The Searchers

Barking Up the Wrong Tree Edition

Y’all know how we dote on our readers here in Roxie’s World. We view each of you as a member of our extended pack, and we love you – love you -- all.

Recently, though, we have to admit, a few of you are creeping us out a little. Permit me to explain.

The geeks down in Clicks and Eyeballs report that we’ve suddenly had a number of visitors land in this happy space through internet searches on the phrase, “Go, Taliban, go.” Indeed, in the past couple of weeks, that phrase has brought more readers here than any other search term, including “Roxie’s World” and, surprisingly, “what is the rank of salary for being a pet psychic.” (Hey, times are hard. People are exploring all kinds of career options, and Roxie’s World is here to help!) Loyal readers who share (or merely endure) our passion for college basketball realize that here in Roxie’s World the phrase, “Go, Taliban, go,” has a particular meaning that arises from our antipathy toward the Blue Devils of Duke University. House Rule #1, as we have explained before, is:

We hate Duke so much that if Duke were playing the Taliban, we would root for the Taliban. Therefore, any team that plays Duke is known as the Taliban, and we all sit on the couch screaming, “Go, Taliban, go!”

Now, of course, we cast no judgments on our readers, and we know from our own wacky search habits that one ought to be cautious in the extreme about inferring anything about the motivation or intention behind any search string. Perhaps in the deep dullness of the off-season, the vast legions of Duke-hating basketball fans are trolling the internets searching for kindred spirits. Perhaps we are not alone in expressing our loathing for the dark lords of Durham in a uniquely post-9/11 combination of snark and apocalypticism. And perhaps Pakistan, where, it seems, at least a few of the searches on “Go, Taliban, go” have originated (though location information can be maddeningly imprecise with the kind of cheap [i.e., free] stat-tracking software used in our bare-bones Department of Clicks and Eyeballs), is a bastion of Duke hatred.

And perhaps by now you appreciate our concern. With the situation in Pakistan deteriorating by the second largely because of recent gains by Taliban forces inside the country, we feel compelled to say, loudly, clearly, and very slowly:

We are kidding about rooting for the Taliban. Big time, as a former vice president/war lord might have put it. Especially when it comes to nuclear-powered Pakistan.

Really, folks. We hated the Taliban before everybody hated the Taliban. We hated the Taliban back in the 90s when all they were doing was knocking down statues and, you know, stoning a few women. We have our issues with the foreign policy of the United States, even under the new administration, but the idea of a Taliban-controlled Pakistan scares us more than almost anything we can imagine -- a thousand furlough days, a lifetime sentence as Learning Outcomes Assessment czar of QTU, a demon possessing our big TV set and forcing it to broadcast nothing but Duke basketball 24/7. Anything. Seriously.

Got that, searchers? We are not rooting for the Taliban. We are a 100% pro-American secular queer feminist dog blog so madly in love with our country that we believe it is our solemn duty to tell our new president we think he is being a weenie on gay rights and a few other things we'd be blogging about if we felt competent to say anything about the economy and health care and Joe Biden's big mouth. And we intend to go right on doing that, at least until basketball season cranks up again and gives us something else to rant about. But move along if you're looking for true Taliban love here, kids, 'cause ya ain't gonna find it. Not none. Not any. Not no how. Dog bless America. Amen. A-women, too. And everything in between.

This public service announcement brought to you by the Division of Loyalty Oaths and the Office of Humor Contextualization, RW Enterprises, LLC.

Spring Cleaning

Glorious News, Sports Fans: The Evil Empire (=Duke) Has Been Upset by the Taliban* (=West Virginia) in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament! Dog Smiles. Moms Sit on Couch Making Mocking Whining Sounds as Clock Ticks Down. Life is GOOD!

The moms are back home. The women's NCAA tournament begins tomorrow with our beloved Lady Terps playing their first round game against Coppin State at home in the Comcast Center. The signs are ready. The tee-shirts have been washed and pressed. (It's pretty to think so, isn't it?) The moms are practicing their cheers and their patented double sign pump up and down maneuver, which looks so swell on the jumbotron. Good times, kids, good times. We love March.

