Sun - February 20, 2005

Nigel isn't my real name

Rent Boy plays fetch with White House:
De tales, de tales .... they keep on comin'

This story has legs, so let's see if you bite:


This is where I write my columns when I can find a lap or a laptop. Even with a professional journalism setup like this, the White House denied me press credentials!

Could Mr. Doodle's Dog pass up the story of Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, White House Press reporter for Talon News/online male escort?
Not on the life of Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute, we couldn't.
Gannon/Guckert's story was broken by the blogs: AmericaBlog had the story first.
MediaMatters has quite a bit on the Misters Gannon/Guckert as well.

Here"s the drill: Jeff Gannon had been receiving daily passes to the White House Press Corps for almost TWO YEARS, on the basis of his journalism credentials as a reporter for the conservative online Talon News Service.
Jeff asked Bush softball questions ... frequently was called upon by White House press secretary Scott McClellan, when the likes of Hearst Newspapers veteran reporter Helen Thomas was overlooked. When Bush gave a recent press conference on his proposed Social InSecurity "crisis", he called upon Gannon (who was sitting just a few rows in front of Bush .. no wallflower, he).
After a particularly softball question of Mr. Gannon's, which Bush attempted to hit out of the ballpark, some bloggers got curious.

In effect, Mr. Gannon had given himself away.

The bloggers uncovered that reporter Jeff Gannon, who was getting daily press passes in the White House Press Corps, was in effect, James Guckert, an online male escort with several active solitication sites.
Oops.

Each day brought new information on Gannon/Guckert.
His journalism credentials? He attended a short journalism seminar offered by a conservative group. Yep, for $50 and several hours of his time, James Guckert became, in effect, reporter Jeff Gannon.
Take that, Helen Thomas and Dan Rather!
Gannon rewrote conservative press releases and Republican talking points.
There's a big market for that these days.
There's also a big market for male escorts in the Washington, D.C. area ... no matter that the Republicans run the town these days.
Hmmm. How'd this Guckert become Gannon and slip past the security and scrutiny of the White House? They don't even let Democrats get near Bush if they can prevent it.
And Gannon had been refused a press pass by the Capitol Hill Press staff.
What a puzzler....
Maybe those daily White House press passes are easy to come by?
Maureen Dowd sez otherwise ...

You see it the way I see it?
Let's do a little Dickensenian narrative:
He was a male escort at times, he was a White House reporter at times.
Social life was a whirl in The Beltway, and James Guckert, aka hotmilitarystud.com, met some big Republican with Deep Pockets. They met. They partied. They saw mutual need.
Big Republican had Big Friends who wanted to nail The Fourth Estate. So James became Jeff (two hours, one bogus journalism seminar and $50 (thong change) later) and Jeff found himself sitting in the second row of the White House Press room.
He was lobbing softballs to Bush, getting state secrets and still finding time to strut online.

Wow! John Profumo and Christine Keeler never had it this good!

There are so many outrageous elements to this story. One hardly knows where to begin.
It's time Congress did some digging. Write and call your representatives and let them know that State Propaganda leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Tell them that fake journalists getting a daily "pass" to trample the rights of the real Free Press isn't something you're going to allow. Tell them aliases are out, and if they don't listen, they will be, too.
Just do it before all of this begins to make sense.
Gotta run. I'm waiting for my White House Press pass.

--Nigel, aka "Nicky"

Posted at 04:18 PM      

Sat - September 4, 2004

TRUE LIES

The field of battle is sometimes muddy, but this boggles the mind.
Dogs of war who have never ... been in battle?

It's been a while.
I've gotten comfortable, resting on my dog bed and looking out my window. Gimlet has been running around for weeks, advising me that all manner of rats are loose out there.
Let her take care of them, I thought.
But this past week, I realized the situation had gotten out of paw.


