March 21, 2008
Stuff White People Like: The Wire
"The Wire" creator and executive producer David Simon with Andre Royo, who plays the character Bubbles.
This is just too classic, from the blog Stuff White People Like: Entry No. 85 is "The Wire," our homegrown, just-completed crime drama produced by former Sun colleague David Simon:
Though white people have a natural aversion to television, there are some exceptions. For white people to like a TV show it helps if it is: critically acclaimed, low-rated, shown on premium cable, and available as a DVD box set.For more hilarity, visit the entire site, Stuff White People Like.The latter is important so that white people can order it from Netflix and tell their friends “they are really into
and I watched ten episodes in a row in the weekend. I’m almost caught up.” If you attempt to talk about an episode they have not seen yet, they will scream and cover their ears. In white culture, giving away information about a film or TV series is considered as rude as spitting on your mothers grave. It is an unforgivable offense.
Recent series that have fallen into this category include The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and most recently The Wire.
For the past three years, whenever you say “The Wire” white people are required to respond by saying “it’s the best show on television.” Try it the next time you see a white person! Though now they might say “it WAS the best show on television.”
Here's another great line, true in my experience discussing "The WIre" with people from anywhere from D.C. to Alaska:
If you need to impress a white person, tell them you are from Baltimore. They will immediately ask you about The Wire and how accurate it is. You should confirm that it is “like a documentary of the streets,” the white person will then slowly shake their head and say “man” or “wow.” You will be seen in an entirely new light.I've been meaning to round up some of the kazillions of links looking at "The Wire" and David Simon, focusing mainly on how he trashes the Sun in the final season, the fifth, just concluded.
I was surprised at how harsh Simon was toward his previous employer. Without the Sun, Simon doesn't become a Baltimore cops reporter and meet the homicide detectives that led to his first book, his first network series, and ultimately to his second series with HBO.
Also, I think all workplaces are a Faustian pact for a writer (or artist), caught by definition between wanting to write or create what you want and having to deal with inpenetrable bosses in exchange for this little thing called money.
At lunch with another former Sun colleague, we laughed away at the spectacle of seeing people we worked with -- Bill Zorzi, Laura Lippman, Jeff Price, David Ettlin, Steve Luxenberg and many other real former staffers -- on screen. My lunch buddy made a great point asking why Simon attacks former Sun editors John Carroll and Bill Marimow by proxy, when their predecessor, editor Jim Houck, was truly clueless in our eyes, as seen by a post-Sun career that sent him into invisibility, as Carroll and Marimow continued to do high-level news editing post-Sun.
Here's a second friend from the Sun making a similar point:
I didn't know Simon but remember him storming around the newsroom like a panther. He was an early believer in his own legend. Of course James Houck was the managing editor then. What an empty suit. Why isn't he one of the named evils in the series?In fairness to David, Carroll apparently (after I left to go to the Washington Post) coddled a reporter named Jim Haner, who may have made up stuff for his stories, but not to the extent "The Wire" character Scott Templeton did.At least Carroll and Marimow had significant careers before and after. What ever became of Houck? He vanished. ...
Everybody was unhappy in those days -- 1986 and 87 -- and I gather nothing ever really changed. It was rather depressing, now that I remember those times. In retrospect I entered the newspaper industry at arguably its high-water mark, when financially, editorially, and institutionally, it was the best it ever was going to be. From then on things ran downhill, not just at the Sun, but everywhere.
My friend quoted above may think that '86 and '87 just before things ran downhill. Maybe ... the timing point is interesting, and it seems also though that a whole lot of talent -- including gifted editor Steve Luxenberg, who decamped reluctantly to the Washington Post to make his mark there -- was still going strong at the Sun.
My memories of David Simon at the Baltimore Sun:
My first week at the Sun was in January 1987. David wrote a series on Little Melvin, the Baltimore drug kingpin. As I recall, it ran for five days including over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and Baltimore's black community was riled over feeling slighted by the series' timing. I heard some very quiet grumbling on the copy desk that someone on Metro should have been aware of this clash and worked around it. I think the copy editors were embarrassed too at their more minor role in the oversight.
Later, I had to copy edit a story by David glorifying some criminal or other, that was supposed to run on a Monday. I think everyone else on the copy desk had steered around the story because they didn't want to deal with it.
I spent Sunday unable to get in touch with him or his editor on the fact that the wording in the intro was attempting, I thought unsuccessfully, to give the criminal's stream of consciousness on how he justified his outlaw behavior, but it made it seem as if the reporter's own voice was endorsing the behavior. I added with my boss's permission and as artfully as possible, a brief qualifier that the thought process belonged to subject of the portrait. David showed up Monday to ream me out, standing over me as I sat at my desk. It was an unnerving experience. I explained the point of view had a problem and we couldn't reach him or his editor and that was pretty much that. He seemed fascinated with the underworld and seemed quite determined not to be bourgeois in judging it.
Years later, David's first book, "Homicide," was accepted for publication. I wanted to write and have publish a book idea on my travels, which later became 
An Amateur's Guide to the Planet
When we run into each other, at funerals for example, I am always glad to see David.
Oh I remember one other encounter ... right after I arrived at the Sun, he came up and said, "You used to be a reporter at the Montgomery Journal, and you interviewed me when I was in high school," at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High. I thought didn't recall the meeting but thought that was sweet, and you will see in the Mark Bowden profile below the extent to which David really, really knew and wanted to be a journalist, and found meeting me -- the schools reporter at the local county paper -- something to file away in the memory banks.
He's one of the Sun's noted alumni from a time of great talent at the paper, which also included Lippman and Stephen Hunter, whom I blogged about here.
David Simon with Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar, "The Wire's" most compelling character. Here Williams' discusses his shock at what happened to him on the show.
Anyway, here are links galore for anyone wanting to follow the debate that exploded in the East Coast media.
'The Wire' loses spark in newsroom storyline. From Sun TV critic David Zurawik:
... the newsroom scenes are the Achilles' heel of Season 5 - with mainstream entertainment sacrificed to journalistic shop talk, while fact and fiction are mashed up in the confusing manner of docudrama.Simon's own response to Zurawik's article:
The story is fictional, but it is rooted in concerns about out-of-town chain ownership, wholesale cutbacks in the newsroom, the declining scope of coverage and the continued influence of the prize culture in newspapering, up to and including the temptation among less ethical practitioners to hype or manufacture the news.Here's The Angriest Man in Television by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, in The Atlantic:That's a lot for any newspaper to endure and The Sun has been very tolerant. And while the Chicago folks ordering up buyout after buyout might want to pause for reflection, Editor In Chief Tim Franklin is right: The people on the ground in Baltimore, though there are less of them, are doing the most to produce the best newspaper they can. He and his staff have nothing of which to be ashamed in that regard, nor was it our intent to in any way shame them. We believe in the themes we have pursued and we believe these problems plague The Sun as all other major papers, some currently, and some under previous regimes. But none of that takes away from the work still being done in Baltimore.
For all his success and accomplishment, he’s an angry man, driven in part by lovingly nurtured grudges against those he feels have slighted him, underestimated him, or betrayed some public trust. High on this list is his old employer The Baltimore Sun—or more precisely, the editors and corporate owners who have (in his view) spent the past two decades eviscerating a great American newspaper. In a better world—one where papers still had owners and editors who were smart, socially committed, honest, and brave—Simon probably would never have left The Sun to pursue a Hollywood career. His father, a frustrated newsman, took him to see Ben Hecht’s and Charles MacArthur’s classic newspaper farce, The Front Page, when he was a boy in Washington, D.C., and Simon was smitten. He landed a job as a Sun reporter just out of the University of Maryland in the early 1980s, and as he tells it, if the newspaper, the industry, and America had lived up to his expectations, he would probably still be documenting the underside of his adopted city one byline at a time. But The Sun let David Simon down. So he has done something that many reporters only dream about. He has created his own Baltimore.From The New York Observer: Whose Bastard Sun: If The Wire Is Wrong, Why Is Baltimore's Paper So Bad?
The Sun that I covered for Baltimore's City Paper in the '90s was the Sun of Mr. Carroll and Mr. Marimow. It was redesigned and ambitious and on its way to Pulitzer glory. It was also a damaged and declining newspaper.'The Wire' finale is a cop-out for a once-great show: More from Zurawik:How can both those things be true? It comes down to a disagreement about the purpose of a newspaper. Mr. Carroll and Mr. Marimow's Sun was a place for young, talented reporters to do ambitious stories. It was not particularly dedicated to covering the news in the city of Baltimore.
That's because the Sun of the '90s was not a Baltimore newspaper. It was a colonial holding of The Los Angeles Times, which had bought it in 1986. Actually, The Times had bought two papers, The Sun and The Evening Sun—in a sense, it had even acquired a share of a third, as the Sunpapers absorbed staff and features from the collapse of the Baltimore News American. But by 1995, The Evening Sun had been folded into The Sun, and Baltimore was down to one daily-paper newsroom. Buyouts, ordered from the other side of the country, were clearing out the veteran employees.
In my preview of the season, I termed the newsroom scenes the "Achilles heel" of the series. Worse, they became a cancer that grew deeper and deeper into other parts of the drama as the season wore on.The problems began with the depiction of a newsroom that lacked any sense of the urgent new-media priorities in the real ones today. Worse, from an entertainment standpoint, it was filled with stick figures and former journalists who couldn't act a lick.
And this is in such stark contrast to the series' richly nuanced treatment of larger-than-life gangsters, played by superb actors. Watching the gears turn inside the mind of Jamie Hector's Marlo Stanfield was one of the great pleasures of the series.
The arch-villains - editor James C. Whiting III (Sam Freed), managing editor Thomas Klebanow (David Costabile) and reporter Scott Templeton (Tom McCarthy) - behave more and more reprehensibly in the finale without viewers getting any sense of their moral reasoning. Whiting and Klebanow go on to commit unpardonable journalistic crimes.