So, it's spring, and that of course means it's time to do a little blog cleaning and maintenance. We were going through old boxes down in the basement (=comments) the other day and wanted to pull up this link to a CNN story from earlier this week on dog blogs. I know that my legions of loyal fans are shocked and disappointed that Roxie's World is not mentioned in the piece, and I, too, am appalled by the obviously staged photographs of dogs in front of computers (when everybody knows that standard practice among blogging dogs is to get someone with opposable thumbs to do the typing for you). Nonetheless, people, let's keep our protests to CNN civil. No threats to stage a mass poop-in at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, 'kay? Maybe Dudley could get a bunch of his beagle pals together for a big group bay-in, and perhaps Buster and some of the other WFT bloggers would pitch in on a letter protesting the exclusion of our bloggin' breed from the story.

By the way, Moose and I were really touched that so many of you thought the New York Times was referring to little old us in the article on academic bloggers who mix personal information (such as photographs of their children and "entries 'written' by their dogs") along with their professional, scholarly work. Again, it's pretty to think so, but it would have been even prettier if the Times had put in a link to Roxie's World so that the guys in Clicks and Eyeballs would have had an excuse to dance the conga in their cubicles as traffic soared through the roof. Honestly, kids, sometimes your humble dog blogger feels like the Rodney Dangerfield of the internets. We don't get no respect -- but your love is excellent recompense.

Also, we are going to be doing some updating of our blogroll so that it more accurately reflects our current pointing-and-clicking habits. We'll be taking down Huff Po, for example, because we can no longer bear to visit this intellectually bankrupt outpost of Hillary hatred. We'll be adding in some of our new favorite blogalicious destinations, including Historiann and Tom Watson. Scan that list of what we read, beloveds, and go show some love to the good gals and guys who spend long, lonely hours trolling the internets in pursuit of truth, justice, and the occasional fart joke. Where would we be without these selfless sheroes and heroes?

Peace out, friends. May your brackets never bust and your hard drives never crash.

*House Rule #1 in Roxie's World: We hate Duke so much that if Duke were playing the Taliban, we would root for the Taliban. Therefore, any team playing Duke is referred to as the Taliban, and we sit on the couch shouting, "Go, Taliban, go!"

Pregnant Pause

(Photo Credit: AP; Maryland Coach Brenda Frese chats with point guard Kristi Toliver during the second half of the Terps' game against Duke Monday night in College Park.)

Newsflash: "Taliban"* beats Evil Empire 85-70 at Comcast!

We pause in the midst of our political obsessing to note that the 4th-ranked Lady Terrapins of the University of Maryland defeated the evil Blue Devils of Duke University in College Park for the first time since 1998 on Monday evening. They were led by inspired play from our beloved Marissa "Shoulders" Coleman, who scored 30 points and looked like she would spit bullets when the feisty Devils tied the game with 7 minutes left to go. Photo above shows pregnant-with-twins Coach Brenda Frese having a heart-to-heart with point guard Kristi Toliver, who had a bit of turnover trouble in the game.

The moms were thrilled because their very fetching "Fear the Brenda" and "Terp Women Rule" signs were shown on the jumbo-tron an amazing three times! They stand ready to help deliver Coach B's babies themselves should it prove necessary in the next month or so.

AP recap of the game is here. Kathy Orton's Wa Po story is here.

Wa Po story on Toliver's evolution as a point guard is here.

Sports Illustrated story on Coach B. having to watch road games at home now that her doctor has advised against travel is here.

Memo to new Duke Coach Joanne McCallie: Sorry for the rude welcome to "Hell in a Shell," but that's life in the ACC, baby. You're still the best dressed coach in college women's basketball, and we look forward to whipping your teams for decades to come.

*House Rule #1 in Roxie's World: We hate Duke so much that if Duke were playing the Taliban, we'd root for the Taliban. Therefore, any team playing Duke is called the Taliban, and we sit on the couch or in the stands shouting, "Go, Taliban, go!"

