Month: March 2024

A boy and his dog

Willow The Best Dog There Is™ was born 15 years ago today. As she aged, I prayed we would get to spend at least 14 years together, which I admit is a lot to ask of a golden retriever. We got a few days shy of 12.

I love this photo of the two of us. From the moment I first picked her up and snuggled her, the last of her litter, we were best friends. It was love at first sight; I’ll never quite understand why, but my bond with this dog was instant and everlasting.

Red, who took this picture, always joked that when Willow died, she would have to euthanize me, too, because I would be inconsolable. When Willow died on my 68th birthday three years ago, I was almost as lost as she predicted I would be.

Time passes, and the loss becomes not as hard to bear. When you have 12 years of happy memories to draw from, the sorrow is eventually supplanted by the glow of those memories. But on the big days — her birthday, the anniversary of when she came home, the anniversary of her passing — the sense of loss rises to the surface a little bit.

It’s a terrible fact that dogs don’t live very long compared to humans, and so I’ve shared that special love with several four-legged creatures — people who know me from back when will remember Poppins and Tucker especially — but none were as deep and abiding as what I felt for Willow. She was my furry soulmate, the canine love of my life.

Willow’s adopted little sister Dejah, and Dejah’s adopted little sister Summer, are so very special in their own ways, and so I’m not at a loss for doggy love. I’ve been blessed to share my home with canines ever since a whimpering little collie-mix puppy walked up to the door of the Ripon radio station more than 40 years ago — that was Poppins — and I was the only person on staff who could take her. Whatever callous soul dumped that little girl out in the country never knew what they gave up.

My prayer for most people is that they find their equivalent of Willow The Best Dog There Is™ sometime in their lifetime. Those of you who have, you understand. It’s as sweet a feeling as I’ve ever known, and those 12 years were well worth the final heartbreak. 

I could probably write about Willow for hours, but Summer is resting her head on my knee and wondering if we’re ever going to turn in for the night. And so we shall.

On choosing the new boss

Anyone familiar with The Who’s brilliant song “Won’t Get Fooled Again” can figure out where this post’s title came from. I was a political junkie in my younger days — even ran for Wisconsin Assembly as a Republican in 1996, you can look it up.

But as time went on, as new revolution followed new revolution, I came to see the real truth in the song comes in its final couplet — “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” No matter who was in charge and what promises they made before becoming boss, the concerns of everyday folks continued to deepen — the inexorable erosion of freedom, the continued disregard for people’s innate rights, even those spelled out as out of bounds for the federal government in the Bill of Rights, the supposed covenant with We the People. The differences between the old boss and the new boss were purely cosmetic — alternate versions of dystopia.

One day while I was writing about the alleged choices the two major parties had put up in the 2008 presidential election and the increasing partisanship of the partisans, I had an epiphany literally in mid-sentence. I was writing, “Freedom is not about choosing the right ruler,”  when the epiphany occurred! I finished the sentence: “Oh, wait. Yes it is. Freedom is about realizing that I am the boss of me.” 

In other words, stop worrying about choosing the right ruler, and rule your own life.

From that moment it tumbled into place for me what Mr. Jefferson meant when he wrote that we were all created with certain, inalienable rights, and to the extent that government is not working to secure those rights, it is failing. Freedom is not granted by government documents like the Bill of Rights — we are born free, and freedoms are always in danger of being abridged, violated or stripped, and usually by government documents.

“I am the boss of me” is an exhilarating realization and a sobering one, because it means that I’m responsible for myself, and no one else is. Government agents and agencies may purport to take care of me or regulate me, but at the proverbial end of the day, it’s up to me.

The heretofore unimaginable

I mentioned Monday that the internet algorithms sent me to an evening with Ray Bradbury. Even the dumbest artificial intelligence is going to figure out pretty quickly that sending something with old Ray in it from time to time is going to keep me happy. I’ve made no secret of my love for Bradbury’s mind and writing.

You who are fearful of AI, you do know that the notorious social media algorithms are earlier forms of artificial intelligence, right? Someone taught a machine/computer to look through what I have gravitated toward online and make an educated guess what I might want to explore next. AI is just the latest in a long line of tools dating back to the lever or the wheel.

Each new discovery to the dawn of time has been used to move us forward, but the evil in our DNA has caused some of us to find ways to weaponize just about every discovery. On one shoulder an angel says, “Eureka! We can save the world with this!” while the devil on the other shoulder says, “By Jove! We can use this to kill other humans in a heretofore unimaginable way!” — from the ax we crafted to cut down trees for shelter all the way to splitting the atom to power our homes and move large vehicles.

Those who say AI is just the latest tool to make our lives easier are absolutely correct. Those who say it has the potential for heretofore unimaginable evil are also correct.

The trick will be to recognize the evil and nip it in the proverbial bud. But to ban AI out off fear it will be misused is to ignore its potential for good when used properly.

Any tool can grow a lush garden or destroy it. Heroin and fentanyl began their careers as medicine. Eternal vigilance against evil is one of those prices we pay for freedom — and freedom is our greatest tool for good.