Jill Rees: Welcome Press

It has become apparent that dogs can understand the world just as well upside down:

Researchers at the University of Lincoln have  shown that pet dogs also exhibit "left gaze bias", but only when looking at human faces. No other animal has been known to display this behaviour before. says the New Scientist.

This is perhaps because we spend so much time lying down trying to work out if master is ready for walkies yet, or if we will be able to get our tummies rubbed. None the less, a talent is a talent, however it was acquired. 

Best of all, it is a thing that shows how intelligent dogs are. Only humans have ‘left gaze bias’, and dogs only look at the right side of the human face, not other doggie faces, and dogs adapt their view to their postion, ie upside down or not. Monkeys, who are normally thought to be the brainy ones, can’t do this.

Monkeys are nasty selfish characters anyway and not at all qualified to be man’s best friend and help meet.

Clearly this indicates that the best kind of animal to have in the Doghouse is the canine. The ability to understand the world upside down is obviously necessary in this crazy day and age, when, like the Sufis of yor, we can truly say that the world is upside down, inside out, and the wrong way round. 

So outa my way ‘Boxer’ McCain, Pit Bull Palin and co, it’s the Doghouse for us, and the doghouse for you!

VOTE GEORGE THE DOG ON ELECTION DAY.

Doggie fellows, don’t forget to pull your owners round to the poll booth.

See some more info here

 and here

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Recent rumours that I am not a pedigree are completely untrue. However I must add, and this is very important, that if, as has been claimed, I were indeed a mongrel, this would not and should not have any bearing on my message, nor should it affect anyone’s interpretation fo my character. As I continue to reiterate, all dogs are equal, no matter what their breed.

It may be that pedigrees such as myself have the benefit of better educational opportunities, more time spent on grooming and eternally tempting morsels in the food department. However, there are also disadvantages. You have to remember that my owners are always working and have less and less time for walkies and playing as the credit crunch deepens.

Sometimes I watch the mongrels in the park with their ill-dressed anoracked poverty-stricken unemployed owners, sniffing each others’ bottoms and shitting all over the Sunday League football pitch, something I would never be allowed to do, and I envy them, yes I do. Though their owners are poor, they spend all the money they have left over from cigarettes on their dogs, who have lots of new toys to catch and fetch all the time.

Also where my owners are of course themselves well-trained, and ensure I am not the dominant one in the pack by a variety or ploys intended to humiliate me and put me in my place, the mongrels in the park are often with divorced middle-aged women who regard them as the ‘man of the house’ and they are allowed to dominate their packs and do whatever they like. They even get to eat chocolate biscuits, which my owners have read are bad for dogs so I only ever get any at Christmas from Grandma, who says she ‘can’t resist my big brown eyes’. Just imagine how spoiled I would be if my owners couldn’t read or afford to buy books!

To focus on policy, my main point for today is that dog fighting is wrong in nearly all circumstances, and this is a case where owners should take a firm stand.

Packs of dogs have been permitted to frolic in the park for too long, and many are traipsing home injured, sometimes all too often beyond the vets’ ability to help them. This is unacceptable. No-one is winning, nor are they ever likely to win. It is impossible to say what would even be gained by winning, since all we want to do in the first place is mess around in the park, and this endless fighting is ruining the very environment we want to keep for ourselves.

I therefore propose a complete withdrawal from the park fight area. Dog wardens will be sent out there to assist with the withdrawal, and any dogs found still fighting will be treated as strays and taken to the pound. My rival ‘Boxer’ says it would signal cowardly defeat to stop fighting and says that dogs must be left to run free, but I say ‘no!’ this is not freedom. Freedom is the right to play in the park, and not to live in the fear of going for walks there.

Also you must remember that whereas we dogs enjoy a good scrap, our bitches (with the exception of Pitbull Palin) are frightened of violence, and get upset when we come home scarred and beaten. It is also a very poor model of behaviour for our puppies,

At this time, it is right to stop fighting right now, even if it means leaving the playing field with our tails between our legs. When I am elected to the Doghouse, I will see to it that the fighting is stopped immediately.