Scarlet Women (Temporarily) Rule

(Photo Credit: Mary Ann Chastain, Associated Press)

The moms and I are still watching the NCAA basketball tournament, despite the early exits of our beloved Lady and non-Lady Terps. We've decided to root for Rutgers in the women's tournament and Georgetown in the non-women's tournament because Rutgers is where my moms went to grad school and because Georgetown is in our neighborhood and there's no other team in the men's final four we could even pretend to care about. Ohio State? Moose roots against Big Ten teams to prove that she is really not a Midwesterner anymore. UCLA? Hmmm. Think they'll top the 57 points they scored in last year's final? Florida? Repeat, schmeepeat.

Anyway, of course another deeply compelling reason to root for the Scarlet Knights (or the Scarlet Women, as they are known in our house) is that they played the role of the Taliban in upsetting the Evil Imperial Forces of Duke in the Sweet Sixteen on Saturday. (For those of you who are new to Roxie's World, here is House Rule #1: We hate Duke so much that if Duke were playing the Taliban, we'd root for the Taliban. Therefore, any team playing Duke is called "the Taliban," and we all sit on the couch shouting, "Go, Taliban, go!") We hate the women's team of Duke slightly less than we hate the non-women's team, because we think Coach Gail Goestenkors is a smart and supportive coach who has a lot less of that annoying Dukie arrogance certain other of their coaches have. Still, we stick to the house rule and root against them, particularly after the way they beat up on Coach B. and our poor Terp women this season.

Why do we heart college basketball so much in our household? The moms are English profs, after all. You might expect us to love opera or to curl up on the couch every night and read Proust aloud. (Pardon me while I pause to wipe up the beer Moose spat across the room after she typed that last line. "Proust!" she snorted. "Oh, Rox, you are killing me!") We heart basketball because it requires intelligence and finesse, brilliant individual heroics and selfless teamwork, the discipline of daily practice and the spontaneity of split-second decision-making. Plus, game after game, season after season, it offers stories of what ABC's Wide World of Sports used to call "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." Every time we see that film clip of Kristi Toliver calmly squaring her shoulders before launching the shot that put last year's women's final into overtime we get tears in our eyes, and not just because we are Terp fans. Her grace and serenity in that moment are thrilling. We are moved to witness it because the athlete, like the artist, reveals the glorious possibilities that inhere in every human. Moose says it's at least as good as Proust and way better than opera, which she's never really gotten. (Apologies to Jason, the Official Gay Stalker of Roxie's World and a major opera fan. It's the Indiana in her veins.)

And also: Duke-haters though we are, we are equally moved by the stunning failure of a great athlete under pressure, as in Duke's Lindsey Harding, a 76 percent free-throw shooter, missing two free throws with one-tenth of a second left on the clock when she had a chance to win the Rutgers game or at least tie it. She missed both shots, and her college career was over. Her team's chance for the national championship everyone expected them to win was blown. (She's the one curled up on the court in a fetal position in the photo on this post. The photo was taken moments after she missed the second shot.) If you're a coach or a Duke fan, you want the ball and the game in Lindsey Harding's hands at a moment like that. You trust her judgment, her skill, her training, her hands. You trust her poise, her eye, her appreciation for what's at stake. She calmly launches the shot, twice, and it looks good every inch of the way--until it clanks off the back of the rim, twice. And suddenly, even if you hate Duke more than you hate anything on earth, all the hatred melts away, and your heart goes out to Lindsey Harding. You see in her aggrieved young face the shadow of every dream you ever fought desperately for yet failed to realize, every great goal that just barely, achingly exceeded your grasp. She falls to the floor, and part of you falls with her--even as another part of you cheers the victorious opponent who towers exultingly over her.

That's why we heart college basketball. It's like life, only sweatier.

For some good coverage of the Duke-Rutgers game, see Mechelle Voepel's piece on ESPN.com. The video re-cap is also worth a look. It shows Harding missing the free throws. Wa Po also had a timely piece on how poor foul shooting is messing up many teams' tournament hopes.

