RIP Pokey

Early Saturday afternoon, my 13-year-old German shorthair Pokey had to be put to sleep. Given his advanced age, I've been dreading this day for some time now, but it nonetheless snuck up on me in the past 24 hours as my dad reported him in high spirits as recently as 5:30 Friday afternoon. Prepared as I thought I would be to say goodbye to my second long-lived canine friend in 29 years, I still feel like I've been punched in the gut in the 24 hours since he's passed.

Pokey has lived at my parents' country place in rural Minnesota, and it just happened to be a weekend when I was making the 2 1/2 hour commute from my new home to visit. Pulling up the driveway just before 7:00 on Friday evening, I could see him sitting on the front step even though a steady snow was coming down. It was not unusual for him to be out in the snow or to be awaiting my arrival when my mom told him I was coming home, so it didn't strike me as odd. When I got to the first step, however, there was a spooky lifelessness in his eyes, and I could tell right away something was wrong. After petting him for a few minutes, I retreated indoors, but that look in his eyes haunted me all evening long and I just knew the morning light would bring something ominous.

Sure enough. I went outdoors Saturday morning to his doghouse inside the barn. He laid there motionless with an aggrieved look and dilated pupils. As I got closer, I could tell his breathing was labored, a nearly identical symptom that I witnessed when my previous dog, a 14-year-old Irish setter named Luke, passed on in December 1992. The writing was on the wall, particularly when I returned an hour later to find him in even worse shape. My dad and I were able to get him into a vet's office Saturday afternoon, and transporting a large and ill dog who desperately wanted to stay in bed was in itself no easy task. The look on the vet's face said it all before she even gave the diagnosis. He was running a bad fever and his abdomen was considerably swollen. We sprung for a final test and it came up positive for GDV, a common ailment in elderly animals where the stomach twists up in knots. It's an almost certain death sentence, usually within 24 hours. He was put down just before 2:00.

Needless to say, there have been alot of flashbacks in my mind over the course of the past 30 hours, dating all the way back to January 1995. I was a junior in high school, and my family decided it was time to get another dog in the hopes of replacing the seemingly irreplaceable Luke. We picked up the frisky, nine-month-old (and ironically named) "Pokey" from the local animal shelter and wondered if we were up to the task of breaking in this unbridled bundle of youthful energy. Within months, he had been trained not to chase cars, cats, or neighbors. It didn't take long to realize we had been blessed with another outstanding dog.

Pokey was an outdoor dog, as most rural dogs are, and I think he was better for it. Even though he had some cold nights enduring Minnesota winters, he always had doghouses filled with straw inside our barn that kept him cozy, and he had the freedom to run. Having had two outdoor dogs that have lived to a ripe old age, I'm skeptical that a pampered and relatively sedentary life indoors is preferable.

Considering that I only officially lived at my parents' place for three or four years since they've had Pokey, it's still amazing how strong of a connection I had to him. Looking forward to the year ahead, there are so many seasonal rites-of-passage that will be incomplete without him. No more long walks down our gravel road in the spring. No more drives to the lake in the summer. No more walks through the plowed corn field in the fall. No more "snowball fights" in the winter where Pokey would dive in the air to catch airborne chunks of snow in his mouth. I'll continue to come home a couple weekends a month, but at least this year, it's gonna seem awfully empty.

As heartwrenching as it has been, I'm glad I went home this weekend though. It was ultimately a blessing to have this happen on one of the four days per month where I visit "the farm". At least I was able to say goodbye. Had this happened last weekend, for instance, I would have heard the news by telephone and would feel even emptier.

Maybe at some point, a year or two down the road, my parents will decide to get another dog. I hope they do. I've yet to meet a dog that I've been unable to fall in love with after getting to know him or her, no matter how much I cling to the memory of the "perfect dog" I once had that was just put to rest. It's a safe bet that when the time comes, the next dog will be just as fulfilling as Pokey...or Luke before him. For now though, it's gonna be a very sad time for myself, my family, and my neighbors who have also grown to love Pokey.

