Once again, the USA is turning its interest to the Middle East. This seems to happen whenever there is an upheaval in the middle east. Karl Meyer has written quite a bit on the Middle East This is a very short excerpt from one of his articles.

Karl E. Meyer is a third generation journalist. He received a Master of Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Priceton University, and then a PhD in Politics also from Princeton. 

The following is an excerpt from a series he wrote for The World Policy Journal in 2005/2006. In this excerpt, he cites an article that I wrote in the late '70s based on my 1970 dissertation on the French in Syria.

Meyer writes: "Few countries are . . . so compulsively fascinating as Syria. . . . To spend a fortnight in Syria is to span the millennia from the early Bronze Age, sharing routes once traveled by Abraham, continuing through the glory years of the Silk Road, followed by the din of the Crusades, before lurching incongruously into Latakia, the pampered equivalent of Iraq's Tikrit for Syria's ruling Baath Party. The landscape is everywhere strewn with surprises. On a day trip from Aleppo, which together with Damascus lays claim to being the world's oldest continuously inhabited city, we proceeded to the Byzantine basilica honoring St. Simeon Stylites, who dwelled for decades atop a pillar. We then navigated among hundreds of enigmatic Dead Cities, each a barren shell abandoned by early Christians, the result conjecturally of climate change, deforestation, or earthquakes. On returning to Aleppo, we paused in the musty taproom of the Baron Hotel, still much as it was when T. E. Lawrence left an unpaid chit for champagne, or when his royal ally Prince Feisal spoke from the hotel balcony in 1920 to proclaim Syria's independence (prematurely, to be sure, since Feisal was peremptorily deposed by the French, compelling his British patrons to create a new throne in Iraq). . . .

"Nevertheless, in a self-delusory trance," Meyer continues, "the French saw their occupation of the Levant as a success, as measured by improved rail networks, modernized ports, newly built schools and factories, and other indices of presumed progress. Hence the shock in 1925 when a revolt raged through Syria and Lebanon, precipitating the bombardment of the ancient city of Damascus. "When the smoke lifted," writes the Harvard historian Joyce Laverty Miller, in a detailed analysis, "much of Damascus was in ruins; the reported loss of life and property appalled world opinion and galvanized Arab dissidents. A torrent of violent and emotional criticism was unleashed. In some quarters, it was even hinted that the League of Nations would remove [its] mandate from French control." Yet within a year, the insurgency ebbed, and the world's attention moved on.

"According to Miller, writing in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (vol. 8, 1977, pp. 545-63), the roots of the revolt lay in the imposition of an artificial nation-state on Syria's divided groups with their long tradition of self-governance in local affairs under the Ottomans. In her words: "The early French administrators in Syria, in their efforts to develop and modernize a Syrian nation were of necessity inflaming groups which had always mistrusted one another within the Ottoman Empire and had coexisted only because 'the nation,' the empire, was weak. In short, the revolution of 1925 was not the nationalist revolt of a united people against a French oppressor but a power struggle among and within divisive groups in an artificial state who could agree on only one thing: the French must go."
. . . 
"Doubtless much has changed in Syria and Iraq since the 1920s. But one is struck by the persistent tunnel vision among those who presume to know what is best for foreigners whose language they cannot speak and whose customs they cannot comprehend."

I couldn't agree more!

AKC Canine Ambassadors:what they do

As an AKC Canine Ambassador, my Airedales, Neisha and Kate, help me teach children to be safe around dogs. We visit schools, camps, Girl Scout troops, and libraries to teach children about being safe around dogs.

In most parts of the country, there are serious problems with loose dogs, and most of the children that I talk to are afraid of dogs. Some have been chased by these dogs and knocked down. I talk to them about how to be safe around dogs, about never approaching a loose dog, about telling an adult about a loose dog so the adult can call for help for the dog, and what to look for before approaching a dog. Using advice from another Canine Ambassador, I tell the children to be sure they can see a collar attached to a leash held by a person, or more briefly Collar - Leash - Person and I get the children to chant those three words so that they will remember to look for the collar, the leash and the person.

