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Reading and Dog-Or
Mar. 13th, 2006 10:51 amHave been reading a couple of interesting slices of US history. One is Stuart Woods' Chiefs, which I read a while back and just picked up again. It's a three-part novel, following three police chiefs in a small Georgia town between 1920 and 1962, connected by the serial killer all three try to catch. But the killer (who is identified early on - this isn't a whodunnit) isn't the focus of the story; rather, it's an image of how the South changed over forty years, and about the people who did and didn't change with it. One character who starts out sympathetic in the 1920s turns into an outright villain by the 1960s, simply by trying to stand in place.
The other is Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong's The Brethren, an inside account of the US Supreme Court from 1969 to 1976. I'm only a little way into it so far, but it's fascinating to learn how USSC decisions are hammered out. And this passage amused me:
[William O. Douglas] prided himself on being the fastest writer on the Court. He often turned out an opinion the day after an assignment; his separate opinions were ready weeks, if not months, before the majority opinions... The other Justices all acknowledged Douglas's brilliance and incredible productivity; White called him a "paper factory". Douglas was so prolific that once when former Justice Charles E. Whittaker was unable to draft a majority opinion, Douglas finished his dissent and then wrote Whittaker's majority for him.
Dog-Or is being very patient at the moment. His ears are still sore, he doesn't get to go to his favourite park because he'd get the cone tangled in bushes, and he has to have antibiotics twice a day. He's not fond of taking pills at the best of times, and these smell horrible to me - I'm sure they taste even nastier. I've taken to smearing them with something more appetizing (butter, tomato sauce, and peanut butter so far), and this seems to help a bit, but it's still a struggle to get them down his throat, poor thing. For all that he's supposedly dim, he can tell from the other end of the house whether I'm in the kitchen to prepare food or to get his tablets, and he becomes selectively deaf when I call him for the latter. Still, despite the unpleasantness of it all, he's so far refrained from growling, biting my hand while it's halfway down his throat, chewing stuff, or peeing on the carpet; five minutes after tablet time, he's my friend again (sooner, if I still have peanut butter on my fingers). The closest he comes to misbehaviour is passive resistance, and I can't really begrudge him that.
This morning he was lying on his side, right on the edge of our bed. I started to scritch his tummy, and he immediately did what he usually does, which is to roll over onto his back for more scritching... fortunately I got my hand under him just before he plummeted to the floor below.
Have been working on scenery for the D&D game; may post more about that later.
The other is Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong's The Brethren, an inside account of the US Supreme Court from 1969 to 1976. I'm only a little way into it so far, but it's fascinating to learn how USSC decisions are hammered out. And this passage amused me:
[William O. Douglas] prided himself on being the fastest writer on the Court. He often turned out an opinion the day after an assignment; his separate opinions were ready weeks, if not months, before the majority opinions... The other Justices all acknowledged Douglas's brilliance and incredible productivity; White called him a "paper factory". Douglas was so prolific that once when former Justice Charles E. Whittaker was unable to draft a majority opinion, Douglas finished his dissent and then wrote Whittaker's majority for him.
Dog-Or is being very patient at the moment. His ears are still sore, he doesn't get to go to his favourite park because he'd get the cone tangled in bushes, and he has to have antibiotics twice a day. He's not fond of taking pills at the best of times, and these smell horrible to me - I'm sure they taste even nastier. I've taken to smearing them with something more appetizing (butter, tomato sauce, and peanut butter so far), and this seems to help a bit, but it's still a struggle to get them down his throat, poor thing. For all that he's supposedly dim, he can tell from the other end of the house whether I'm in the kitchen to prepare food or to get his tablets, and he becomes selectively deaf when I call him for the latter. Still, despite the unpleasantness of it all, he's so far refrained from growling, biting my hand while it's halfway down his throat, chewing stuff, or peeing on the carpet; five minutes after tablet time, he's my friend again (sooner, if I still have peanut butter on my fingers). The closest he comes to misbehaviour is passive resistance, and I can't really begrudge him that.
This morning he was lying on his side, right on the edge of our bed. I started to scritch his tummy, and he immediately did what he usually does, which is to roll over onto his back for more scritching... fortunately I got my hand under him just before he plummeted to the floor below.
Have been working on scenery for the D&D game; may post more about that later.
