Summer Fundraiser 2016, Day Seven
Today is the final day of our quarterly fundraising week. We’ve had a wide variety of donors this time, including some from Belgium and France, which is very unusual. I don’t know whether the press of recent jihad events in those countries is part of the explanation, but it seems likely.
As always, Australia and Canada, especially Ontario, are way over-represented among our donors relative to their respective populations, and especially considering the paucity of our coverage of those locales.
Speaking of which: There were police raids in Victoria today against several “right-wing” extremists, including Phillip Galea of Reclaim Australia. Those arrested are being held under — what else? — terrorism provisions, which means it’s the Countering Violent Extremism meme in action. There were a couple of articles in the news feed about these events, including this one from The Daily Mail.
But back to fundraising — If you were busy all week watching the run-up to the Olympics or listening to Hillary Clinton’s campaign speeches, now is the time to take a Sunday break and hit that tip cup on our sidebar. And if you’re one of the many folks who have already donated, Dymphna and I offer our heartfelt thanks.
The theme of this week’s fundraiser, as you all know by now, is “Dog Days”, in honor of this late-summer season. We’ve pretty well exhausted the serious dog-related material, so this morning’s essay is a light-hearted one. It begins with the comic strip shown at the top of this post (click to enlarge), a daily Pogo strip from about 1953.
Walt Kelly could pack humor more densely than any other comic strip artist. Those four panels are crammed with hilarity, but when I reread them prior to posting, I realized that most people, even most Americans if they’re under the age of sixty, won’t get the jokes without some context.
The three characters are Albert the Alligator, Houn’ Dog (full name: Beauregard Chaulmoogra Frontenac de Montmingle Bugleboy), and Mouse (not sure if he has any other name). The scenes just preceding this one featured Molester Mole of the Boy Bird Watchers and his attempts to identify every swamp creature as some sort of bird. Houn’ Dog is reacting gloomily to his dismissal by Mole.
I won’t try to explain every joke that’s in those speech balloons. But I will note that every breed of dog mentioned is an alternative name for the Dalmatian, prompting the “spot” references and Mouse’s question.
The Volstead Act of 1919 was a law passed by Congress to implement the 18th Amendment, which had been ratified the year before. It ushered in thirteen years of what is commonly known as Prohibition, during which period alcoholic beverages were illegal. In 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, annulling the Volstead Act so that the nation could take a legal drink again.
Thus the conceit is that Beauregard’s daddy resorted to spot remover, possibly acetone, in lieu of the prohibited ethanol. Tipplers who imbibed such beverages tended to suffer from brain damage, the symptoms of which commonly included a ringing in the ears.
I’ll leave you to figure out the rest of the jokes on your own. I hope I didn’t ruin them by my explanations.
One of our regular readers and commenters, acuara, suggested we wrap up our doggy week with some doggerel. That seems like a good idea, but I’m going to make the additional requirement that the doggerel be about dogs.
I was going to kick it all off with a stanza from the bawdy English rugby song “The Good Ship Venus” that begins with the line “The ship’s dog’s name was Rover…” However, Dymphna pointed out that the level of ribaldry in that ditty is such that it would violate our blog’s PG-13 rules. Therefore, alas, I can’t tell you what the whole crew of the good ship did to that faithful hound.
Instead I’ll have to make do with a limerick of my own composition, which is also ribald, but maintains sufficient decorum:
There once was a man from Cohasset
Who had an affair with a basset.
His friends never knew
And his wife had no clue,
For he kept the relationship tacit.
Readers are welcome to add their own doggerel in the comments. But remember: the doggone doggerel has to be at least marginally about dogs!
That’s really all I have to say for this final post of the fundraiser. Thank you all for an exciting week!
Saturday’s dogged donations came in from:
Stateside: California, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas
Near Abroad: Canada
Far Abroad: Australia, Belgium, France, India, Israel, and the UK
I’ll be back tomorrow for the wrap-up, and then that’s it for the summer. The next fundraiser will start up while the leaves are falling. It will probably still be raining here then, but at least the rain will be cold.
The tip jar in the text above is just for decoration. To donate, click the tin cup (or the donate button) on the sidebar of our main page. If you prefer a monthly subscription, click the “subscribe” button.
I just sort of caught the tail end of it. It isn’t much, but then neither is my pension. I really like it here, even when Lady D scolds me.
The only limerick I know that involves a dog is an Australian one and certainly wouldn’t pass muster here. Sorry.
Would *any* Australian limerick pass muster here? “Too ribald” is a must for limericks in Oz. The future Baron had this book of Australian humor once…oh my.
I have a small booklet of “Australian Humor” given to me by an Australian. Its pages resembled a freshly purchased Moleskine book. I suspect it was originally a book of Scottish humor relabled for the colonial trade.