I tell the children that when they see a loose dog coming towards them, they need to stand still and “be a tree.” And I tell them not to stare at the dog, but to look to the side or down at the ground. I tell them about a time when I was a child and two St. Bernards loved to chase me when I rode by on my bicycle. I tell them how I learned to stop, be very still and firmly tell the dogs to "go home!". I tell them how that worked for me and helped me get over my fear of dogs that were not mine.

I demonstrate how to ask permission to pet a dog (as long as it has a collar, leash and person) first with a toy stuffed Airedale and then with my dog. I show them how, after asking permission to pet a dog, to determine if the dog seems happy to be petted by the child. I teach them to make a fist, and let the dog sniff their closed fist, and I teach them how to pet the dog under its chin or on its chest.

Then I let them approach my dog one by one. They are always so cute, and at one visit, a child who had been knocked down by a loose dog was one of the first children to approach us. The dog stands quietly, and lets each child approach her, sniffs their fists, and lets them pet her. When a child forgets to pet under her chin and reaches over to pet her head, the dog's nose does just what I had demonstrated with the stuffed Airedale: she follows their hand with her nose making it impossible for them to pet her head because she is so busy sniffing their hand!

When every child has had an opportunity to pet the dog, we relax with her, usually by sitting on the floor around her with one child at a time stroking her, rubbing her belly, giving her a treat, or just talking to her. The dogs love this part of the visit, and often initiate it by lying down so the children can rub their belly. The children love giving Neisha treats because she has a very soft mouth and they never feel her teeth. My job is to make sure they don’t overdo the treats.

All too soon, our visits are over. I give each child two AKC coloring books, one about safety around dogs and the other about responsible dog ownership, and a bookmark with reminders about caring for a dog. Then we pack up and head home..

All together, each session is a great outing and a great experience. The dog that I take to the session seems to enjoy doing this as much as I do.

Train Your Dog Like Competitors Do

The Week of the Airedale (WOTA) 2003 captured the imagination of Airedale lovers worldwide. We thrilled at Airedales tracking, trailing, flushing and retrieving. We enjoyed the dogs in the companion day events. We applauded the rescue Airedales at they paraded by us. We marveled at how uniquely Airedales do obedience and agility. We applauded the Airedale drill team. And we admired the dogs in the conformation ring.

Whether we attended or followed the events in daily reports and pictures on e-lists and websites, many of us promised ourselves we’d be at WOTA 2007. And many of us said we wanted to be there with an Airedales ready to compete.

It takes time to get ready. It takes time to train and build a rapport with our dogs whether we compete or not.

After the last WOTA, in an interview with me, Mary Barker, winner of the most versatile handler award and the owner of the dogs that won most versatile and runner up most versatile Airedales, outlined eight tips for owners who want to compete in WOTA 2007. These tips are good for training any dog at any time in his or her life.