Roxie's Reading: Unleashed

Tempting as it is to try to bring eyeballs to Roxie's World by continuing to take potshots at public figures like lesbo vice-presidential daughter Mary Cheney or by making fart jokes, I know that my fans expect more of me. I am a dog, after all, not some snarky 23-year old blogging in his boxer shorts (though my typist often works in her bathrobe, it is true). We don't go for the lowest common denominator here at Roxie's World, and we don't engage in gratuitous personal attacks. We point out hypocrisy and meanness among the privileged and the powerful and cruelty to animals whenever and wherever we see it. The only serious grudge we have is against the basketball teams of Duke University, and there we do confess to harboring deep-seated vitriolic hatred. Devoted fans know the policy of our household: If Duke were playing the Taliban, we'd root for the Taliban. Thus, we refer to any team playing Duke as the Taliban and all gather in the great room to scream "Go, Taliban, go!" anytime Duke is on TV. We can't help it. We're Maryland fans.

I digress. The point is that Roxie's World will not become a forum for bashing Mary Cheney, even though that is a lot of fun and we think she deserves it. It's hard to restrain ourselves from making holiday-themed jokes about the pregnant virgin Mary or publicly calling on Mary and her partner to consider moving to Canada, where she and Heather could legally wed and both moms could have equal legal rights to the child they are bringing into the world. (Canada wisely decided this week not to re-open the same-sex marriage question. Parliament voted down an effort to reinstate "traditional" definitions of marriage through legislation three years after Canada's supreme court ruled gays had the right to wed.) And it's really impossible to resist putting in a couple of links to Ruth Marcus's excellent column in the Post on the subject of Cheney's pregnancy and to Tom Toles's spot-on cartoon on the subject. Nonetheless, we shall restrain ourselves and not cynically endeavor to optimize our search engine placement by filling Roxie's World with hot-button keywords like Mary Cheney, lesbian motherhood, Republican sexual hypocrisy, and right-wing nuts go after veep for undermining "traditional" "family" "values."

Instead, we'll help you with your holiday shopping.

Here is a wonderful book for the dog lover and the lit critter on your shopping list. (A shout out to my Auntie Faye, the Official Radical Militant Librarian of Roxie's World and the Stephanie Miller Show, for sending me this book.) Unleashed is co-edited by Amy Hempel and Jim Shepard and is a collection of poems by writers' dogs. No, I am not among the canine versifiers included in this marvelous collection, but don't get your knickers in a wad. The book was originally published in 1995, which was several years before I started writing.

Moose and I love this book. It ranges from a hilarious parody of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" by Jill Ciment's dog Sadie ("Every puppy loves a dominatrix / The boot on the paw, the brutess / Lick the boot of a brute like you") to a heart-wrenching series of poems by deceased dogs called "Memento Mori." Moose can't get through that section of the book without crying. Here's one by Kate Clark Spencer's dog Bell called "When I Died on My Birthday":

My heart broke for you.
I nudged your face while you called my
name over and over and
cried no until there was no sound.
You couldn't feel it.

Strange seeing your own
body lying on the grass. My
eyes were slits, my ears
black triangles. And my long legs
were tan and smooth as

polished oak. Not moving. You were
desperate, so I
gave you butterflies, the symbol
of the soul and of
rebirth. I prompted Kim to buy

a book of butterflies, gemlike,
the microscopic
photographs, you said, dazzled you.
I got Max to grab
that tablecloth her mother made
embroidered in thread
with seven butterflies. Andy
made a cloth and wood
dog you used to show me. Yes, I
knew the dog was me.

Butterlies weaved into the silk
were rust-brown like me,
and iridescent. I was in
the canyon when a
butterfly followed

you along the creek where you found
my stone. And I watched
you press your cheek against the words
you had Kris sandblast:
BELL we will discuss butterflies.



I think this poem makes Moose cry because she doesn't believe in ghosts or angels, but she knows that dog is love and that someday when I am gone my love will find her and try to make her feel better.

Moose is right. Dog is love. Don't forget that, sweet, mortal humans. Dog is love.

Let the Wind Blow Back Your Ears!

Newsflash: Taliban (aka LSU) beats Duke 62-54 in Sweet Sixteen! Redick held to 11 points. Rumor has it: There IS a god!