Rest in peace, my good friend. You will never be forgotten.

Hospitality Workers Deserve Alcohol-Free Workplaces

Where's the outrage, folks?! For years now, hospitality workers have been forced to endure the outrageous and often fatal consequences of being stuck in workplaces where alcohol consumption is permitted. The insanity must stop now! Workers in most industries are not forced to deal with alcohol consumption at their workplace. Give me one good reason why the law should discriminate against workers in the hospitality industry! I move that we take immediate steps to outlaw the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages in all restaurants, bars, casinos, bowling alleys and all other "public" places as a workplace safety measure to protect the industry's hard-working employees from the unpleasant and often deadly consequences of secondhand alcohol consumption.

There are many ways in which workplace conditions in the hospitality industry would improve if alcohol consumption was prohibited. Certain, there would be far fewer awkward moments for bartenders being sexually harassed by drunken bar patrons, attempting to cut off inebriated customers who have had one too many, attempting to obstruct customers who appear poised to drink and drive, and breaking up bar brawls instigated by consumption of alcoholic beverages in said workplace. But most importantly of all, this is about SAVING LIVES!

It's hard to get a firm annual casualty number on hospitality workers who've lost their lives due to customer intoxication at their workplace, but a simple Google search yields thousands of tragic stories with fatal endings, with this particular story highly representative of the trend: http://www.twincities.com/... Most of these deaths are directly related to the consumption of alcohol at that very establishment. And as high as the body count directly resulting from secondhand alcohol consumption may be, it escalates stratospherically when you account for the number of drunk-driving deaths that follow the consumption of alcohol in restaurants and bars...and the number of domestic abuse cases that result from people leaving bars and restaurants intoxicated and bringing their unruly drunkenness home with them.

It is a national disgrace that we allow this madness to continue. These bartenders and bouncers losing their lives are our friends, our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters....and we're letting them die. That's why there can be no exceptions and no compromises to my proposed ban of alcohol in "public places" such as restaurants, bars, and casinos.

Another fringe benefit will be a decrease in the level of alcohol consumption by the public. Goodness knows that such microregulation of people's personal consumption choices of legal substances is perfectly within the domain of representative government so any killjoys raising the "nanny state" flag should be laughed off. Remember, this is about SAVING LIVES! And along that same theme, just think of the trillions of dollars worth of health care savings the insurance industry will enjoy if fewer people consume alcoholic beverages in excess.
Anybody who refuses to give up their "personal freedoms" to accommodate a safer workplace for hospitality industry workers is just a selfish pig. Your freedoms end where theirs begin, after all. And of course we can expect some petulant dissenters to serve up all kinds of doomsday scenarios about how an alcohol ban would result in a loss of business, particularly in bars. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, some hypothetical studies suggest that bar revenues would actually GO UP following an alcohol ban because so many people who have avoided them in the past because of the obnoxious drunks will be more inclined to frequent those establishments.

We have a moral duty to provide the safest possible workplace environments for our hospitality industry employees. For that reason, my next effort will be to outlaw the sale and consumption of fried food at restaurants. The cooking of fried food can produce nasty grease burns on hard-working hospitality workers, and they shouldn't be forced to endure that indignity any more than an office worker should. But I'll fight for that effort later. Right now, my priority is to finally give hospitality workers the protection they deserve from secondhand alcohol consumption. Won't you join me?

The War

I don't write much about American foreign policy in general and the war in Iraq specifically on this blog. It's not that I don't consider the issue(s) important, but I simply don't have much in the way of original commentary to add to the conversation. Last spring, I suggested we give the occupation in Iraq exactly one more year.."and not a day more"..before pulling out, as a means of motivating the very obviously unmotivated Iraqi government and security forces into taking their own national autonomy seriously. As long as the Iraqis looked at American occupiers as their "welfare army", I opined, there would be nothing in the way of progress on the horizon for either us or them.