1. Use soft words. Be patient. Always keep your voice pleasant. Never raise your voice. And use corrections that give your dog specific information on how to do a specific exercise. For example, Mary sometimes used a wooden spoon coated with peanut butter to show one of her Airedales exactly how to do something.
2. Keep it simple and visualize what you want your Airedale to do. “Form a mental picture in your mind of what you want your dog to do,” Mary said. “With that picture, you can give corrections in such a way that you help your dog understand what to do.” Not only does Mary visualize her dogs doing an exercise perfectly, she pictures them doing it with a happy attitude and with their tails and ears up.
3. Make training fun. Since Mary competes in obedience, agility and tracking, she keeps training fun by mixing exercises from different sports in each training session. This helps her dogs pay close attention to her and have fun in every session. So mix things up and don’t overdo one thing in any one session.
4. Don’t rush into competition. Like a good teacher, Mary takes her time and makes sure that her students (her Airedales), are ready to do what she wants before she puts them to the test.
5. Plan in advance. Mary attributes her success with her Airedales to her professional experiences as a teacher and an engineer. She focuses on the details and breaks each task down into many small details. When she is training a dog, she works on different parts of an exercise every week. When she and the dogs have learned all the details of a specific exercise, she pulls the whole exercise together. To train for WOTA 2003, she planned every detail, from which events she would show in, how she and her dogs would prepare, what distractions she needed to prepare her dogs for, and more. She broke every exercise into goals and then identified the individual things that she needed to do with each dog and did them.
6. Work every day. No matter how short or long, work your dog in some aspect of their training every single day. Mary and her dogs worked six nights a week for six months to prepare for WOTA 2003. Every night, they did routines and Mary focused on one specific thing in each exercise: heeling, head up, sits, downs, weave poles, etc. until she was satisfied that she and the dog had that part of the exercise down pat.
7. Be ready for anything. Mary says, “It’s the trainer’s responsibility to expose their dog to all the things that they may encounter in the competition.” Because WOTA 2003 was an outdoor event and Mary and her dogs were accustomed to competing indoors, she moved all her training outdoors as soon as the snow was off the ground in Wisconsin. “That only gave me a month,” she said, “but it was enough.” Then when she arrived at Purina farms, she noticed that the grass was longer than AKC regulations permit and the longer grass really bothered one of her dogs. So she took the time to practice with that dog in the longer grass until he ignored it.
8. Find lots of ways to measure your progress. Use fun matches to determine where you and your dog need more work. Ask friends to run you through routines so you can check on how you are doing. Work with your dogs until what you do matches your ideal picture of each routine.

Mary Barker’s approach paid off in 2003. These eight tips about how she prepares renewed my love of training my dogs.

So get started now. Take whatever lessons you need, practice at least one detail every day, participate in matches, and have fun with your dog(s).

*****

How Serious Is Canine Flu?

This article was written in 2005 before there was a canine flu vaccine. Although today there is a vaccine, the same group of dogs that they say need the vaccine today were the dogs that caught the flu back then. It has, however, spread to most parts of the country. The links at the end of the article were updated January 2012.

Canine Influenza, or canine flu, first came to public attention in early 2004. Since then, news broadcasts in different parts of the country have periodically sounded the alarm that this is a deadly threat to pet dogs. What are the facts behind these news stories?

What is canine flu? Canine influenza is a highly contagious respiratory infection of dogs that is caused by a virus that is closely related to the virus that causes equine influenza. This canine virus was first identified in Florida among racing greyhounds in January 2004. From June to August of 2004, outbreaks of canine respiratory disease were reported at 14 racing tracks in six states. Over the next year, outbreaks occurred at 20 tracks in 11 states. Infection has also been confirmed in pet dogs in 16 states from California to Massachusetts and from Oregon to Florida.. Cases of canine flu have occurred in animal shelters, pet stores, boarding kennels, and veterinary clinics.

How are dogs with canine flu treated? Veterinarians use supportive animal care and nutritional practices that assist the dogs in mounting an effective immune response. Depending on the severity of the symptoms, a broad-spectrum bactericidal antimicrobial may be used.

Do I need to be concerned about where I take my dog and what activities we participate in? Dog owners need to be aware that any situation that brings dogs together do increase the risk of spreading communicable infections in general. Canine influenza is easily killed by disinfectants commonly used by vet clinics, boarding facilities, and animal shelters, so as long as good infection control practices are used, owners involved in shows, sports, other dog activities, and owners using boarding and grooming facilities or dog parks and dog care services should not be overly concerned.

What should I do if my dog has a cough or a nasal discharge?

(1) Schedule an appointment with your veterinarian for an exam and evaluation and to recommend an appropriate course of treatment.