Given the way Simon has identified them in interviews as having been inspired by two real-life newsroom executives who once worked at The Sun, former editor John Carroll and former managing editor Bill Marimow, the term character assassination does not seem too harsh for what he has attempted to do in Season 5 of The Wire. Embracing the controversial genre of docudrama like never before, Simon has repeatedly blurred fact and fiction this year. Take just the matter of chronology. Simon left the Sun in 1995, and the people on whom he bases his villains are long gone, yet he presents events set in the newsroom as if they are taking place at The Sun today.
Is it any wonder that so little truth has emerged from such a stew?
- posted by jbelliveau at 10:31 AM in The Neighborhood
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December 23, 2007
A remarkable vet: Dr. Lisa Tuzo
I've written before about the thoughtful care our geriatric sheltie Beau received from Baltimore mobile vet Dr. Lisa Tuzo: here in The Life and Times of Beau Belliveau and Dealing with Beau's end of life.Jeannette,
This past weekend, my cat had an emergency related to her heart condition and I was advised to put her to sleep. A friend of mine recommended I ask her vet (Dr Tuzo) to come to my house to put her to sleep instead of taking her to my vet's office. Dr Tuzo rearranged her schedule on Saturday and spent almost 3 hours carefully observing my cat & determined it was not time to put her to sleep. It turns out she was right.
I was incredibly impressed with Dr Tuzo's care.
I just "googled" Dr Tuzo and your Beau blog entries came up, and I can see Dr Tuzo also provided great care for him. So I thought I'd pop you a note.
My cat's condition last Friday was dire (blood clot resulting from her long-standing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy condition). I was told by both the hospital and my regular vet that there would only be a small chance she could pull through and it would require lots of tests/treatment & money with no guarantees of recovery. They recommended I put her to sleep soon. I decided it would be best to have her be put to sleep at home. A friend gave me Dr Tuzo's name - Dr Tuzo had provided exemplary end-of-life care for her dog when he was ill last year. Dr Tuzo rearranged her schedule on Saturday in order to come by my house.
In the meantime, my cat had miraculously started recovering on her own (this normally does not happen in her condition). I did not know she was recovering, but Dr Tuzo explained that she was. She decided the cat was not ready to be put to sleep. She carefully and patiently went to work like a detective. Pets can't tell you what's wrong with them - Dr Tuzo has all kinds of techniques to try to figure out what's wrong. She spent almost 3 hours observing the cat (the advantage of having a vet come to your house is they can observe the cat in their own environment - walking, eating, peeing, etc - can't do this in a vet's office). She was extremely dedicated. She gave me a plan of action to move forward with and pain medication to hold the cat over until she could be brought to the cardiologist. She touched base with me daily to check in & discussed the situation with the cardiologist first thing Monday morning.
The cat has been evaluated by the cardiologist and is on a new medication regime now & needs to be retested periodically. She is stable and happy now. There is a chance her condition can be put under control, although there is also a chance her heart could fail. We'll just have to wait and see...
I'm not sure what would have happened if Dr Tuzo did not come by on Saturday. There's a good chance the cat would have been put to sleep at my vet's office.
One of the problems is that I did not follow-up with some tests I had my vet do earlier this year. Lesson is: if you ask your vet to do a test, don't assume they will call you if the results are bad. They might neglect to call you. Call them back and ask them to look at the report & tell you what the results are.
Note how Dr. Tuzo provided followup care and a sincere interest in Rachel's cat. This reminds me, I have already used her twice for followup telephone consultations, for which she later invoiced me at my insistence, when our sheltie Pierre developed a limp. One great thing about this vet is that she will give you a solid 30 minutes or more of the kind of information pet owners crave but can't seem to get from a busy office vet, and she knows how to explain things simply or in detail, depending on your level of interest.
Information on how to contact her is at her Web site, Vet2Go, here.
- posted by jbelliveau at 2:15 PM in The Neighborhood
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June 13, 2007
Baltimore's troll colony: The story behind the story
Barbara Saffir's story on the Gwynns Falls Trail, and its photo of the Carrollton Viaduct.
My friend Barbara Saffir came to Baltimore three or four times to report and photograph a story on the Gwynns Falls Trail. She wrote a very interesting Road Trip for the Washington Post, A Trail Full of Charm in Baltimore, May 20.
It was a blast getting to find a secret pocket of peaceful, green Baltimore over the winter and spring when I was invited to accompany Barbara on several of her trips.
One interesting facet of wandering the trail, formerly famous for running through Leakin Park, where Baltimore's murderers dumped their dead until the installation of pillars to keep vehicles off the trail, was its revelation of more than one hidden human world along the trail.
Take a look at Barbara's photo of the Carrollton Viaduct in the original story, above. It took two trips for us to find this pretty vista, one that reminded me of the Pont du Gard, the famous Roman aqueduct standing in Southern France, although of course the latter is far more spectacular.
In classic Baltimore fashion, the viaduct is tagged with 6-foot-high graffiti and the trees along the banks of the Gwynns Falls are festooned with shredded plastic trash bags. Neither of these can fully detract from its green beauty.
As Barbara photographed the viaduct, a group of boys appeared high above us, crossing the viaduct, heedless of the fact a train could come any minute. She finished shooting and, feeling a bit like potential prey, we zoomed away to a busier area of the trail.
We noticed other somewhat strange goings-on. As we strolled along an area not far from the Carroll Park Golf Course, a hillbilly couple emerged from shrubbery along the stream. He was tall, muscular, with a ball cap and tattoes on his bare tanned arms, she was small, blond and skinny. They wouldn't meet our eyes, and went to his red pickup in the golf course parking lot. Open-air sex? An affair? Shooting up? Who knows?
The couple were part of a stream of hillbillies using the railroad tracks -- not the trail, mind you -- as a thoroughfare between parts of SoWeBo (southwest Baltimore). They streamed along a ground-level, north-south part of tracks and climbed up also on the east-west, elevated viaduct running at a right angle.
I could never make it across the viaduct with my fear of heights, but SoWeBomorons sauntered along its unguarded edge without concern.
Barbara and I poked along an unofficial leg of the trail that continues under I-95. She seemed a little nervous during much of the trip that we would be jumped by youths.
Still, she was curious as to why park officials said that due to rights conflicts around I-95, they had to move the labeled Gwynns Falls Trail onto busy streets near the Ravens stadium, yet unofficially, we could see that a spur of the trail continued its sylvan way beside the Falls.
I was thinking about how much this trail under a highway reminded me of my commute beside the Campbell Creek Trail, and under part of the busy Seward Highway, when I worked in 2004 in Anchorage. While I was musing about Alaska, Barbara hollered for me to turn back.
She had noticed sleeping bags, personal belongings and more graffiti indicating human occupation on a broad ledge above the trail. It seems that a community of Baltimore's homeless lives under this stretch of I-95. We got confirmation of this when we continued to Patapsco Valley Sales for some buying of planters at wholesale prices. A member of the staff said that near their shop -- which is probably 1.5 miles away from the golf course -- they see homeless people emerging from under the expressway to go about their daily wanderings.
Do we have an entire, colony of semi-subterranean gnomes, trolls and hobbits under several miles of I-95 in Baltimore?
Cue "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers:
Under the bridge downtown
Is where I drew some blood
Under the bridge downtown
I could not get enough
Under the bridge downtown
Forgot about my love
Under the bridge downtown
I gave my life away.
I sense a book or at least a news article here somewhere.
- posted by jbelliveau at 8:31 AM in The Neighborhood
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May 15, 2007
'The picture' of Beau and Lamont
Beau and Lamont in Rockville circa 1996.
Neighbors continue to comment on how much they enjoy my collage on Beau's life, published here (scroll down): The life and times of Beau Belliveau.
Lynda Maslanka mentioned how cute she thought Beau's puppy picture was. Blaire Freed noted instead the rather amazing photo of Lamont and Beau, cropped above, that I took about 11 years ago in the backyard of my parents' former home in Twinbrook:
I still love that photo of Beau and Lamont on the grass, with the EXACT SAME FACIAL EXPRESSION! It's uncanny, and I wouldn't have believed it if it weren't a pre-Photoshop photograph. Beau is such a good-looking example of his breed, and Lamont is a handsome guy, so the picture is all-around terrific.
I replied:
Thank you so much.When I first saw the print, I thought not only are they both so vibrant, and with identical expressions, but also it was an honor to me as the woman behind the camera that they would "shine on," human and animal, for me !!!
- posted by jbelliveau at 11:57 AM in The Neighborhood
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May 9, 2007
The life and times of Beau Belliveau
Also known as: Bobo, the Bodacious Beau-Bear, Bugbear, Bugbearian, Little Bear, Mr. Lop Ears, Clap-Clap, Wiggleworm, Lingard Beau Monde, Shingard Beau Monde, Beau Toaster.
Dec. 28, 1989-Nov. 7, 2006
"Beau was very clever, very curious, very different, very special."
-- RoseMarie Moran, early 1990s housemate.
"Where's the other one?" people ask me frequently as I walk Pierre, our 11-year-old sheltie.
Some of our neighbors been holed up all winter and are now strolling outside again.
The "other one" is Beau, our smaller, mahogany-sable sheltie that we had for almost 17 years.
I've had a difficult time writing about Beau's loss, and six months have passed since Nov. 7, when a vet came to euthanize him in our home. This has to do with being busy, mainly, but I certainly owe it to Beau to get his story finished. My earlier post, Dealing with Beau's end of life, was more to do with his loss than his life, but it was somewhat incomplete on his loss as well.
So now I'm telling some neighbors for the first time that Beau is gone. They are freshly sad while I am accustomed by now to his departure, and they brighten up when they see I am chipper, especially given the details of how we were able make his passing as gentle as possible.
Many people seemed to know and like Beau, as I noted in this blog entry, Thank you to FOB (Friends of Beau). Also, people are curious when I tell the story of the mobile vet we had come to our house, and they ask for her card, of which more later.
Beau has been asked for by everyone from the street Arabber who sells us bananas and corn in season to neighbors on more distant alley streets and Lamont's soccer teammates.
