I am sitting at my computer on Saturday morning playing Warcraft online. I am heavily involved in a multi-player game when Bodhi sticks his head into my study looking inquisitively at me. I know immediately what is on his mind - A WALK!. He walks over to me, pokes me with nose and then looks at me,"Come on, give me a walk." He then turns and walk out again. About two minutes later this happens again. It then happens a third time but this time Bodhi makes a sound much like human speech ran through a dog filter. He then shakes his massive head. Clearly he's thinking, the human isn't that stupid. Then his head and tail pop up. He has got an idea. He trots from the den to the living room and I hear a scratching @ the door. Now Bodhi is about 125 lbs @ this point. He can quickly do a lot of damage to wood pretty quickly. I take the obvious hint, drop Warcraft and Bodhi stands patiently by the door watching me gather leash, pooper scooper and dog collars. I gather all three dogs - Devo the ferocious looking but lovable Char Pei/Chocolate Lab mix, Sasha - Chow Chow/Australian Shepherd mix and of course Bodhi, the fierce Tibetan Mastiff off we go. A brisk walk 45 minutes later we find ourselves back home worn out. Bodhi circles his favorite spot by the fireplace and gives me one last look. "Good Job," resting his head on his paws.

I just returned from my brother's wedding in Indiana. In my small home town, my brother's wedding was one of the social events of the year with something like 500 people in attendance. My brothers wedding was Catholic, which means a full Mass and a wedding ceremony. The brides dress was HUGE and had something like a 12 foot train. I kid you not 12 feet of dress trailing behind her.

It was an old time church wedding, full Mass and a pretty good reception afterwords.

CookingFor100.com Home

is the latest Xao effort - a recipe database for people who are cooking for 100 or more people. Kinda of neat and the first in an on going series of web products you will see from Xao and Singleton Price

BSD

Welcome to xaosearch.com's banfield animal hospital Search Results Section.

Ok - I downloaded the new google toolbar - It allows me to create a post on any web page I am currently viewing. Pretty cool actually.

I have been thinking about the question posed by Bernard Lewis's book What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. Lewis' book is an attempt to explain why the Arab world lost it's technological and cultural lead to Europe. The book is a little short on history for my tastes (the history tends to be ancedotal to illustrate a point) but it does cover the subject matter in a fairly interesting fashion. It's a pretty quick read too. This got me thinking about the question of Arab identity. Two days ago, Iraqis in Baghdad were tearing down statues of Saddam, destroying his picture and beating his image with their shoes (a horrible insult in the Arab world as shoes are considered unclean). What I found interesting has been the reaction of the Arab world outside Iraq. Stunned disbelief was very common, along with some commentators suggesting that it was staged in a Hollywood sound studio. How could there be such a disconnect between the experience of the Iraqi people and the Arab world at large? And why the sadness at a brutal dictator's fall?

I believe that the outside Arab world's reaction can be explained by looking at the larger question of Arab identity. What does it mean to be an Arab in the modern world? Arab identity is defined in opposition to the West. This means roughly pushing away from Western thought and ideas - without necessarily positing a set of values around which to build a positive identity. By continually defining oneself in such terms you hand off your identity to the very people you are trying to avoid. You have set your identity in opposition to whatever the West is producing. Arab identity no longer carries with it the positive identity of centuries past (once world leaders in culture, science and trade) but a distinct whiff of the Other. With this in mind, the disconnect between the Iraqis celebrating and the rest of the Arab world mourning is easy to understand. For the Iraqis Saddam was a brutal ruthless dictator who killed hundreds of thousands and tortured thousands. For the rest of the Arab world he stood in opposition to the West - as a symbol of that an Arab leader could successfully implement Western war methods and Western technology. So for many in the Arab world, Saddam is a symbol of themselves

Arabs must contend that their society, once so rich and so powerful - the very cradle of Civilization itself is at the very margins of culture and without oil, would be of no importance at all. The entire economic output of the Arab world excepting oil is equal to that of economic powerhouse Finland - a country of five million people. This lack of economic power very clearly translates into a lack of cultural power, further contributing to the marginalization of Arab identity.

This weekend I took my Tibetan Mastiff puppy to the Tibetan Mastiff Club of America National Show.The Bodhi placed third in 3-6 month dog. This is one of the national clubs devoted to the Tibetan Mastiff. The other is the American Tibetan Mastiff Association. TMs are a very rare breed. For more information on the history of the breed click here. TMs are among the oldest breeds of dogs with a recognizable appearance going back to more than 2500 years. Ths first written accounts of the breed are from China around 1100 BC. Most breeders today believe the TM served as the foundation source for the modern working breed dogs. In Tibet the animal is used as a guardian and flock guardian.


The show was held in Sacramento, a city I had never visited in California - a long six hour drive across the central valley filled with large scale farms. Farms very different than the small family run operations I had know as a kid in Indiana. Here the business of farming is just that a business. As a opposed to the family run operations which had been a family for 4-5 generations, these farms had the fresh newness of California on them, clean wholesome and at the same time industry and troubling. The farm lands of the Central Valley are like the myth of California itself. Heavily irrigated with water from the Colorado river, these lands would be barren without the water. They provide the illusion of fertility, with a heavy price. The land is barren otherwise. The water disguises and hides the dead land underneath. Life is produced and consumed, lush green life heavily fertilized with industrial pesticides. It provides the dream of California gleaming in the sun, whose cost is born by other people, other towns and other lives.