement with them eventually. 

Triumph Over Modern TV: Rocking the Morning With Dr Quinn

I have griped before about my inability to deal with the latest TV technology. Since then we've acquired even more TV boxes and remote controls and satellites and even an iPhone app that turns your mobile device into a remote control. I think that gives us an even dozen remote controls. 

Including a universal remote, which only works for half our TV equipment, thus making it a hemispheric remote. 

Since getting an iPhone for Christmas, I've adapted seamlessly to mobile phone usage. (My previous phone was a 2004 model that once belonged to my daughter; two of mine were stolen/lost so it seemed pointless to invest in a new one.) The iPhone is simple for anyone raised on a Mac to adapt to, and besides, it works much like my iPad. But the remote feature turns it into yet another remote control, with funny shaped controls and the necessity to remember acronyms and a required order of clicking on various AV boxes and channel selectors. 

Anyway, this morning I needed to fold clothes in the living room (a task which seems to have bypassed Man's need for technological improvement). I thought it would be nice to watch TV while I was folding. So I picked up a few remotes (my iPhone was upstairs and again, teleporting objects hasn't been invented yet) and tried to match the devices to the proper box by the company logo. The Panasonic obviously went to the TV, so I tried that first. A red light came on, signaling success! Then I knew I had to select an AV, so I hit that and chose one (there are five to choose from). No go. So I choose another one, and finally got a picture to come up. Unfortunately, it was only to inform me that BBC Four wasn't currently operating. So I moved up a few channels (apparently BBC's whole operation is inoperable for some reason) and found ITV. And there's the familiar face of Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, wearing her homespun dress and talking earnestly.

Bonanza! I'd managed to turn on the TV, ALL BY MYSELF! What an accomplishment! Except that, I didn't really want to watch Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman (who my youngest daughter always referred to as "Madison Woman", since we lived in Madison at the time). 

Ironically, I was only able to watch a program that aired in the nineties on my newfangled 2011 television. I thought back to the good old days, when I could pick up a remote, hit a red button and turn on the TV, then select a channel and volume that was appropriate and carry on with folding clothes. Not any more. By the time I was done examining all the remotes and pondering the possibilities I was mentally drained. 

So I turned to modern social media and complained on Facebook. I feel much better now. Modernity has some uses after all.

Friday Cow Blogging

Hey you with the dirty face...

More cows in the snow, taken last week when the cows showed up at the back fence, hungry for a handout. I rushed to put on boots and grab a bag of apples and my camera, and as soon as I heaved one over the fence they all got really excited. 

Okay, I guess excited is a relative term. 

You can watch them here, on this video I shot. The camera's a bit shaky—I had to hold it and the bag with one hand while I reached inside to grab the apples. And the sound is distorted by the noise of a jet coming in toward Heathrow, and my reedy, bronchitis-damaged voice. (I don't think I'll ever get my lungs back in shape—heck, I should have just been smoking two packs a day for all the good abstaining all these years has done. One month of bronchitis and I sound like I've been smoking for decades.)

Note the dirty face on the baby calf. Still adorable. And no, I don't mean that in a relative sense. 

A Very Smelly Recall

Recall in the snow

We're really working hard on improving Sparky's recall, with the help of a workshop we've taken at Company of Animals. They've given us some great tips for improving recall. It turns out I was on the right track, but I just needed to do more of what I was already doing: better treats, more exciting recalls, and generally making myself even more of a beloved (and benevolent) human. If I am the source of all good things, he'll want to be sure to be near me, despite the lure of squirrels. (Here's a video by Company of Animals on "canine currency" that explains how to improve rewards.)

Although I thought I was offering high-value treats to Sparky whenever I whistled for him to come, it turns out there are even better treats than roast turkey. 

Now, being vegan, I'm not exactly thrilled at putting any kind of meat in my hands, and I drew the line at sardines. Except that's the thing that Sparky loves most. His recall has improved even more since we rewarded him with a sardine each time he raced up to us. 

Fortunately there is such a thing as rubber gloves. 

The video above was taken at the Camp, a local Iron Age hillfort where we frequently walk Sparky. It's surrounded by trees and brush, and beyond that, fenced gardens. So it's a safe place to work on recall skills. 

Sunday is our last session of the workshop. The last time we went, Sparky was fascinated by the llamas that came up to the fence. They proved to be the perfect distraction, which we needed to get Sparky's recall to the next level, where he would return to us despite a high level distraction. (In the wild, sheep, horses, and of course squirrels are real-life distractions he'll have to learn to ignore when we call him.)

As we discovered, when it was turkey vs llamas, the llamas won. But when sardines entered the picture, we suddenly had a dog totally focused on us. 

A very smelly victory, but still, a victory.

Friday Cow Blogging

Cow in the snow fog. 

On Sunday, four inches of snow fell. When I went out to play with the dog, I heard plaintive moos coming from the pasture. I was surprised that the farmer had left the cows in the pasture during the cold snap. Usually they'd be in a barn, eating hay, during this sort of weather. 

A day later, the snow began to melt, then refroze, and we ended up with snow fog. That's when I got this photo of the poor cow, out there looking for a sweet blade of grass under the snow. 

Another two inches or so of snow fell last night. The cows are still out there, freezing. But yesterday I fed them some apples. They seemed to appreciate the handout.