The past year has helped convince a great number of Americans to embrace that philosophy, but it has not changed the prevailing wisdom of our elected officials enough to let go of their foolish pride and pie-in-the-sky fantasies of "military victory" in Iraq, despite conditions that are infinitely worse now than they were last year at this time. Rather than moving towards withdrawal, the United States is now inevitably committed to a "troop surge", a ploy virtually nobody expects to work, but may allow elected officials (and the Bush administration in particular) a deferment of the day of reckoning until after the 2008 election. Even recent converts to the "war was a bad idea and we need to get out" ethos, particularly on the Republican side, buckled to the party line when asked to put up or shut up on denouncing the administration's kamikaze escalation. Chuck Hagel and John Warner ended up looking like the biggest buffoons, ultimately voting to cease-and-desist in the debate of the very anti-war resolutions they co-signed. Why'd Hagel and Warner vote for cloture after all their recent bluster? Because Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell told them to!

As a Democrat, the absolute idiocy of the Republican Party's near-unanimous rubber stamp for digging the hole deeper makes me want to jump for joy, knowing that the two-thirds of Americans who disapprove of the President's "surge" will rebuke the GOP once again in 2008 for their tone-deafness on Iraq. But there's more than a partisan chess match at stake here. Our Iraq policy has cost more than 3,000 American lives, anywhere from 60,000 to 150,000 Iraqi lives, a half a trillion dollars, and America's reputation in the world. Chuck Hagel, back in those quaint days when he paid lip service to his opposition to administration policy, referred to Bush's proposed troop surge in Iraq as "the worst foreign policy blunder since Vietnam." He was wrong. The idea to invade Iraq in the first place was the worst foreign policy blunder since General Hannibal "forgot the siege equipment" on his march into Rome. We've paid for it dearly for the past four years and we'll continue paying for it for the foreseeable future. The best of all bad outcomes is that we'll pay for it less severely if we face the music and set a timetable for imminent withdrawal.

There are alot of doomsday scenarios about the cataclysmic consequences of prematurely withdrawing from Iraq, and some of them are pretty persuasive (on the other hand, we finally pulled out of southeast Asia 32 years ago amidst similar doomsday rhetoric, but every country in southeastern Asia today, particularly Vietnam, is at relative political peace and are booming economically). But what I've unconvinced about is that the same horrific consequences won't come to pass even if America stays. They've been happening so far, with the population centers of Iraq turned into a cesspool of sectarian warfare despite an allied troop presence of more than 100,000, and with Islamic militants from throughout the Middle East crossing the desert for their opportunity to advance their jihad and embarrass the United States. Could things really get that much worse if we left?

I don't pretend to know the answer to that, but I do know that things have gotten substantially worse since my previous call to set a timeline for withdrawal 10 months ago. And when the foolish pride of a President and the political party subservient to his "legacy" is too insecure to even allow debate on the Senate floor about the practicality of pressing forward with existing policy, it tells me that the worst possible scenario in the minds of our elected "warmakers" is the political embarrassment over being wrong. So long as that is the case, American foreign policy is in considerably greater peril than if we were to simply withdraw from Iraq tomorrow.

The Top 150 Country Songs of All-Time

Upon request, I'm posting this revised list of my favorite 150 country songs in the genre's history. The original list was 100 songs long, but I felt a list of 150 was necessary to do justice to the best of the best, while still excluding some of the only marginally great songs as a "top 200" list would do.

Now my list of greatest songs ever will look absolutely nothing like anybody else's on the planet as I apply my own unique set of criteria to the list's configuration. I cannot clearly define which songs capture me, but I have deep respect for songs whose lyrics and sound hold up over time. Many songs on my list defined the sound of their era in very clearcut ways. Others were way ahead of their time and paved the way for future artists to follow in their footsteps. Some were defined by dazzling vocal performances. Some had stories that would bring any warm-blooded listener to tears. Some told profound stories about life with very simple lyrical strokes. Others simply had a fantastic and original beat/melody. Still others merely connected with me personally due to the place and time where I was at in time when they were released. Several of the songs on my list were not significant hits on the charts, but all were released as singles to national radio.

