a dog named craig

all-american recreation? (hint: all we sell is fun)

2008-03-18T23:19:00.012-05:00

the interview: Amenah al-Bayati

Toddler Returns to Iraq After Life-Saving Surgery

“America has culture and I want it all in a handbag,” said two-year-old Amenah al-Bayati, who recently returned to Iraq from the United States, where doctors at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital corrected her congenital heart defect.

Ms. al-Bayati’s doe eyes are as disarming as her speech is invigorating. When she talks with you, you feel privileged, delighted by the honor she’s granted you. Yet you remain alert, guarding your words, careful not to impart your own views without equanimity, and most important of all, self-scrutiny. When you strike a resonant note with her, the eyes flash, their vigor palpable. Should you not share her presence, as was the case when a dog named craig interviewed her by phone, no bother; her voice, too, perks. She is one of those singular personalities so defined even her most mundane moments sketch the rudiments of a caricature (the better rudiments, the best rudiments). Holly Golightly had it before that young writer fell of his horse and the veil was lifted, as did every one of Ms. Dorothy Parker’s New York socialites (as well as Ms. Dorothy Parker). But Ms. al-Bayati’s liveliness is not a decorative foil. She bristles just as readily at an offending phrase, staid as she is to her convictions, keen as she is in defending them. Her quips are at turns cutting and generous. She lapses into silence only to hear the question clearly. Then she springs into her response like the lure from the starting gates at the racetrack.

Ms. al-Bayati requested she be allowed shared editorial responsibilities of the final version of the interview. a dog named craig granted her request given the circumstances that occasioned the interview (see previous post).

She was quick to identify the original article’s shortcomings as they appeared in the New York Times, Monday, March 10th, 2008. She was eager to take command of the interview to emend several claims made by Times reporter Erica Goode. Once she returned her draft, her eagerness only intensified in effect on the page, which was marked up on all sides, from top to bottom, with arrows and Xs and added interjections and, occasionally, a “No, no, no, this is not what I meant at all.”

Mlle. al-Bayati

I shudder when I think of the type of editor who permits such guesswork to be printed on their pages. [Reads] She is still ignorant of how ruthlessly death stalks her country, indeed. Was she speaking of my country or her own?

a dog named craig

You mean America?

Mlle.

What other country is there, dear? Of course I mean America. Don’t you read the papers? Check the stations? Whether she’s our best friend or the whore to our men, and naturally the one can be the other you know, you’ll get your fill of her no matter where you look.

Interviewer

You said “she.” Does Iraq think of America as being a “she.”

Mlle.

America the beautiful? I would say so. I can’t speak on behalf of all of Iraq, though. In fact, I would never dream of it, on principle. But I certainly think of a woman when I think of America. Motherly? I wouldn’t go so far. That word always brings to mind a corpulent figure, soft and tender. You know, headscarves and aprons? They’re not so different. That is, until someone shows up with a camera …

Interviewer

Meaning: Hollywood?

Mlle.

That would be the safe bet. But you can’t avoid cameras today, can you? Not unless you’re truly an abomination or prepared to be seen as one. Funny that all you have to do to be seen as reprehensible is not want to be seen. But just look at that photo for the article. My mother. My teddy. And me. You had some soldiers blurred in the background, too, for safe measure, I suppose. And you know where that was taken? In the transport plane. Why they couldn’t have sprung for a commercial jet is beyond me. But there we were in the belly of an Osprey. Me with my floral pins — chintzy little things for the pictures, but they insisted. And my mother with her headscarf. If you look closely you can see the one soldier wearing his helmet (or is it a she? you can't tell these days and the photo doesn't help any). Just the one. Must’ve needed protection from something. God knows what though. We were miles in the sky. Not even a draft disturbed us.

Mlle. al-Bayati with her mother on their return trip to Haditha, Iraq in March.
Photo Courtesy of Eros Hoagland, New York Times

Interviewer

Then how do you explain “patriot” and “patriarch”? These words that are so commonly used to describe America and Americans.

Mlle.

Convention.

Interviewer

And when you say “whore” …

Mlle.

Again, convention. Do we have to reexamine the language — again? The only thing that sort of critique creates is problems. Take for example the governor, what’s his name, from New York?

Interviewer

Spitzer.

Mlle.

Right. Eliot Spitzer. Now, what he did is one thing. But look at all the knitting and picking, the deconstructing that followed. If that weren’t the hounds. One headline I read in the Times: “Postfeminism and other fairy tales”. And all for what? A couple of pictures. Of course she’s a woman. America’s a woman. The importance isn’t a matter of gender. Male or female. That might not be as important. What is important, whether male or female, matriarch or patriarch, is that America and every other nation is, what’s that word? Heterosexual. Straight as the path to the Promised Land. It’s just recently that they’ve become self-conscious of how they wear their sexuality. The ‘70s, wasn’t it? My United States history isn’t what it should be. Anyway, now that all the attention is on the man, who’s to care about the woman? Who’s going to care about America? The men. They do still run the country, don’t they? Or, maybe America’s just confused. I’ll grant you that, too. Maybe, as that charming writer of yours once said, Truman was his name, Truman Capote, maybe she is a bit of a dyke herself, America is. Everyone is: a bit, he wrote. That never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on. Now he was a smart man, even if he was a bit … corrupt. Who isn’t? What a wonderful word, in any case. Corrupt. Has the sense of an earthquake to it, doesn’t it? And who doesn’t secretly hope for that once in a while, when no one’s reading their mind?

Interview

You have a devilish tongue, don’t you? Where was it during the Times interview? What happened then?

Mlle.

What did happen with the Times interview? You’d think I was mute, wouldn’t you? Well, as the story goes, I was recovering. I was tired. You lie on the operating table and bare your heart to strangers and tell me, when it’s all over with, that you aren’t exhausted. That, followed by the flight. Twenty-plus hours. Not that I wasn’t willing to speak my mind. I always am. But I suspect the reporter knew the story she wished to tell as soon as she was handed the press release. The typical human interest piece. Sounds so officious: “human interest.” Sob and soar is what it comes down to. Sweeps the reader right of her feet. So of course when the story came out you couldn’t find someone on my side that was surprised by the drivel she wrote. These reporters, I swear, they’re so unpracticed in matters of civility. You’d think they’d have encountered something of the cosmopolitan mindset in their profession, not that there’s much to be said of it, of cosmopolitanism, that is. I’ve no apprehension toward the profession, you know, in general.

Interviewer

You read that story and you see who she talked to and it’s more of the usual. Three men. Did you see that Clooney movie, Three Kings? It was directed by the same guy who did I Heart Huckabees, David O. Russel.

Mlle.

I haven’t seen the first one, but Huckabees has a certain charm. Kind of a frat pack for the absurd, which I can’t say is exactly my taste, but what more can be said of taste that some critic hasn't already said? As for the article, yes, I know. The men spoke; the women had their picture taken. The reporter interviewed my father, a political man. He was imprisoned, as she wrote. But her remark, that I “was too young to understand the politics that briefly landed [my father] in jail,” is a bit presumptive, wouldn’t you agree? Anyone who claims to understand the politics of multi-national capitalism, along with the conflicting factions and infighting in a place like Iraq is, pardon the expression, an idiot. More of the absurd, I suppose. She talked to the Marines major, too. Major Kevin Jarrard. And finally, the doctor, a kind man, really. All three were kind men, for what it’s worth.

Interviewer

So what about the reporter’s opening remarks? We mentioned them briefly at the beginning of the interview.

Mlle.

Remind me again, darling.

Interviewer

“She is still ignorant of how ruthlessly death stalks her country.” She being you.

Mlle.

Yes. The insistence on ignorance, if anything, is wishful thinking. No one in Iraq is still ignorant of how ruthlessly death stalks their country. I don’t know that anyone ever was ignorant of that. To be still ignorant? Foolish, but hopeful. I don’t blame the reporter, necessarily. Bless her, her heart’s in the right place. We often seek even narrow avenues down which respite might reside. Isn’t that so? With our heads habitually down, we yearn to stumble across an overlooked fissure, not because we want proof that the land is breaking — and that we ought to, once and for all, abandon it — but because from within the dark cracks we believe a fertile lot may yet emerge. It is slight, the room for opportunity is, but it is still there.

Interviewer

Would you like to return to America?

Mlle.

Naturally. I spent my entire time in a hospital, surrounded by its white walls, listening to the cardiogram and the mannered speech of doctors and nurses in purposeful dialogue. But I want its leisure. I want its color.