If you're a frequent reader of Mr. Doodle's Dog, you'll recall that Gimlet has been hunting and killing rats during the past several weeks. She's very good at it. Very brave and tenacious, as a terrier should be. But Gimlet is also very bright, with a passion for the arts. I think that is a fine combination of attributes, and that we need more dogs like Gimlet to take charge of things.
But now a neighborhood dog, a dog who is none too bright but whose family is quite well off, is claiming that Gimlet cannot hunt and hasn't killed a rat.
What a muttjob this dog is.
For the record, and translate that to mean "what actually happened" and not some revisionist spin (translate that to "lie"), Gimlet alerted our pack to the rat situation. And it's been Gimlet who has helped hunt down and then kill several of them.
But this neighbor dog and several of his friends have been traveling around questioning not only Gimlet's hunting record, but her canine worth.
Get this: NOT ONE OF THESE DOGS HAS EVER KILLED A RAT! They had "other priorities" when the rodents came to town. One of them was asked to help hunt down rats no less than FIVE TIMES. He always had something else to do. The dim one signed up for rat patrol and then vanished, supposedly working for a friend of his dad's. No one knows what he did when the rats were running around here.
Perhaps they feel a certain kinship to the rats ...
This kind of lying pack mentality rankles me. These dogs are liars and cowards and they have the nerve to question Gimlet's valor, despite having no hunting records of their own to lay claim to.
One of the dogs is dimmer than a coal cellar window, but his pals are cunning and scheming and vociferous in their attacks upon Gimlet.
What to do?
No question: call a lie for what it is. Stand up and refuse to take it anymore. Don't allow other dogs to insult your intelligence by telling you their lies. And let me tell you, lies are the only thing bold about these types. They're physical cowards, and that is the one thing they're bold about.
Oh, wait a minute .. that brings this to mind.
Gimlet has never claimed a rat that has been caught in a trap as one of her kills.
It's just not done by a dog with morals.
Those without? Well, they'll get away with whatever they can, as long as we let them.
Just don't you let them.
--Nigel

Posted at 10:12 AM      

Mon - January 19, 2004

CAN'T DO CANT

Wherever you go, there you are

Dogs and cats living and writing together. Just as Monty Python foretold in The Meaning of Life.
All dogs welcome, by the way. Cats, too. Humans, come right in. Mr. Coyote, have a seat.
A dead celebrity? We'll make room.
You're a member of the Animal Commentator Community? Write something, please. Leave a comment or send us an e-mail.
What? You say you're a ceramic dog? A character in a book? Makes no difference.
Welcome to Mr. Doodle's Dog.
No sloganeering. No buzzwords. No goals or mission statements. No sensitivity programs to fulfill a corporate quota.
Just being ourselves. Trying to make improvements, too.


Photo by Joe the Cat
Nigel and the Mr. Doodle's mat of many colors.

Let's state the obvious. Take a gander at this mat: different designs and colors. One cool mat.
Don't be a doormat, but be yourself and watch as others do the same.

Posted at 08:31 AM      

Sun - October 5, 2003

Choice freedoms

Mr. Terrierific dons his thinking cap

My apologies to Mark Mothersbaugh and DEVO .
Yes, that is a plastic bowl on my head. But that doesn't diminish my message. You could make that assumption if I were wearing a ceramic bowl. Plastic is sensible and lighter. My thoughts are coming through just fine. Were you jumping to the conclusion that wearing a plastic bowl on my head makes me silly?

Let's talk about perceptions.
Lots of chatter this week regarding blogs and dogs.

The Daily Dave, aka Dave Simanoff, clever chronicler and one of my blogging mentors, has shut his original blog down. Like Madonna, he'll return, but probably in a slightly different guise.
Dave is a newspaper reporter of the business persuasion. He also does television reporting. He's an intelligent and clever fellow who has a lot to say.
More importantly, he regards dogs and cats as sentinent beings.
That is no small attribute for a human.

Last week Dave was advised by his employers that portions of his blog's content contained items to which they objected. That's the short tail on that particular dog.

Dave announced this to his blogging public and then disassembled his site.

I hope he packed it in acid-free paper, tied it with quality ribbons and then placed it lovingly in a secure box.
Because, you know, Dave had a great blog ... superb sense of irony and nonsense, intellect and a dollop of just ... Dave.

In the midst of this uproar, and it was uproar to those who are Daily Dave regulars (you might as well have taken our daily biskits away, or our morning's cup of coffee ... Davers are addicted to fun)... in the midst of this, someone opined (and it was repeated to us) that Mr. Doodle's Dog is just written by dogs.

"Just ... written ... by ... dogs ......."

I had hoped we'd progressed a little farther than this in our journey down the evolutionary trail.
Yes, Gimlet and I are dogs.
We are wire fox terriers. WFTS!
Joe the Cat is a domestic black short hair of the feline type.
We are also bloggers.
We have a computer (Apple), an Internet connection, time and things to say.

The theory seems to be that if we are just dogs, then nothing in our blog could be objectionable because ... we have nothing to say? we're silly? we wear plastic bowls on our heads? What?

If you don't find anything objectionable on Mr. Doodle's Dog, then you're not just reading it that closely.
You might as well be wearing a too-large plastic bowl on your head that covers your eyes.

I could see that Dave's blog was a credit to his employers. His deft selection of news and personal commentary was as sparkly as a champagne bubble (not that i indulge ... talk to Gimlet about that). He never wore a plastic bowl on his head, but he came close.