A final rule of thumb for this list is that there are no remakes or covers. There have been some fantastic remakes over the years of older country songs or of rock songs (Lonestar's "Walking in Memphis," Billy Dean's "We Just Disagree", and Suzy Bogguss' "Someday Soon" are some great examples), but unless the interpretation of the remake is vastly superior to the original (as was the case with my #16 entry), I don't consider redoing somebody else's material as being worthy of the "best songs of all-time".

Without any further adieu, here's the list, counting down from #150 to #1....

150. She's Crazy for Leaving--Rodney Crowell (1988)
149. The Bluest Eyes in Texas--Restless Heart (1988)
148. Bye, Bye--Jo Dee Messina (1998)
147. Kansas City Lights--Steve Wariner (1982)
146. Waitin' on Joe--Steve Azar (2002)
145. Galveston--Glen Campbell (1969)
144. Riding with Private Malone--David Ball (2002)
143. Texas Plates--Kellie Coffey (2004)
142. Who's Cheatin' Who? --Charly McClain (1981)
141. I've Been Everywhere--Hank Snow (1962)
140. Has Anybody Seen Amy?--John and Audrey Wiggins (1994)
139. Addicted--Dan Seals (1988)
138. Hooked on an 8-Second Ride--Chris LeDoux (1992)
137. Jolene--Dolly Parton (1974)
136. Wichita Lineman--Glen Campbell (1968)
135. In a Different Light--Doug Stone (1991)
134. Dream Walkin'--Toby Keith (1998)
133. Rollin' With the Flow--Charlie Rich (1977)
132. Your Own Little Corner of My Heart--BlackHawk (1999)
131. Dust on the Bottle--David Lee Murphy (1995)
130. Three Wooden Crosses--Randy Travis (2003)
129. Sleeping Single in a Double Bed--Barbara Mandrell (1978)
128. Rainbow Stew--Merle Haggard (1981)
127. He Didn't Have to Be--Brad Paisley (1999)
126. Highway 40 Blues--Ricky Skaggs (1983)
125. Like Nothing Ever Happened--Sylvia (1983)
124. Why They Call it Falling--Lee Ann Womack (2001)
123. Daddy Never was the Cadillac Kind--Confederate Railroad (1994)
122. House of Cards--Mary Chapin Carpenter (1995)
121. Goodbye Earl--Dixie Chicks (2000)
120. Tulsa Time--Don Williams (1978)
119. I Loved 'Em Every One--T.G. Sheppard (1981)
118. Kerosene--Miranda Lambert (2006)
117. Coward of the County--Kenny Rogers (1980)
116. Bayou Boys--Eddy Raven (1989)
115. That's Just About Right--BlackHawk (1995)
114. The Thunder Rolls--Garth Brooks (1992)
113. Walk the Line--Johnny Cash (1956)
112. Holes in the Floor of Heaven--Steve Wariner (1998)
111. The Way We Make a Broken Heart--Rosanne Cash (1987)
110. Please Remember Me--Tim McGraw (1999)
109. Guitar Town--Steve Earle (1986)
108. Letting Go--Suzy Bogguss (1992)
107. Somebody's Knockin'--Terri Gibbs (1981)
106. The Man in Black--Johnny Cash (1971)
105. 80's Ladies--KT Oslin (1987)
104. Pancho and Lefty--Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard (1983)
103. She Don't Love Nobody--Desert Rose Band (1989)
102. Don't Ask Me How I Know--Bobby Pinson (2005)
101. Go Back--Chalee Tennison (2001)
100. Innocent Man--Sherrie Austin (1998)
99. He's a Heartache--Janie Frickie (1983)
98. Tumbleweed--Sylvia (1980)
97. The Devil Went Down to Georgia--Charlie Daniels Band (1979)
96. Mama Knows the Highway--Hal Ketchum (1993)
95. I'm in a Hurry (And Don't Know Why)--Alabama (1992)
94. Now I Know--Lari White (1994)
93. Sink the Bismarck--Johnny Horton (1960)
92. I Wouldn't Have Missed it for the World--Ronnie Milsap (1982)
91. Queen of Hearts--Juice Newton (1981)
90. A Sure Thing--Foster and Lloyd (1987)
89. Just Another Day in Paradise--Phil Vassar (2000)
88. Coat of Many Colors--Dolly Parton (1971)
87. Little Rock--Collin Raye (1994)
86. My Girl Friday--Daron Norwood (1995)
85. Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses--Kathy Mattea (1988)
84. Ring of Fire--Johnny Cash (1963)
