Althouse: At the Retriever Café...

July 22, 2012

At the Retriever Café...

... what have you got for me there?

50 comments:

Meade said...: Bingo is the chocolate. He's older, more sensitive, the intellectual. Joey's the yellow - young, expressive, a bit of a clown.

Both are just as lovable as dogs get.; 7/22/12, 11:55 AM
edutcher said...: If that was Quasy Dog, the only thing she'd want to retrieve is The Blonde.

The only chocolate around our neck of the woods is dumber than a box of rocks and keeps coming across the street to pick a fight with Quantum.

PS I won't say it.; 7/22/12, 12:05 PM
Michael Haz said...: Oh man, I miss my golden retrievers. All of them. I owned four through the years.

They kept the tennis ball industry working 24/7.

And get them to the lake? An afternoon of wet joy.; 7/22/12, 12:06 PM
Meade said...: Haz, do what I do - borrow the neighbors' dogs. Win-Win-Win! Oh, and Win!; 7/22/12, 12:12 PM
Saint Croix said...: I miss Scout dog.; 7/22/12, 12:20 PM
traditionalguy said...: It's a dog's life.

I believe that Men love dogs because they loved us first.; 7/22/12, 12:55 PM
Michael K said...: Basset hounds don't like water and they aren't interested in tennis balls but let a rabbit run by...; 7/22/12, 1:15 PM
urpower said...: Fluorescent lights & skin cancer?! http://commcgi.cc.stonybrook.edu/am2/publish/General_University_News_2/SBU_Study_Reveals_Harmful_Effects_of_CFL_Bulbs_to_Skin.shtml; 7/22/12, 1:33 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm scratching my head bulb trying to come up with something uplifting to say about the dogs..

They have a life of purpose.. at least they are not being asked to walk over a bed of hot coals.. just to plunge in a dirty lake polluted with broken bottles..

I got nothing.; 7/22/12, 1:54 PM
ndspinelli said...: Put our golden down @ age 14 on 1-11-12. He was the neighborhood dog. Kids could put a stick in his eye and he wouldn't bite. When he was ~1 year old I took him to a lake w/ waterfowl. The big dog was not bright but had heart. He swam after ducks almost into the middle of the lake, the ducks just busting his balls as he got close. I thought I was going to have to jump in but he finally turned around, swam back, and damn near collapsed on the shore.; 7/22/12, 2:06 PM
ndspinelli said...: Nice Hall of Fame ceremony this year. Ron Santo's wife[a knockout!] gave a very good speech. Barry Larkin is sspeaking now. An eloquent, sharp guy even though a Wolverine. I didn't know he was a local Cincy kid!; 7/22/12, 2:09 PM
ndspinelli said...: I take back my kudos for Larkin. He's been speaking forever. He has talked about all his mentors. I guess Fidel Castro was his speech mentor.; 7/22/12, 2:28 PM
Brent said...: Interesting Article in the New York Times:

Disney and Reaqan, United at Presidential Library; 7/22/12, 2:38 PM
MadisonMan said...: Do you bathe them before returning them? Lake Mendota smells kinda ripe.; 7/22/12, 3:02 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I sometimes wonder if one of my neighbors would let me borrow a dog for morning walks.; 7/22/12, 3:10 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Freeman Hunt, I am certain everyone will like that.; 7/22/12, 3:40 PM
garage mahal said...: Nice looking labs.

My chocolate just turned 10 months.; 7/22/12, 3:52 PM
Michael Haz said...: Meade - Good idea, borrowing dogs. In my neighborhood, though, the dogs are mostly cockapoo or shih tzu, neither of which favor water play.

I could move to a neighborhood that has better dogs, I suppose.; 7/22/12, 4:09 PM
Penny said...: Spinelli, my first golden also played the Duck Game. After one of the times she ended up out in the middle of the river, I recall talking to my vet about it. The vet said that while retrievers have big brains, their hearts are even bigger. They LOVE to play, and will do so until their hearts just give out.; 7/22/12, 4:27 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: mesteño not mesteno

So El Mesteño not El Mesteno.

Big difference there.

I know of three ways to say mustang in Spanish.

mustang mustango mesteño

mesteño (ña) means wild animal, untamed, for example caballo, n. mustang.

You know the difference between ñ an n. Be a sport and say the word the right way even though it is printed wrongly all over the place.

What's to complain about the horse with the fire red eyes and veiny blue balls? The statue has been the greatest draw for fourteen year old boys to Denver ever. A statue so awesome it killed its own sculptor, Luis Jiménez.

And you see that little ' on top of the e like this, é , making a little karate chop from the right? That tells you how to say his name the right way but it assumes you already know the J is actually an H sound because that is the way it is in the remote and exotic land whence those names with é in them originate.