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Tags: American withdrawal from Iraq, Barack Obama, election debate, Georgepost, McCain, Palin, policy on Iraq.

Hallo fans. I am a dog. Usually I put my photo here but the server has either gone mad or been intercepted by the CIA, so you will have to see my other posts for the photo.

Anyway, our campaign for the Whitehouse Doghouse is going extremely well at the moment. As you know, we do not approve of our bitches interfering with dog business. It gets too rough (ruff) as we male dogs fight it out among ourselves. If the state trooper guy wanted to divorce his bitch, it isn’t up to other dogs or bitches in the litter to get involved.

More seriously, ‘Nutter’ Palin abused her position to get a fellow dog fired from his job of serving mankind. No, Palin, No! That is a step too far.

We dogs like to have rules, and we like being trained properly to do out duty to men and women, not forgetting children, my personal favourites. both for the sweets and the cuddles, and because they are sensitive to fellow creatures’ suffering. The grown-ups take us for better walks though. Palin, don’t interfere with our training. The state trooper guy was just doing his job.

The good news is, she got found out before the election; the bad news is American humans don’t care. They like her collar and her posh coat, and don’t mind if she is an untrustworthy unconstitutional crypto Canadian. Perhaps Alaska should be returned to the huskies, who are from that area and know how to act in snow.

The other good news is that the baddies are dying, with the fatal crash of the neo Nazi Joerg Heider in Austria. Though it is tragic that a human being has died, in this case however the human in question wanted to ‘get rid of’ other humans, and encouraged violence and nastiness of the Nazi variety against them, so it is better that he has gone. Usually it’s the good guys who have suspicious car accidents or get mysteriously shot, so maybe the tide has turned for humanity.

We dogs like to live in packs, and it is very important to be sociable, even to those with beige or black coats (yep I am referring to Labradors). We can’t have this chucking dogs out just because of their race, otherwise where would we be? Eternal bloody Crufts shows, that’s where! No,the more mixing the better. It is bad for dogs to be bred too specifically, as they end up with short legs and crushed lungs (yep, that’s you dachshund).

Even more good news for dogs is that the dog-nappers are no longer allowed to keep us in the kennels for 42 days. Thank goodness the humans are so tied up in their economic messes that they haven’t got time to fight over dognapping issues, for that is what is would be comrades. It is very important that dogs are free to roam the streets, otherwise where would the poets be? We are often used as allegory for human freedoms, and this must continue. Humans find it very difficult to see their own eyebrows, due to their high foreheads, and it is our duty as dogs to help them.

Look at the great philosopher and personal hero of mine, Diogenes. Quite rightly , he decided to live in a barrel, and lie in the sun all day. the great Alexander once visited him, and offered him whatever he wanted.
‘If I were not Alexander,’ the great warrior reputedly said, ‘I would be Diogenes’.
‘All I want from you,’ said the founder of cynicism, ‘Is to move aside a bit, you’re blocking my sun.’

Hey! Check this out! Barack and the Pitbull Palin!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7658981.stm

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Tags: American elections, Barack Obama, Georgepost, Palin, state trooper.

In the United States of America, in May 1961, black people began a campaign of ‘Freedom rides’. They boarded buses and trains in the northern states, and upon arriving at the segregated south, refused to give up their seats and move into non-white carriages and buses, which the racist divided southern states required them to do. When they refused, they were dragged from the carriages and beaten, at least one bus was burned. Black people had neither the vote, nor equal access to education, transport, public parks and seats, jobs, cafes and restaurants, nor any of the freedoms of which America boasted.