In America, Your Health Care Belongs to Your Boss

In America, they're apparently arguing about whether a boss should have a say in whether or not his female employee gets pregnant. I know my British friends are having a hard time understanding how this came to be, and frankly, they're right to be bemused. 

Why on earth should an employer have anything to do with health care in the first place? (The answer is it started in the 1930s, when some employers began offering health care insurance to employees and it became the primary means by which most Americans receive health care.)

Why should an employer who's Catholic, or Muslim, or an atheist animal rights activist, have any say whatsoever in whether or not I reproduce? Or whether or not I choose to take a birth control pill to control painful periods? Or whether or not I have an IUD? Or if my partner has a vasectomy? 

If an employer provides health care insurance to his or her employees, and receives tax benefits for doing so, shouldn't there be minimum standards applied to the insurance plan? And shouldn't those minimum standards cover the very basic option of pregnancy prevention—the only reason many young women see their doctors for years at a time?

What if, say, a female employee of a Catholic university can't afford contraception. She becomes pregnant. Every year. After a while, her employer will decide the university can't keep providing maternity leave for a perpetually pregnant receptionist. So she'll lose her job.

But I guess that's okay, if you're a Catholic bishop. After all, it's not a problem you'll ever have, is it? Because you are, by definition, a man.

So I can see why the Catholic church and its leaders have their staffs in a wad over the proposed rule from the Obama administration, which would make it mandatory for contraceptive costs to be covered in any employer-paid health care plans. But when did the Catholic church have a right to impose its beliefs on everyone else? On the employees of their hospitals, their universities, their schools? (Churches themselves would be exempt from this rule.) 

What if a Mormon employer refused to cover his employees who wanted to quit smoking? Isn't a nicotine patch a sin? Or what if a Mormon employer refused to cover an employee who'd become ill due to effects of caffeine? And should I have the right to deny an employee health care coverage if they eat beef and become ill due to e-coli? 

Again, my British and European friends are wondering how the employer ever got into this argument in the first place, even though many European countries have similar employer-based health care systems. They just don't believe that employers have the right to call the shots when it comes to their employees' health care. Maybe that's because they believe that health care is a right, not a privilege. 

And that, my dear British friends, is the fundamental difference between America and the rest of the world. 

DARPA? No: High School Science Fair Contestant.

Forget drones. President Obama has a more effective weapon in his arsenal. 

The Marshmallow Cannon, created by science fair contestant Joey Hudy, should take out the odd al-Qaeda holdout still sauntering around Sudan. Elements of the Taliban still fashioning old-school IEDs in Afghanistan will flee to the bargaining table once they get a load of the awesomeness created by 14-year old American inventors.

Yeah, just wait till POTUS unloads a few Jet Puffs on their ass. OUR ENEMIES WILL DEFLATE LIKE CAKE. 

Forget Clint Eastwood and his scary rasp; Joey Hudy and his marshmallow machinery makes Dirty Harry look like Sponge Bob.

Innovation? I believe that's spelled A-M-E-R-I-C-A.

Congratulations to our youth. YOU ROCK, YOUTH!

Friday Cow Blogging

Cows come into iPhone camera range

Yesterday while I was at my desk Sparky started barking, running to me and then to the back door. No, he wasn't doing his usual warning bark to alert me to the Evil Fox who prowls the pasture, looking for field mice to bop on the head. He just wanted me to know the cows were near enough to the fence for me to get some photos.

He's such an intuitive dog, he realizes I appreciate him running maniacally to the back door every time there's a photogenic cow posed near the fence. He even barks, once out there, to let them know they should look toward the camera. A perfect photographer's assistant. 

This time there were several cows within camera range. I think, if I ever go on safari, I'll take Sparky with me. He's definitely got an eye for appropriate wildlife subject matter. 

Wonder if I can find him a khaki vest to hold my extra batteries?

Got a Calling? Congratulations; Here's Your Peanuts!

According to this Alabama legislator, if you have a "calling" to work in a certain profession such as teaching, you should be willing to do it for low pay, since, after all, it's your calling, based on your God-given talent. And paying teachers more would only result in people entering the field who don't have a calling: 

“And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn’t matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.

“If you don’t keep that in balance, you’re going to attract people who are not called, who don’t need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance.”

This actually makes a lot of sense. I know many doctors who are only performing surgery because they get paid a lot. They care nothing about the profession and, indeed, many are very poor doctors. Conversely, some of the best doctors I know work for the US military and earn the same salary as anyone else at their rank. 

Sen. Shadrack McGill (any relation to Meshack?) has really hit on a perfect solution for many of society's problems. Doctors, obviously, should be paid much less than they are. I suggest a salary of around $36,000, which is what a dedicated Alabama teacher earns. Then we'll see who REALLY wants to be a neurosurgeon! 

This will, of course, free up lots of public money from Medicare and Medicaid budgets, not to mention the rates employers and employees pay for health insurance. The deficit will be cured, we'll all pay lower taxes, and everyone will be doing what they LOVE for the SHEER LOVE of it, plus a few peanuts in their paycheck.

Self-actualization will be accomplished, though some may have to do without other items on the hierarchy of needs, such as shelter and expeller-pressed olive oil.

There's just one problem: Shadrack also voted to increase legislators' pay by 62%. And as a result, the only legislators Alabama can attract to the noble calling now are...people like Sen. Shadrack McGill.