Daily Dave I is gone, the DD II is in the works. It will be clever because his public expects it.
We'll read (even us dogs and cats) and we'lll laugh and we'll see the irony.
We'll know what's going on.
We'll read PHB between the lines.
We'll know exactly what's going on because we've had our perceptions raised.
They're still with us.
Hey, but don't listen to me.
I'm just a dog.
A blog dog.

Posted at 07:17 PM      

Sun - August 31, 2003

Barney's Fall From Grace

President George W. Bush drops Barney the Scottish Terrier on an airport tarmac.

Some were amused when Mr. Doodle's Dog channeled Franklin Roosevelt's Scottish Terrier Fala (go here for the interview).
Maybe they chuckled when I asked Fala what advice he would give to President George W. Bush's Scottish Terrier Barney:

Nigel: What advice would you give to Barney, to help make his White House tenure as wonderful as yours?
Fala: Just this: Barney, the next time you see an open door, make a run for it. Don't look back!


AP PHOTO
The Bushes and Barney before the fall.

The Associated Press reports that Bush managed to drop Barney on a Texas runway yesterday.
Our Fala interview was not a joke.
But Bush is.

How difficult is it to hold a small terrier while walking?
Bush wasn't being required to walk a straight line. All he had to do was take possession of 15 pounds of dog and put one foot in front of the other.
Is that so very hard?
You don't have to be a prescient dog from The Afterlife to figure this one out.
Bush dropped Barney as the hapless Bushes were preparing to board Air Force One for a trip to Washington, D.C.
They were at the end of a nearly monthlong Texas vacation. (Note: and how does Bush's vacation compare to that of the average American laborer? Go here and find out.)


Barney, dropped onto a broiling Texas tarmac by Bush.

Bush must have been very tired to have dropped Barney. His long vacation was not enough for him.
He needs more rest.
Let's give it to him. If he can hang on until November 5, 2004, we can get his replacement. He can then coast until January 20.
Then he can take a nice, long holiday and brush up on his walking skills.


Making it up to Barney, or just holding onto him for support?

As for Barney, he needs guidance. If someone dropped me on a hard runway I'd bite their head off.
I think Barney needs his own Secret Service detail.

Posted at 12:01 PM      

Sat - August 9, 2003

Leave Your Mark

Want to add something to the mix?

Nigel here. We're bowing to the inevitable .... you can now leave comments after entries.
At first, we resisted. It's something we terriers do. And then we began to have fun reading and leaving comments on other sites. So we thought we'd open up Mr. Doodle's Dog to your stray thoughts.
Let's call it pack mentality.

Posted at 08:54 PM      

Mon - June 23, 2003

Panther? Did he say ... Panther?

Nigel takes a look at Apple's latest OS X version: 10.3, CODE NAME Panther.

Mr. Doodle's Dog is produced on an Apple mac.

Make that an outdated Apple mac 867 mhz Quicksilver G4, circa Fall 2001, running OS X 10.2.6.

The G4 may be old news with today's introduction of the (can you guess?) G5, but I am working on one spectacular machine! I love my mac. I do, I do.

I expect planned and expensive obsolescence with a computer. It's the nature of man, not of computers, to expect things to go faster. Computers would be overjoyed to remain static on our desk- or lap tops, in prime working condition and always at the top of their game. It's people who expect newer and better. They expect it of everything but themselves.

What worries me is Apple's Steve Jobs.

Why does this computer icon persist in naming his OS X versions after cats? What does a cat have to do with computers?
Look at OS X 10.2 ... Jaquar. Wildly innovative, claims Apple.
Cats = innovative?
Or look at today's release of OS X10.3 ... Panther. Panther, as in I will decide to pounce on you and surprise you with the eating of your intestines. Surprise is not something I look for in a computer.

At least, not an Apple computer.

Why name cool operating systems after bad relations in the cat family?

What about naming the Mac OS after dogs? Mac OSX Terrier, for instance? Terrier, as in fidelity, tenacious, hard-working, going-to-ground, intelligent ... Terrier!
How about a Mac OS X Wire?!! It screams speed and grace, it howls fidelity!

You'd expect this OS -naming nonsense from Bill Gates. He and his computers have no sense. I can just picture the Microsoft Hyena, or Sloth ... maybe even Microsoft Marsupial or Budgerigar. Yes, those would be computer operating systems synonymous with the performance and reliability of a PC.

Heel, Steve Jobs. Rethink your operating systems strategy. I'll even settle for OS Yorkie.

Posted at 03:35 PM