83. Like We Never Said Goodbye--Crystal Gayle (1980)
82. Words by Heart--Billy Ray Cyrus (1994)
81. Ol' Red--Blake Shelton (2002)
80. Baby's Got a New Baby Now--SKO (1987)
79. The Cheap Seats--Alabama (1994)
78. Smoke Rings in the Dark--Gary Allan (1999)
77. Lipstick Promises--George Ducas (1995)
76. The Weekend--Steve Wariner (1987)
75. Tempted--Marty Stuart (1991)
74. Drifter--Sylvia (1981)
73. Inside--Ronnie Milsap (1983)
72. She Thinks His Name was John--Reba McEntire (1994)
71. Someplace Far Away--Hal Ketchum (1993)
70. She Can't Love You--Boy Howdy (1995)
69. It's Such a Small World--Rodney Crowell and Rosanne Cash (1988)
68. When You Think of Me--Mark Wills (2003)
67. Shadows in the Moonlight--Anne Murray (1979)
66. Still Losing You--Ronnie Milsap (1984)
65. Maybe it was Memphis--Pam Tillis (1992)
64. Something Like That--Tim McGraw (1999)
63. Living in a Moment--Ty Herndon (1996)
62. Why Have You Left the One You Left Me For?--Crystal Gayle (1978)
61. Past the Point of Rescue--Hal Ketchum (1992)
60. When She Cries--Restless Heart (1992)
59. I Take My Chances--Mary Chapin Carpenter (1994)
58. Me and Emily--Rachel Proctor (2004)
57. The City of New Orleans--Willie Nelson (1984)
56. Austin--Blake Shelton (2001)
55. When Cowboys Didn't Dance--Lonestar (1996)
54. That Ain't My Truck--Rhett Akins (1995)
53. Blue Moon with a Heartache--Rosanne Cash (1982)
52. King of the World--BlackHawk (1996)
51. Hold On--Rosanne Cash (1986)
50. My Baby Loves Me--Martina McBride (1993)
49. Snowbird--Anne Murray (1970)
48. A Dozen Red Roses--Tammy Graham (1997)
47. Meet Me in Montana--Dan Seals and Marie Osmond (1985)
46. Convoy--C.W. McCall (1975)
45. The Sound of Goodbye--Crystal Gayle (1984)
44. Where Do the Nights Go?--Ronnie Milsap (1988)
43. Danny's Song--Anne Murray (1973)
42. Angel of the Morning--Juice Newton (1981)
41. He Thinks He'll Keep Her--Mary Chapin Carpenter (1994)
40. Where've You Been?--Kathy Mattea (1990)
39. The Little Girl--John Michael Montgomery (2000)
38. Never be You--Rosanne Cash (1985)
37. When You Leave That Way You Can Never Go Back--Confederate Railroad (1993)
36. Broken Hearted Me--Anne Murray (1979)
35. The Legend of Wooley Swamp--Charlie Daniels Band (1980)
34. The Gambler--Kenny Rogers (1978)
33. One Solitary Tear--Sherrie Austin (1997)
32. Lord, I Hope This Day is Good--Don Williams (1982)
31. Runaway Train--Rosanne Cash (1988)
30. Reckless--Alabama (1993)
29. Smoky Mountain Rain--Ronnie Milsap (1981)
28. Every Little Thing--Carlene Carter (1993)
27. Old Hippie--Bellamy Brothers (1985)
26. The Battle of New Orleans--Johnny Horton (1959)
25. The Highwaymen--Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash (1985)
24. Dark Horse--Mila Mason (1997)
23. Back to the Heartbreak Kid--Restless Heart (1985)
22. Everything that Glitters Is Not Gold--Dan Seals (1986)
21. A Boy Named Sue--Johnny Cash (1968)
20. Good Old Boys Like Me--Don Williams (1980)
19. Seven Year Ache--Rosanne Cash (1981)
18. He Would be Sixteen--Michelle Wright (1993)
17. Give My Heart to You--Billy Ray Cyrus (1999)
16. Tennessee Flat Top Box--Rosanne Cash (1987)
15. What's It to You?--Clay Walker (1993)
14. Nobody--Sylvia (1982)
13. Miracle Man--Smokin' Armadillos (1996)
12. Bop--Dan Seals (1986)
11. In Love--Ronnie Milsap (1986)
10. Just My Luck--Kim Richey (1995)
9. The River and the Highway--Pam Tillis (1996)
8. Hey Cinderella--Suzy Bogguss (1994)
7. Stranger in My House--Ronnie Milsap (1983)
6. Wild One--Faith Hill (1994)
5. What They're Talking About--Rhett Akins (1994)
4. I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me--Rosanne Cash (1985)
3. Big Dreams in a Small Town--Restless Heart (1989)
2. Independence Day--Martina McBride (1994)
1. I Hope You Dance--Lee Ann Womack (2000)