Loss of a first pet
It's tough when you know early on with a pet that you love him way too much, because it's such a sappy admission. But I did love Beau enormously. I was the most ridiculous of childless yuppie puppy owners, taking him on walks around Fells Point when he was only a few months old, stopping every so often to let him sip water from a tiny Tupperware container.
In fact, we got a Pierre, from Sheltie Haven Sheltie Rescue, in 1999 ostensibly to take over house-guarding duties, and in reality to have Pierre serve as love shield against Beau's eventual demise. I once edited a Baltimore Sun business story on the importance of "laddering" investments in bonds so that they don't all become mature at once. It seemed prudent also to ladder the acquisition of pets, given our bonds to them.
Around Jan. 7, 1990, I first laid eyes on Beau. He was 10 days old and about the size of a guinea pig. I had wanted a sheltie puppy with a white blaze, like my brother's dog, Conan. But the breeder, Lingard Kennels ("Shetland Sheepdogs of Lingard") in Burtonsville, Md., only had one sable male, and he only had a little white splodge above his nose, not a full blaze.
The puppy was laid in my lap by a kennel aide. I impulsively kissed him on his forehead. I met his unremarkable dam (Natalie, registered as Lingard Kiss) and his spectacular father, Ch. Lingard I Am Magic, who had the kennel name Stripe. Stripe was full of life and charisma, merrily jumping up on the gate of his kennel to greet a visitor, and Beau inherited Stripe's confident extroversion, if not his flawless white blaze.
When he was 6 weeks old, I got a call from Lingard Kennels that "your puppy is ready," and I went to pick him up, receiving some Xeroxed instructions on what to feed him.
The young Beau was ridiculously cute. He didn't look like a puppy, more like a Disney toy so saccharine as to give you diabetes -- tiny dark eyes like the buttons on a rag doll, tousled white ruff, floppy ears. You can see a picture here in his memorial collage.
This collage recalling some moments in Beau's life was e-mailed to many of our friends. I have about 80 replies in condolence.
In February 1990, Beau came along to Upper Fells Point to what would be his home for nearly 17 years. I set up an area, barricaded by cardboard boxes, under the microwave shelf in the kitchen for him to sleep.
The next day, at 6 a.m., piteous howling woke me up.
My new puppy had knocked the boxes apart and was sitting in the middle of the kitchen, front paws neatly together, with an expectant look of, "First I'd like to eat, then I'd like to go outside, then let's play. Let's have a great day!"
It took me a while to figure out what to name Beau, but my work colleague at the time, Kathleen Gaskell Blankenship, came up with Beau as a play on my last name. This of course later gave Lamont a great opening when I was complaining about how vain it was for Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott to name her dogs Schottzie (not only that, but Schottzie 01 and Schottzie 02).
"That is really ridiculous, to name a dog after yourself," I railed, prompting the single-raised-eyebrow treatment from Lamont.
Young Beau was all about playing. Easily for an hour or more when I got home from work, he would chase my wiggling fingers, jumping back and forth over my knees and around my back. The world was his oyster, and he did comical double takes upon first site of anything new: wrens hopping on the sidewalk, my bug-eyed Indonesian masks on the wall.
A full moon, 50,000 miles away, drew growls and barks of alarm, one of the early signs that his brain processed light differently than that of a more placid dog. One day he clambered on the coach, put his front paws on the back cushions and growled at a mysterious spot on the exposed brick. The rehabber had left a drip of glossy varnish on the otherwise matte bricks.
Beau would chase reflections off car bumpers refracted into the living room and growl at moonbeams on the bedroom floor.
He chased a laser pointer with maniacal abandon. Sometimes I ran the pointer from the front of our rowhouse to the back laundry room, and he would fly the entire 80 feet, scattering rugs in the process and sometimes banging into the drier. Later I figured out that I could stand on the field at Betty Hyatt Park in East Baltimore and run the pointer back and forth along the exterior wall of the tennis court and pretty much wear him out that way.
Ceiling fans
His barking, hopping, spinning reaction to ceiling fans, either in our house or spotted through neighbor's windows, was one of his most marked behavioral oddities. My brother Paul theorized that as a sheepdog, he figured chopping ceiling fans resembled the beating wings of raptors coming to snatch a lamb from the flock. It made some sense.
Beau sang marvelously, with sirens or church bells especially, but also whenever a pack member left for work. That was something that our former housemate Rose recalled. Beau taught her Mindy and our Pierre how to sing, but they never really learned and have never sung again since he was gone. "I am here, where are you? Come join me," is the message of the wolf howl, according to animal behaviorist Desmond Morris.
Later, Beau would also bark at anything out of context. One day he saw a tall man in a yellow hat, walking in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. He was out of context. Beau barked steadily. I wondered if there was some way to make money on a clever small dog who knew what was in context and what wasn't but I never figured out a way.
"He's communicating with the Eighth Dimension," my Star Trek fan friend Ed decided. Ed sent me the following nice note upon learning of Beau's passing:
The Beau I knew looked like Beau at one year in the top right photo of the collage. He was a fine fellow -- in addition to loyalty to you and fidelity, he impressed me as almost scary-smart, at least way smarter than me. Not to mention more fleet of paw than anyone I have seen.
"He was the cutest puppy I ever saw," Clay Perry wrote me.
When Beau was four months old, he became the youngest dog at that time ever approved for work with the Pets on Wheels program, which matches dogs and cats to nursing homes, where they visit and cheer the patients. He loved two of the seniors at the old Fairmount Homes especially, and each saved him crackers. He also loved children, and would trot up to them confidently, sometimes putting a paw on each shoulder if they were really tiny and commencing to wash their face.
We had an event-filled time together. He survived my missing part of his first spring to go on a fellowship in Hawaii. When I returned, he licked my face with joy. A little time later, I learned he had a grand sense of humor when he began hiding behind trees at Betty Hyatt Park and peeking around with a grin before hiding again.
One day, when Beau was about 2 years old, I walked him up Pratt Street to Patterson Park. A woman screeched her passing car to a halt and yelled, "Is he a male?" She lived on Madeira Street and had a female sheltie in heat. I loaned Beau to her for a night, and the woman and her partner had made the mistake of roasting a chicken in the oven that same night. Beau was more interested in begging for delectable chicken than mating with the female, and that was the beginning and end of his career as a sire.
When I traveled on my own, I could leave the young Beau with our housemate, RoseMarie. When I went to Brazil for three weeks, Beau slept waiting by the front door for two nights. On the third night, Rose told me, "OK, come upstairs Beaubeau," and he obediently followed. He got to watch the movie "Beethoven" with Rose and her cocker spaniel, Mindy.
Beau and I also traveled a lot. He went camping with me at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware, and then took a big swing out West to Teddy Roosevelt Park in South Dakota, followed by Yellowstone, where he was riveted to the bison. He followed them visually from our highup overlook, every fiber of his being wanting to herd them.
His intensity caught the eye of some nearby French tourists who announced, "Regardez le chien." Later a coyote walked near to our car on a side road. When I squeezed out of the car to take a closer picture, Beau did his best to escape, nearly succeeding in running free and joining a Rocky Mountains coyote pack.
Le petit collie
Lamont and I took him to Montreal, where he was termed in French a mini-collie or petit collie. Lamont was permitted to take him in the bookstore Chapters and up the escalator to visit my book talk.
Beau also accompanied me on a book tour to Kentucky and Ohio, where Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington had no problem letting him hang out during my talk, crated in their staff room. They love horses in Lexington, home of the Kentucky Derby, and they love dogs too.
Wearing his yellow small-dog lifejacket, Beau went sailing with Lamont and me, and also with my friend Suzanne. He had a lucky and full life.
Only when he was older did he become sedate enough to be a cuddle pup and body warmer. If I got cold in the night I could lay him beside me, his sweet-smelling soft ears by my cheek, his head on my shoulder, my hand on his flank, me ignoring his very quiet "urmf" of exasperation at being pressed into Three Dog Night service.
Into each life some rain must fall, and for Beau it was being bitten by a pit bull when he was about 6 years old.
I was getting ready to visit our neighborhood hardware store and another dog owner was exiting the door. Her dog swung its head at Beau and he didn't react. We checked his body for a bite but couldn't find it.
Later that night, Beau miserably greeted Lamont when he came home from work, walking up to him and butting his head in his chest and remaining still, and we checked Beau again. This time, deep in his belly undercoat, we found two puncture wounds, indicated by weeping clear fluid.
After two operations to repair the necrotic and infected tissue, he was a quieter and more subdued little dog. The pit bull bite really took a lot of the wind out of his sails.
The incident did get him into our local paper, The East Baltimore Guide, in an article about the perils of pit bulls that featured a photo of our sheltie, shaved ribs and wounds visible. He also appeared in the Guide a second time in 1999, wearing campaign ribbons for a mayoral candidate.
Novelist Jane Smiley wrote this in A Year at the Races
A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements: the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together. If the lover isn't ardent, then the story isn't a love story. If the beloved isn't appealing, then the lover just seems idiosyncratic or even crazy; and if they have no adventures, then their love is too easy, and they have no way of learning anything important about themselves and one another.
Beau and I had surface adventures -- Montreal, Ocean City, South Dakota, Yellowstone, pit bulls, and sometimes even our daily walks in Baltimore -- and then we had a deeper adventure when he became geriatric around age 14 or 15.
Becoming an ancient
At 16 he was older than geriatric -- in a word, ancient. "Beau you are going to live forever," Dr. Nesbitt of Essex Dog and Cat said after one visit. But added to his congestive heart failure in his last year was kidney failure. It was tough to treat both, because the first requires lowering fluids in the body and the second requires increasing them.
We just did are best to juggle the amount of Lasix he was receiving and to avoid treating his arthritis with Ascripton anymore, since that might hurt his kidneys.
There wasn't much else to do except feed him pureed food orally by plastic syringe and reward him with ice cream, yoghurt and begging strips that he would eat on his own.
I think he wanted to live. In his last six months, that required essentially providing hospice care for him, though I didn't quite realize it at the time.