America

has culture and I want it all in a handbag. Only an American would confuse what it is to be American. I am in love with America’s boredom. I am in love with its excess. I am in love with America’s prosperity, and its despair. You know, a dog named craig, I’m two years old and I spent two months in America without laying a foot on its hot black pavement. I didn’t see buffalos or a single open air stadium and with a heart like mine, I wasn’t about to taste its burgers or fries. But I will, and when I do, I’ll fly commercial. I’ll strip its malls bare. I’ll fall in love with a man named Dave or Jim, or maybe a woman. Why not? I’ll get there yet. In time. I’ll shake hands with Tiffany, and when I do, you’d better have your cameras ready.

Unbecoming: toddler wronged by another libelous reporter

2008-03-17T02:12:00.009-05:00

details

The New York Times – International – [A8] – Tuesday, March 10, 2008
[FOUND AT: Willey Hall Skyway, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $11.50

Toddler Returns to Iraq After Life-Saving Surgery

Amenah al-Bayati is two years old. She is from Iraq. She carries a teddy bear and sits on her mother’s lap every chance she gets. She is a toddler, and following an operation at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Tennessee to fix a congenital heart problem, she is healthy. What Amenah al-Bayati is not is ignorant.

From Haditha, Iraq, Ms. al-Bayati teaches us a lesson in diplomacy.

It was late in the morning the day after Ms. al-Bayati returned to Iraq from the United States that she phoned a dog named craig.

“These reporters, I swear, they’re so unpracticed in matters of civility,” Ms. al-Bayati said, nearly breathless. “You’d think they’d have encountered something of the cosmopolitan mindset in their profession, not that there’s much to be said of it, of cosmopolitanism, that is. I’ve no apprehension toward the profession, you know, in general.”

Journalists, take notes: Amenah al-Bayati is cute, healthy, and NOT "ignorant." "These reporters, I swear, they're so unpracticed in matters of civility," Ms. al-Bayati said to a dog named craig over the phone last week. Photo Courtesy of Eros Hoagland, New York Times

Ms. al-Bayati’s doe eyes are as disarming as her speech is invigorating. When she talks with you, you feel privileged, delighted by the honor she has granted you. Yet alert you remain, guarding your words, careful not to impart your own views without equanimity, and most important of all, self-scrutiny. When you strike a resonant note with her, those wide eyes alight and you can sense their vigor, sidelong though your perspective may be. Should you not be in her company, her voice, too, perks; she is one of those singular personalities so defined even her most mundane moments sketch the rudiments of a caricature (the better rudiments). Holly Golightly had it, as did every one of Ms. Dorothy Parker’s New York socialites, including Ms. Dorothy Parker herself.

But Ms. al-Bayati bristles at an offending phrase, staid as she is to her convictions, keen as she is in detecting an affront and defending her name against it.

And so, when a dog named craig read the profile the Times did on her trip to the States, we weren’t surprised by her call, which came not long after we finished reading the article. Her severity was cutting and deserved. Her portrait, as drawn by reporter Erica Goode, was only cutting.

We’re working on transcribing the full interview, which Ms. al-Bayati approved of with a characteristic quip: “I hear her name, the reporter’s name, I mean, is “Goody.” Well, that partially explains it, doesn’t it? Ought to be “Good.” But that’s your job, isn’t it, a dog named craig? Make it good, make it right.”

Ms. al-Bayati asked to review the final transcript for “purposes of clarity, accuracy, and delicacy.” Once she lets us have it back, we’ll have it for you.

Mano a mano: you show us yours, and we'll build you ours

2008-03-11T23:42:00.005-05:00

details

The Irish Times – Weekend Edition – World News [12] – Saturday, March 1, 2008
[FOUND AT: Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $3.75 | Total Cost: $10.25

Gazprom's tower to soar over city of Peter the Great (Subscription Required)

Irish Times reporter Daniel McLaughlin’s chest hair must be dense and abrasive, that is, if it is anything like his rhetoric.

Prior to last week, a dog named craig had never read The Irish Times. We’re from Minneapolis, Minnesota. We’ve never had reason to. After having done so, our impression of the reputable Irish daily is unflattering. We appreciate the expansive 15-inch broadsheet, and we’ll give it another try some day, if only because its overwhelming breadth calls to mind our father cracking the Sunday papers in his rocker at the fireplace, back before declining profit margins sent the industry to the cutters. He would periodically break from his silent reading to quote a passage to the family. From the floor, we would look up toward his widespread arms, the paper held stiff like a cape caught on the drying line as the winds pull at it. That paper was the only thing that dwarfed him, so you can imagine the impression it had on us. Immensity is a rare phenomenon that we believe to be a matter of perspective, both in the optical sense and in the sense of one’s subjectivity. A broadsheet can be immense to a dog named craig, while, say, a commemorative tower can seem, at least from afar, pithy, a minor detail.

For now, that is exactly the grievance we have with one of The Irish Times’ reporters, Daniel McLaughlin. And by association, we have a grievance with the paper at large. His talk about the Gazprom tower is tall, his critique of it short. We sense insecurity. But first, the man behind the words.

Mr. McLaughlin’s author photo is impressive considering his trade. He’s not modeling for Fendi, but his eyes smolder all the same, and his smirk is a knowing one, even more so than your typical smirk. It’s almost smug. And his hair. We see Hugh Jackman, circa the Wolverine days, taped to Mr. McLaughlin’s bathroom mirror, consulted each morning before dashing off to the newsroom. But that much is easily forgiven. a dog named craig appreciates a confident, informed reporter. And we’re not opposed to the mindset that an inner confidence sometimes grooms an outer confidence. What we do not appreciate, is an apparently confident and informed reporter. Which Mr. McLaughlin certainly is. His author photo is all appearance, which we do not say to be confusing, nor do we suppose we inadvertently come up short in our analysis by having stated the obvious. Mr. McLaughlin may be a striking reporter, but he is a duplicitous reporter. The truth is in the fine print, and Mr. McLaughlin’s print is fine indeed. What it needs to be, however, is refined, at least as refined as his look. That or he ought to state his intentions plainly. You see, Mr. McLaughlin is a chauvinist. His article, “Gazprom’s tower to soar over city of Peter the Great,” bursts at the margins with Freudian slips.

Gazprom’s 119 billion barrels of oil ranks third in the world behind Saudi Arabia (263) and Iran (133), and Gazprom, feeling cocky, is determined to erect a 67-floor tower on UNESCO-sanctioned territory in St. Petersburg. The tower is controversial, and Mr. McLaughlin addresses its many detractors — UNESCO has cautioned the city that building the tower will compromise its world-heritage status; leading Russian architects have decried against the project; and St. Petersburg’s 5 million people seem to want nothing to do with the thing.

And yet, a dog named craig detects Mr. McLaughlin might be dealing out the backdoor. He almost comes off as an earnest critic, until, nearing the end, he exposes himself.

Mr. McLaughlin ends his article with a comparison of former president Vladimir Putin and his successor, Dmitry Medvedev. While Mr. McLaughlin seems to subtly criticize Gazprom’s phallus, his discussion of Putin is telling.

“[Putin] has stopped at nothing — not the jailing of critical tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, not the dismemberment of his Yukos oil firm and its purchase by state companies, not even the emasculation of civil society and curbing of free media — to restore political and financial power to the Kremlin and the resurgent security services,” writes McLaughlin.

There you have it. The McLaughlin plan to a better Russia in three easy to follow steps:

Jail
Dismember
Emasculate

Castration complex for the post-Soviet generation. Oedipus, a dog named craig welcomes you to the era of multi-national capitalism.

But if these guys are the fathers, who’s the mother?

“Oh, we’re well aware of the scandalous relationship Putin and Medvedev are carrying on with one another,” the world says. “But two fathers?! Aghast!”

Something tells us Mr. McLaughlin’s brawny chest wants nothing to do with that. He chose his words accordingly.

[COMING SOON] a dog named craig talks with 2-year-old Amenah al-Bayati of Haditha, Iraq about the New York Times' condescension, what some are calling "slanderous and inconsiderate" declarations in an article on her, following a successful operation to correct a congenital heart defect. The operation took place in the United States, and despite her integral role in what is being seen as an important act of diplomacy, the Time's still referred to her as "not aware of her good fortune ... ignorant."

"I appreciate everything America did for me. Really, from the bottom of my heart," Amenah said to a dog named craig with a wink at the pun. "But honestly, The New York Times could have extended some of its generosity. I feel used, to be honest. 'Ignorant?' What's that about?"

