Subterranean Melodies

Old friends, new friends

This is Popcorn.  We lost Popcorn to renal failure this week.  She was somewhere between 19 and 21 years old.  We'd been treating her with IV fluids at home (M. is studying to be a vet tech), but we knew it was finally her time when she stopped purring (never stopped once while she was with us, until the end) and her appetite finally left her.

Goodbye, Popcorn.

Our newest family member, Crockett.  Crockett is an 8-year-old Irish Setter mix M. rescued from the vet hospital where she's now working as a receptionist.  The county took Crockett and his sister Lady away from their family after their owner's husband shot him with a shotgun for allegedly attacking a deer.  Supposedly this happened after an argument between the owner and her husband.  Crockett took at least three pellets to the head, including one that passed through his right eye, destroying the retina.

His sister, Lady, was taken in by a relative, but they couldn't take them both.  M. took him home when the vet hospital failed to place him after nearly six weeks.  Apparently no-one wants a half-blind old dog these days.

Now, I don't know about the deer, but Crockett is the most affectionate dog I've ever met.  He's extremely playful for a dog his age, and if you pat him he'll lean into you and put his head in your lap.

Welcome, Crockett.

Technorati Tags: Heterogeny

Flock you!

By the way, that last post was my first using Flock.

Interesting stuff.

If only he could say, "I told you so."

A new exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum features a long-lost map of the Middle East drafted by Lawrence and presented to the British cabinet in 1918. It provides an alternative to present-day borders in the region, taking into account local Arab sensibilities rather than the European colonial considerations that were dominant at the time.

NPR : T.E. Lawrence's Middle East Vision

Heard this one on NPR this afternoon on my drive home.  I do wish I could get to the Imperial War Museum to see the display, but alas and alack, that's not in the cards.  I don't have enough frequent flyer miles, it seems. 

Anyway, there are some interesting features on this map.  The Kurds would have had the nation they've been terrorizing the Turks over for nearly a century now, and the vision of a Pan-Arab state would have been realized.  Would it have made a difference?

Aye.  There's the rub.  But the people of the Middle East would have certainly gotten off on a better footing, I should think.

The Imperial War Museum website on T.E. Lawrence is here.  No hi-res scan of the map, though.  Pity.  I'd like to read the notes that the man made on it.