In May 2006, when I was at the BookExpo America in Washington, D.C., Beau wouldn't eat for Lamont. I wasn't surprised, and tried to tell Lamont tricks to the process. I often had to warm his food to room temperature and switch brands often to capture his interest, or tear up begging strips and put it in the food. He would often walk up to his food and lick his chops and walk away. I thought he was being difficult and only later learned that licking the chops is a sign of nausea (poor guy). When he wouldn't eat anything, then I resorted to pureeing.
What would have been easier would have been feeding him one of the Hill's canned prescription diets that goes straight into a syringe without pureeing: the one called a/d Canine Feline. I only found out about this the last week of his life, from Dr. Nesbitt.
He had perhaps only one or maybe two accidents in all of those last six months. I made sure to take him outside whenever he woke up from a deep sleep, as well as three regular times a day. He couldn't safely cross our busy street, so we just curled around the block, just walking up Pratt Street and back. Pierre probably suffered a bit for lack of exercise on our turtle-like walks.
On the Fourth of July, I missed my husband's family's party because they couldn't accommodate Beau in an air-conditioned spot and it was too hot for him outside. I didn't want him uncomfortable. I was largely tied to being home at around 3 p.m. to make sure he could relieve himself.
Beau suffered in the summer heat and had no appetite. He rallied when the weather changed in mid-September.
During these months, before going downstairs, each morning I would pause on the landing outside our room to gather the pets for a rebonding session. "It's another day for you, Little Beau," I would whisper, Beau under one arm, Pierre the other, a cat strolling by requiring stroking too.
He finally crashed noticeably at the beginning of November. I was in a tizzy when I took to Beau to his vet at Essex Dog and Cat Hospital on the Thursday before he died, when Dr. Nesbitt said we could euthanize him right then. He was prone on the exam table, disinterested in the world around him, the worst he'd ever looked.
Bringing Beau home
I called Lamont to ask what to do. He said to bring Beau home. I was happy to do so. Euthanizing our cat Oliver exactly a year before at Essex Dog and Cat had been rough (see Goodbye to a fine grey boy).
"He's just old," what Lamont said, what I wanted to hear, but you could smell the uremic, or ammonia, smell in the living room, where Beau spent the day, and our bedroom, where he spent the night, and know this wasn't just age, it was kidney failure, and it couldn't be comfortable to have those toxins overwhelming your bloodstream.
I began to call local vets to get the numbers of mobile vets who might do home euthanasia. Only two returned my calls.
Patti, the wife of Dr. Patrick Maizels of Harford Mobile Veterinary Services (410-937-9463), was one. She was a fount of tremendous information about hospice care for dogs with terminal illnesses. Only then did I realize I had in fact been offering hospice care for months, and doing so without expert guidance, which apparently is the norm for many pet owners, who improvise their way without good information from their regular vet.
She said that canine kidney patients have a lot of acid in their blood that creates ulcers at the back of the throat that spike after they have eaten and more toxins enter their bloodstream. The ulcers recede after a few days and the pet feels like eating again, repeating the cycle. She also recommended Hills A/D pet food and stage 2 baby food (without onions). "They really have to like what's in front of them," she said, "anything else makes them nauseous."
We set up an appointment for Dr. Pat to visit Wednesday, but I later switched to the other vet who returned my call, who could make it to our house earlier.
Dr. Lisa Tuzo (443-631-3800) also called and confirmed what Patti had told me: the up-and-down state of kidney patients makes it enormously difficult to determine the right time to euthanize. "The animal rallies so that euthanasia is hard to plan," she said, but "It's better to be one day too early than one day too late." That made a lot of sense. The animal could well be flat-out miserable, and it was not going to get better.
She said the main sign of time for euthanasia was when the pet's eyes became miserable and withdrawn. "Letting nature take its course is not kindest, it's not making him die more easily," she said. "Starvation kills kidney patients, and it's extremely painful."
She recommended small feedings, every couple of hours. She could visit on Tuesday rather than Wednesday, so I switched my appointment from Dr. Pat to Dr. Tuzo.
Dr. Tuzo agreed to assess Beau, charging an exam price, for whether it was time. By the time she actually arrived, it was clear due by Beau's disinterest in the world and weakness that it was indeed time and he did not need an exam to confirm this.
When Dr. Tuzo arrived, after a morning when I dreaded the noise of every car parking on our street, it was clear that Beau was in a bad way, immobile on his fleece bed.
Running in his dreams
He had however been his younger self in his dreams, able-bodied in his imagination until the very end, including the morning of his euthanasia, when his paws twitched in his sleep as he chased seagulls.
Dr. Tuzo explained how Lamont's mantra, "He's just old," was what I wanted to hear, even though I felt he was deteriorating markedly and in fact not just old. Sure, old dogs sleep a lot, but heavy heavy sleep indicates the fog of kidney failure and that the pet is in a bad way. Lamont feels that "everything living wants to live," and would not be inclined to euthanize a pet. I however did not want Beau to suffer seizures, tremors or undue suffering, which is why the information from Patti Maizels and Dr. Tuzo about end-stage kidney failure and potential suffering was valuable.
My friend and neighbor Blaire Freed helped quite a bit in those last days. She was present when Dr. Tuzo returned my call and helped me process what I had been told. She had bought the 23rd Psalm for Beau in Hebrew as well as food for me, and provided petting time for Beau. She said she thought it was time to say goodbye.
Beau waits on his fleece bed in our living room for the mobile vet to arrive. Behind him is a copy of the 23rd Psalm in Hebrew, prepared for him by his friend, our neighbor Blaire.
When Dr. Tuzo arrived at noon on Tuesday, Nov. 7, I had prepared by putting Beau on his soft fleece bed on the day bed in the living room, where Dr. Tuzo could administer to him comfortably. I put a plastic sheet on the daybed in case Beau lost control, but he didn't. I had made sure that he had a slightly smaller breakfast that morning. He looked nice because I had taken him to Doggie Depot six days earlier for a bath. Senior dogs lose interest in grooming, but I wanted him to go out with dignity.
Dr. Tuzo came in and gently stroked Beau, who was clearly very zonked by illness. She said it was definitely time. I showed her his shiny white teeth, which I had brushed daily for years, and his clean coat, bathed in the past week and brushed minutes before.
Pierre, our housemate's shepherd Sipsey and the cats watched in curiosity, which in Pierre's case turned to distress. With his teeth, he began ripping up loops out of the living room rug. How he sensed the transition about to occur I don't know. Guess he picked it up off me.
Dr. Tuzo prepared Beau with a sedative. She took her time over the next hour. Beau relaxed and after a while she added some anesthesia. She gently flicked his left rear paw, and he didn't react. She said, "I'll send my mother to say hi to him," upon Beau's ascent to Heaven. I was touched and didn't speak. A few tears fell down my face and landed in his still-white ruff.
The vet finally gave Beau his third shot, and his heart stopped. It was a much better situation than Oliver's euthanasia, with just two shots and him vomiting, on an exam table at a vet's office, after a tearful ride with his owners, the year before.
She let me have some time with him and then asked for something to wrap his body in to take to her car. I found a towel and carried Beau out myself.
A thin, fevered body
His little body, thinned from 30 to 20 pounds by long illness, was not cold yet -- in fact it was very hot as though he were in a final fever. He was a bit floppy in a way a living creature is not. I laid him in the back of Dr. Tuzo's vehicle and rearranged the towel to cover him and thanked her. She would return in a week with his ashes.
"You'll be seeing him in the corners for a few weeks," the vet predicted correctly. That night the heavens opened with heavy rain like tears. I got up the next day ready for another round of care for an ancient dog, and it was not longer required. It took me a while to realize that Beau was no longer a burden to me and no longer suffered.
I felt sad but utterly relieved that I had found a mobile vet for his last day.
The vet had let him go via three shots, not two as in a vet office, with the extra shot designed to gently, gently sedate and anesthetize him, so that departing this world was like sinking into a warm and comfortable bath, without fear.
The countdown to the Dr. Tuzo's arrival at the front door was horrendous, but Beau's dying was sweet and perfect for him, in the sense of no uncomfortable final ride to a cold steel exam table. "I've seen dogs stressed by that ride," Dr. Tuzo confirmed to me. Getting a mobile vet for reasons of comfort and familiarity with the home seemed fitting and almost obligatory for a pet that had been such a fine companion for many years.
After my hospice care ended, it was a relief on many levels. Partly it was less work, partly I had a clear conscience on how I had cared for my first pet, partly it was the fact that the hospice care had frankly been a grind.
I put a few links for anyone dealing with these issues in my earlier entry, Dealing with Beau's end of life, posted a week after his death.
Beau had such a wide range of friends. Jill trimmed a bit of his striking mahogany sable coat to take to her hairdresser for color matching, because it was an intriguing purple-black in some lighting conditions. Marci loved his "little mouse eyes," and he did have small intense eyes of darkest anthracite.
After all he meant to so many people, his passing had to be an honor to his life.
I had read John Updike poem Another Dog's Death, about bringing a vet to the home to put an aging pet to sleep, and thought that was the only way to put your pet to sleep. "In a wheelbarrow up to the hole, her warm fur shone," Updike wrote, and it reminds me of how hot Beau felt after he was euthanized.
Favorite memories
Beau was a moocher who hung around the kitchen in hopes of caging a morsel from us or our housemates. "No Beau," would say our mid-1990s housemate, Barbara Kersteins, before she in a moment of weakness would slip him some cheese.
Some of my favorite memories of Beau are his greeting me when I returned from Hawaii, and him grabbing the end of my scarf and pogoing backwards for block upon block as we went to Patterson Park. He was also adept at attacking my shoelaces based on unknown stimuli, possibly related to my attempts to cross busy lights, such as the one in front of Harborplace.
My best memory of Beau is standing with Lamont at the stretch of Ocean City near the Fenwick Inn, high up in the 130s. He ran like streaming silk, his legs a blur, his bushy tail fluidly caught in his backdraft, undulating gently, Pierre barking behind, much bigger but barely able to keep up with Beau, who was lightning in a bottle. Beau had to keep all those seagulls off the beach, and would obsessively track them and race parallel to the waves to make sure they didn't land on the sand.
