Funeral For Half a Dog

(Photo Credit: "Dog Funeral: 1922," from Shorpy, the 100-Year-Old Photo Blog)

A Message from Mark Twain, Director of the Office of Persona Management, Roxie’s World:

Friends, we gather today in Roxie’s World to mourn the half a dog that was ritually murdered yesterday at the meeting of the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. (Don’t get the allusion to killing half a dog? Read this, and consider curling up with this.) The committee met to try to resolve the debacles of Florida and Michigan created when those states violated party rules by moving their primaries ahead on the calendar. In a not unexpected move, the committee voted to seat all the delegates from Florida at the party convention but to allow them only half a vote each. The Michigan issue was thornier because Senator Barack Obama had, by his own choice, removed himself from the ballot. Hillary Clinton kept her name on the ballot and won the state by a margin of 55% to 40% over “Uncommitted,” a slate that at that time included Obama, John Edwards, and other Dems still in the race. The committee’s murderous solution to the problem of how to apportion Michigan’s delegates was to split them between Clinton and Obama in such a way that Clinton lost four delegates she would have won on the basis of the popular vote results. Obama is functionally equated to “Uncommitted” and picks up delegates on the basis of votes that clearly were not intended for him.

(For details and analysis on the meeting, go here, here, and here.)

One of the mourners here today is Moose’s sister from Michigan, a loyal Democrat who cast a vote for “Uncommitted” in January because she was at that point an Edwards supporter. Yesterday, when the Rules and Bylaws Committee conducted its bizarre exercise in voter-cide and mind-reading, she was a Hillary Clinton supporter. She is no fan of the Precious and would never have chosen him over Clinton in a two-person race. Today, she is so devastated by the committee’s arbitrary act of theft and disenfranchisement that she is considering voting for perennial candidate and certified nutbar Lyndon LaRouche, whose supporters were at the Count Every Vote rally yesterday with banners pointing out that the DNC’s half-vote solution is less generous than the 3/5s of a person formula once used to count slaves as a portion of the U. S. population.

Actually, we don’t know what Moose’s sister is thinking right now because we haven’t spoken to her this weekend, but at least our fantasy of her political intentions is of less consequence than the equally fantastical decision of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. The committee believes it was acting in the interest of party unity and with the goal of placating voters and state-party organizations in two populous states Dems will need in the fall. The mourners here in Roxie’s World and in other pro-Clinton pockets of the blogosphere have a different view and see a different set of likely consequences arising from the Michigan compromise in particular. Goose sees it as a last-ditch effort to drive a stake through the heart of the Clinton campaign on the part of a national party organization that has been determined to thwart her path to the nomination from the beginning. Given Obama’s lead in the overall delegate count, she sees the taking away of four Clinton delegates as a mean-spirited act aimed at propping up a nomination she views as fatally weak.

Two other mourners with us today are a couple of our favorite pro-Hillary bloggers, Tom (blogalicious) Watson and (smart as she is prolific) Anglachel, both of whom worry about the dangerous precedent set by the committee’s reassignment of delegates and the taint of illegitimacy that will attach to any nomination that arises from it. Watson writes:

Can you imagine the effects of this precedent? If you can conjure Leonid Brezhnev sitting in at a Kremlin committee table calmly adjusting the returns from, say, Belarus, then the specter of future "Democrats" engaging in a bit of electoral nip and tuck in New Jersey or Colorado or Wisconsin comes all too uneasily to mind.

The shadow of illegitimacy will now linger on this nomination. Senator Clinton may well take the Michigan appeal to the rules committee on the convention floor, and she will be well within her rights to do so. In my view, Senator Obama should join her challenge of this travesty - and place his name on the record as opposing invented votes and fake elections. If he does not, then he is all but endorsing future "adjustments" of the electoral results. Further, he would guarantee the indelibility of the Michigan* Asterisk on his nomination, on his presidency, and on his legacy - and on his beloved party as well.