This is my moms' favorite photograph of me ever. It was taken at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia in October, 2003. I'm posting it today to celebrate good news from my doctor's appointment this morning. All the fluid has cleared from my lungs, so I'm much better than I was two weeks ago! I won't have to take quite so much Lasix, and the doctor says my moms can try feeding me Alpo since I've gotten so picky about food. (Which makes me wonder if bad food is one of the privileges of old age, but I digress.) Personally, I'd like to stay on my "goulash" diet, which is working quite well for me. Also, Moose scrambled me a couple of eggs this morning, and I enjoyed that very much as a reward for not eating before I went to the doctor. We were all so happy with the good news that we even showed the doctor my blog. He laughed and bookmarked my site!

Go, Taliban, Go!

Today the part of the Taliban is being played by George Washington University. Moose likes them because their coach is a passionate black guy with a strong commitment to giving players from the wrong side of the tracks a chance to play ball and earn a degree (though she was bothered by stories this week suggesting that a few important corners had been cut to get some of his guys admitted to college). Goose doesn't like them because they beat the Terps twice in the past two seasons, but Moose points out that everybody beats the Terps lately--including Manhattan, today, in the first round of the NIT tournament. They yelled a lot during that one, so I spent a lot of time out in my yard. It's a beautiful day today, and now that my energy is back I have some catching up to do--security checks, fish-kissing, rolling in the spring mud. We're going for a walk soon so that everyone will know that the mayor of Sligo Creek Trail (that would be ME) is back on the job. I have to make sure all the other dogs remember who's in charge.

The Taliban are down by 11 at the half, and Goose is making me goulash. I'm still refusing to eat my dogfood, which is forcing my moms to get creative in the nutrition department. Recently I've also turned up my nose at rice and Cheerios, so they decided to try something with pasta. Moose persists in giving me pills hidden in peanut butter. I've tried to resist, but I am inordinately fond of peanut butter, as Moose well knows. Goose hides pills in pieces of chicken or crunches them up and stirs them into things when she thinks I'm not looking, so I've stopped eating oatmeal in an effort to avoid my tinkle pills. I am a willful little animal, and even though I've begun to suspect that the pills are actually helping me I'm reluctant to let my moms win the contest we've got going on. But I am looking forward to my goulash.

I don't mean to brag or anything, but I think the Terps could have used some of my willfulness this season. Nik Caner-Medley showed flashes of determination and DJ Strawberry proved he could be a scrappy player when he wanted to be, but as a team and over the course of the season they just couldn't sustain a strong fighting spirit. My moms make jokes about how close the word "terrapins" is to the word "terriers." "They really played like terriers tonight, Rox," they'll say after an impressive effort against a great team. They laugh and recall my epic battle many years ago with a possum that I cornered underneath the deck at the back of our yard. I squared off against it and barked and barked and barked and barked, and the wooden deck amplified the sound of my barking as midnight approached and Moose started worrying about what the neighbors would think. They tried everything to lure me back inside, including hooking up the garden hose (in February) and spraying me right in the face, but I wouldn't back off. It wasn't until they thawed out a piece of chicken and cooked it in the microwave that I came out from under the deck long enough for Moose to grab hold of me and drag me, covered in mud, back into the house for a bath--and a piece of chicken. That's what it means to fight like a terrier.

And maybe this is what our new normal is going to be like: taking the good days when they come and reveling in the fun we have together, figuring out how to make the good days better, fighting the battles we need to fight, searching the internet for homemade dogfood recipes. The Taliban are down by 15, but they haven't quite fighting. Neither have we. I ate two bowls of goulash. Score one for the mommies and for their hungry girl.

After the Hospital

It's been a funny weekend. I came home from the hospital on Thursday night and was so happy to be back to my couch and my moms and my big yard that I ran straight outside and took a nice big dump right by the pond. I ate a good dinner and took my meds without any trouble. We all felt better having our whole family together again. Moose joked that the night I was in the hospital her routines were so messed up that she didn't know quite what to do. After sitting through the parts of the late news that we normally don't watch, she finally turned to Goose and said, "Would you please go outside and pee in the yard so that I can go to bed?"