In August 1961 the US Department of Justice began talks with civil rights groups and foundations on beginning Voter Education Project. Barack Obama was born on the 4^th August in Hawaii to a Ann Dunham, a white American from Kansasr and a young overseas student Barack Obama, Sr., of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. In the southern states at this time, black men were hanged for even looking or whistling at a white woman. When young Barry, as he is called by his family, was 2 years old, his father moved back to Kenya. Obama went with his mother and her new husband to Indonesia, then sent back to Hawaii for his schooling.

In Hawaii, he was looked after by his grandmother, who he credits with ‘Making me the man I am’. He found it difficult to develop a sense of identity as a black American man, since for a long time he didn’t know any black people. At college, where he did well without really making much effort, he had quite a dalliance with drugs, seeming quite proud that he didn’t get on to heroin, although he was a regular user of marijuana and cocaine. When his best friend was arrested with heroin, he knuckled down and got a place in Harvard to study law, on the anti-discrimination package.

A friendly, polite young man, he did well at Harvard and went on to work as an assistant attorney in the poor areas of Chicago, before becoming a State Senator in 1996. By then he was married to Michele, with whom he has two young daughters. As a Senator, he received much acclaim for his consistent success on health and welfare reform bills, as well as death penalty reforms. In 2004, he ran for the national Senate, gaining over 70% of the votes, following his celebrtated keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July.

As a Senator, he continued to shine with immigration reform, de-commissioning of landmines, relief in the Congo, anti-corruption measures for politicians, pension funds, child health provision and other measures that now seem to have become central to his Presidential campaign. A pragmatist, Obama says ‘We should be guided by what works’. Despite his inspiring speeches, Obama has shown himself to be essentially a man of action.

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Tags: Barack Obama, biography.

So here it is: Barack Obama, possibly the first black President in the US. ‘Generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment,’ he said in his victory speech following the Montana primary on Wednesday, ‘When the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.’

He may not be able to stop the ocean, but certainly Barack Obama has grown in stature since he came to the nation’s attention back in January, during the Iowa caucus.

When he announced he intended to run for the nomination of the Democratic Party in February 2007, people thought it was a good thing that a black man would be in the democratic picture at the start, but perhaps only Obama himself and his wife Michelle really imagined he would be here now, the nominee elect.

Not until January 3^rd, when he came in first in the Iowa caucus, traditionally the launch pad of the campaign for nomination, did the world suddenly sat up and took notice.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this historic Iowa event was that when questioned, the majority of the democrat electorate for the nominations in Iowa said that the most important thing for the candidate was that he or she would be likely to unify the Democratic Party. The astute observer would have noticed that what was being said about Obama was extraordinary.

His supporters include Senator John Kerry, himself once a candidate for President, Claire McKaskill, respected senator of Missouri, celebrities like Matt Damon, Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, George Clooney, who thinks ‘He is the best candidate I’ve ever seen, he is a leader.’ Senator Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy bring in the old legion of hope from that famous and adored first family, respected senator Bill Bradley brings up the rear of this impressive list.

Still it took Hillary Clinton some time to realise she had a genuine rival. Perhaps Hillary’s coming third to John Edwards in Iowa should have heralded a warning that there were weaknesses in her campaign even then, but we didn’t see them. Even those few short months ago, the idea that the United States of America would really nominate a black man for President seemed unimaginable.

The secret and the strength of Barack Obama is perhaps that he doesn’t act as if he is the underdog at all, but as if he is the natural heir to the Presidency. During his 11 subsequent wins, Obama looked increasingly statesmanlike. His inspirational speeches drew gasps of admiration from seasoned politicians and, more importantly touched the hearts of the public. Even when his preacher Jeremiah White made incendiary remarks in a sermon about the anger felt by black people against racist America, Obama responded by his ‘More Perfect Union’ speech of February 8^th. In it, he gained the respect of all Americans by facing up to the fact that much of America had yet to find genuine equality, yet this hope for unity, and this kind of change in people’s hearts, was what his campaign was and is all about.