We'll have the full interview with Amenah soon.

A slight of hand — rapidly, repeatedly, and for an uncomfortably long time

2008-03-05T12:52:00.005-06:00

details

The New York Times [NYT] – Science Times [D5] - Tuesday, March 4, 2008
[FOUND AT: Vending machine at 4th and 14th, Outside the Kitty Kat Klub and a Bruegger's Bagels in Dinkytown, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $6.50

Shudder the thought: How could this have happened?

a dog named craig never wanted things to come to this. We hoped to be above this kind of thing. No, we hoped the New York Times was above this kind of thing. Unfortunately, we were mistaken.

We leafed through the first four pages of the issue — devouring the scientifically enlightening stories of hyenas’ social lives and bats’ flight habits and the ongoing push from Bill and Melinda Gates (yes, that Bill Gates) to “eradicate” the malaria virus — feeling unusually assured that maybe, just maybe the crippling world of modern science was turning a new, positive broadleaf. But, sure enough, sigh-ence eventually proved to be as exasperating as it sounds, yet again.

After reading (raptly) about the vertical gusts bats create for themselves with their membranous wings so they can, among other things, drink sugary fluid, this headline shrieked from the first page of the Health section Tuesday:

A One-Eyed Invader in the Bedroom

In an accompanying photo illustration, an outmoded television set hangs in front of a young boy. His back is to the reader; presumably, he is staring at the television and his consciousness is off doing something else. He’s partially dissolved and glowing faintly blue, most likely from the television’s phosphorescent cathode rays (which always glow faintly, and often faintly blue). The television has knobs instead of buttons, or, even more here and now, L.E.D. lights, though it looks like a PlayStation Portable from a distance.

The article details “some estimates” that have concluded that “Children with bedroom TVs score lower on school tests and are more likely to have sleep problems,” and that “Having a television in the bedroom is strongly associated with being overweight and a higher risk for smoking.”

Not exactly what a dog named craig expected after reading the headline. No surprises, children with televisions in their bedroom tend to become physically and socially unfit adolescents. The hypotheses for why the bedroom television ends in prematurely distended navels, boy breasts and, ultimately, lips that pucker up for an all-natural American Spirit every half hour, also left a dog named craig wanting: Children with televisions in their bedroom tend to eat more snacks while watching that television; they also tend to sit or lay or hang off the edge of their twin-size mattress — totally immobile — for extended periods of time while eating those snacks and watching that television. Understandable.

But we read on, sure that the article intended much subtler side-effects to bedroom TV consumption, and lo-and-behold, it did, at least for little French boys:

“In a study among French adolescents, boys with a bedroom television were more likely than their peers to have a larger waist size and higher body fat and body mass index,” wrote Times sigh-ence columnist, Tara Parker-Pope.

That description is equally suited for 85-97 percent of all American males, ages 28-40, with personal computers and high-speed internet access in their bedrooms, which is exactly the kind of “One-eyed Invader” a dog named craig envisioned from the outset, not that we wanted to.

And so, parents, future parents, and concerned members of the sigh-entific community, if you want to make sure the only rosy cheeks on your children are the ones on their downy faces, you know what you ought to do. Ditch the television, and get them a Nintendo DS.

The only thing worse than being ashamed of the overweight, seven-year-old son watching High School Musical 2 in the room down the hall, is being ashamed of the overweight, 37-year-old son Googling Vanessa Hudgins in the room down the hall. And that, a dog named craig suspects, is the real fear behind this study, and especially this headline.

an indefinite Kenyan almost gets what's coming to him in Somalia, but some barnyard animals get it instead

2008-03-05T00:39:00.025-06:00

details

The New York Times [NYT] - Front Page [A9] - Tuesday, March 4, 2008
[FOUND AT: Vending machine at 4th and 14th, Outside the Kitty Kat Klub and a Bruegger's Bagels in Dinkytown, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $6.50

U.S. Forces Fire Missiles Into Somalia At a Kenyan

If you do not believe in Murphy’s Law, then you have obviously never been A Kenyan in Somalia.

a dog named craig’s favorite part of Dr. Strangelove appears toward the end. After releasing the jammed hatch of a B-52 bomber, that lonesome cowboy, Major Kong, rides a missile down to Earth and on to victory, sort of. He howls. He yee-haws. He waves his hat. And he shrinks. By the time he gets to Earth, he is tiny and the bomb is huge. Shortly after, the world is destroyed. It’s a mighty undertaking for a lonesome cowboy, the kind of undertaking a dog named craig suspects a lonesome cowboy dreams about:

[A flocculent haze obscures the following events without rhyme or reason] A lonesome cowboy squats before a small fire somewhere in the southwest corner of the United States. The arid steppe native to the area bristles around him. Beyond the bristling steppe it is dark, and beyond the dark there is more bristling steppe, though the lonesome cowboy has no way of knowing this. When he looks up from his fire, he sees only the darkness. He is totally oblivious to the second ring of bristling steppe that squeezes the darkness between itself and the first ring of steppe that he is totally aware of. He is also barefoot. His boots sit stock-stiff and upright off to the side, next to his booze jug, so if he wanted to find the second ring of bristling steppe he would have to slip his boots on first. But he doesn’t. Partly because he doesn’t know it exists, but more because the lonesome cowboy wants more than a second ring of steppe. He heats a can of watery beans over the open flame and as he waits for the gravy to sizzle he closes his eyes: Whew, I sure could do for myself a mighty undertaking, seeing as I’m out here all alone. Then he opens his eyes and eats the beans with a spoon he digs out of his back pocket. He doesn’t even wipe the spoon off on his knee first. He just scoops the beans out of the can and sticks them in his mouth. He’s clean shaven. A horse lies next to him. Behind him. On top of him. He is the horse. He’s been a horse all along. He gallops away into the second ring of steppe. He passes through the darkness without even noticing. He leaves his boots to collect dust with the old booze jug, which is now an atomic bomb, and always has been. He whinnies.

Living the dream. Major Kong on his way to creating a new frontier, formally known as the planet Earth. Photo Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

***

Someone once told a dog named craig Major Kong’s ride was a metaphor. But a dog named craig has never been very handy with metaphors, so for the longest time we didn’t believe it. And then today we paged through the papers, and sure enough, we found something that reminded us of Major Kong; although, the first time we read it, we weren’t sure why it reminded us of Major Kong. You have to remember, a dog named craig doesn’t spot metaphors as well as, say, Agent K and Agent J spot them. (As aliens who come from marbles. That is: Other. Marbles.) But we’re improving. Today is proof. Here is what we saw:

U.S. Forces Fire Missiles Into Somalia At a Kenyan

There is this Kenyan, a Kenyan, who is wanted by the F.B.I. His name is Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan “is wanted by the F.B.I. for questioning in the nearly simultaneous attacks in 2002 on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and on an Israeli airliner taking off from there.” He is “a known Al Qaeda terrorist,” according to Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon Spokesman in Washington. He is a “terrorist target,” according to the Defense Department. He is a “terrorist operative,” according to the Pentagon (including but not strictly according to, Bryan Whitman). He is 28 or 29 years old, according to the New York Times. And he is a Kenyan, according to the headline. He is Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. Trouble follows him, though some would say, he is trouble, and his reputation precedes him.

The missiles that hit southern Somalia were Tomahawk cruise missiles, big fat ones. The New York Times says there were at least two of them, though we know better and soon you will too. This was around 3:30 a.m. or, about the time a lonely cowboy was probably falling into another R.E.M. cycle.

“Residents reached by telephone said that three civilians were wounded, and that the only other casualties were three dead cows, one dead donkey and a partly destroyed house,” wrote New York Times reporters Jeffrey Gettleman and Eric Schmitt.

As it just so happens, a dog named craig saw the whole thing, seated, as we were, at a particularly advantageous location.

The submarine surfaced and sat there for a while, looking as if it exited the metro at the wrong stop and had to check its map. Then a fat wad of white smoke billowed just above the lost submarine, and a white tube with red fins burst through the smoke and arced up and over the water. It flew silently for a distance before hurtling into a small village in southern Somalia, as the article said. The three cows had just finished grazing together, and were walking single-file back to their lean-to. They bounced off the ground like popcorn and landed on their sides. The donkey was harnessed to a cart, staring at a pair of flies dueling above a fence post. The donkey was summarily bisected upon impact, halved with surprising precision, given the chaos. The dueling flies took immediate notice, ceased fighting, and each gobbled up a separate half of the corpse — in its entirety. (The donkey's owner reported it missing, and the news reporter reported it dead. Both were correct.) The house was minding its own business, which it had done throughout its existence and would continue to do, despite the attack. As papers would write of its foundation and infrastructure, though they may very well have been speaking of its spirit: it was damaged, but not destroyed. The three civilians did not know any of the cows, or the donkey, although one of them lived in the polite house, which the attack had revealed as possessing a character of great nobility. At the time, the man who lived in the house was asleep. Two others were passing by. The one was escorting the other home after a friendly chat that went much later than either had expected. They were laughing loudly, disregarding the hour.