Saturday was not a good day, though. I woke up around 8 and needed to tinkle. Diuretics will do that to a girl, of course, but once I'd pottied I felt really strange. I went and stood by the pond but didn't drink out of it, even though the cool thing about having a pond is that it's like the world's biggest water bowl for dogs. It was a beautiful morning. Our koi, John, Paul, and George-Ringo, were darting around, enjoying the warmer water of early spring. There's nothing quite like a quick circuit around our yard as the morning sun turns the grass a golden green, but yesterday I just stood there. When Moose called me back in, I made my way slowly up the stairs and climbed back up on the couch. I felt woozy and disoriented for most of the day. I didn't want to eat or drink anything and fought like crazy when my moms tried to give me my morning meds. I even turned up my nose at Port Salut, my favorite pill delivery system. I don't like these new drugs or the way they make me feel, even if that sweet Dr. Braz-Ruivo does say they'll slow the progress of my heart disease. He doesn't know what it's like to be a small animal whose whole system is turned upside down by medications. Moose says that drugs do the same kind of thing to people and that doctors and the pharmaceutical industry are in a conspiracy to over-medicate the populace because they're greedy and that eventually over-prescription, particularly of antibiotics, will lead to cockroaches taking over the earth, but that's a long story that she'll have to write on her own blog someday.

I kept up my hunger strike til late on Saturday, though I did decide to drink some water in the afternoon. Moose and Goose tried to take me for a walk, but when we started to walk down to the trail I started pulling the leash in the other direction. I was breathing okay, but I knew I didn't have the energy to make it back up the hill if I went down there. It made me sad, and I knew my moms were really upset, but I'm a pretty smart little animal. I know what my limits are. They took me home, and I curled up under the loveseat in the living room while they took a Wayne walk. It was the first time in twelve years they walked on our trail without me.

Late in the day, my tummy calmed down enough for me to eat a little, and that helped me feel less fuzzy in the head. Goose got me started with a couple of treats, and then Moose gave me some beef broth. I lapped that right up. I was feeling perky enough that when Margie came by at 8 for pizza and a movie I ran to the door to greet her. I've decided not to eat anymore of the dog food I've been eating happily for the last ten years, but my moms are great about sharing appropriate human foods with me. I love anything involving cheese, although I'm continuing my boycott of Port Salut because of the traumatic associations with my icky new meds. For now, my moms are using peanut butter to try to force me to take my pills. So far, I've whipped peanut butter onto Goose's face and gotten it all over the couch in the great room, but they've managed to get the drugs in me.

Maybe I'm adjusting to the awful pills. Today has been a pretty good day. I had more beef broth for breakfast and bites of lasagne that Goose brought home from the store. I frolicked in the sun for more than an hour in the afternoon and helped Moose do some work on the pond. By "helped" I mean that I ate sand and rocks that she was spreading around to make sure the pond doesn't spring any leaks this year. I also did a fair amount of rolling in the grass and some barking at a neighbor who was out working in his yard. At times I almost felt like my spry old self, though I wobbled just a bit when I was coming back up the stairs.

We all hung out on the couch together watching the last few minutes of the ACC championship game between Duke and Boston College. For awhile it looked like BC (or, as Moose insists, "the Taliban"--because she hates Duke so much that if Duke were playing the Taliban she'd root for the Taliban) might manage to knock off the Blue Devils, but in the end the Dukies prevailed. My moms just hate that, but what they hate even more is knowing that tonight is selection Sunday and their beloved Terps will most likely be without a card to the Big Dance for the second year in a row. Poor Terps! Sometimes this season, they've been almost as wobbly as I've been recently.

So, maybe we can make this new routine work, my moms and me. Maybe I'll adjust to the drugs and get used to being a little less spry, and maybe that will mean I'll be around longer to sleep at my moms' feet and chew on their socks and lick their faces and bark at the mailman. I hope so. I'm not sure what my moms would do without me, and I sure do have fun being Roxie.