Time Immortal

I’m not a dog person. Moreover, I am not a “small dog” person; I can count on one hand the number of small dogs I can stand to be in the presence of. Small dog owners often annoy the heck out of me as well. That said, I have remarked before — many times, in fact — that animals tend to be a favourite photographic subject of mine, and for as much as I might despise small dogs for various reasons I will concede that I don’t mind taking the occasional picture of one.

Or two, in this case.

Some of Grace’s relatives came over to her grandparents’ house for the afternoon, and brought their small dog (whose name escapes me) along. This dog proceeded to play with Penny, and I caught this picture of the two of them wrestling playfully.

At the time, I was using my Lensbaby, which accounts for the extreme “zoom”-type blur on the image borders. Equally, however, I had the ISO set to about 800 (since I was, after all, indoors) — and even then, the camera didn’t select a very high shutter speed when I went to take the picture. I managed to hold the camera stable, for the most part, but of course the dogs weren’t of a mind to pause for the picture.

Funnily, I think I prefer this result to the potential portrait I could have got. The two critters almost seem to swirl together into one blur of activity.

Edit-wise, this shot got my usual calibration/Punch preset and a fair bit of noise reduction. I also applied a rather strong vignetting preset, just for visual flair (and to focus the viewer’s attention squarely on the dogs).

Last week, Count Roland also wrote in with some thoughts on this article, about how many Canadians profess greater love for their pet dog than for their own father. I’ve just been lax in posting his thoughts.

They do need to give their heads a shake. But it may be to remind themselves of the meaning they are imparting when they speak of ‘love‘.

Today we have lost the Greek nuance and use love to mean many different things, from pleasure-induction (”I love chocolate”) to self sacrifice (the love of husband and wife for one another and for children for whom they and their friends express gratitude to God, pray for the new family as nurturing gifts from God and give congratulations for expanding the universal Church through the expansion of the domestic Church for which the blessings of God are asked for).

They may be correctly using a weak and partial meaning of love insofar as pets can give things — such as companionship and acceptance — which may be lacking from otherwise good parents for reasons beyond either party’s control. But love as it means in its fullness this is not. And to miss this difference is to impoverish our language and our lives.

I think it almost can be taken as a given that when anyone in the media speaks of “love,” they are not speaking of love in the fullest sense of the word, and certainly they are not capturing all the nuance imparted to the concept of love by the Greeks. But then, the same could be said of most musicians (I will grant some exception for a few country artists) and actors/actresses. Love is very poorly understood by our modern, post-Christian culture, and I cannot help but think that the departure of our society from Christian ideals has both precipitated and paralleled our departure from understanding what love really is.

Animals can be fun subjects for pictures.

This is Penny, Grace’s grandparents’ pet dog. That’s really all I have to say about her — I’m not really a dog person, and so while I enjoy taking pictures of them, I don’t dwell on their merits as much as I do with Cats.

Despite the overexposed sections, I had to shoot this picture at a high ISO, because while there was a fair bit of light coming in to the house, the angles at which it was coming in were not conducive to proper exposure. C’est la vie, I suppose.

Edit-wise, apart from the noise reduction required, I didn’t do all that much to this shot; I applied as much sharpening as I thought I could get away with, in addition to the normal calibration/Punch preset that I always use, and I have to say that I’m pleased at how much detail Lightroom was able to eke out of the scene; in particular, Penny’s fur retains a lot of fine detail.

A goodly number of Canadians need to give their heads a shake. That’s about all I can think to say to people who rate their love for their pet dog higher than their love for their own father (I’ll grant exceptions in the case of abusive and/or deadbeat dads, however).

In 1997, in New Orleans, a blind woman tried to enter a taxi with her seeing eye dog. The Muslim taxi driver physically attacked her and further injured an already-broken wrist. At trial, the judge described the driver’s behavior as a “total disgrace” and sentenced him to 120 days of community service at the Lighthouse for the Blind.

In 1999, a Muslim taxi driver in Cinncinati refused to transport a blind female passenger with a seeing eye dog. The woman complained; CAIR defended him as having acted in accordance with his religious beliefs. (dogs are considered impure and contact with them is considered to render a Muslim ritually unfit for prayer.)

In 2000, in Edmonton, Canada, a blind woman tried to enter a cab with her seeing eye dog. The driver first claimed ‘allergies,’ but then stated that “taking a dog conflicted with his Religion.” At trial, he failed to produce the necessary proof from an allergist. However, the case against him was dismissed because it had been improperly filed.

We also know that in 2005 and 2006, some Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis refused to pick up airport fares whom they suspected of transporting alcohol or pork. In 2007 the Metropolitan Airport Commission of Minnesota then unanimously voted to crack down on such drivers who “declined to transport passengers with alcohol or pork.”

What next? Will Muslim taxi drivers refuse to transport “naked” women? “Naked” as in with their faces showing?

But, what’s true of some Muslim taxi drivers is also true of some Muslim convenience store owners.

For example, in 2003, in Edmonton, Canada, a blind woman tried to enter a convenience store owned by a Muslim and was forcibly ejected by the owner who stated that, “this store is also my church because I pray and eat here and my religion will not allow dogs or any animal to come in here.” In 2004, at trial, she stated that he started yelling at her and did not allow her to explain why she needed the dog, what the dog meant to her, or to enunciate her legal rights.

In 2005, a blind man in Brooksville, Florida, who tried to enter a store with his seeing eye dog, was similarly thrown out by a raging Muslim.

Other correlates of “raging Muslim” behavior also exist: Poverty, a limited education, (but this is not always so), dim prospects for a brighter future — coupled with a very specific cultural and religious zero-frustration tolerance, hostility towards non-Muslims, and paranoia when non-Muslims are in control. However, “male” and “Muslim” are also correlates of this behavior.

Please understand: Nothing that I am saying has anything to do with “race.” Muslims come in all colors and ethnicities.

Some people have already hit the “last straw” point — some of the bloggers I read have vowed to request, from any cab company they patronize in the future, a non-Muslim driver. Others will not patronize businesses obviously run by Muslims.

I’m not at that stage yet, but I think it’s fair to say this much: there’s one strike left. One more incident, like any of the above, within the greater Edmonton area and I will never again patronize any cab, nor any business, operated by an adherent of the Islamic faith. I would strongly encourage what few readers I have to consider doing the same.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: Kathy Shaidle)

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Out of shape? You might have a perfect fitness coach under your own roof.

A University of Victoria researcher is looking into the Health benefits of dog-walking.

UVic researcher Ryan Rhodes is looking for 100 people to participate in a study on dog-walking as exercise. His previous work determined that people with dogs get twice as many walks in as non-dog-walkers.

No kidding, eh? People who walk their dogs tend to walk more often that people who don’t walk their dogs (or, presumably, who don’t own dogs they could otherwise walk).

We are paying people to tell us this?