My dog…is a hippy. To explain what she is now, I really need to explain what she used to be. Sadie started hunting the squirrels in our yard about a month or two after we got her. She would get down low to the ground, point, she would move an inch a minute and then–suddenly–she would burst after them at full speed. The squirrels got away almost every time. She caught a few. Occasionally, she would jump up to try to get a squirrel off the branch it was sitting on. The squirrels would tease her, seriously. Let’s just say Sadie could jump six feet high, the squirrels would sit seven feet up in the tree. We used to watch this unfold. She would circle the tree, sometimes for hours, and squirrels would just sit there out of reach. She did catch a few. She kept those Shiite squirrels on their toes.
Recently, I let her out when there were some squirrels in the yard. She didn’t run after them. She didn’t point. She didn’t even seem to notice them. She just walked out in the grass and plopped down, panting. She had a kind of goofy, happy smile on her face. It was then I realized she was just an old hippy. To be more specific, she reminded me of Jeff Bridges’ character in The Men Who Stare at Goats. She turned ten years old last January. Maybe, it’s an old age thing. Maybe, we become more peaceful in our old age. Maybe, we quit caring when we get old. Maybe, we care to much when we’re young. Perhaps, we care too much about things that don’t deserve it when we’re young. I’ll let you decide.
Sticking to old age. My mom was telling me a story from her old job. She worked with people who had mental problems. She observed that some of the really demented ones would live incredibly long lives. Our conclusion: that because these people are so out of touch with reality that they must not have the same kind of stress that causes to age us. So, if dememted people live a long time that explains why politicians live to be so old. Zing! Politician joke!
I was listening to a show from Freakanomics Radio about the media biased, which I firmly believe existed on both conservative and liberal sides. The host of Freakanomics, and many other liberals I’ve heard, discredit this. They say it’s just insane ramblings of a madman, ie Glenn Beck. Tim Groseclose, who I believe worked for The Economist, was charged with finding out if a media bias was real. His findings said, yes. Basically, he made a computer program. He would enter the transcripts of speeches from key figures from each political party: Obama, Palin, Clinton, Bachman, Romney, etc. The program would pick out the most used words from the speech, and then assign a PQ (political quotient). Then he would enter News articles into the program to establish their PQ. If they had the same common words as the Republican politician, then the PQ leaning to the right. If it had the same common words as the liberals, then the PQ was left leaning. From his research, the majority of media is left leaning. To be honest, I thought there was an even slant. It kind of surprised me.
Tim Groseclose also came up with a quiz to help you decide your political standing. It’s a forty question quiz that asks whether you support certain bills or are against them. I had guessed I would score around a 38, and I scored a 38.4. It feels pretty cool being right! It’s on a scale of zero to one hundred. Zero being the most hardcore conservative. One hundred being the most hardcore liberal. Fifty being a moderate, perfectly in the middle. If you’re curious about your PQ, you can take the quiz here.
I’ll leave you with two questions:
1. Do you think a media biased is a major problem?
2. Do you have a funny dog story?
Feel free to comment your answers below!
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