I know you do. Go, take a few minutes to listen – but you’d better make a quick trip to the bathroom, just in case.

From Nelson’s Mama.

Once, several years ago a small reddish dog appeared in our neighborhood. Where we lived then, out by the Narrows of the Harpeth, was the perfect dog dumping place for Middle Tennessee, or so it seemed to us, anyway. Missy, as we called her was perky and friendly and housebroken. She looked like a skinny, red coyote. We put her in our doggie guest house (a 10 x 20 fenced-in area, including a dog house with both a picture window and a huge comfy pillow).

Less than an hour later, Missy had escaped from the kennel and had discovered that the neighbor raised exotic chickens. Oops. At least she wasn’t humgry any more. I put bricks along the bottom edge, assuming she had dug out somewhere that wasn’t visible. While I was doing that she came up to me and bumped my arm with her nose. Considering that I was outside the fence, I gave up with the bricks. I discovered she had climbed to the top of the doghouse and jumped over the top. So I added a rain cover over the doghouse (a tarp). Problem solved and we started calling shelters. We also took her to the doc to make sure she was healthy and got any shots she needed. To our surprise, the vet told us she would give birth in a week or so. Try two days.

Eleven puppies. Eleven. We went from having two dogs, and a guest visitor, to 13 critters. And we promised ourselves we wouldn’t name them. Right. We found homes for all but two. Now, way out west, there’s another example of puppy goodness and they need help. The cute little critters never stop eating, peeing and crapping. It’s okay when there’s one or two, but an army of them is a nerve-frazzling nightmare.

Go here and look for the little play button at the top right. Good music.

http://tinyurl.com/4zhcfv – It’s an Op Ed column in the New York Times. I found the link courtesy of Southern Beale. Some exerpts:

And in the seventh year after the fall, the dust and debris of the towers cleared. And it became plain at last what had been wrought.

For the wreckage begat greed; and it came to pass that while America’s young men and women fought, other Americans enriched themselves. Beguiling the innocent, they did backdate options, and they did package toxic mortgage securities and they did reprice risk on the basis that it no more existed than famine in a fertile land.

…

And around the whole earth, which had stood with America, there arose a great trouble, for it seemed to peoples abroad that a great nation, rich in flocks and herds and land and water, had been cast among thorns and Philistines; its promise betrayed, its light dimmed, its armies stretched, its budget broken, its principles compromised, its dollar diminished.

And it came to pass that this profligate nation, drinking oil with insatiable thirst, could not cure itself of this addiction, and so its wealth was transferred to other nations that did not always wish it well.

Wherefore the balance of power in the world was altered in grievous ways, and new centers of authority arose, and they were no more persuaded by democracy than was the Pharaoh.

…

Therefore, in the seventh year after the fall, with 1,126 of the slain still unidentified, their very beings rendered unto dust, their souls inhabiting the air of New York, it seemed that one nation had become two; and loss, far from unifying the people, had sundered the nation.

See? Go read this.

I ended up at Mommy Needs Coffee. It’s a really nice place to visit (but in truth I was caught up in envy admiration for the blogger who Guy Kawasaki has referred to as Tops. Since I like reading Guy’s stuff too…) but anyway, it seems that somehow I missed that Guy has a site called alltop.com, which lists top blogs in categories. They have categories like autos, celebrities, cute, design, egos, food, gadgets, green, health, mac, moms, music, politics, oddities, religion, science. You get the idea. Then each category has long lists of sites in the categories.

It’s far from perfect (it conspicuously lacks the most supreme food blog evah!) and an astonishing art blog — both of which I link to, naturally and I have informed alltop of these huge errors), but it can keep you busy checking out some nice blogs.

Edit: It does include Love Shak, Baby, Home Ec 101, Suburban Turmoil, and BusyMom so our local mommy bloggers are covered fairly well.

To a poll here.