When the missiles hit, a dog named craig saw the tiny village light up, once, twice, a third and fourth time (we counted four). And we heard a crack. The whole thing, from where we were, was as if someone had plugged an electrical cord into a sleepy socket — a crack, a fizzle, and a spark, all in such quick succession that it could very well have been two missiles, or even one. But it was four, according to a dog named craig.

And where was a dog named craig that we had such optimal vantage? We were straddling a satellite in space as it made the evening rounds, hollering and waving our cowboy hat. We watched a Kenyan dart safely away from the flicker and the flash in an S.U.V., somewhere in southern Somalia.

[tomorrow] a dog named craig reads Tuesday’s Sigh-ence Times: a conscience-heavy look into the doleful world of modern science

bumping uglies, or, not that at all

2008-03-03T01:45:00.017-06:00

details

The New York Times [NYT] - Front Page [A1] - Friday, October 12, 2007
[FOUND AT: Uncertain, though probably Super America off University and Broadway, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $5.25

flashback

Over a span of nearly 60 years, Doris Lessing wrote herself to a Nobel Prize by voicing the spirit of an underrepresented part of society, its female part. If only she had read the stories Japan wasn't writing, maybe she would have dressed in fewer shades of blue on the morning of October 11, last year.

The day after Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature, a dog named craig came across an article in the New York Times just to the right of the 88-year-old novelist, that is, just to the right of a photograph of the 88-year-old novelist. In the photo, Doris wears a blue vest over blue shirtsleeves with a blue denim skirt (granted, there is some purple). She sits on the front steps outside her home in London, and the front door is open behind her. There are only two steps, and Doris has a body part on each. Potted plants sprout on either side of her and line the checkered walkway. She sits unflatteringly, looks up unflatteringly, and holds, by our count, three separate bouquets of flowers wrapped in crinkly plastic. She corrals the bouquets with her right arm, and in her right hand she holds an envelope that might contain her 10 million Swedish crown Nobel Prize honorarium, though it probably just says “congratulations” from a fancy man or woman with hair as white as Doris’.

In every regard, the author looks uncomfortable. The quote beneath the picture seems to confirm this: “I had forgotten about it actually.” If you look carefully at the photo, you can see these dismissive words dribbling out from behind her frown. Even her frown looks like an accident, as if to say, “Don’t worry Doris, I too had forgotten about the Nobel Prize.” The article says she had just returned from the hospital with her son, so okay, maybe she was too preoccupied to remember the biggest award in letters. We doubt it.

But aloof Doris is not the focus for a dog named craig. Our focus is blurred off to the side, hanging out in Doris’ periphery. It is beneath the fold, and it is photo-less. Compared to the announcement of the recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature, the article’s headline seems like a jealous business associate whose number one client you just had lunch with. It’s a little too sensational for its own good: Starving Man’s Diary Suggests Harshness of Welfare in Japan.

The story is about exactly what the headlines says it is about (although a dog named craig questions the copy editors at NYT who decided “suggests” was the most appropriate verb to insert between “Starving Man’s Diary” and “Harshness of Welfare in Japan”)*. As the article reports: an unnamed man on welfare in Japan kept a diary until he starved to death.

a dog named craig has carried this story around with us, tied to our collar, ever since we read it in October. When we run, it jingles. We’ll be brief.

***

a dog named craig flew out to Kitakyushu, a city located in the Fukuoka prefecture in northern Japan. We researched the approximate location of the diary man’s home, and then set out to find its exact location. After only two days in Japan, we did in fact find it. It was surprisingly easy.

The ground was muddy and the other homes in the area were made of shabby boards. Loose chicken wire on the ground ensnared old newspapers, and rats wandered in the open, as if they had laid claim to the ramshackle neighborhood. We asked around, and sure enough, they had.

We went to diary man’s door and knocked, stupidly. We entered after not hearing the response we didn’t expect to hear anyway. We thought the place was empty, but to our surprise it wasn’t. Someone had tossed scraps of wood and tin cans into the home, probably to store for later use, though a dog named craig had no idea what that use could be. A group of rats were playing bridge on top of a heap of cardboard in the center of the room. “Bugger off,” one of the rats said, the British one, apparently. After deciding we weren’t out to hassle them, however, they resumed their game and paid us no attention.

We sniffed around, read through some of the newspapers, and emptied the water out of a few of the tin cans. The clay roof was dotted with holes and the water dripped through them, as well as through the invisible cracks that ran around the holes. After an hour or so, the rats finished their game and took off under a hole cut into the wall. We were alone.

The room was silent except for the droplets plunking into the tin cans. Now that we were by ourselves, we couldn’t remember exactly why we had come. With the place completely empty, our uncertainty only intensified. We thought, this must be what those water droplets feel like as they hit the bucket: They fall for miles from the sky, and then, after they’ve already landed once, they’re pushed through a crack and fall again, right into a gaping space. Splash. And they hit the bottom of the can.

We circled the room — once, twice — before dragging some papers into the corner to sleep on. It was quiet, and even though we didn’t have our usual bed, we looked forward to a full night’s sleep. But when we went to stretch ourselves out, we bumped into something, and something bumped back, lightly.

“Sumimasen,” was all it said — Excuse me.

“Sorry,” we replied. The polite little bump rustled about briefly before settling. Its rustling was quiet, silent, almost. We lay back down, taking care not disturb the little bump again, and fell asleep.

***

We knew what it was that we bumped into. We knew the second we bumped into it. It was just a little bump, tucked off to the side of the room, somehow front-and-center, yet easy to overlook. It was the little bump that we had flown to Japan for, yet it was so small we had forgotten this until we bumped into it. We had forgotten that it brought us to Kitakyushu, whose name we had also forgotten. It was just a little bump, after all. It was tiny, even. It was nothing more than a tiny bump tucked off to the side and out of focus, waiting on the periphery, just beneath the fold. All it said was “excuse me.”

*The online edition of the article bears the headline: "Death Reveals Harsh Side of a ‘Model’ in Japan." a dog named craig's print edition reads "Starving Man's Diary Suggests Harshness of Welfare in Japan" on the front page, and "Starving Man's Diary Reveals Harshness of Welfare in Japan" on the inside jump, page A12. This is significant, we think.

Photo: An Audience With Downer Cow

2008-02-29T21:33:00.007-06:00

the photos

Roger Clemens Courtesy of Doug Mills, New York Times; Downer Cow Courtesy of Hemmy.net

Left, seven-time Cy Young Award winner, Roger Clemens, frowns. Right, Downer Cow shies away from the camera: "I can't really feel anything," he said to a dog named craig on our visit to his California ranch last week.

An audience with Downer Cow. Warning: It’s kind of a downer

2008-02-29T12:16:00.027-06:00

details

The New York Times [NYT] - Front Page [A1] - Thursday, February 14, 2008
[FOUND AT: Uncertain, though probably Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis]
with
The New York Times [NYT] – Sports Tuesday [C10] - Tuesday, February 19, 2008
[FOUND AT: 14th and 4th, Dinkytown, Minneapolis, newspaper vending machine outside Kitty Kat Klub]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total: $4.00

If Roger Clemens were a cow, he would be a Downer Cow. But if Downer Cow were Roger Clemens, the whole Mitchell Report might have been swept under the rug.

*Self-Censorship Warning: This entry gets graphic, toward the end.

a dog named craig arrived at San Diego International on a Friday night. The air was cool by California standards, a breezy 52 and damp with a note of early May gloom, though the evening lessened its effect. We took a cab out to Downer Cow’s ranch, about an hour’s drive east of San Diego, approaching the California/Arizona border.

Downer Cow greeted us at the gates, a set of swinging iron bars painted teal with a glossy finish. He had told us about the growth hormones and the steroids over the phone, but he was much larger than we expected. During the flight, we imagined his bulk — rippling flanks and haunches, a thick neck and sturdy back, future slabs of round and brisket in the raw. But when we finally pulled into his ranch and stood before him, Downer Cow was a broad-shouldered Hereford too massive even to fit into a dog named craig’s imagination. How could a voice so even-toned and entrancing come from a creature as grotesquely disproportioned as Downer Cow? a dog named craig wondered.