(2) Do not allow a dog with symptoms such as coughing or other signs of respiratory disease to participate in activities with other dogs. Canine flu, like kennel cough, is highly contagious, and there is no vaccine available yet against canine flu. [Note 2012: there now is a vaccine available against canine flu].

What are the symptoms of canine flu? There are two forms of the disease: a mild form and a more severe form that is accompanied by pneumonia.

(1) Dogs suffering from the mild form of canine influenza develop a soft, moist cough that persists for 10 to 30 days. Sometimes they have a dry cough that mimics kennel cough. These dogs may also have a thick nasal discharge caused by a secondary bacterial infection.

(2) Dogs that contract the severe form of the disease develop high fevers (104 degreees to 106 degrees) and have clinical symptoms of pneumonia, such as increased respiratory rates. Pneumonia may be due to a secondary bacterial infection

How contagious is canine influenza? Because this is a newly emerging disease and there is no vaccine as yet, almost all dogs, regardless of breed or age, have no immunity and are susceptible to infection. Almost all dogs exposed to canine influenza develop the disease, nearly 80 percent show clinical signs of disease, most affected dogs have the mild form, and the fatality rate is much lower than the news indicates.

Is canine flu fatal? There have been a lot of news reports indicating that canine influenza is a fatal disease, and there was a high fatality incidence in the first major outbreak of the disease in January 2004. However, Dr. Cynda Crawford, a veterinary immunologist at the University of Florida, and experts at the Centers for Disease Control, report that this disease “is not as deadly as people want to make it.” The fatality rate is between one and five percent of serious cases.

Where can I get more information and updates on canine flu (updated January 2012)?

• CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/canine/
  
• AVMA: http://www.avma.org/public_health/influenza/canine_bgnd.asp
  
• VETMED: Canine Influenza Fact Sheet for Veterinarians, 2010, http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/depts_waddl/dx/K9Influenza.aspx
• American Veterinary Medical Association: (http://www.avma.org/public_health/influenza/default.asp)

Our Dad: A True Scanner

I have recently discovered that I am what is called a Scanner, someone who goes from project to project, always coming up with new ideas, doing great creative work, pushing the boundaries, and always on the look out for new things to get involved in and to learn. That doesn't surprise me, especially since I was the daughter of two people who today would probably be called scanners.

My father is the obvious one. My sister and I had both zeroed in on him. My mother is not so obvious, but it is very obvious to me that she too was a scanner, creatively going from project to project, always eager to learn new things. I am quite sure that this commonality brought them together.

My mother was a very creative, very talented woman, who did not have the opportunity to finish school the way she would have wanted. She kept a good neat home, and she was incredibly creative. And the creativity led to many projects of many different kinds, from sewing to teaching her daughters many different things to interior decorating (our homes) to coming up with incredible ideas for school papers we had to do to breeding and showing Boxer dogs.

But let's look at my Dad in this article because he was a very obvious scanner.

My Dad was born April 18, 1917. He had a pretty normal childhood albeit he was a latch key kid since my grandmother worked for AT&T to earn money for the family to live on while my grandfather went to college to become a teacher.

Neither of my paternal grandparents, or my maternal grandparents, were scanners. Indeed, our grandparent families were so normal that I will never forget the day my Dad, having gone back to college while I was a teenager, and having gone to Boston University Theological School while I was in high school, was installed as a Methodist minister. Beautiful ceremony, and since he already had a church, there were many of his parishioners there to support him.

I was sitting in the second row between my paternal grandmother and her mother, my great grandmother, Bertha Jones Buzzell. The service was beautiful and as they put a stole on my Dad signifying that he was a minister, my great grandmother turned to my grandmother and said, in a not too low voice, "Clevis never did amount to much, did he?"

I had to put my head down as I couldn't stop giggling. I remember nothing else about that ceremony outside of all the people that were there than my great grandmother's comment. I still giggle when I think of her in that situation.

Gram Buzzell was a neat person, a Quaker, who had built a meeting house/school house on her farm so the family could have meetings on Sunday and a school room for the children on week days, and she will be another story for me to tell.