Anglachel sees some good news for Clinton in yesterday’s actions, most importantly in that the seating of delegations from Florida and Michigan will likely make her the undisputed popular-vote winner of the primary campaign. However, she, too, is troubled by the procedural irregularity of re-assigning delegates, a move she believes plays right into GOP hands:

The reason I am concerned about the battle over the four Michigan delegate votes is because there is no valid procedure for that reallocation, and alleged Democrat "vote fixing" is one of the Republicans' standard arguments against the Democrats. It is used to push through restrictive voter ID and onerous voter registration rules, and it is used as an excuse to purge voter rolls and install thugs at voting places to "discourage voter fraud". It is used deliberately to undermine minority voting in Democratic districts, and the Republicans will gleefully seize on this one very egregious act of disenfranchisement to serve up a toxic mix of racism - see what happens when "those people" (i.e., non-whites, in this case AAs, but also applied to Hispanics and Asians) start calling the voting shots? They just rearrange things to promote one of "their own kind."

Why is this a really bad thing in the current election cycle? Because the new issue on the Republicans' radar is Affirmative Action. (Gee, I wonder why they picked that theme?) There will be state measures on the ballot in Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri, just to name a few states where Obama is allegedly competitive. Add this crude and blatant vote manipulation to the mix, and the Republicans now have a big campaign issue handed to them on a silver platter.

"What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half [of the dog]? Do you reckon he thought it would live?" Did we really expect the Rules and Bylaws Committee to rescind the punishments meted out to Florida and Michigan and give the states’ delegates full voting privileges at the convention? Truthfully, no, but we also didn’t expect the committee to go out of its way to slap Senator Clinton and her supporters on the face en route to the coronation of a nominee so weak he needs to take votes where none existed. And, yes, Obamaniacs, before you point it out, we are well aware that many of Senator Clinton’s supporters on the committee voted for the Michigan compromise – if only to spare her and fellow Democrats the even more dubious result of having the Michigan delegates split equally between her and Obama.

What troubles us in the tortured denouement of this extraordinary primary battle is that the Democratic Party seems more interested in short-term political expediency than in demonstrating a commitment to basic principles of enfranchisement and the sanctity of the vote. Further, party leaders and the Obama campaign continue to seem oblivious to the steep challenge they face in trying to convince Clinton supporters that their candidate has been treated fairly and respectfully, that the issues she brought to the fore will receive their due if she is not the nominee, and that Obama has the experience, skill, and wisdom to be a good president. With or without those four delegates from Michigan, Senator Obama will in all likelihood end up with the nomination, but he isn’t likely to end up with the presidency without strong support from Senator Clinton’s voters, so this last gratuitous slam seems especially unwise.

That’s the problem with killing half a dog, you see. You end up missing either a brain or a bottom, and it turns out both are essential to a fully functioning dog. Believe me, here in Roxie's World, we are firmly committed to the principle that half -- or even 3/5s -- of a dog is really no dog at all.

Amen.

Count Every Vote Rally: Photos

Paws up and a couple of tail wags to Donna Darko and the Red Queen for promoting Roxie's World's on-the-ground coverage of the Count Every Vote Rally today in downtown Washington. Welcome to everyone who stumbled upon our happy little corner of the blogosphere by way of their awesome pro-Hillary sites! Sorry to disappoint those of you who were expecting live-blogging from the event, but the moms are way too techno-challenged for such snazziness. We can't do much more right now than throw up some pics, because the moms are having company for dinner in a couple of hours, but we can tell you that the rally was a success in bringing attention to the issues of fairness to voters in Florida and Michigan who did nothing wrong when they went to the polls in January. The moms arrived at the Marriott Wardman Park, where the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee was meeting, a little before 9. Crowd at the entrance to the hotel was thick. Signs were overwhelmingly focused on voters rather than candidates. The overall vibe was excellent, despite the macho zealousness of cops determined to keep the streets clear. Most Obamaniacs seem to have followed His Hopeness's order to stay away, though there were a few in the crowd. Media were everywhere. Goose was interviewed three times, while Moose roamed around playing press photog with her sleek new Canon G9. (Do let her know what you think of her work.)