Downer Cow said he left his pen as soon as he got off the phone with us, to make sure he could trounce his way to the front gate in time to greet us. We called on a Thursday; it was Saturday evening. We called our editor and asked for a few extra days; we rescheduled our return flight from Sunday to Tuesday.

a dog named craig gave Downer Cow a copy of the article we used his quote for — a thank you for inviting us out to his ranch. He thanked us, in turn, and scanned the sheet, smiling when he came to himself. Then he led us to his pen.

The trip back took all Saturday night and Sunday. Downer Cow slept midday Sunday — suddenly, he just stopped moving, and slept standing for six hours in the middle of the aisle. a dog named craig thought about exploring the ranch, but we were tired from the flight and couched ourselves beneath Downer Cow until sundown. Around five or six at night, Downer Cow awoke with a snort, and we resumed our walk back to his pen.

We arrived at daybreak on Monday, and Downer Cow brewed a pot of coffee. His quarters were exactly like the ones in Our Daily Bread. Just enough space to squeeze himself into and back out of. A downer pen for a downer cow. He cleared a corner for a dog named craig to lie in. Then he said that he had a 95 percent chance of going to the slaughter later in the day, probably in a couple of hours. The way he said it, it was a matter of fact, devoid of despair. We asked him if there was a process, any paperwork or waivers, maybe a final clearance to make sure everything was in order. How did he know?

“I just know,” Downer Cow said. He looked at a dog named craig over his shoulder when he said this, and then he looked back down at Mr. Coffee. The coffee began to steam the glass pot. He watched it drip. For a moment a dog named craig thought the coffee was brewing silently, but then we realized Downer Cow’s downer neighbors were all moaning in their downer pens, quieting Mr. Coffee.

Downer Cow served up two hot mugs of French Roast.

“I prefer it in a press,” Downer Cow said, “a French Press. But my shoulders are so big and sore I can hardly lift one in front of the other, let alone push down on the piston. I tried the other week, and I smashed the whole press to pieces. Cut my ankle. I think some of the glass is still in my hoof. I can’t really feel it though. I can’t really feel anything.”

a dog named craig asked Downer Cow what he wanted to talk about. At first, Downer Cow didn’t say anything. He sipped from his mug. He licked inside his nostrils. He checked his hooves against the concrete and shivered.

Then he spoke: “It’s this story about the baseball players that really gets me,” he said.

“Baseball? You mean Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens?” we asked.

“Yes. Every major paper in the nation seems taken by this story. The way they write about it,” he said in his usual, soft-mannered way. “Rather, the frequency and the length at which they write about it, they make it seem like an atrocity against their kind.”

“It sort of is,” we began to explain. “It’s something so many of them, Americans we mean, take to heart. Like preferring pressed coffee to drip brew. It involves a certain amount of involvement on the part of the individual, a singular sensibility that becomes a group sensibility. It’s a part of them. A part of who they are that they’ve developed, cultivated even.”

“Yes. And now that it’s unraveling at the seams, so to speak, the entire country must bear the guilt. I understand that.”

“Plus it’s tied up with their war on drugs; sports and children go hand in hand for them, especially baseball. And if there’s one thing American parents seem to collectively fear, it’s that their kids will get their hands on a cigarette instead of a baseball bat.”

Downer Cow looked down. He was down. He finished his coffee but didn’t take any more. He offered a dog named craig the rest of the pot. He estimated we had an hour-and-a-half until the slaughter.

“But I’m not so worried about who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong,” Downer Cow said. “Take me, for instance. Look at my situation. I can’t say I disagree with the use of steroids and growth hormones altogether, not in good faith, at least. Sure, I may take a bit longer to back out of my pen each morning, but think of the choice cuts I’m going to become.”

“But you were injected against your will,” we said, trying a tactful approach, unaware as to whether or not Downer Cow was self-conscious about his gargantuan build, or to what extent. “You’ve never really known any other way of life. For you, it’s always been a matter of body mass. The bigger the better. That’s what you’ve been told. That’s what you’ve lived by.”

“Yes. Yes. You’re right. But take Roger, for instance,” Downer Cow said.

“Why not Barry?”

Downer Cow shook his head. “Everybody’s already talked about Barry. Barry is finished. Nobody has anything else to say about Barry, and no one wants to say anything else about him. You ask about Barry and everyone just shakes their head. But Roger, he’s the one denying everything. It’s one thing to be caught off guard. To have the world looking down on you and to look up at it, penitent. Like with Andy. He was down and out, but now the guy’s receiving sympathy. He’s like poor Lazarus up in his tree. He shouldn’t be up there, but he can’t help himself. Just one glimpse; that’s all he wants. Roger though. Everybody knows he’s Judus, and America is Jesus. Roger slapped a wet one on the cheek of about 300 million people with poor credit, poorer mortgages, a tall order of pride, and an uncompromising history of entitlement. That Mitchell Report threw Roger into the fire, but it’s Roger that’s going to dismantle Roger. He already has.”

“But how does that have anything to do with you and your life here?”

“At first glance, nothing. Other than the steroids and the hormones. And maybe nothing, period — no matter what way you look at it. You know, a dog named craig, I’m not so concerned about what Roger has to do with my life here. My life here is rushing toward its end, and I’m not about to contend that fact – and it is a fact.”

Downer Cow again checked his hooves against the concrete. Noon was approaching. The sky was overcast but the gloom from Friday had burned away under the sun over the weekend, and the temperature sat comfortably at 60 without wavering. a dog named craig looked up and all we could see were the quivering bulges of muscle chunked onto Downer Cow’s underside. With each breath, his immense chest filled an impossible space between him and the floor and his flanks bloomed outward like a pair of clenched fists held up for protection. We hadn’t noticed how short his legs looked, or how thin. Despite his size, Downer Cow was a fragile creature. The improbable heft his legs were expected to bear taxed him to excess; he trembled from hoof to shank, and up to his spine, which was blocked on either side by soon-to-be sirloin and chuck.

I think some of the glass is still in my hoof, he had said. I can’t really feel it though. I can’t really feel anything.

We fell silent and time passed. Noon broke and the other downer cows heralded the hour with their persistent moaning. Then the moaning intensified. It first came from far down the aisle; a single moan rose above the choir and cued the others who joined in, row after row. a dog named craig stood up and slunk beneath Downer Cow to peek out of his pen. A plainclothes man was walking down the aisle, pointing to this downer cow and that one. Every couple of pens he pointed and when he did all the downer cows in that vicinity moaned louder. He was the plainclothes conductor and he played the part with great command.

The man was making his way toward us without slowing. Downer Cow looked over his shoulder. He looked down at a dog named craig. We looked back at Downer Cow and Downer Cow tilted his head up and let out a powerful moan. The man walked by, pointing this way and that. Downer Cow’s end had rushed toward him in plainclothes, pointed, and rushed on.

***

a dog named craig rode with Downer Cow to the slaughter in the back of a semi packed with other downer cows. Downer Cow hadn’t said a word all day, but once we were in the truck and on the road, he re-assumed his affable manner and seemed eager to speak.

“I never said what Roger has to do with me,” Downer Cow said. “Because Roger doesn’t have anything to do with me. Not Roger as Roger. Roger is Roger. Downer Cow is Downer Cow. But there's more to Roger; and there's more to Downer Cow. Do you know what I mean?”

We shook our head. We had no idea what Downer Cow meant.

“It was the article about Andy that said it best,” Downer Cow said. “George Vecsey, a columnist for the New York Times, he wrote that Andy said ‘he still loves Roger like a brother.’ In the article, Andy seems like a pleasant dolt, and Roger, a big brother, an influential friend, standing off to the side, shaking his head at Andy, even though everyone else is shaking their head at Roger.”

a dog named craig didn’t know what to say. Brother? Friend? Earlier Downer Cow talked about Jesus and America’s economy, and now he’s talking about things as quotidian as family and friendship?

“It’s like that movie. My favorite movie. I saw it as a calf, before all of this,” Downer Cow said, pointing to his muscles with his nose. “The Fox and the Hound. Have you seen it? Todd and Cooper? Todd’s the mischievous red fox; Cooper’s the dutiful blood hound. Todd and Cooper. Roger and Andy. That’s what I think about this whole baseball story. Everything that could possibly be said about Roger and Andy was said in The Fox and the Hound.”

a dog named craig looked at Downer Cow. “Todd and Cooper. Roger and Andy,” we said. “Downer Cow and a dog named craig.”