This activity went off-limits for him when he was 10 and began to cough a lot, and we found out he had an enlarged heart and was headed (very gradually, since it took seven years) toward congestive heart failure.
I received 80 or so condolence e-mails upon his death last November and was quite grateful for everyone's support. Beau became part of my life toward the end of my longest stint at the Baltimore Sun and many folks from that era of my life were contacted and reconnected to. In fact, I had lunch with old friend Peter Meredith and essentially got a job by contacting Clay Perry, whose wife works at The George Washington University.
My favorite e-mail again came from my friend Ed:
Maybe I am misanthropic; I cannot conceive pain sharper than losing one's most trusted companion. There is life with and life after, no shades of gray. As some other author wrote, and I adapt -- Let God get his own Beau; Beau is mine (or I was Beau's). I am sorry, very sorry about Beau.
Possibly useful links
Last hours of living describes two ways of dying for advanced kidney patients (human). My fear that Beau would possibly suffer the less frequent modality of terminal delirium (vs. the more common outcome of great sleepiness and death) led me to decide to euthanize him, and well as the distinct odor of ammonia in his exhalations. It seemed to me if his blood were so full of impurities from his failing kidneys, he must be in a fair bit of discomfort.
Goodbye, friend by Gary Kowalski (book link to Amazon.com)This author describes how some pets seem to welcome their euthanasia:
One veterinarian I know with a small animal practice in New York says she firmly believes that most creatures know when their time is up. They are ready for their departure. That opinion is shared by Connie Howard, who directs our local humane society. She told me how in the middle of a sub-zero Vermont winter her cat had unaccountably gone into hiding under a porch -- not a location the animal would ordinarily choose for a midday siesta. Connie had not even realized her pet was sick. But the cat, which had end-stage renal disease, seemed to know exactly what was happening. It was doing its best to die.Too often, though, people are not ready to take the step that is needed to assist their pets over the threshold. Some want their animals to die "naturally," not realizing that a "natural" death can be quite painful and prolonged. Then when nature proves too ruthless to be borne they call people like Connie or my veterinary friend for a dose of mercy in the middle of the night.
The book includes a postscript on ceremonies to honor the loss of a pet, which is what I hope to do in writing down Beau's story.
Chesapeake Pet Crematory
8717 Green Pastures Dr.
Towson, MD
(410) 321-1005.
If your pet should die naturally and you want to have it cremated, you can bring to this funeral home for humans that also helps pet owners. The cost is $100. You must call ahead and the body must be bought in a closed container. Hours are Monday to Saturday, 9 to 5. The ashes are returned to you in a white acrylic container.
- posted by jbelliveau at 3:00 PM in The Neighborhood
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April 26, 2007
Baltimore for budget travelers
Baltimore is sufficiently offbeat and off the beaten track to be of interest to foreign backpackers.
I'm going to take a stab at looking at lodging, things to do, media and guidebooks in this blog entry. Let's start first with the prospective reopening of Baltimore's youth hostel.
Fortunately for those on a budget, Baltimore long-closed youth hostel looks like it is on the verge of reopening.
A Baltimore Sun story on April 10, entitled "Volunteers prepare their hostel takeover: Group renovates mansion so tourists can visit Baltimore without breaking the bank," tells about the revival of the hostel:
After eight years without one, Baltimore is close to welcoming a hostel back to town.The opening, a rare occurrence for the languishing national hostel scene, means travelers to the city will once again be able to find safe lodging that costs less than most hotels' continental breakfast.
MacLeod and about 10 volunteers have been working for years to raise money from private sources and renovate a deteriorated Mount Vernon brownstone. They say the hostel, at 17 W. Mulberry St., could open as soon as May.
It will be the only hostel in a major Maryland city - the only other Maryland hostel is in Knoxville, near Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
Baltimore's last hostel, which operated from the same location, closed in 1999, shut down by the local branch of Hostelling International because of poor management.
I was spurred into researching the question of Baltimore for budget travelers by an excellent e-mail from Ryan, a member of the Travelerspoint Travel Community, who e-mailed me:
I'm hoping to get your advice on Baltimore.There is a group of three of us coming to visit Baltimore for three days in early May from England -- we are flying into BWI airport.
I must say I'm having real difficulty finding accommodation of the budget variety and am quite reluctant to pay the exorbitant prices that the chain hotels are requesting in the Inner Harbor area.
Do you know of any hidden gems or what areas to perhaps look towards? Just to let you know we won't have a car.
Also, what would you recommend doing with our time in Charm City?
Hi Ryan, I would start with the youth hostel -- see if they can accommodate you specially, even though they aren't open yet -- try them at Friends of Baltimore Hostel, 410-576-8880, acknowledge that you know they aren't open yet but can they help you?
Other lodgings
The Mount Vernon Hotel would be the next place I would check. Then The Tremonts --ask for the business rate.
Other options for essentially freeloading with other travelers are these:
Hospitalityclub.org
Couchsurfing.com
Globalfreeloaders.com
It's a long shot, but you could put a notice on Baltimore's free Craigslist, in the sublets-temporary section, seeking help with cheap accommodation for a few days.
Here's a list of Baltimore area hotels, with addresses and links, compiled by the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Here's Expedia's list of discount hotels in Baltimore. They start at around $126. They also list a Best Western outside town at $76 a night, but that would require a car.
Here's the TripAdvisor list of discount hotels. These start at about $129.
Where did Ryan eventually end up staying? Well here's what he told me:
I certainly had a look at the Mount Vernon hotel, however I finally managed to get a room at the Days Inn in the Inner Harbor area. By securing an online special advanced rate, plus the fact that three of us will be sharing this room, as well as taking advantage of a particularly healthy pound-dollar exchange rate -- we have managed to offset the amount to roughly $50 a night each. This is not too bad for three nights but would not be pleasant for someone looking to travel the length and breadth of the country over an extended period of time.
Ryan also asked about things to do and see. Let's look at some ideas now.
Things to see
Most everyone agrees on this list of things to see:
For kids
National Aquarium
Maryland Science Center
Port Discovery
Fun stuff
Cool neighborhoods
Mount Vernon
Upper Fells Point
Sports
Arts
Center Stage
Music
Events
CityPaper Daily Highlights
Places to eat
CityPaper Online Eats.
The current hotspot for the beautiful people is Pazo. Do try to check it out!
Guidebooks
Media
Local chat
Sunspot forum-Local news, take a look here to see what local people on this lively and friendly forum think about Things to do in Baltimore, Best Place to eat crabs in Baltimore and Best cheap eats in Baltimore area.
Here's a discussion on things to do in Baltimore on the Lonely Planet Thorntree -- Baltimore.
Traveling to D.C.
Miscellaneous
Lonely Planet guide to Baltimore
Please contact me if you have any suggestions on cheap places to stay in Baltimore or other recommended updates to this blog entry.
Update
May 22, 2007: Here is an article in the New York Times, 36 Hours in Baltimore, with a roundup of places to see and visit.
The article lacks a list of budget hotels and notes incorrectly that"
Discerning locals go to Obrycki's (1727 East Pratt Street, 410-732-6399; www.obryckis.com), known for a homemade peppery crab spice that, pardon the blasphemy, rivals Old Bay. The faux-fancy décor (stenciled brick walls and fake windows) is not why you came. It's the freshness of the crabs ($43 for a dozen mediums), in an establishment that commendably shuts down for the winter when the local catch is lean.
Obrycki's (a half-block from our house) is not visited by locals, who consider it expensive and the food oversalted.
- posted by jbelliveau at 7:21 PM in The Neighborhood
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November 14, 2006
Dealing with Beau's end of life
This collage recalling some moments in Beau's life was e-mailed to many of our friends. I have about 70 replies in condolence. Lamont also printed a few for me, which I have mailed to friends who do not have e-mail.
A week ago today, our sheltie Beau (see "Thank you to FOB, Friends of Beau") was euthanized in our home by vet Dr. Lisa Tuzo.
Beau made it to 16 years, 10 months. Because he was battling kidney failure, which is an up-and-down disease, and because dogs stoically try to hide their pain out of a wild survival instinct, it was difficult to pick a time to let him go. I hope to return to this entry and flesh out some of the issues we faced for the benefits of other pet owners, who may not be aware of home care of canine kidney patients, hospice and home euthanasia options.
Some links I found helpful:
Evaluating pain in pets with kidney problems
Life Support Issues: Kidney Failure. Great question -- this is exactly the information I sought without success. Was Beau in a lot of pain from kidney failure, or just weak and sleepy? I do not find the answer provided by the hospice nurse adequate. I will try to get more details on this matter. When I asked my regular vet about palliative care for Beau in his final days, she said, "He's not going to get better." That was not helpful -- palliative care is by definition not curative, but aims at reducing symptoms or pain.
Dr. Tuzo is herself interviewing humans with kidney failure to try to determine their level of pain. This information should be invaluable in applying the facts to our pets who cannot speak for themselves.
One aspect of kidney failure is the odor of ammonia on a pet's breath, from toxins once cleaned by the kidneys and now circulating in the blood. Even if the pet doesn't suffer tremendous pain, one can only imagine this failure of an important body system, and their tremendous thirst as individual cells try to cleanse in place of the kidneys, places them in a difficult position. Beau suffered from uremia, tremendous weight loss (from 30 to 20 lbs.), dull coat and seemed feverish toward his last few days. Kidney failure seemed less menacing than say cancer but still places a tremendous challenge to the body.