But going back to my father: I count the number of things that we know that he got into as jobs and some as hobbies:

Dropped out of college, either because he wanted to or because his parents could not afford the tuition during the depression -- I always heard the latter but I suspect both things are correct

1. Dishwasher in a restaurant our mother was a waitress in: that is where they met each other -- and how did they meet? Actually, she picked a dirty glass up from a table that was set for the opening of business and she rushed into the kitchen with it, accosting our father. I was told once by our mother that suddenly she, a five foot three woman, was balling out a six foot three dishwasher who looked down on her anger and just started laughing!

2. US Army patrolling the Panama Canal Zone on horseback -- and there is nothing about this mounted corp that protected the canal zone anywhere on the Internet. But somewhere there are pictures of my father in uniform on a horse in the canal zone.

3. Back in New England, he married our mother in Vermont and went to Mass Radio School

4. Pan American Airways radio officer -- Coral Gables Florida

5. Eventually grounded from Pan Am and given a desk job because of ulcers -- didn't like desk jobs so moved on

6. US Merchant Marines on the run from Boston to Mermansk and back during 2nd world war

7. Merchant Marines came after Pan Am? I guess I never thought of the sequencing here, but it did.

8. Railroad man -- moved to Greenfield MA for this work, but I cannot remember exactly what he did on the railroad but I do remember we had to go pick him up when he came into the station on the Christmas Eve night that my sister was born -- I was four years old

9. Worked behind the counter where car parts were sold at an auto dealer in Greenfield Mass

10. Drove a wholesale bread truck to businesses in Vermont and back every morning (we still lived in Greenfield, and there was one memorable morning when my father, who had gotten sprayed by a skunk came home stinking and cleansed it away with ketchup? That's what I remember.

11. Drove a retail bread truck to customers in Greenfield Mass

12. Insurance sales man for Metropolitan Life Insurance

13. Thanks to the influence of a phenomenal English Methodist minister, Rev. Hopkinson, in Greenfield, he decided to enter the ministry when Hoppy died. He was given provisional status in Maine with a church at Cape Porpoise when I was going into my sophomore year of school.

14. He went to the University of New Hampshire for four years, driving back and forth from Cape Porpoise every day all winter, to get his BA degree; majored in English; during the summers of those college years, went to Boston University Theological School for a ministerial degree.

15. Served three churches in succession starting with Cape Porpoise, then South Portland, then Scarborough . . . all in Maine.

16. Our paternal grandparents retired and moved to Scarborough because they liked the community – near Portland and closer to their summer home, and of course, near our parents..

17. Dad left the ministry in 1963 when a Scout that he was guiding drowned at a lake near Scarboro.

18. Totally disillusioned, he turned away from God for letting that happen, and became an English Teacher

19. Taught first at Peelskill Military Academy in Peekskill NY

20. When PMA closed down 1968, he got a job teaching high school English in Norway Maine, a school that serviced eight communities in western Maine Norway and Paris Maine. First they rented a house in South Paris; then they bought a house in Norway.

21. He never got to retire: he was retired when he had a severe heart attack followed by a stroke just before he was supposed to be released from the hospital and that stroke left him unable to talk.

22. Along the way, he taught swimming in Greenfield, Northfield, etc. to children and teens

23. He was a Mason and a member of the Scottish Rite

24, He was an excellent photographer, developer, and printer -- in one home, he had a dark room in the basement; in other homes, he made do with a bathroom which meant that he did not have the time he had with the dark room to do his work.

26. He was a writer, whose stories are fun to read, but he refused to try to publish any of his stories because he believed they were not good enough to be published. I have "published" many of his stories on a blog in his memory – see http://dearjubilee-inmyfatherswords.blogspot.com/2011/06/snapshot-in-time.html

Our Dad was bright, smart, friendly, always had a lot of friends and was always well liked by his colleagues and his students. He had a quick mind, a stern demeanor, and he swam like a fish.