Bottom Line: It was a good day for the issues and a powerful message to the Democratic party that voters are watching and waiting to see how this mess is resolved. We heard a lot of talk in the crowd from pro-Hillary voters threatening to stay home or vote McCain in November as a way of registering their outrage toward the party. Roxie's World doesn't endorse either of those moves -- yet -- but we think the party must be made to understand that unity cannot be assumed. It must be built, and it must be earned.

Wa Po coverage of the meetings and events is here. All photos by Moose.

(Baby's first protest! One-month old Dana Weems Sussman-Martin puts up a cry for the voters of Michigan and Florida at her very first political rally.)

(Like many hard-core politicos, Dana finds comfort with a bottle in her mouth and a Hillary button on her head.)

(Rally organizer Jehmu Greene speaks at the rally.)

(Best eyewear spotted in the crowd at the rally.)

(The crowd at the hotel entrance greeting meeting attendees as they arrived.)

Count Every Vote Rally: Preview

The moms are ready. The signs are painted. The sensible shoes are polished. They are prepared to save the Democratic party from itself. They will get up early tomorrow morning and take a train downtown and march in circles and listen to speeches and try to come up with clever chants about not punishing voters for the idiocies of state party organizations and legislatures. They will take the camera and maybe a little notepad, since Roxie's World has declared itself the Official Dog Blogger to the Count Every Vote Rally and sincerely hopes that all our faraway pro-Hillary fem blogger pals (we mean you, Historiann, Elizabitchez, Hillary 1000, and Anglachel) will link to our on-the-ground reports in order to drive up traffic and make us as famous as we deserve to be. But of course, the real point is to save America from the unmitigated disaster of another Republican president.

Here's the poop on the rally if you are interested in joining in the fun. Remember: No Hillary gear -- It's not about a candidate but about the voters. Note to Obamaniacs: The Precious has told you to stay home and sleep tight tomorrow morning, so be good little Obamacans and do as He says. You need to save all your energy for those inaugural balls you think you'll be attending in January '09, so don't worry your pretty little heads about schlepping downtown tomorrow morning to help the DNC pull its head out of its back end and figure out how to resolve the nomination debacle in a way that will make Democrats, independents, and Republicans with a lick of sense in their heads inclined to support the Democratic ticket. We'll take care of that. Mwahahahahahaha.


(Photo Credits: Moose, armed with her awesome new Canon PowerShot G9, with thanks to Aunt Janice, who sensibly told her to buy it. Artistic Credits: Moose, in concert with the Creative Division and the Political Team here at RW Enterprises, LLC)

The Pudd'nhead Party

From the desk drawer of Mark Twain, director of the Office of Persona Management for Roxie’s World:

"I wish I owned half of that dog."

"Why?" somebody asked.

"Because I would kill my half."

The group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found no light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from him as from something uncanny, and went into privacy to discuss him. One said:

"'Pears to be a fool."

"'Pears?" said another. "Is, I reckon you better say."

"Said he wished he owned half of the dog, the idiot," said a third. "What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half? Do you reckon he thought it would live?"

"Why, he must have thought it, unless he IS the downrightest fool in the world; because if he hadn't thought it, he would have wanted to own the whole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died, he would be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed that half instead of his own. Don't it look that way to you, gents?"

"Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so; if he owned one end of the dog and another person owned the other end, it would be so, just the same; particularly in the first case, because if you kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell whose half it was; but if he owned one end of the dog, maybe he could kill his end of it and -- "

"No, he couldn't either; he couldn't and not be responsible if the other end died, which it would. In my opinion that man ain't in his right mind."

"In my opinion he hain't got any mind."

No. 3 said: "Well, he's a lummox, anyway."

“That's what he is;" said No. 4. "He's a labrick -- just a Simon-pure labrick, if there was one."

"Yes, sir, he's a dam fool. That's the way I put him up," said No. 5. "Anybody can think different that wants to, but those are my sentiments."