Animal euthanasia. The final two paragraphs persuaded me that waiting for a natural death for Beau carried too great a risk of real suffering, especially since he wasn't going to get better:
A word on natural death. Although this may always seem the ideal end, pets do not always die easily in their sleep without help. They may suffer much distress in their final hours, vomiting repeatedly, struggling for breath, or experiencing convulsions. Sometimes, as the organs shut down, the animal may drift into coma, but you cannot count on this happening. If it has become obvious that your pet is no longer enjoying life or showing any enthusiasm for it, it is kinder to put it to sleep and end its suffering.Sometimes death can be sudden, as when caused by a stroke or heart failure. This can be particularly distressing to the owner, when the pet had seemed previously healthy, especially if the cause of death is not apparent. You can request the vet undertake a post mortem, but usually these kind of deaths are unpreventable.
This link also gives a list of a pet's basic needs:
... intended only as guidelines when used as a benchmark in deciding your pet's wellbeing. Euthanasia may not be appropriate even if some of these criteria are not met. Each case for euthanasia should be judged on its own merits and your vet should always be consulted beforehand. As the owner you also know your pet better than anyone.
- Freedom from uncontrollable pain, distress and discomfort.
- Ability to walk and balance.
- Ability to eat and drink without pain and vomiting.
- Freedom from painful, inoperable tumours.
- Ability to breathe freely and without difficulty.
- Ability to hold up head when at rest.
- Ability to urinate and defecate without difficulty or incontinence.
- Ability to see and hear.
- Ability to enjoy food.
- Pet responds to owner and family.
- Not suffering from repeated vomiting and/or convulsions.
End of life decision
How Do You Decide that Today is the Day to Put Your Best Friend to Sleep?
Euthanasia: Gentle Death, Painful Decision
When Should You Put Your Dog Down?: How to make a decision you never want to make. I found this article singularly useless, and am surprised Jon Katz didn't do a bit better job on this difficult topic. While he provides interesting anecdotes and interviews, Katz seems so determined to avoid sentimentalism towards dogs that he comes across as a bit cold. He describes some who euthanize their pets when they lose their "dogness," or lively interest in their surroundings, and others who keep hopelessly ill pets on ventilators. For Beau, faced with a heart and kidney patient, the right euthanasia point seemed somewhere in between. Ultimately, you gauge how much of a dog's withdrawal is fatigue and old age, not yet overwhelming the overwhelming urge of living things to cling to life, and try to sense the moment when your pet's withdrawal changes and becomes preparation for the end as disease overwhelms his organs.
In-home euthanasia
Euthanasia... What To Expect See the section on in-home euthanasia. Lots of details including the need for a plastic sheet. I got ready the following items: box of tissues, damp cloth (to wipe my own face), checkbook to pay the vet, brush to make Beau look nice. The main thing I forgot was a towel to shroud his body for the walk to the vet's car. Alternately, you could make a cardboard coffin for your pet.
Another Dog's Death by John Updike. I believe I read this poem in the Washington Post Book World section soon after its 1993 anthologization. It's quite an unforgettable poem that stays in the mind for decades. Updike's writing made me determined to avoid if at all possible the sad (for me) and uncomfortable (for Beau, who couldn't lay down easily in a moving vehicle) last drive to the vet. The poet makes it clear that as awful as the moment is, his dog enjoys calm and collected final moments. I include this poem here because it details better than a how-to link the advantages of in-home euthanasia.
Hospices for pets
Without realizing it, I had been providing hospice care for Beau for at least four months -- being certain he was let out whenever he stirred to his feet, pureeing foods and syringe feeding him when necessary, and switching to yoghurt and cool foods. I wish I had known about the growing movement toward pet hospice in this country, especially about place in Virginia listed in my first link. This could have made my bumbling efforts to feed Beau and keep him comfortable (for example, buying him his first bed ever, a fleece one, about a month ago.)
Veterinary Holistic and Rehabilitation Center (Vienna, Va.)
The Nikki Hospice Foundation for Pets: History and Philosophy
Hospice Care in Cats
Learn More About the Pet Hospice Program
Products
Hill's a/d Canine Feline (pet food). I had been pureeing a variety of dog foods for Beau in a food processor and syringe feeding him with a catheter syringe from the vet. Actually, I had four syringes that I would fill, refrigerate, warm in hot water, and feed him with. Our vet at Essex Dog and Cat provided some of this prescription food, which did not require pureeing! You may need to mix it with a little water, but then it pulls readily into the syringe, much easier than the pureed dog food, even thinned with water, ever did. Dr. Tuzo also suggests meat baby foods for feeding ill animals.
Quiet Time Pet Bed -- Beau got his first bed in the last month of his life. He still seemed to prefer the floor or carpet but he was so thin this fleece bed with rolled sides seemed best to protect his ribs. He seemed to appreciate being led to the bed and turned one turn to curl into it. Our cats, Olivia and Hanno, appropriated the bed whenever Beau wasn't in it and enjoy it now.
- posted by jbelliveau at 8:09 PM in The Neighborhood
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September 15, 2006
More on Schaefer's defeat
Here's a little chart I cranked out on Tuesday's primary for the Maryland comptroller's race, it's derived from the one I ran yesterday.
| County | Percentage backing Schaefer |
| Somerset County | 50% |
| Garrett County | 47% |
| Worcester County | 45% |
| Allegany County | 44% |
| Dorchester County | 43% |
| Baltimore City | 41% |
| Washington County | 40% |
| Baltimore County | 39% |
| St. Mary's County | 38% |
| Harford County | 37% |
| Cecil County | 37% |
| Wicomico County | 37% |
| Carroll County | 34% |
| Caroline County | 34% |
| Queen Anne's County | 32% |
| Kent County | 31% |
| Charles County | 30% |
| Anne Arundel County | 30% |
| Talbot County | 29% |
| Calvert County | 28% |
| Frederick County | 26% |
| Howard County | 24% |
| Prince George's County | 21% |
| Montgomery County | 15% |
It shows what I expected to find: former governor and Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer collapsed in Montgomery County, partly because of Peter Franchot's name recognition there, partly because of the governor's many recent gaffes, and perhaps mainly due to MoCo's increasing rejection of centrist Democratic thinking.
And these numbers may be bad news for current Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
This thread on the Baltimore Sun talk forum deals with a related issue, the number of Democrats who pulled the lever for other candidates, including Schaefer, but neglected to vote for Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor (this is considered a sign of dissatisfaction with O'Malley, but not on the levels of Dem apathy toward Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who ran four years ago). I wrote:
My prediction: and I think it actually lines up with the numbers:The numbers in this thread show Dems in Baltimore City and surrounding areas rankled at O'Malley. Familiarity has bred contempt, most notably among other Dem officeholders, as well as regular folks.
HOWEVER, expect O'Malley's June 2004 attacks on the administration ("I'm more worried about the Bush administration than Al-Queda," to paraphrase) to play big in MoCo.
MoCo probably does not care about MOM's record in the city as much as his anti-Bush stance.
It is difficult news for Ehrlich if MoCo (and Frederick counties) have grown substantially in population and also gotten more liberal with more unionized federal workers. Take a look at Comptroller candidate Franchot's #s over Schaefer, county by county (I stuck the entire table two-third of the way down this link). Look at the MoCo number for Franchot, a liberal Dem. Unbelievable.
Thus the numbers game may be uphill no matter what MOM's actual record is and how well Ehrlich's centrism plays in Howard, Anne Arundel, Baltimore County, and the western and eastern edges of Maryland.
And don't forget MoCo kicking another liberal/centrist Republican, former U.S. rep Connie Morella, to the curb.
In other words: O'Malley can win despite his mixed record in Baltimore given that MoCo (and PG) can bulldoze him into office regardless of problematic aspects of his governing style.
Ha! As I write this, I am getting a recorded message from O'Malley inviting me to a Dem rally. Please, politicians, stop these unsolicited calls! No one wanted you to have an exemption from the do-not-call list except yourselves.
- posted by jbelliveau at 2:36 PM in The Neighborhood
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September 14, 2006
William Donald Schaefer's 3rd-place finish
William Donald Schaefer donned an admiral's uniform to depart Baltimore's mayoralty for Maryland's governship in 1987. I recall working as a copy editor at the Baltimore Sun the day this story ran.
A friend of mine served as an election judge in Canton at Tuesday's primary. She related the following anecdote:
We had 98-year-old women come in and say, "Will you help me? I only want to vote for Schaefer. None of those other candidates. None of those judges. Wait! I don't see his name! [My friend would help them advance a screen.] Wait I still don't see his name!"They were not satisfied until they pressed the touch screen for Schaefer. "Now I don't want to vote for anyone else!" My friend would say, "Well we still have to press one more button to record your vote." Finally the seniors would depart the voting booth, mission accomplished.
With determined support from those with long memories of Baltimore "before," Schaefer still couldn't finish higher than third. Maryland's new electorate didn't see eye to eye with long-timers who found Schaefer pretty much to the end refreshingly unpackaged and straightforward.
Count myself as one of those (like a 98-year-old lady, but oh well) who were willing to overlook his tantrums. Yes he was egotistical and getting old, but still had his heart in the right place.
His most marvelous feature lately was his complete lack of political correctness. He said rival Janet Owens looked like "Old Mother Hubbard." He called the Eastern Shore a "s---thouse" after it repudiated him in an election (but he still may run for Ocean City mayor yet). He wanted service workers at McDonald's to be able to speak English.
He called Glendening "rabbit brain," as recalled in the fun retrospective in the Washington Post, William Donald Schaefer Always Made a Splash.
Yesterday he recalled as one of the most memorable moments of his career the gratitude of a "little old black lady" who nearly cried at getting her own public housing in Baltimore 30 years ago. It was refreshing somehow to hear a guy just speak out straight, without wondering if his audience preferred the term African-American, or to just duck the issue of color, or to use whatever newfangled neologisms might prevail in 2006.
With Ron Smith being ailing at WBAL radio and the Baltimore Sun chat forums strangely subdued, at first Tuesday's primary defeat of Comptroller William Donald Schaefer felt vastly underplayed in yesterday's media.
The Baltimore Sun finally stepped in today with four articles, which I won't link to directly because Sun links go bad after a bit of time passes. You can look up "Schaefer couldn't leave on his own," by Michael Dresser and M. Dion Thompson, which notes the significance of Schaefer's squabbles with former Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening and closeness to current Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.:
In 2002, Schaefer won re-election and found himself serving on the board with Ehrlich, the first Republican governor in more than three decades.From Ehrlich, Schaefer received the deference and respect he never felt from Glendening. He became a consistent ally and outspoken admirer of the Republican governor.
