The Ocala, Fla., newspaper published a story Sunday in which former Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper confirmed he turned down a $1 million, one-year offer from the Green Bay Packers. Culpepper gave few other details of what happened — “It just wasn’t good for either side,” he said — and added that he’s “in talks with a couple of different teams right now.” He did not identify the clubs. Remember, Culpepper serves as his own agent.

The Packers, of course, have Aaron Rodgers set to replace the retired Brett Favre as their starting quarterback. They also drafted two quarterbacks in April, taking Brian Brohm (Louisville) in the second round and Matt Flynn (LSU) in the seventh round.

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

5. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat)
   

6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

7. Be more or less specific.

8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually)
   unnecessary.

9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

10. No sentence fragments.

11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.

12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's
    highly superfluous.

14. One should NEVER generalize.

15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

16. Don't use no double negatives.

17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.

19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

20. The passive voice is to be ignored.

21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words
    however should be enclosed in commas.

22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.

23. Kill all exclamation points!!!

24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth
    shaking ideas.

26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not
    needed.

27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate
    quotations. Tell me what you know."

28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist
    hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.

30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

32. Who needs rhetorical questions?

33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

1. On a ski lift in Taos, NM:
   "No jumping from the lift. Survivors will be prosecuted."

2. Official sign near door: Door Alarmed.
   Handprinted sign nearby: Window frightened.

3. HEY, Life is still not fair for the guys...Found in a restaurant in
   England:
   Guys: No shirt, No service
   Girls: No shirt, No charge

4. Road sign seen on the island of Cyprus
   (translation of the Greek):
   "Caution: Road Slippery from Grapejuice"

5. MORE OF AN AD THAN A SIGN, but...
   A billboard seen next to the highway, travelling from Johannesburg
   International Airport into town.
   An Ad for BMW showing a photo of a BMW 328i convertible with the roof
   and all the windows down.
   The caption reads:
   "Our hardware runs better without WINDOWS!!!"

6. Two signs found on top of one another in a country kitchen several
   years ago:
   restrooms
   <-----
   Please wait for hostess to seat you.

7. Sign in front of church in Montpelier, VT:
   Bingo Friday night at 8:00pm
   Quickies Thursday at 7:30pm.

8. Seen in a health food store_
   "Shoplifters will be beaten over the head with an organic carrot"

9. "Children left unattended will be towed at parents expense."

10. I went to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant:
    "Women are not served here... You have to bring your own."

Watching Derek Redmond in tears as his father supports him ... my dad's done that more times than I can count. Happy Father's Day, Pop -- I love you.

Denise Flaim

June 12, 2008

Take Your Dog to Work Day is June 20, which leaves you little more than a week to convince your boss to let you spread a little interspecies cheer - not to mention dog hair - around the office.

If you do get the green light, remember that you only have this one chance to make a good first impression - and create the possibility of an annual company tradition. Here are some tips for success:

1 TIRE HIM OUT One way to ensure an angelic-looking dog in repose is a good workout. If you have a young, energetic dog, take him for a long morning run before you get to the office.

Running risk: To prevent orthopedic injury, never run a dog that is younger than a year old (18 months is even better) on concrete or blacktop for any length of time. Instead, opt for free-play on grass or a similar soft surface.



2 BRING DISTRACTIONS Your dog doesn't have the benefit of being able to sneak a game of computer solitaire to alleviate his corporate boredom. Instead, bring a tried-and-true standby: a rubber Kong (toykong.com) stuffed with favorite treats. (I fill mine with Velveeta or peanut butter, then freeze them.) Bully sticks (most pet stores carry them) are another good choice, although they are expensive, and nobody likes to think of what they're really made of: male bovine private parts. Ouch.

Mine! Avoid food treats in the presence of other dogs, as this is a recipe for bedlam.



3 CREATE A REFUGE

You need a place for your dog to retreat if he's overwhelmed by all your colleagues and the newness of the situation. For small and toy breeds, consider a Sherpa carrier (sherpapet.com). For bigger dogs, a soft-sided mesh crate (midwesthomes4pets.com) is easy to tote, though escape artists can chew through it if unsupervised. Not to mention those that soon perfect a "tumbleweed" method of rolling it around.

Common scents: Bring a blanket or bed from home.



4 TAKE THE STAIRS "If you work on the upper floors of a building, try taking the stairs - some dogs may be terrified of the elevator," suggests Nancy Hassel of the Dog Federation of New York (dogfederationofnew york.org).

Fence him in: If you work in a cubicle, Hassell suggests a baby gate to create a canine playpen.



5 AVOID ACCIDENTS Nothing sours a boss on canine visitors like a poop pile in the utility closet. Make sure your dog relieves himself before you get to the office, take him out for regular potty breaks, and don't let him off leash to wander.

Leg lifters: You can prevent male dogs from christening the copy machine with a belly band (decotogs.com), a strategically placed fabric cummerbund.



6 KEEP IT FRIENDLY

It should go without saying, but let me say it anyway: If your dog is not friendly, to humans or other dogs, don't bring him to the office. It won't end well.

More, more, more: Visit takeyourdog.com for a downloadable guide for bringing your dog to work.

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.