Downer Cow nodded. “Now you see. That’s why I asked if you could come out here and see me off. Because over the phone, Thursday, I could just tell.”

The semi pulled into the slaughter. For a moment, there was no movement. Then the semi began beeping. It backed up and stopped. The other downer cows were all moaning out of tune, more like a sack of stray cats than the well-rehearsed choir of cattle we heard back at the ranch. We started moving toward the back, all of us at once.

For a time, Downer Cow moaned with the others. Then, as if stumbling over a realization, he abruptly calmed down.

“Thanks for coming out, a dog named craig. And thank you for seeing me to the slaughter.” We told Downer Cow that it was no big deal, and said, what are friends for? Downer Cow told us he enjoyed our company, and hoped we had enjoyed his. We had, and we said so.

Then Downer Cow asked us one more question. “I have a favor to ask,” Downer Cow said. “Promise me that you’ll watch me every step from here on out. The whole slaughter. Promise me that. I know it may be hard. But I need you to do this. It’s very important.” a dog named craig blanched at first, but we regained ourselves and agreed.

“a dog named craig promises,” we said. “But Downer Cow— Why?”

Downer Cow looked down at us with his gentle downer eyes: “Because I need you to eat me. All of me. Every last pound. Every last scrap. Because I’m a “downer” cow. And you know what that means? It means “mad” cow. I’m a mad cow, and if a human eats me, they could get sick, very sick. They could die. And I have never wanted to hurt anyone. I was fine in my pen. I never complained. I had my coffee and my movies. But I won’t be fine if any human ever eats any of me. I know who I am and I’m mad, and if someone eats me. Well, you know. But you can, a dog named craig. You can eat me, and you must. a dog named craig can’t catch what Downer Cow has. It’s not possible. You have to eat me, so no one else does. Can you do this for me? Please? Can you promise you'll do this?”

***

a dog named craig watched Downer Cow go through the slaughter. We watched as he went through the pre-slaughter inspection, which seems pretty useless, all things considered. We watched as Downer Cow received 300 volts to the back of the head and fell unconscious, his knees buckled and his tongue slid out of his mouth. We watched as a man in a puffy white suit and smock strung him up by the hindquarters and led him over a metal trough. We watched another man, dressed the same as the first, take a knife to Downer Cow’s throat, and then we watched a machine strip him bare. We watched everything dutifully, the first time in a long time that we had acted thus. For a friend. In loving memory, as the saying goes. a dog named craig watched as government inspector’s failed to do what they were supposed to. We watched as our friend was laid onto Styrofoam trays, weighed, and wrapped in plastic. From beginning to end — we watched.

And then a dog named craig did what we promised.

PREVIEW: a dog named craig meets Downer Cow

2008-02-27T20:29:00.003-06:00

In a dog named craig’s last post, we ended with a quote from a phone interview with Downer Cow, a California native then awaiting transport to the slaughter with a-soon-to-be 143 million other pounds of ground beef, despite having contracted spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.

We quoted Downer Cow in passing, but Downer Cow actually spoke broadly and at great length, even touching on several current events — Russia bear hugging the North Pole and not letting go, Hillary Clinton’s devolving campaign, and the ongoing courtroom drama preoccupying America’s favorite pastime, as spring training begins.

Over the phone, Downer Cow was calm, at times bemused by his circumstances, but never anything less than eloquent and obliging. After nearly an hour of polite conversation, Downer Cow cleared his throat. He fell into an uncharacteristic silence, at least given his conduct throughout our conversation. a dog named craig asked Downer Cow if anything was wrong.

“I don’t want to seem demanding,” Downer Cow said, “and certainly, I understand if you’re busy, but seeing as I’m off to the slaughter soon, would a dog named craig mind coming out to California? Maybe we could have a coffee, or talk over brunch? Or you could accompany me to the slaughter, just see me off. Make sure I get there alright. What’d you say?”

a dog named craig obliged without hesitation. We felt an odd kinship with Downer Cow. Downer Cow seemed to share the same spirited charge we feel every time we pick up a fresh stack of broadsheets, a sense that words still transform, still change, still engage; that broadsheets still broaden; that “word” and “mouth” go together, but that what comes from them is not a mechanical “buzz,” but a softer, more resonant charge, an emotional charge.

We cleared our schedule for the weekend, and flew out to California. We’ll share our visit with Downer Cow soon.

If China's Yuan Changkun and his friends ever meet Switzerland's Karin Gerber and her friends, worlds will collide, we have a feeling

2008-02-25T00:28:00.009-06:00

pretty in depth feature

a dog named craig thought of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakmi while writing this entry. In particular, we thought of the last lines of his story, The Year of Spaghetti, collected in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Vintage). In fact, a dog named craig thought long and hard about the closing lines of The Year of Spaghetti before writing this entry, and continued to do so while writing this entry. Here are those lines:

Durum semolina, golden wheat wafting in Italian fields.
Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they knew that what they were exporting in 1971 was really loneliness?

Before Thursday, a dog named craig had never read The Wall Street Journal. To us, The Journal was dry business speak for market insiders and future insiders — students of business, or people who wished to be students of business. It involved illegible graphs, and tiny numbers with pluses and minuses hovering nearby. This was confirmed by the Wikipedia entry on newspaper of record, which states, somewhere in the middle, that The Wall Street Journal is the “paper of record on business and economics [in the United States].”

Whenever we saw it displayed in street vending machines, we thought about how it is the type of publication that is aesthetically pleasing only to those who rarely experience aesthetic pleasure, even in the face of the drab aesthetic standards of newspapers. a dog named craig tends to judge things in the following order: by hearsay and reputation, then by its cover, and finally, by its content (and suspects most of you do too, even though you probably don’t want to). We are not ashamed. A part of our resistance to The Journal was superficial. That is unavoidable fact.

But, motivated by our own emergence into the world, meaning the just created blog, a dog named craig, we thought we would give it a try. Trying is the reason we exist, after all.

We went to the nearest place we knew the paper was sold, a vending machine outside an Erberts and Gerberts on 15th and 4th in Dinkytown. It was late in the afternoon, between four and five. We dispensed our $1.50 and took the last copy in the machine, the one on display.

As soon as we had the paper in our hands, we felt an odd sensation. We felt like it was the world that was in our hands, not just a newspaper. Moreover, we held the world on both the macro and the micro level, a feeling we are sure is intended.

And so: The Erberts and Gerberts shares a wall with a Caribou Coffee. That wall is kitty corner from a McDonald’s. At the bus stop in front of that McDonald’s, a few homeless men shuffled up next to waiting riders and asked for spare change. Students from Wisconsin and Minnesota walked by, some biked. The United States recently shot its own satellite down from the sky, an action China disagreed with. Russia laid claim to the ocean floor beneath the North Pole, an action the United States disagreed with. The universe is stratified, and we are a thin band squashed somewhere between outer space and an abyss.

This all became cosmically clear before the vending machine door sprang shut. Consciousness was expanding.

We folded the world in half and put it in our bag. If this were a commercial, representatives from various cultures would jump from the paper, and a multitude of colors would burst like a G8 Summit officiated by the high order of hallucinogens, all doing their various cultural activities, and someone would say something vaguely self-empowering like: “Your Journal, Your World. The Wall Street Journal.”

Instead, we took the bus to work. After a couple of hours, we took the bus home. After dinner, we pulled the paper out of our bag and unfolded it. Our consciousness doubled, or so it seemed.

We read over the front page headlines. We sifted through its sections. There was the A-section, which included Business & Finance and World-Wide; there was a section called Marketplace, another called Money & Investment, and a fourth called Personal Journal. This is the world according to The Wall Street Journal on Thursdays. It is both complicated and simple. Extra-ordinarily complicated. Extra-ordinarily simple. That seems about right.

But enough of the back story, and out with the news.

details

The Wall Street Journal [The Journal] - Front Page [A1] - Thursday, February 21, 2008
[FOUND AT: 15th & 4th, Dinkytown, Minneapolis - Newspaper vending machine outside an Erberts and Gerberts]

[MISSED CONNECTION] The New York Times [NYT] - International [4] - Sunday, February 3, 2008
[FOUND AT: Super America, University and Broadway, Northeast, Minneapolis]

[CAMEO] Associated Press [AP] via Star Tribune [Strib] - Nation+World - Friday, February 22, 2008
[FOUND AT: Doorstep]

Unit Cost: $1.50 | Total: $2.75

China's Role In Supply Of the Drug Under Fire by Gordon Fairclough and Thomas M. Burton
with
Swiss Sausage Fans Fret Over How to Save Their Skin by John Tagliabue
with
A News Brief by Someone

Two unfamiliar words further complicate relations in complicated world: Between Chinese factory owner and Swiss meatshop manager, can there be calm?