Schaefer was praised for leading a turnaround of the state's scandal-ridden retirement system, taking over as chairman of the state pension board in the last year of the Glendening administration. Once a laggard in its investment returns, the system has performed strongly over the past three years.
But on the Board of Public Works, Schaefer was still picking fights -- though his targets were groups that made up a large part of the Democratic base, including minorities, women and gays.
Then we have "Remember 'Old Schaefer' for service, compassion," by Dan Rodricks, who captures the heroism of Schaefer after Baltimore burned in the 1968 riots:
A lot of you know what I'm talking about; you remember all those years, the post-riot years, the 1970s and into the 1980s, when Schaefer seemed to be the only one standing, literally, in the middle of abandoned streets to proclaim, "This is a great day for the city of Baltimore."Long before his political identity became murky - remember him going off in a pout to endorse First President Bush in 1992? - here was a classic New Deal Democrat who believed in an essential truth: that government, and those in it, could actually do some good. As a matter of fact, for Schaefer, even with his barge-size ego, that's what marked his career - service to people. It sounds corny, but it's true.
"You have to wonder why some of these people want to run for public office," a friend from Montgomery County said on Election Night while listening to election results on his car radio.
Interesting as these articles are, they do not convey the shock I feel that Willie Don lost his first election in 51 years. The rest of the state I guess doesn't feel the enduring loyalty to a guy that truly tried to rescue Baltimore, with his efforts to create the Inner Harbor and Camden Yards helping to keep Charm City from descending to a potential fate as another Detroit.
When I first arrived at the Baltimore Sun in 1987, Schaefer was in his final year (of 16) as Baltimore mayor. On the copy desk, I would write cutlines for photos of the mayor plunging into the Aquarium or departing the city dressed as an admiral on the Constellation. His showmanship, energy and orientation toward helping the city shone through most everything he did as mayor.
Yesterday, he attacked the press, saying it had no heart when they didn't join the staff applause at his valedictory address. You could hear on air someone saying something like, "We never applaud in these circumstances." But Schaefer had made a point of sorts ... making it clear that he felt that Maryland area journalists often judged rather than reported.
Now what does the third-place finish of Schaefer in the Democratic primary mean? Is it really the political ascendancy of Montgomery County, which has exploded in my lifetime from 165,000 to nearly 1 million residents, while Baltimore has shrunk from just under 1 million to 635,000, to win the Maryland numbers game?
Have a look at the election board's unofficial tally in the comptroller race.
Note that Franchot rolled up his votes in Montgomery, Prince George's, Frederick and Charles counties (full of federal employees, increasingly unionized and politically active) and attracted little support elsewhere, and that Schaefer still ran well in Baltimore city and county and carried most of the Eastern Shore that he once disparaged:
Democratic candidates for Comptroller
Schaefer counties bold, Franchot counties italics, Owens counties regular font
| William | |||
| Peter | Janet S. | Donald | |
| Franchot | Owens | Schaefer | |
| Allegany County | 1,423 | 1,238 | 2,079 |
| Anne Arundel County | 12,486 | 20,041 | 13,659 |
| Baltimore City | 16,308 | 23,878 | 27,878 |
| Baltimore County | 24,148 | 32,021 | 35,746 |
| Calvert County | 1,740 | 2,667 | 1,717 |
| Caroline County | 441 | 864 | 673 |
| Carroll County | 3,135 | 3,662 | 3,528 |
| Cecil County | 1,240 | 1,940 | 1,865 |
| Charles County | 3,773 | 3,250 | 2,958 |
| Dorchester County | 638 | 1,256 | 1,407 |
| Frederick County | 5,079 | 4,292 | 3,372 |
| Garrett County | 326 | 386 | 630 |
| Harford County | 4,983 | 7,207 | 7,152 |
| Howard County | 9,800 | 9,810 | 6,203 |
| Kent County | 793 | 1,125 | 852 |
| Montgomery County | 57,670 | 19,754 | 13,466 |
| Prince George's County | 43,747 | 34,831 | 21,310 |
| Queen Anne's County | 1,056 | 1,645 | 1,253 |
| St. Mary's County | 2,219 | 2,655 | 2,927 |
| Somerset County | 255 | 662 | 903 |
| Talbot County | 961 | 1,325 | 919 |
| Washington County | 2,509 | 2,229 | 3,147 |
| Wicomico County | 1,153 | 2,891 | 2,340 |
| Worcester County | 884 | 1,720 | 2,143 |
| Totals | 196,767 (36.7%) | 181,349 (33.8%) | 158,127 (29.5%) |
As The Sun's Jennifer Skalka writes in "Vote results illustrate power shift to D.C. area:"
Montgomery has long been perceived by residents from other jurisdictions as out of touch, too liberal and, in recent years, too wealthy to produce leaders with a deep understanding of the state's economic and social diversity.But the county's population continues to boom, its steady growth buffered from economic downturns by an influx of federal money.
The Washington Post makes a similar argument in "A New Day for Democrats: D.C. Suburbs Assert Themselves in Party Primaries."
The increasing power of MoCo may not be altogether a bad thing. Baltimore's schools remain such a disaster that outside scrutiny of local bungling can be a good thing.
Is the defeat of a conservative Democrat bad news for Ehrlich, who needs Dem and independent votes to win in November? Or has Franchot won only a plurality of left-leaning Marylanders eligible to vote in a closed primary? And is Franchot a clever campaigner, as is suggested in "Franchot quietly puts together his victory," by Stephanie Desmon, in today's Sun?
We don't know. It's difficult to tell whether Ehrlich will be in double trouble with the growth in Montgomery County and an anti-Republican mood, or if, as Andrew A. Green also writes in The Sun, "Parties part on vote's portent: Democrats see electorate wanting change; GOP sees an opening for Ehrlich:"
Republicans dismissed Tuesday's results as the product of an increasingly liberal Democratic primary electorate, a development they said could make it easier for Ehrlich to paint the party as hard-left in the general election.It's a message the governor has begun delivering. In one of his most effective television ads, a woman who appears to be an Ehrlich supporter tells the camera that the governor leads not from the right or from the left, "but the center, where most of us are."
The three pillars of Ehrlich's electoral success, he has said, are the Republican base, independent voters and conservative Schaefer Democrats - the kind who crossed party lines to vote for President Ronald Reagan and who did it again to elect Ehrlich.
But looking at the primary results, Ehrlich's opponents are betting that the third pillar has weakened and that the governor will have to contend with a less hospitable political landscape than he did four years ago.
Ronald Walters, a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park's Leadership Academy, said the governor shouldn't ignore the primary results. The state is not what it was in 2002, he said.
Walters released an analysis this week showing that rather than cutting down on Democrats' voter registration advantage in the wake of Ehrlich's election, Republicans have lost ground in the past four years.
There are 55,000 new Democratic voters in Prince George's County, he said. Turnout figures from the primary suggest their impact has not been felt, but that between their presence and the success of candidates such as Franchot, Ehrlich has reason to be worried for the general election.
"He's got to look at that really hard," Walters said. "This has got to be a wake-up call to him."
Richard Vatz, a professor of political rhetoric at Towson University and a long-time friend of Ehrlich, said it's dangerous to extrapolate too much from the results of this week's election.
Democratic primary voters tend to be significantly more liberal than Democrats who turn out for the general election, he said.
"The initial reaction is 'uh-oh' for Ehrlich, but that doesn't mean it will necessarily turn out in that way," Vatz said. "The result is that we have another left-liberal in the race, and the consequence of that isn't obvious to me."
Hopefully Blair Lee, one of the state's most interesting and straight-shooting political commentators, will also weigh in. Certainly the public will in less than two months.
- posted by jbelliveau at 9:13 AM in The Neighborhood
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August 22, 2006
Thank you to FOB (Friends of Beau)
Beau, right, and Pierre at Betty Hyatt Park in Washington Hill, Baltimore.
Little Beau, our ancient sheltie, has zoomed past the 16-year mark, in fact, he's made it past 16-1/2 years now.
When he was a puppy, he was dubbed the Mayor of Ann Street for his charisma. That youthful energy I am convinced shot him into his longevity -- he had so much life and fire, that even now with congestive heart failure and kidney failure, he still enjoys barking at ceiling fans and snapping at beggin' strips.
Now many people are once again being exceptionally kind to him. We have some neighbors generally on the wrong side of the law, with whom I rarely see eye to eye, but they have been very solicitious of our geriatric canine as he makes his turtle-paced walk up and down one block of East Pratt Street. The mother of a notorious local juvenile criminal inquired about Beau and then told me about her mother's ancient pit bull and its medical problems.
Then there were the four Hispanic kids who kidnapped him for a half-hour at Soccerdome in Jessup last Wednesday. I told them angels were watching them and given them merit points for being nice to an elderly animal. The touching experience reminds me of the benefits of taking an older pet out on exciting little trips.
The staff at Essex Dog and Cat, especially Dr. Nesbitt, take good care of Beau. "Beau, you are just going to live forever," said Dr. Nesbitt two visits ago, marveling at his easy-going endurance.
Last Friday, Diane and Barb at Fells Point Pet Center combined to gently groom our little bug-bear so that he never snapped in discomfort. Before his visit, we discussed how sensitive Beau has gotten to being groomed.
Diane recommended getting him some Dr. Bach's Rescue Remedy from Whole Foods and giving Beau one-quarter of an eye dropper to relieve the stress of grooming. It seemed to work well.
I think he knows he looks wonderful.
Finally, thanks to Lamont for occasionally carrying Beau on his walk when he gets tired in the heat, his dog friends Pierre and Sipsey who give him kisses some times, and Olivia, our young cat who shoulders up to him and curls her tail under his chin, while he stands placidly still.
All are accumulating thousands of karma points as FOB -- Friends of Beau.