"I'm with you, gentlemen," said No. 6. "Perfect jackass -- yes, and it ain't going too far to say he is a pudd'nhead. If he ain't a pudd'nhead, I ain't no judge, that's all."

Mr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and gravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first name; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well liked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it stayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to get it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry any harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was to continue to hold its place for twenty long years.

Under normal circumstances, Roxie’s World would not look kindly on a joke that imagines the death of even half a dog, but we know Mark means no harm, and, besides, our irony meters are working well enough to realize that the joke is funny. It is also pertinent to the current situation facing the Democratic party, which we do hereby officially declare the Pudd’nhead Party because:

Democrats seem determined to kill the half a dog of primary participants who have voted for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, as if doing so will have no effect on the health and electoral prospects of the other half of the dog that might be said to belong to Senator Barack Obama.

How do you kill half a dog? Oh, let us count the ways.

• By trying to drive one candidate from the race on the grounds that her continuing to beat her opponent by sizable majorities in swing states (OH, PA, WV) is somehow unseemly, disloyal, destructive, or irrelevant;
• by arguing that one candidate’s small but mathematically insurmountable lead among pledged delegates means that he is entitled to the support of the superdelegates, which he will need to secure the nomination, while claiming that the other candidate, who will likely end up with a lead in the popular vote, would be “stealing” the nomination if she were to secure it through the support of superdelegates;
• by disenfranchising voters in two populous swing states whose support for the Democratic ticket will be essential to victory in November or coming up with a cosmetic solution to the FL/MI problem that will not fully count those votes and will disadvantage the candidate who won those primaries;
• by trashing some of the supporters of one candidate as racist, working-class trash whose votes are unnecessary because Democrats are now the party of the creative class and the cool kids rather than the bitter, gun-toting working class;
• by trashing other supporters of that same candidate as dowdy but docile women whose support is rooted only in identity politics and assuming that their loyalties will automatically shift to the handsome boy (prom king) as soon as the dorky girl (valedictorian) is out of the race;
• by actively pushing wildly exaggerated stories aimed at demonizing one candidate as a racist who dreams of the death of her opponent – while remaining silent when one’s own supporters publicly and without ambiguity fantasize the murder of the other candidate.

A party that does all of these things – and others, so many others that we’ve grown tired of counting – and still expects to cruise happily to victory in November is a party in the grips of the delusion that half a dog is better than none. And that, my beloved, non-Pudd’nheaded friends, is why Roxie’s World has made a decision and why we call upon our DC-area fans to join us in northwest Washington on Saturday morning to stand up for the principle that it will take a whole, un-dead dog to win back the White House.

That’s right. The moms will get up bright and early on Saturday and join with a righteous band of mad-as-hell Dems who will gather at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel to let the Rules Committee of the Democratic National Committee know that they are closely watching and care passionately about how the party plans to address the FL/MI debacles. The demo is not affiliated with the Clinton campaign, and if you come you should show your support not for a candidate but for the principle of fairness to the voters of Florida and Michigan, who broke no rules when they cast their votes back in January. Moose will carry a sign calling on the party to count the vote of her sister in Michigan, who pulled the lever for “uncommitted” because she was an Edwardian back then. (She’s a Clintonista now, like all the other female Moosians as well as the vast majority of Goosians.) Goose will probably carry a sign that re-purposes one of the slogans the moms used during the original Florida election debacle of 2000: “No Fuzzy Math” was one favorite; “Democracy Counts” is another that still seems apt.

Details on the demo are here. Plans call for gathering at 7 a.m., but we’re guessing you could show up later and still have an impact. The meetings go until 4, so media will probably be around all day. The Hill reported yesterday that the Obama campaign was encouraging supporters not to attend, which might help to keep the event from turning into an ugly confrontation between warring camps of Obamaniacs and Clintonistas. We hope the Obamaniacs will listen to His Hopeness and stay away, if only to reduce the chance that the media will find some opportunity to broadcast sensationalized images of Democratic in-fighting.

