12/10/11 KNUCKLEHEADS

THE BALL IS UP AHEAD SOMEWHERE...

...I'VE GOT IT!

...I COULD PLAY THIS GAME ALL DAY!

Saturday, 8:30 AM.  14 degrees, wind WSW, calm.  The sky is mostly overcast but clouds are breaking up in the east.  It was a beautifully clear night with an almost full moon and quite cold. The clouds moving in have kept it warmer than yesterday morning which was frigid.  The barometer is trending down.
    Buddy continues to be a lot of fun, but has gotten so comfortable with his new people and new digs, so confident of a full food dish and a loving home, that he is exerting a stronger degree of independence and is really rambunctious.  knuckleheaded is probably the operative word.   He does most of what he is told and expected to do but he gets something in his head and one might as well talk to the wind.  Come to think of it, I am prone to do the same.   Daughter Greta, the field trial dog trainer, says I should concentrate on more subtle behaviors for a while, such as getting him to watch my hands and eyes intently and listen to my voice so he learns to concentrate on what I want him to do.  We will see how that goes.  I don’t know if I can become a “dog whisperer” or not, and I may end up being the trainee instead of the trainer.  I am very open to suggestions and will appreciate comments.
    The new iron mining bill is out of the Wisconsin house of representatives, and public hearings open next week in Milwaukee.  There will probably have to be public hearings in the north country as well.  The purported intent of the bill is to streamline the approval process without weakening the environmental standards, as businesses cannot endure an endless approval procedure.  The bill is 180 pages long and I am sure highly technical, so it will be difficult for most interested parties, including legislators and administrators, to digest it all.  It has been posted on line and I will take a look at it but in the end most of us will have to trust expert opinion and hope the issue does not become even more contentious that it already is.  Like dogs, politicians can be real knuckleheads.
    There has to be a practical way to provide jobs and economic progress and still respect the environment, or the state’s motto of “Forward!” will ultimately regress to “Backward!”