Tips on feeding an older dog
Beau's appetite isn't the best so let me quickly share some tricks to feeding an older dog. Over time, we have made the following changes to revive his flagging appetite:
- Switching from dry food to wet canned food.
- Gently warming the wet food in the microwave.
- Going back to cold food, and offering him flavored yoghurt (a favorite, with a lot of taste, much as senior humans like ice cream).
- When he shows no interest in voluntarily eating food: Pureeing canned food with water, loading this into a catheter syringe (got some free from our vet), and slowly injecting this into his mouth in numerous squirts.
- Following this with yoghurt, which he will eat voluntarily, and a late-evening snack of beggin' strips.
The other important thing is daily tooth brushing with an electric toothbrush and pet toothpaste, focusing on the top molar on either side, which can be prone to tartar. This keeps his breath nice and his teeth shiny white.
- posted by jbelliveau at 7:12 PM in The Neighborhood
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August 3, 2006
How to speak Bawlmerese
If you are moving to Baltimore or living here, or just a toorst (tourist) or day-tripper from Warshinn (Washington, D.C.), you will quickly realize that English as she is spoke here has a number of charming variations to standard American English.
Here are some of the main examples of Baltimorese.
Terms of endearment
"Hon" is short for "honey" and replaces mister, miss, missus and an actual name when greeting someone. We can't imagine why anyone would find this sexist! Folks are just trying to be friendly.
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Places
Let's start with Bawlmer, Maryland (Baltimore, Maryland), Queen City of the Greater Patapsco Drainage Basin, which has neighborhoods such as Haw'n'tin (Highlandtown) and Lit-lit-lee (Littly Italy).Suburbs where residents speak fluent Baltimorese include Dundawt (Dundalk) and Glimm Burney (Glen Burnie), which is in Anarun'l Cownie (Anne Arundel County).
Further away, you might head Downey Ayshin (down to the ocean, that is, Ocean City) and even to Yorp (Europe).
Your first complete sentence
Worsh and wrench your hands in the zinc ** Wash and rinse your hands in the sink.
Baltimorese contains not only place names but many common nouns. Around the house, an old-timer might talk about winders (windows) and the turlit (toilet) and tals (towels) in the baffroom.Over in the kitchen, you might want aigs and arnjuice for brefist (get the idea?).
What's that noise outside? It might be an ambolamps (ambulance), farn gin (fire engine) or pleese sarn (police siren).
"Turlits" photo taken at the 2005 Honfest by Raymond Cheong. Used with permission.
Driving directions
If you get on B'lare Rowd (Belair Road), you can head right out to Horfud (Harford) Cownie.If you're trying to get to Fait Street in Cayntin (Canton), you better write that down, because that will sound just exactly like Fayette Street. Or you can head toward Haird, better known as Howard Street, a one-time shopping mecca.
Expressions
If you really agree with all your heart with someone, say, "Ain't it?"When asked what you think of a movie, whether you thought it was fabulous, terrible, or average, you can say, "S'aw-ite" (it was all right).
"Jeet?" (did you eat), "jeet-nuf?" (did you eat enough), "waymint!" (wait a minute) and "wooja ..." (would you) will carry you a long way. What to know what's new with somebody? Try, "snoo few?"
More resources, hon
Basic Baltimorese- posted by jbelliveau at 10:23 AM in The Neighborhood
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April 24, 2006
My daily diary of hearing F bombs
You never know exactly when it's coming ... only that it is coming.
At some point in every day, you will be subjected to a completely gratuitous dropping of the F bomb.
Or if you live in Baltimore, let's be more accurate: You may be subjected to near-continual dropping of F bombs.
Last night, I walked our older sheltie, Beau, and got ready to bring him up the front steps. I stopped to chat with two of the neighbors. Neighbor 1 told me about his girlfriend, his future job in New York, his own dog, and minor problems with other dogs who are walked off leash. These little stories required at least three glaringly inappropriate uses of "f-ing" as an adjective.
Note to Neighbor 1: I nearly flinched each time you used the word -- it felt like being hit in the ear. My mind struggled to come up with a proper way to make this known. Should I have noted brightly, "F Bomb"? Or ask him, "When did the memo come out saying that word was appropriate around women? I must have missed that."
If there is a such a secret memo, is this more fiery blowback, another unintended consequence, of feminism? Is it the case that now that some women (especially girl gangbangers) think they can swear like sailors, men (especially sons) no longer have a clue about how to behave?
Anyway, when Neighbor 1 said he was moving in four months, I took the easy way out: Wimping out. It won't be a problem for long if he's moving soon and I avoid him in the meantime. Later I learned that Neighbor 2 (male) was equally offended by the language, and similarly reasoned that Neighbor 1 is moving soon.
That just leaves thousands of other Baltimoreans who still sling the word around. Professionals, gangbangers passing by on the street, construction workers, athletes, and many in between. Note to everybody: You're not cool, you're not shocking anyone, you're just tone-deaf and making almost every corner of our city coarse.
Maybe I need to print out the chart above and carry it around Baltimore, the City that F-Carpetbombs Everyone's Ears, to show to people. Guess what -- two-thirds of the public is offended by your language.
Walking around our neighborhood, I often also hear the M-F Superbomb. From a distance, it sounds like, "m'h fhuh, that m'h fhuh m'h fhuh." Muffled but menacing, the individual syllables of the word aren't crystal clear, but the hostility and anger are. It sounds really ugly -- maybe the ugliest sound humans can make.
The graphic above was published with an article entited, Poll: Americans See, Hear More Profanity. When I read the article, it reminded me that I have thought about keeping a diary of the appalling language that I hear everyday. If compressed, it would read something like this. All examples are real:
- 8 a.m. Walk dogs. Overhear, "m'h FH, that m'h FH m'h FR," from pair of gangstas. Cross the light at Ann and Lombard and hear F bombs in stereo! One from two guys on scaffolding doing their work, the other from three men strolling by, one saying, "I'm not going down f-ing Broadway."
- 9 a.m. Go to Light Street Cycles. Gen-X repair crew pumps out loud rap with high F-bomb quotient. They apparently assume that every single customer wanting to buy or repair a bike or get supplies enjoys smutty language.
- 10 a.m. Guys getting on Light Rail at Camden Yards drop a few F-bombs. "C'mon guys," I implore, shaking my head. They respond, "We're not talking to you." "You're in a public place!" I point out. Their body language -- quieter, calmer, subdued -- acknowledges that on some level, they know they should clean it up.
- Noon. I have a hair appointment at the home of my hairdresser. Her daughter's friend, John, high school age, Fs this and Fs that. John and the daughter leave the kitchen, where my haircut and color are taking place. "What do you think of them?" my hairdresser asks. As she washes my hair in the sink, I reply, "Using the F word is inappropriate around women. It just is. And he won't know that if he's allowed to use bad language in the house." She's quiet, neither agrees or disagrees.
- 3 p.m. Go to Du Burns Arena to watch Lamont's soccer team play. A tall player, mid-20s, in athletic gear, waits in stands for his game to begin. He pulls cell phone out of his gym bag and engages in loud conversation that includes the word M-F. As he passes me to take the steps down to start his game, I quietly say, "Some language." He snaps back immediately an attempt at something clever. The metacommunication, or message behind the message, is, This is a men's space. If you don't like it, you can leave.
"Guess no one ever told you to watch your language around women," I say evenly.
- 5 p.m. Next, to Tyson's bar in Canton, which sponsors Lamont's team, the Slackers. A guy with a red Abe Lincoln beard F-bombs merrily at the NCAA basketball game on the TV screen. He may be a regular, and I've never been here before. No leverage to get him to watch his mouth around ladies. I shrug this one off. If I had the graphic above, maybe I could hand it to him.
- 7 p.m. Off to catch the latest play at Center Stage, Radio Golf. From the stage, the actors emit F bombs, S words and I believe the M-F word.
I just don't understand the need for this language anymore. Playwright August Wilson must have thought he was lending street cred to his script. It's nearly 40 years after the Sixties -- I thought we were long past using language for shock value? No one in the audience seems to blink at the words.
Hail to my mom, who just turned 80 with a bangup birthday celebration, for knowing what good behavior -- heck, with knowing what a little class -- consists of, and instilling this knowledge in her children, without concessions to being faux-hip. It really isn't as cool as people think it is to throw around bad language once past the junior-high rebellion stage.
To me, bad language -- especially that of the jock at Du Burns arena -- is (or should be) a rather serious matter against women. Males (but not men, or gentlemen) sometimes use bad language to mark an area as off-limits to women -- as a hostile move.
Maybe what's really going on is that there is no concept anymore of what being a gentleman entails.
I confess my own failings in the matter. I am not perfect in abstaining from the F bomb. It is something that escapes the mouth when, say, a hammer hits my thumb, or I am playing goalie in soccer and a shot goes by, into the net. Even then, I try to keep swearing at a murmur, not for the ears of others.
This quote from the article linked above also sees the F-word as something only for moments of extreme frustration:
And Donnell Neal of Madison Lake, Minn., notes how she'll hear the F-word used as a mere form of emphasis, as in: "That person scared the f--- out of me!" Neal, 26, who works with disabled adults, says she swears only in moments of extreme frustration, "like if someone cuts me off when I'm driving, or if I'm carrying something and someone shuts the door in my face." Even then, she says, she'll likely use "milder cuss words" -- and never at work.
Some young folks have bought into the canard that the F word, and the C word (which I truly detest), is "just a word." At Tyson's bar, Slacker pal George goaded me to say "c" word. "It's just a word," he said, his Gen-X pseudo-reasoning as predictable as the sun coming up in the East.
I thought, "George, I'm not restraining myself because I'm inhibited. I'm restraining myself because it's a matter of having a little class and decorum."
And I'm restraining myself because, as a writer, I know the power of words. Almost no word is "just a word." All have meanings. It's precisely because of their power that they need to be saved for the right times. I'd say vulgarity may be forgivable if you are hitting your thumb with a hammer. If there's no hammer