As my father would say, the way to make a Scotsman laugh in his old age was to tell him a joke in his youth. He also used to say that the Scottish preventative for throwing up during a sea voyage was to keep a sixpence tightly clamped between the teeth.
He also would say, Where there’s a Wilson, there’s a way”, so it wasn’t all self-referential humor.
There once was a fecund hound,
from whom puppies would continually abound.
Their numbers and litter
made the house bitter,
Until they were no longer wanted around.
Here’s a classic. In today’s political climate, interpret the metaphor–guess who is the man, who is the dog and who are the “wondering neighbors”?
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG
by: Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)
GOOD people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,–
It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran,–
Whene’er he went to pray.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,–
When he put on his clothes.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
The dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.
Around from all the neighboring streets,
The wondering neighbors ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits
To bite so good a man.
The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied;
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
Baron you might be working with Vlad the Impaler.If so,watch your six and ask Bracken to keep an eye on him.Or his last name may be Putin but at least you to can be more flexible after the election.Is he a Russian moslem?
I don’t know what you mean — the only Vlad I work with is Vlad the Blogger, who is also an impaler, but in name only.
Don’t be cryptic, so to speak. Explain yourself.
Reference to hot mike moment by obama.No offense intended.
Dog Gone
There once was a dog from Nantucket
That kicked the proverbial bucket
Too soon, for from then,
In the dark of the den,
Ruled no dog, just a string-controlled puppet.
Planned parenthood is going to register voters who will all vote democratic.To combat this Drudge,Brietbart,Nra and Gov should register voters.
I’m sure the NRA is doing something or other but we’re not likely to hear about it. Drudge NEVER plays politics. He’s considered on “our” side because he gives the news headlines from both sides…the Left hates him and call the page partisan ever since he broke the Monica Lewinsky story…but he can prove he shows headlines from both sides.
We’d be preaching to the choir. Anyone who is going to vote from among our readers has already made up his/her mind.
The best rightwing grassroots org for that is the Tea Party. They were directly responsible for the defeat of the second most powerful man in the House of Representatives. Eric Cantor’s constituents were dissatisfied with his neglect of the district (Virginia 7th) and especially with his support of wide open borders despite their complaints. He thought they played by the old rules – i.e., since he was powerful he could bring money projects into the district and they’d keep re-electing him no matter what else he did. Even though Washington is a little over an hour from his legal address in VA, he seldom visited there. His campaign budget was huge.
The Tea Party helped now-Representative David Brat, an economics professor, defeat Cantor. The latter was a very poor, ungracious loser. How could this nobody, who had less in his campaign coffers than Cantor had in his volunteers’ lunch budget, beat Mr. Powerful?
They were also responsible for Gov Walker of Wisconsin keeping his office during a nasty recall vote put up by the Left. They helped the GOP legislature in the same state keep their seats when the Left, funded heavily by the unions, also got up petitions to recall them, too. The people they helped were in such bad straits they thought they had no chance. After two years of increasingly dirty tricks they were a shell-shocked bunch who had to be carried over the finish line to victory.
We follow Gov Walker on Twitter. He’s a member of The American Conservative Union. On their board is Grover Norquist, who sells himself as a conservative tax-cutter. He has a lot of power in D.C. and few will bell that cat. He is married to a Muslim and is known to covertly support the Muslim Brotherhood. AFAIK, only Frank Gaffney, the CEO of Center for Security Policy has been courageous enough to out him. I’m certain his move cost CSP some of their funding because the rich love Norquist.
Gov Walker would’ve been my second choice for the nomination but I knew he didn’t have the money to get very far. Christie owes too much to the Muslims in New Jersey to play it straight…NO ONE BUT TRUMP is willing to say the very un-p.c. things Trump calls for.
One of the best places to read news about what’s really going on in this election is Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/evidence-trump-landslide/
If Trump is smart he’ll ask the Tea Party groups – there are a number of them – for help. Some of them are owned by the libertarians, though, and want to go with a losing 3rd party candidate…
…The best thing to do is stop reading the MSM polls. In this election they’re useless and mis-leading and some are designed to demoralize those planning to vote for Trump. Since many of those voters aren’t talking or are simply lying, we will have what Scott Adams calls “the Shy Trump Voter” effect. IOW, it could be a landslide.
Thanks for the info Dymphna
The reason there might be so much interest from Canada might be :
Americans living and working in Canada. or –
Canadians with some ancestral connection to the United States and who take an interest in the history and politics of America (like me) or –
A majority of citizens across Canada live 100 miles near the border so they can’t help not taking an interest in what is happening south of the border.
Could be. But it may also be Canadians’ connections with Europe, since we specialize in European events.
I’m voting for Trump! Make America great again or just make America America again, either would do for me. I am tired of these traitors in office and maybe they are not legally traitors, but it is obvious they don’t [care] about our country.
If they did, it would show in their “work” such as it is — minuscule as far as I can see. I am so tired of them all, but… we must keep up the good fight, right?