Dissenters such as Donald Kittl of the University of Pennysylvania doubted whether ‘some white working class Pennysylvanians’ would resonate to it, but most onlookers felt he had tackled the race issue as well as its contingent religious issue ‘in a Presidential manner’ and ‘finally treated Americans like adults’. By not shying away from the complexity of feeling in the US about race, he had showed himself to be straightforward and trustworthy, the very qualities Americans are feeling bereft of from their incumbent, George Bush.

Yet it proved to be the case that the white working class tended to prefer Hillary Clinton, and she played on this. Some say she played also on their natural racism fears, and some of her comments have seemed incendiary. It seems unnecessary and irrelevant to say Barack Obama is ‘no Martin Luther King’, and to point out that he is only able to stand because of that great man. This is true, but it is not a negative point.

The fact that a black person born 4 years before the 1965 Voting Rights Act that gave all people in America the right to vote, irrespective of colour, could run for President, is a proof for Americans of that which they hold most dear: the image of their country as the iconic democracy.

Voting for a black man may turn out to make Americans feel more patriotic than ever, and this is the biggest threat to the Republicans. While Democratic women and working men in some states prefer Clinton, Obama has not shown himself to be unelectable among white workers. Indeed in Iowa itself Obama gained over 40% of the white vote, shattering his own ceiling in this and 11 other states. The previous black candidate for the nomination, the firebrand Jesse Jackson, never breached the statistics for the black populations. Obama is increasingly winning the white vote.

Stuart Argabright, a white New Yorker, says that ‘There are white people who will never vote for him, but race is not quite as large a factor as it has been in the past, even the recent past. Officials such as Colin Powell and even Condi Rice have softened stereotypes to some degree.’

Even in Texas, where he narrowly lost to Clinton, Obama won the majority of the super-delegates, chosen seniors from the Democrat Party’s political ranks. Super delegates like Senator Barbara Boxer and Karen Hale, women delegates, switched from Clinton to Obama during the capaign.

With the confidence of such senior and experienced fellows, Obama must have increasingly felt that he might indeed be able to appeal to all voters, irrespective of race. The Latino vote, hitherto pro-Clinton, seems to largely follow the pattern of the working class vote. In these populations, the issues are pure Democrat issues: health, peace in Iraq, taxes, the economy and education. On all these issues, Obama is in as good a position as Hillary Clinton. The Latino vote, as well as the white working class, will in all likelihood come over to support Obama as strongly as they have supported Hillary.

Fears about discrimination are even more pronounced when it comes to the women’s vote. Hillary has laughed and even wept her way into women’s hearts and into the dreams of middle-aged feminists, who feel a kind of tribal loyalty to their great hope. Although many men feel that she ‘reminds them of their first wife’, she reminds women of themselves.

Barack seems to have cold-shouldered the middle-aged woman, in a kind of replay of personal tragedies across the country. Yet once this slight has faded, depending largely on how Hillary Clinton plays her next move and how enthusiastically she backs Obama, the woman’s vote is not lost.

Barack Obama is a modern guy, and has a caring, slightly geeky charm that women like. He is good-looking, in a non-threatening, dreamy college-boy way, and seems to be on friendly terms with his wife. He comes across as gentle, although he is clearly powerfully focussed, and his travels into the sands of Hawaii and the jungles of Africa make him kind of glamorous. Women may be angry now, but in time that cheeky Barack smile will surely win them over.

In this time of despair and disappointment over the current regime, however, the strongest card Obama has to play is his inspiring rhetoric, drumming his message of hope for change into the minds of the brainy and the hearts of the emotive. On Tuesday, when he acknowledged his victory in front of a rapturous crowd in the Xcel Centre in Minneapolis-St Paul, he claimed the ground of hope for the future for Americans. He promised care for the sick, jobs for the jobless, action to counteract global warming, an end to the unpopular Iraq war and the chance to ‘restore our image as the last best hope on earth’. In speeches like this throughout the United States, Obama has lifted the spirits of those who are ready for the ‘change we can believe in’ that he promises.