A ladder leans against the coping, but not even the camera seems impressed by the somewhat abstract, oddly metaphorical image of this dead-end ladder. Courtesy of Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal

The headline says it all. Yuan Changkun owns the Yuan Intestine & Casing Factory in Yuanlou, China, which is about as far east in China as you can go. To American eyes, Mr. Yuan’s factory brings to mind a double-wide in a small Midwestern town ravaged by tornadoes, something you might have seen Bill Paxton driving his pick-up through in the late 90s. There is no lawn to speak of. Plastic covers the windows and hangs in the entrances where there should be doors. A ladder leans against the coping, but not even the camera seems impressed by the somewhat abstract, oddly metaphorical image of this dead-end ladder.

As reported by Mr.’s Fairclough and Burton of The Wall Street Journal, behind this oddly metaphorical image, raw heparin is made from the intestines of pigs, intestines that are also formed into sausage casings. a dog named craig suspects that the confusing word, heparin, is responsible for the conflict reported by The Journal — the contaminated medicine, the lax factory regulations, and the depletion of Swiss women’s fond childhood memories. (Because it is confusing, even with the help of the Wikipedia page.)

Elsewhere (The New York Times), and eighteen publication dates earlier (Feb. 3), a dog named craig watches Karin Gerber manage a delicatessen in downtown Bern, our mouth watering. Throughout her shop are trays stacked with plump sausages, three-, four-, sometimes five high. Even though her hair shines with the brilliance of oils from red meat, and her thick cheeks suggest her best years are behind her, she is happy, for the most part. If Ms. Gerber is unhappy, however, she has every right to be. And she has every right to be unhappy with the likes of Mr. Yuan.

“Basically, it goes overseas. It’s for foreigners,” Mr. Yuan says. The “it” he is referring to is the heparin he produces and sells to pharmaceutical companies, like APP Pharmaceuticals Inc. and its rival, Baxter International Inc. The Journal reported that the latter had “four deaths and some 350 allergic reactions” among patients who received heparin sold in the U.S. by Baxter International, who gets its heparin from Yuan Intestine & Casing Factory.

But is Mr. Yuan to blame? Just as a dog named craig has next to no understanding about what the word “heparin” may mean, Mr. Yuan may be completely oblivious as to what the word “cervelas” (pronounced sair-vuh-LAH) may mean. And even if Mr. Yuan knows that cervelas means a stubby pink sausage “made of beef, bacon and pork rind, mixed with ice to cool during mixing …” and that it is “lightly smoked and briefly boiled,” how could he know that “7.5 million Swiss consume an estimated 160 million cervelas a year, more than 27,000 tons, or approaching 25 sausages per person” (NYT)? How could Mr. Yuan, boiling his vats and extracting his heparin in rural China, know that cervelas “is also the food of choice for fans at soccer games, much as the hot dog accompanies baseball or football (in the United States)” (NYT)?

And even if Mr. Yuan knows all of that, how could he know that “as a girl — we were three children — my parents would take us for a picnic in the woods, and there would be bread and potato chips and salad and grilled cervelas,” as Ms. Gerber told the New York Times?

To know all of that, Mr. Yuan would have to be one savvy heparin producer, and he would probably have to not work so close to a dead-end ladder, and he would probably have to be a reader of the New York Times. But he is not, or at least, a dog named craig thinks its “safe to assume” he is not. So Mr. Yuan is not to blame, not entirely.

Mr. Yuan may not even be aware, as the New York Times’ million-plus weekday readers are, that the casing for cervelas “is made from the intestines of the Brazilian zebu, a hump-backed ox of Asian origin,” and that that hump-backed ox, and the sausage casing its intestine eventually becomes, is a risk to Switzerland and Ms. Gerber for spreading mad cow disease, spongiform encephalopathy.

After all, Mr. Yuan’s heparin comes from the intestines of pigs, and so do the sausage casings he helps prepare. a dog named craig wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Yuan didn't know such things as Brazilian Zebu even exist, humps or no humps.

Cervelas? Heparin? Brazilian zebu? Spongiform encephalopathy? China? Switzerland? The United States? The New York Times? The Wall Street Journal? Soccer?

a dog named craig is a bit overwhelmed by all of these foreign words, and we suspect Mr. Yuan may be too.

“They give us a commodity. I give them money. We don’t keep records,” Mr. Yuan says of what he does know — getting by in rural China, in three simple steps.

a dog named craig repeats:

Durum semolina, golden wheat wafting in Italian fields.
Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they knew that what they were exporting in 1971 was really loneliness?

Meanwhile, in sunny California, “Government inspectors responsible for examining slaughterhouse cattle for mad cow disease and other ills are so short-staffed that they find themselves looking at hundreds of animals at once … These allegations were raised by former and current Agriculture Department inspectors in the wake of the biggest beef recall in history — 143 million pounds from a California meatpacker accused of sending “downer” cows to the slaughter” (AP).

“Ah man…this sucks,” one of the downer cows said to a dog named craig in a phone interview, minutes before being sent to the slaughter.

“We know, downer cow,” a dog named craig said. “We know.”

correction: six ounces of uncooked rice is not the same as six ounces of cooked rice. this is like that

2008-02-23T13:17:00.008-06:00

a dog named craig must make a correction: In Thursday’s preview post, a dog named craig incorrectly stated that “143 million California cattle can’t be wrong.” While that is not in itself false, the actual figures, as reported by the Associated Press, are "143 million pounds" of processed California cattle. So, a dog named craig adjusts its sentiment: Although 143 million personified California cattle can’t be wrong, the more abstract, less intellectually able 143 million pounds of processed California cattle cannot actually be RIGHT.

a dog named craig strives for accuracy. If you spot an error, please write to adognamedcraig@gmail.com. If we spot your email, we may write a correction.

If China's Yuan Changkun and his friends ever meet Switzerland's Karin Gerber and her friends, worlds will collide, we have a feeling

2008-02-22T11:49:00.048-06:00

Unit Cost: $1.50 | Total: $2.75

China's Role In Supply Of the Drug Under Fire by Gordon Fairclough and Thomas M. Burton

with

Swiss Sausage Fans Fret Over How to Save Their Skin by John Tagliabue

with

A News Brief by Someone

this morning, a dog named craig found the Strib out in the cold, tossed on our side of a fence dividing the Northeast home where we rent and the street where we catch the bus. It was probably part of a readership augmenting program, and probably meant for the family we write monthly checks to. (The father lives below; his son above. It's an odd arrangement. C'est la vie.) They left to their second home in north-central Minnesota for the weekend, so we had no problem nabbing the Friday edition for ourselves to read through at the breakfast table. We don't think they read it anyway. They haven't brought it up. For instance, not a word was said about all the other editions we took this week.

· COMING SOON ·

[PREVIEW] She's the owner of a charcuterie in Switzerland [NYT]; He's come under fire for his Chinese factory's lax regulations [The Journal]. Can they co-exist? Or ... WILL WORLDS COLLIDE?

PLUS: 143 million California cattle can't be wrong. What the Star Tribune has to say about the matter.

revealed: bully determined to reveal true depth of creature in hiding's sadness*

2008-02-21T01:41:00.009-06:00

New York Times [NYT] - Science Times [D1] - Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Coffman Memorial Union, Minneapolis - Student Union of The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total: $1.25

Revealed: Secrets of the Camouflage Masters - by Carl Zimmer

The most self-conscious, insecure creature on the planet was featured in the New York Times, centered over a bed of indistinct pebbles, from which it was, itself, indistinct.

a dog named craig paged through the NYT today, a favorite past time on Tuesdays especially. We love the Times on Tuesdays because the Times on Tuesdays means the Science Times, which means stories like this one (a dog named craig's debut, moreover) about "a theory to explain the spectacular deceptions of cephalopods." True to our oxymoronic catlike curiosity, the eyes of a dog named craig were attracted by the mysterious tone of the headline — "Revealed," "Secrets," "Camouflage" — as well as by the guarantee of a superlative creature — a "Master," or, as it reads in the jump on page [D4], a "Champion."