So there it is. I'm sure everyone has some personal favorites that were omitted, but I challenge them to compile a list of their own to dispute mine (you wouldn't believe how many people actually have after I laid out that challenge for them). And even I'm struck by how many great artists with great material are absentee from my list. No Charlie Rich! No Eddie Rabbitt! No John Denver! No John Conlee! No Nitty Gritty Dirt Band! No Tracy Lawrence! No Mark Chesnutt! And worst of all, no Tanya Tucker, the artist with perhaps the best resume of near-classic country-pop gems but nothing that quite reached the level of classic for my taste. And, of course, there are several other artists past and present who are considered among the genre's best that I consider overrated. I won't mention names (ahem, George Strait), but there are a pretty substantial number of them.

The reason there aren't very many new songs on the list is that it takes a few years to determine whether a song's sound or lyrics have serious staying power. Furthermore, the songs out today have seemingly endless runs on radio (an average of 5-6 months per single compared to the 3-month run of decades previous) which tends to burn me out on them faster than I otherwise would be. On the other hand, there aren't as many "very old" songs on my list as there likely would be if I was an older guy. I'm sure there were plenty of gems from the 1960's and 1970's that I haven't even heard.

Any feedback, positive or negative, is welcomed.

The Shortest Campaign Ever

I gotta hand it to Joe Biden. I would have never dreamed he'd be able to usher in his 2008 Presidential campaign with a more embarrassing gaffe than that which introduced national audiences to Biden 20 years ago. In the introductory stages of his 1988 campaign for the Presidency, Biden plagiarized the life story of British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock and attempted to pass it off as his own at a campaign stump speech. Unfortunately for Biden, he was exposed as a fraud by those PR wizards working on the Michael Dukakis campaign. Biden quickly abandoned the race and it has taken nearly two decades before he has regained the nerve to give it another whirl.

And let's just say Biden didn't disappoint in his reintroduction of himself to American voters. He let loose a series of ad hominem attacks against his likely Democratic rivals, but it was actually his "praise" of Illinois Senator Barack Obama that will most be remembered from Biden's diatribe, referring to Obama as "the first mainstream African American [presidential candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Yikes! It's starting to become more clear why Biden was boasting about his home state of Delaware being a "slave state" last year when asked how he planned to appeal to voters in the South.

My only question now is how Biden possibly plans to outdo this starting gate fumble in his inevitable doomed 2012 campaign? Will he make the announcement at a press conference standing next to his teenage male "mistress"?