If a black man can become President, maybe the hopes and dreams of all Americans can be fulfilled also. Barack Obama, by the content of his character, has brought the campaign for the nomination for Presidential candidate to a magnificent crescendo.

Yet even in his hour of glory, his campaign to combat Senator McCain, the nominee for the Republicans, began. This speech contained some fundamental key points to his promises as President. He will begin serious and ‘tough, direct diplomacy’ with Iran’s loose-cannon President Ahmadinejad, whose name Barack cleverly managed to struggle to pronounce, thus proving he is not a bona fide Muslim. He will settle things in Palestine, he will ensure Iraq does not drag on; he will improve the economy and take well-defined steps to finally lessen America’s impact on CO2 emissions. He has promised to free the US from dependence on ‘oil dictators’. He intends to depend less on foreign food producers.

All this may impact on LEDCs more than our initial enthusiasm implies. If hope is high in America for an Obama presidency, it is positively exploding in the rest of the world. Allies, willing and unwilling alike, have a common resentment of the way their hands have been forced internationally in the Bush years, and they have been made to look like fools, to risk foreign policy and diplomacy with nations they used to get on with, such as Saudi Arabia, and to pour money and human resources into unpopular military conflicts which, be they morally right or wrong, would not have been entered into without the Bush impulse.

Islamic nations are a little more realistic, yet although they are tentatively complaining about Obama already, it is probably more of a tactic to initiate the diplomatic negotiations he has promised to enter into with them, rather than a genuine disapproval.

C. Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based analyst with the Institute for Defense Studies, believes that being a man of colour, Indians will be able to identify with him as the underdog. Having been responsible for four years of his education, Indonesia and the Asian countries feel he will be able to understand them.

Palestinians and others doubt nevertheless that he will undermine the strong pro-Israel lobbies in the US, and are cynical about real change, but among the poorer quarters in even these parts of the world, there is the feeling that Barack understands and wants to help them, not least because he began his public life helping out the poorest communities in Chicago.

Americans have the hope that he will engage Muslims in the world where George Bush antagonised them.

      ‘His experience with Muslims in his own life will be a source of better understanding.’ thinks Stuart Argabright , ‘although for some people , it is and will remain an issue. For some Muslims too it is an issue as one cannot simply ‘leave from being a Muslim, which is considered a disgrace, from what I understand !’

Perhaps among Muslims more than others, Obama’s flirting with Islam is a sign of his inconstancy. Sheng Dingli, director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in China, said that Obama’s criticism of China, for example, will likely fade if he is elected president.

         ‘He will change, just like George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. They were all harsh toward China during the campaign but softened after the election. Their job is to protect America’s interests, and they know trade with China benefits America.’

If Obama becomes President, and if he indeed manages to achieve some of what he promises, Nigeria will need to consider how to reposition itself in this new world, for new world it will be. It may be that, as so little of the revenue from oil actually manages to find itself in the national coffers, the reduction of ‘dependency on oil’ will not impact too severely on the country, but impact it must. Nigeria will need to concentrate on sources of energy other than carbon based, such as solar power.

It will need to think about exporting food to countries other than the US, including staples, which are globally in very short supply

     ‘Change,’ Obama said in his speech on Tuesday, ‘is building an economy which rewards not just wealth but the work and the workers who created it’.

Obama has no intention of becoming an international figure, but on concentrating on the economy at home. No doubt he will be diplomatic and more aware of the differences which can cause confusion, but make no mistake, he will not be a gift to the rest of the world.

Although we cannot help but be moved by his wonderful rhetoric, and by the hope that we will soon see the back of George Bush, it would be wise to watch events from this moment on with a degree of healthy scepticism.

Publ Leadership © Jill Rees 07 June 2008

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Tags: Barack Obama, election, Nigeria, nominee, President, US nominations.