To those who say we could further reduce those chances by staying home ourselves, we respectfully say, thanks, but some risks are worth taking. We are among the more than 17 million citizens who have cast votes for Senator Clinton during this long, hard campaign, and we want to let the Democratic party know that we and our concerns cannot be taken for granted. Our support for the eventual nominee cannot be assumed; it must be earned – by treating voters fairly and extending to Senator Clinton the respect she deserves for having waged an honorable and history-making campaign. So far, a sizable number of us do not feel that either of these conditions has been met. Others of us have grave reservations about Senator Obama’s candidacy and urge the party to realize that the primary campaign is ending in a functional tie and that its job is to select the nominee who stands the best chance of defeating John McCain in the fall. We are not Pudd’nheads, and we will not stand idly by while the party we have supported for our entire political lives abandons key constituencies, core principles, and values we hold dear.

We are not Pudd’nheads, and we won’t support a Pudd’nhead party or a Pudd’nhead nominee who thinks he can kill half a dog and snuggle up in an Oval Office chair with the other half. In Roxie’s World, we like our dogs whole and alive. See you Saturday morning in northwest DC. Look for the ornery bitches in the sensible shoes. Holding neatly painted, clever signs.

Speak, Memory

(Image Credit: Tracing of Panel 04W, Line 015, Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Captain Albert Tijerina, Jr., was a high-school friend of my Uncle Bobby's in San Angelo, Texas. He was a helicopter pilot who flew highly classified missions to ferry personnel in and out of Laos during the period when the United States denied having combat personnel in the country. He was killed in Laos on March 1, 1971.)

(Photo Credit: Janice Smith Moss; Rolling Thunder, Washington, DC, 5/25/08)

Wa Po "Faces of the Fallen" Project -- Photos and information on U. S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today is as good a day as any to pause and reflect upon the slips and tricks and fogs and treacheries of memory. Imagine for a moment that I am a person and not a dog. It's hard, I know, but try. If I tell you that on a certain night in 1974 -- let's say it was August 8, the evening of Richard Nixon's resignation -- I lived in a certain town and went to a slumber party and tried to engage a particular group of adolescent girl pals in a conversation about the tragedies and outrages of the Nixon administration, and you find out later that I actually lived in a different town at that time and thus spent that evening, if I spent it with anyone, with another group of girls from the one I told you about, would you call me a liar, or would you laugh and commiserate with me on the fallibility of memory? The answer to this question depends, of course, on many things -- your previous experience of me, your sense of my veracity (or lack thereof), your judgment about my possible motivations for telling you something at odds with the truth. It is important to note, however, that the answer to this question also depends upon you -- your relationship to the truth, your motivations for seeing me as duplicitous rather than merely mistaken, your willingness to believe (in) me or your desire to tear me down.

Now, let's assume that the memory in question is not a private matter of arguably no significance but a public matter of great import. The stakes on both sides are obviously much higher. The costs of telling or shading the truth, of making and broadcasting judgments about conscious lies versus unconscious lapses are also higher. The consequences to those inside and outside this communicative loop are potentially enormous. If you are neither the person speaking the memory nor the one to whom it was spoken, how do you make a judgment about this complex trip down memory lane? If public figures and public memories are involved, do you shrug your shoulders and say, "They all lie, most if not all of the time," or shake your head and say, "They're always calling my guy -- or gal -- a liar in an unfair attempt to discredit him/her," or fold your arms and say, "Well, truth is not as simple as it sounds. Sometimes it really does depend on what the meaning of is is?" You have to make a judgment, because if you don't you'll be stuck, paralyzed, confused, but how do you assure that your own judgments are fair, reasonable, accurate? How do you know?

Sometimes, like Jesus, your favorite dog blogger prefers to speak in parables. Sometimes, a parable can be a useful means of opening up a seemingly insoluble problem, of breaking through a logjam in thought, analysis, or judgment. And sometimes, a parable might just be a way to blog without blogging, on a warm holiday afternoon when the world is off its rocker and the first sultry hints of summer are beginning to assert themselves. On such a day, an old dog's foggy brain is awash in memories that may not even be hers, and so she curls up on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor, closes her eyes, and does not remember gunshots, fallen heroes, body bags, and the lies that fed the slaughter.