Knowing Our Calling

Earlier this year I left a program after four years of preparatory courses because I realized that the goal that I had been pursuing was not my calling. There are different ways to help others, and I realized as I approached 70 chronologically but feeling more like 38 physically and mentally that I needed to explore what aging means to me: it seems so sad that we go from the child who is asked "How old are you?" and who replies: "I'm eight but I will be nine in October" to the college student proud of being 21 and entering graduate school to the teacher who loves being 30, to the woman who knows 45 is the best yet, to the older woman looking forward to retirement, to the person who tries to hide her age with hair dye, make up, and sees the rest of her life as all down hill.

What? How can that be? Where has the enthusiasm for learning and becoming more and more of who we are gone? Yes, death is the end of this life, but until death comes, we need to live with the enthusiasm of that child looking forward and that young woman who dreamed huge dreams. We need to fly on our own course and celebrate our age because our age is not only a number, it is a marker of the new things we are doing.

I hadn't knitted for years, but seeing some beautiful yarn in a discount store two years ago, I felt called to knit. I bought it, and the much younger friend with me asked, what would I do with the yarn. I knitted a scarf and a hat for my daughter, then bought more yarn and knitted scarves for my husband's daughters, then ribbed hats for all 11 grandchildren, and then, not wanting to knit sweaters and stuff, I looked around and thought: knit for those who can use knitted things.

So to make this project large enough to make a difference, I took my knitting to church one Sunday, and sat in the parish hall and had a Tom Sawyer moment. People came over with their coffee, sat down, "what are you doing?", "I'm knitting scarves for people in a shelter," and then "can I help" they asked, and today, many of those people are in a group called Stitches. We knit; we crochet; we tie flannel into blankets for children; and we sew beautiful fabrics into fun lap quilts for children who use wheel chairs.

I look at all we have done and I realize that I spend as much time and effort and research on this project as I did when I was doing my dissertation or teaching at Boston University or returning to the job market as a marketing communications researcher, writer, and project manager.

You see, this isn't about working at a specific thing; it is all about doing what we are called to do, and I now realize that I have never done anything without having been called to do it. That doesn't end with retirement; that work isn’t reduced by aging. This is the soul looking out from within us for things to do to make the world a better place, a more humane place, a more fun place, a more loving place, . . . a more spiritual place.

Aging does have an impact on what I do: I have much more understanding of myself and what I can do, as well as more compassion for others. I am reminded of all that I have previously been called to do, and I realize that I will continue answering those calls for the rest of my life. (see June 18, 2011: Picture the Behavior and Make It Happen)

It was true then, and it is true now. Now more than ever in many different ways, ways of using my talents keep opening, much like the words of a song: "whatever spirit wants of me, I will be, I will be, I will be."

It took me many years to realize what the words of that song mean: we all have a calling that we can summarize in a few words like my learning new things and telling others. Knowing that calling, it is easier to recognize what is ours to do and doors keep opening, taking me into many ways of growing as me.

Stitches and Prayer Beads and Training Dogs

To me, each stitch, when I am knitting or sewing, is a prayer bead – and as with a prayer bead, I am going within as in meditation. This is a peaceful experience that takes me to my core. And from knitting, this extrapolates to other things, like working with the dogs: being at one with the dog I am working with, mind to mind, soul to soul. (see June 18, 2011 Picture the Behavior).

That article was not about being more present in myself, but the illustrations and the idea of clearing our minds in order to successfully work with our dogs is definitely about going within. to teach the dogs, we must clear our minds of all the daily stuff and to be open to "hearing" the dog and "being heard" by the dog -- This is an exercise in going within, and I deeply believe that we cannot train a dog without going within.

My work with the meditation value of handwork teaches me the same thing: we go within to do this work and to teach others to do this work. The work itself ends up helping others since we do our stitch work for people who benefit from the products.