These are just a few of the tricks you learn as you go along.; 7/22/12, 4:36 PM
ndspinelli said...: Penny, Our Golden was named Kozmo[after Kramer on Seinfeld]. However, when we came to realize just how slow witted he was I wanted to rename him Lenny, from Of Mice and Men. You could pet him for 5 hours straight and he would still want more.; 7/22/12, 4:55 PM
alan markus said...: Let's see Sarah Silverman do this with a retriever:

An Indecent Proposal from Sarah Silverman (Sheldon Adelson ad); 7/22/12, 5:04 PM
Penny said...: "You could pet him for 5 hours straight and he would still want more."

Spinelli, seems to me that it was Nick who was due for a name change. ;); 7/22/12, 5:56 PM
Penny said...: According to Wikipedia's "Brightest Dogs" list, Golden Retrievers are number 4, right behind Border Collies, Poodles and German Shepherds, in that order.

*woof*; 7/22/12, 6:01 PM
ndspinelli said...: Penny, Great ball bust! I love good female ball busters.; 7/22/12, 6:20 PM
Penny said...: And I prefer to think of that as a little squeeze.

What kind of woman would want to bust up a man's balls?; 7/22/12, 6:26 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Mary's guide dogs, one retired, are the worst guard dogs on Earth.

I told you about them. Stop me if I did.

I saw the three blind men coming a full five minutes before the two dogs did. Way out there in the sunlight. In a row. An arm on the shoulder of the man in front. All with canes. No dogs. The proverbial blind leading the blind. All the across the front sidewalk, all the up to the porch, all the way across the long front porch, finally at the door and ready to knock, then BARK BARK BARK.

The were there to give Mary a sack of pot.

But they smoked a joint first.

All three sat on a sofa. Mary sat at a comfy chair, I completed a circle.

The first guy pulled a joint out of his pocket and lit it. Puffed it. Then handed it to the guy sitting right next to him, but as if he was far away.

"I'm handing it to you."

The second guy gropes, finds the arm, finds the hand, finds the fingers, comprehends the orientation of the lit joint in the fingers, takes it. Has a puff. Extends his arm.

"I'm handing it to you."

But now it's burned down and more difficult. It gets to Mary a small stub.

Another is started at the beginning.

Repeat the exact same pattern.

It too burns out. Mary isn't getting any hits.

Three joints were lit up and none satisfactorily made it to Mary. It was frustrating to observe. My impulse, a strong impulse that I fought back, was to leap up and grap the joint and say, "Here! It's right in front of your lips, now puff. "

Then they left and I resumed reading A Handmaiden's Tale which in my opinion totally sucks. It's hard to read out loud. It goes short sentence short sentence short sentence
loooooooooooooooooooong sentence. That's the pattern throughout the whole book. Plus the story itself is dreadful antiChristian load. Mary thought it was genius and Mary is a writer.; 7/22/12, 6:31 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: But what I wanted to tell you is these sonofabitches are making fun of my Yankee Doodle hat. And the pony.

With the pheasant feather I stuck in it. It hangs out way in the back. With a mere flick of my head I can kill flies behind me. It's like a flyswatter on my head. I just turn my head a little like 30˚ and WHAP there goes a fly never saw it coming. Like a cow tail except better. Cows are stupid. Instead of flicking away insects with their tails, they should try to kill them. They could dip the hairy ends of their tails in water like a rolled up gym towel, just so, to a point, like a whip, then CRACK CRACK CRACK dead flies all over the place.; 7/22/12, 6:33 PM
Ralph L said...: Sounds like someone got several hits.

let a rabbit run by
I looked after my dad & step-mother's Samoyed on and off, including her last year, which ended in April. Very well behaved, until she saw a squirrel move. When she was young, she saw one across the street and bolted in front of a car until I yanked her back. More hair than dog, but that dog could pull.; 7/22/12, 7:13 PM
Maggie Goff said...: Chip is the coolest. Always interesting.; 7/22/12, 7:34 PM
Anonymous said...: I don't know Chip, but I think Mary is a genius. I loved The Handmaiden's Tale, I could see this future for us if Fundamentalist men ruled the world.

Now girding my loins.; 7/22/12, 7:48 PM
rhhardin said...: @garage

Take a look at Vicki Hearne's _Adam's Task_, the essays on Washoe and How To Say Fetch.

Hearne is a lefty and you may find her agreeable.; 7/22/12, 7:59 PM
rhhardin said...: Lautreamont says the easiest way to kill flies is to cut off their heads.; 7/22/12, 8:19 PM
Ralph L said...: I could see this future for us if Fundamentalist men ruled the world.
They did, more or less, for quite a long time, and all you got were population growth, prostitutes, and back alley abortions.