We're not so naive as to be seduced by the charisma of any single being, but neither are we so self-empowered as to resist the allure of a "master," or that of the less domineering "champion." a dog named craig might not buckle at the knees if Los Angeles Galaxy right winger, David Beckham, strode by, but we'd stalk the entire Disney's Mighty Ducks (1 & 2) hockey team through the shopping mall if we heard they were visiting.

The article that followed the headline, however, was itself deceptive, if not patently misleading.

First, there is nothing champion-like about cephalopods. Cephalopods are "characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a modification of the mollusk foot, a muscular hydrostat, into the form of arms or tentacles" (according to Wikipedia, a source we shall hereby reference with great frequency and without shame). A squid is a cephalopod. So is an octopus. But those are just the two most familiar species to the public, in a family with an estimated 998-1198 relatives, as of 2004 (again, Wikipedia, which we shall not only reference often, but also abbreviate as W, hereafter). Had phrenology won out during the 19th century, the cephalopod's prominent head might be champion material. But a greater science arose, namely neuroscience, and in light of this emergence, a dog named craig, quite frankly, expects more diligent science from the Science Times.

The cephalopod is no champion, Science Times, it is an oddity. And Mr. Zimmer, your article drives that point home again and again with the disheartening determination of a fifth-grade bully poking at the back of a freckled Poindexter's prominent fourth-grade head.

Observe:

From the outset, Mr. Zimmer focuses on the cuttlefish, a sorry looking sea creature that looks even sorrier in the six photographs that accompany the article.

"Dr. Hanlon inspected the squidlike animals as he walked past their shallow tubs," Zimmer writes. Dr. Hanlon, known among his colleagues and peers as Dr. Roger Hanlon, is a Senior Scientist with Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. He also seems to be as shallow as the tubs in which he observes the "squidlike animals" — known among Dr. Hanlon's colleagues and peers, and one assumes among Mr. Zimmer's colleagues and peers, as cuttlefish — at least according to Mr. Zimmer's portrait of him.

In truth,the cuttlefish is not actually a fish, but a mollusk. The misnomer, a popular one, would be damaging to any creature's self-esteem without Mr. Zimmer's added insult. He identifies this particular mollusk as "squidlike," because unlike the cuttlefish, the squid is a well known mollusk-like animal, thanks in part to the discovery of giant squids in the Pacific Ocean, near Japan (W), and probably not helped by the notable absence of giant cuttlefish, everywhere.

Yet Mr. Zimmer's most shameless affront is not his intra-class muckraking, but his demonstrated prejudice between his kind and the cuttlefish's kind, for which, no surprises, the Homo sapiens sapiens appear to be the true "masters" over every member of the Cephalopoda class, both Coleoidea and Nautiloidea subspecies (W). In his article, Mr. Zimmer makes his bias apparent, repeatedly isolating the already lonely cuttlefish and exposing, or "championing for himself," its phenomenal antisocial behavior as a thing to gawk, not unlike Joseph Merrick, the true-life, self-actualized "Elephant Man" (whose harrowing tale was recounted in the 1980 film, The Elephant Man, by David Lynch).

"Typically, Dr. Hanlon and his colleagues follow a single cephalopod," Zimmer writes, "filming for hours as it shifts its skin."

Mr. Zimmer, and allow me, readers, to now address Mr. Zimmer directly, as I have said already, the cuttlefish is an oddity. It would be wholly comfortable among its colleagues and peers without your condescension. I doubt you have overlooked the natural fact that the cuttlefish may "shift its skin" so as to avoid the very accolades you so readily bestow on it. That likelihood notwithstanding, you seem set to report in bad faith, though I am not proud to be the one to say it. I am, however, duty bound, supported by the aegis of journalistic ethics. History has repeatedly taught us that masters and champions, as pinnacles of their respective realms, are famously hunted after by the perceived slaves and losers of the world. Take, for example, the heartbreaking demise of Julius Caesar at the hands of his good friend and associate Brutus, or the celebrated victory of the 2003 Florida Marlins, over the dynasty that was and is the New York Yankees.

In the words of your own publication, I implore you to "Remember the neediest!" an imperative not solely intended to bring to mind the existence of the neediest, but also to survey and appraise their condition, and to report in such a way that the betterment of that condition is clearly in mind.

By declaring all cephalopods, and the cuttlefish in particular — creatures whose reality has nothing to gain from a perception of dominance — as "masters" and "champions," you have not provided for the neediest, but for the wealthiest. And what you have provided is a false perception of pride on the public image of an otherwise modest creature, a provision which, if history repeats itself, will result in cephalopod backlash. Most glaringly, you have provided strategies to help the offended predators of cuttlefish — the innumerable truly proud masters and champions you have insulted, dare I say deliberately — with information they may wield against the unsuspecting mollusk.

"Sometimes, they make their arms flat and crinkled and wave them like seaweed," you write, informing NYT's million-plus weekday readers of how to further identify the creature that is probably just trying to get through another lousy day.

Mr. Zimmer shamelessly provides photographs of the creature in several guises, including one scenario straight from a nightmare: a solemn cuttlefish gazes up at its captor with resigned eyes perched at the bottom of its heavy head, having been placed in a tub with checkerboard flooring.

Dr. Hanlon seems undisturbed by his own perversion: " 'We can give them any hideous background,' [Dr. Hanlon] said, 'and they will try to camouflage,' " Zimmer coolly writes.

I have reluctantly reproduced that photograph here, having decided that further, potentially damaging exposure of the hapless cuttlefish is outweighed by the social responsibility to expose Mr. Zimmer and Dr. Hanlon, and their corrupt agenda to "reveal secrets" of the near-defenseless cuttlefish's only defense.

Perhaps a dog named craig has it wrong. It is possible that Mr. Zimmer and Dr. Hanlon are not adult incarnations of the callous bullies who began picking on them during elementary school (and probably continued to do so up through high school graduation). But a dog named craig doubts that.

Case in point: The caption to the print graphic informing readers to view a video interview of Dr. Roger Hanlon online, also promises "clips of cephalopod trickery."

a dog named craig senses "trickery," but it's not cephalopod trickery. Carl Zimmer, you and your friend, Dr. Roger Hanlon, have been revealed.

*This being a dog named craig's first post, we are guilty of an entrepreneurial sense of enthusiasm, and attribute this post's exceptional length to it. We shall identify posts of this length as "Features," much like a newspaper would. That said, future posts may be significantly briefer, but not significantly longer (probably).

a dog named craig is no dog at all

2008-02-19T21:00:00.009-06:00

Until we get a dog and name it "Craig," we imagine a dog named craig won't be a dog at all. No one wants a dog named Craig. If you went to the Humane Society and they presented you with two cute, identical dogs, one named Craig and one named anything other than Craig, you would probably take the one not named Craig. So a dog named craig will not be a dog at all; it will be a blog, more specifically, it will be this blog.

But what is this blog? This blog is a place for dogs named Craig. And if you haven't already guessed it, to the best of our knowledge, no dog is named Craig.

So, in lieu of a dog named Craig, this blog will be a place for the news — a place for print news. Because print news is dying, or so we hear. And because we're compassionate, moral beings, we're going to make it feel as comfortable as possible until it expires completely.

We're going to do this through slightly backwards means, though — by writing about it on the internet. (We prefer to say "talking about," and more concisely and formally, "discussing.")

a dog named craig will read the newspaper regularly — every day, every couple of days, for several days in a row, followed by several days missed — and whenever we do, we will find one story and share a particular aspect of that story that brought to mind a dog named craig. We will discuss that story through a particular aspect of it, a process through which we will also, possibly, lead an ongoing discussion about the condition of print news writ large.

We will also record the location at which we purchased the particular publication on whichever day we happen to do so, as well as its price, which we will record as both a single unit, and add to a running total. As the saying goes, time is money, and if you're going to waste time, you may as well know exactly how much you wasted.

Eventually, we hope to waste enough money to have covered the hypothetical cost of a dog we could name Craig,* as well as enough time to have become impossibly fond of that hypothetical dog named Craig, so that when it finally does pass on through to the ethereal realm for which it abandons its physical form, we may weep our outmoded hearts out and pound our ink-stained fists into the ground with genuine, physically manifested pathos.

*We mean an actual dog named Craig, not the blog a dog named craig, which is worth nothing and cost us nothing. But you probably guessed as much, given the punctuation and your years and years of literacy, for which, by the way, you have print to thank, and probably print news, as well.