Never Again Would Bird's Song Be the Same

My typist can't do any work for me until she submits her grades, so go watch this goofy little vid in the meantime, which we picked up via Elizabitchez:



Oh, yeah, and go read the latest from Anglachel, the smartest grrl in the blogosphere, who sent our brains into overdrive this morning with a post that brought Rousseau, Machiavelli, and James Madison to bear on the crucial question of why Barack Obama is just annoying the hell out of us lately and inducing post-traumatic flashbacks to Florida 2000, when George Bush claimed victory just by saying so and got the media to repeat his talking points as if they were some kind of objective truth. Way to take power, baby, and who cares what those little people the voters have to say about it? Further proof that the Precious is borrowing from Bush-Rove's 2000 playbook? Word today that Obama "has quietly begun the process of searching for a partner on the Democratic ticket." How's that for a power grab? We don't need to hear from those silly voters in Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota, not to mention those pesky superdelegates whose votes we'll need to secure the nomination -- technically, officially. Prediction: By week's end, some media whore will trot out the line about Michelle Obama "measuring the drapes" for her new home in the West Wing. That's the way these things go in the echo chamber.

Sigh. Like I said kids, my typist can't work for me until the grades are in. Go listen to those birds. Try not to have any post-traumatic flashbacks to the scariest movie you saw before you were ten.

Lazy Sunday Photo Blogging

Top Five Reasons the Sunday Post You've Waited for the Entire Day Is All Photos and No Content:

1. After Friday night's references to drunkenness and bitterness in Roxie's World, we felt it best to take a deep, cleansing breath and reassure readers that we hadn't lost perspective. Plus, I wanted to show you that Moose had sobered up enough to hold a camera steady.

2. For some strange reason, the Clinton campaign excluded the most famous pro-Hillary dog blogger in America from Friday's big conference call with the candidate, so I have absolutely nothing to say on that burning subject. Anglachel was in on the call, of course. Go read her recap. Ditto Reclusive Leftist. And Taylor Marsh, who has a podcast of the call up. We assume the Clinton team will be in touch soon, when they start scheduling the call with rabidly pro-Hillary dog bloggers. We're waiting, kids.

3. My typist has a stack of papers to grade and gave me a grouchy look when I suggested even an itty-bitty post, maybe just to make sure y'all had seen the piece in the NYT speculating on who America's first woman president might be if it doesn't turn out to be HRC. We're still holding out hope, of course, but it's an interesting line of rumination nonetheless.

4. It's been ages since my legions of adoring fans have been treated to a photo of yours truly, and with recent references to concerns about my health we thought you might like to see evidence that I am alive and still faithfully patrolling the ridiculously large back yard. We know what an anxious bunch you are.

5. Besides, the ridiculously large back yard is looking ridiculously lush these days, thanks to all the rain we've been grousing about off and on this spring. The moms -- who take no credit whatsoever for the design, execution, or maintenance of the space variously termed the Darwin Garden, Jurassic Park, or the South 40 -- are feeling a sense of delight with how their not so little postage stamp of soil is shaping up. Let's just hope Mother Nature keeps the moisture and mild temps coming.

And so we pass along to you a little photo essay by Moose that we might call "Springtime in Roxie's World." Enjoy. Imagine yourselves sipping a cool drink on the patio by the pond, which we call the Aquabar, because we are inordinately fond of naming things around here. Have some virtual guacamole, which has no calories but lots of garlic, because that's the way Moose likes it. Peace out, beloveds.

Picture 1: America's favorite dog blogger checks the perimeter of the pond, while wondering, "Do these collars make me look fat?"


Picture 2: The irises by the fish pond.


Photo 3: The rhodies in the midland region of the yard.


Photo 4: In the background, the sweet little Japanese maple by the pond. In the foreground, um, you know, plants.