When the Muslims take over Europe in a few years, you can experience a different kind of fundamentalism, with those 3 features and a lot more, like female circumcision and burqas.; 7/22/12, 8:20 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Ok that's enough.

I want to play a little game.. the name of the game is..

Obvious Aurora Conclusion that nobody says.. because its obvious and it makes one look.. sub-par.

Oviously.. bullshit has to be tolerated.

Holmes was unemployed and probably collecting... its demoralising to give someone money to do nothing... he snaped.; 7/22/12, 8:46 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Links to other stories get extra points.

Like.. Holmes was a Penn State fan and was distraught over the exiling of JoePa's statue.; 7/22/12, 8:55 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Most of what we "know" about this tragedy is speculative.

Turning it into a game isn't going to kill anybody.

Or so I believe.

Crack might come in an call it a cult.. the cult of entertainment.

No, I like Crack.; 7/22/12, 9:07 PM
Unknown said...: thank you
i like this
Oh man, I miss my golden retrievers. All of them. I owned four through the years.

They kept the tennis ball industry working 24/7.

And get them to the lake? An afternoon of wet joy. :D :D; 7/22/12, 9:34 PM
David said...: Freeman Hunt said...
"I sometimes wonder if one of my neighbors would let me borrow a dog for morning walks"

Unless they are crazy, they would jump (and wiggle, wag, bark and drool) at the chance.; 7/22/12, 11:09 PM
David said...: It's good to know that Obama is not exploiting the tragedy.

Just what the families need--a visit from the President.

(In fairness, maybe they welcome it. But the last thing I would want in that circumstance is the Presidential circus.); 7/22/12, 11:12 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: The thing about Katy Perry is, well, everything.

This is a link to content not Victorian via any necessity that aware am I, to say the least.; 7/22/12, 11:54 PM
Jim S. said...: This is a popular argument in philosophy today:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe (matter, energy, space, and time) began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Since a cause exists independently of its effects, by definition, then the cause of the universe must exist independently of matter, energy, space, and time. Therefore, this cause must be immaterial, omnipresent (because it exists "outside" of space), and eternal (because it exists "outside" of time).

Discuss.; 7/23/12, 3:52 AM
rhhardin said...: @Jim S

It doesn't work for instability.

Some pattern pops up, say herringbone clouds, because a wind shear is unstable. There's some wavelength of disturbance that grows faster than any other wavelength, the wavelength determined by the details of the wind shear.

This wavelength then shows up because it outgrows all the others.

It has no cause because there's no limit on the smallness of the initial disturbance that grew into it.

All you know is that herringbone clouds of that wavelength will show up.; 7/23/12, 4:54 AM
Jim S. said...: Your account of an instability is that it is a description of how something changes with respect to time. The instability itself is not an existent, it is just a description of something else that does exist. The argument does not claim that every change must have a cause but that the particular change of something beginning to exist has a cause. This is difficult to deny; indeed, virtually all of science presupposes this principle.; 7/23/12, 6:18 AM
Ann Althouse said...: The dogs were duly washed afterwards.; 7/23/12, 6:45 AM
Rusty said...: Our Siberian Husky,Mocha, just found out she could swim.
I didn't know this before , but huskies have webbed feet, like labs.; 7/23/12, 7:07 AM
rhhardin said...: @Jim S
The clouds did not exist and then they did.

If you want to take leave of normal usage, I'd recommend Wittgenstein for explanation of the dangers.

Or better Stanley Cavell _The Claim of Reason_ for motivation to read Wittgenstein.; 7/23/12, 7:17 AM
Jim S. said...: I know Wittgenstein pretty well. I also know philosophy of science and why philosophers use the terms they do. Something changing from one state to another state is not a case of something beginning to exist. If it did then we would be committed to a position where every moment an entity is a brand new entity because it is not exactly the same as it was the previous moment.

Again, the principle that everything that begins to exist has a cause is presupposed in all of science: without it any science, including atmospheric physics, could not get started.; 7/23/12, 8:32 AM
rhhardin said...: @Jim S
The herringbone clouds have a particular phase that does not come from any cause that's identifiable.

Cause goes past quantum level and disappears.

We just say, causewise, that that's the fastest growing wavelength, and so that's the one that you see.

Which is a way of saying also that there's no further interest in a cause.

Science does cut it off.

It does not depend on a chain of causes as philosophy imagines.

That is, as Wittgenstein says, a picture.

Pictures come from abstrating away from interest, where criteria actually work.; 7/23/12, 9:07 AM
kentuckyliz said...: Speaking of webbed feet: is there such a thing as webbed swimming gloves? I could swim faster with those, I think. I thought of that while lap swimming this weekend.; 7/23/12, 9:37 PM