1 – Do you have a preference for any one candidate in the current race for President of the U.S.? Please give a reason for your choice (or lack of one). I miss Harold Stassen and Pat Paulsen. Now it costs too much for crazy people to run. (Although Colbert is talking about running…)

2 — The state of Tennessee is one of 24 states holding a primary this year on Feb. 5th. Will you be voting in this primary and do you think it wise to hold that many on the same day? Is it time to end the massive one day primary battles? Yeah. I like to vote in the primaries, just to feel like my vote mattered, but the primary system is seriously screwy as a way to select candidates. By the time we get to vote, all the wackos are all gone and only serious candidates are left to vote for. Where’s the fun in that?

3 — How would you describe your views on immigration policies in the U.S.? I’ve been to both borders. You can’t fence it all in for terrain-related reasons. Besides, if there are six million (estimated) illegal immigrants and 6,000 INS officers, I can do the math. We ain’t finding them all. Might as well get taxes from them while they’re here. Give them work permits. If they went back home so they could come back legally, they wouldn’t be able to. Mexico won’t let them leave unless they are landowners, and thus are coming back. They’re just people trying to feed their families. I identify with that – it’s what I do.

4 — Where do you seek news and information the most and do you talk about the news with those you work with, with friends and with family? Online. Yep.

5 — How many hours a day (or week) would you say you spend online and what type of sites do you visit the most? Too many. News & blogs.

6 — On a scale of one to ten, with one being lowest and ten the highest, what score would you give for the success of your local school system? What score for your local school board? Minus four hundred and sixty-seven.

7 — What’s the most recent movie/ TV show/ or book you enjoyed? Hood and Scarlet, both by Stephen Lawhead.

That’s all for now, but I am adding a bonus question if you wish to answer, I would appreciate the input. Ready?

BONUS - Say you have a $25 gift coupon from the store Best Buy. What would you purchase with it? (Yes, this means I have such a coupon and I have been utterly unable to make a choice, so how’s about a little help here in how I can use it??) You can buy stuff that costs less than $25? I need to get out more.

This blog is something different. The posts are from letters from Private Harry Lamin that he wrote home. Harry served in WWI at the front. If you get interested in Harry’s blog, you’ll have to wait to see if he lives through the war. If you want to pick up Harry’s story and follow it properly, it may make sense to start with the first archive, July 2006 (or July, 1916) and to work forwards to the present, January 2008 (Actually January 1918.)

This is a tribute by Harry’s grandson and is extraordinarily cool.

There’s this blogger named Scott Freeman. Scott is a minister and a friend of a friend. Scott’s brother, like many of us, made some unfortunate choices along the way. Mine had less repercussions than Scott’s brother’s did. He’s in prison for a crime and he shouldn’t be there. At the very least, he was poorly represented, but many people believe clemency is deserved. Former Governor Mike Huckabee granted pardons and clemencies to people and he’s been roundly criticized for his judgement on many of these pardons. He didn’t grant one to Steve where there was good reason for it. (See Scott’s blog post for details.) Steve’s not asking for a pardon, although it does appear to me that would be justified, just for clemency. The state clemency board has recommended clemency for Steve several times, but Arkansas has a requirement that offenders spend 75% of their sentence behind the wall. That’s a little extreme in this case. How can you help? Join Digg and digg the post. Blog about it. Generate some heat.

My friend, Phil, has posted a couple of YouTube videos that are fabulous - a guy named Taylor Mali. Well worth the trip across town to see.

There is an ancient tapestry (it’s huge – over 200 feet long) called the Bayeux Tapestry that depicts the events leading up to the Norman invasion of England in 1066. The depiction starts with the advent of Haley’s Comet and goes through the death of King Harold of England and the triumph of the Norman conquerors. No one really knows when the tapestry was created (although it’s a good bet it was to celebrate the victory).

A college student, David Newton, was given an assignment of illustrating that he understood how motion graphics actually worked. He took images of the tapestry taken from directly in front and animated them to create a short movie that turns the tapestry into life. Having taught graphics before and seen the quality of work that gets turned in, I hope David got an A. He deserved it. His movie is on YouTube and worth a watch.

Thanks to Charlie Parker for letting the world know about this. A lot of his blog is chock full of stuff artists love (and why I read it daily).