The main difficulty in these studies is that the past histories of the dogs are rarely known to those of us studying and attempting to heal them. In many types of trauma – such as dog-fighting, inhumane puppy mill operations, and physical abuse – at the time the dogs are rescued the people who were "caring" for the dogs are now in trouble with the law, and hence not cooperative and forthcoming with the details of the dogs' living situations. (In providing us with the facts of the dogs' care they are likely to incriminate themselves.)

Thus we are left with many questions about the true nature of the trauma to each dog. Was a dog rescued from Michael Vick's property treated abusively, such as being forced to train on a treadmill to the point of exhaustion? Or beaten? Did the dog fight in one fight or dozens? In dogs rescued from a life in a puppy mill, had the breeding female been cooped up in the little cage for 3 weeks or 6 years?

Unlike in people who have endured psychological trauma where the victims can describe what happened to themselves, we can't ask the dogs what they went through. Because of this we have to use just what we know to be true: for example, that these dogs were rescued from a dog-fighting operation and some have scars indicating that they fought. Sometimes there are other clues, such as the fact that poorly socialized dogs tend to fear people and withdraw when a person approaches whereas an abused dog may fear people but still show a conflicted effort to gain human attention and affection.

In other types of psychological trauma, we may know exactly what the animals went through but then not know what their lives—and their personalities—were like before the trauma.

We encountered much of this type of trauma in the animals Best Friends rescued after Hurricane Katrina. For those many unfortunate pet animals who never reunited with their human family, we were not able to learn anything about what their lives had been like before the hurricane. Studying emotional scars when we don't know what the animal was like before the traumatic incident is very difficult due to the relative inability to recognize what, if anything, of the dogs' psychological make-up was changed by the traumatic events.

Now consider these two facts together as they apply to the dogs we are working with to heal their emotional wounds:

(1) their avoidance and fear of people and surroundings have a variety of potential causes, and (2) we don't know what happened to them prior to their rescue.

So what do we do? Do we throw up our hands and just proceed to deal with the fears without seeking the cause? Can a dog who fears people simply be treated as a case of "fear of people" without knowing what caused the fear? Does knowing the cause help us to determine the best form of treatment? And does knowing the cause of the fear allow us to give a more accurate prognosis for recovery from the emotional wounds?

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BUT THAT'S OK, the breeder tells us; "They were outside for a million years. It's only the last 200 that people have been putting 'em in the house."

IS THAT OK
WITH YOU?

IT'S
NOT OK WITH US!

The Wisconsin Puppy Mill Project is engaged in an essential campaign for justice
and compassion. The story of the cruelty with which breeder dogs are treated in
puppy mills is one of the darkest chapters in the history of human arrogance
and greed.

As anyone knows who has loved a good dog, each has its own personality, its own soul. Only the morally blind can spend time with dogs yet reject the propositions that they are intelligent and that they have complex inner lives. To force these breeder dogs to live their entire lives in cramped cages, to leave their infections untreated until they go blind or go deaf or even perish, to leave them filthy and covered with sores, to feed them poorly and to give them no moment of affection requires a heart so indifferent to suffering that it would surely be capable of treating human beings with the same cruelty.

Dogs share a bond with us that is thousands of years old and that is unique in the animal kingdom. Of all creatures of field and forest, only the dog has been known to die to protect its human companion. When archeologists excavated the volcanic ash that buried Pompeii in 79 A.D., they discovered a dog lying across a child, trying to protect it from the cataclysm. The dog's inscribed collar told how he had three times saved the life of his owner, Serverinus.

Dogs offer us a degree of loyalty and a pure love of which few human beings are capable. Dogs love us more than they love themselves; among human beings, that would be considered a sign of sainthood. They are not livestock any more than we are. To tolerate the extreme suffering and the blighted lives of breeder dogs, you have to believe that you will never be asked to account for the actions of your life.

I believe that dogs have a spiritual purpose. The opportunity to love a dog and to treat it with kindness is an opportunity for a lost and selfish human heart to be redeemed. They are powerless and innocent, and it is how we treat the humblest among us that surely determines the fate of our souls.

No society can claim to be compassionate or enlightened if it tolerates puppy mills in any form.

--Dean Koontz, 27 March 2008

1. The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez
   oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the
   most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid
   cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later they were both
   eaten by a killer whale.

2. A psychology student in New York rented out her spare room to a
   carpenter in order to nag him constantly and study his reactions.
   After weeks of needling, he snapped and beat her repeatedly with an
   ax leaving her mentally retarded.

3. In 1992, Frank Perkins of Los Angeles made an attempt on the
   world flagpole-sitting record. Suffering from the flu he came down
   eight hours short of the 400 day record, his sponsor had gone bust,
   his girlfriend had left him and his phone and electricity had been
   cut off.

4. A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking
   frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist
   towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the
   deadly current she whacked him with a handy plank of wood by the back
   door, breaking his arm in two places. Till that moment he had been
   happily listening to his Walkman.

5. Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of
   sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two
   thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded,
   trampling the two hapless protesters to death.

6. Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn't pay enough postage on a
   letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it.
   Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.

by Clark Davis

Morning Edition, May 6, 2008 · John Allison, CEO of banking giant BB&T, calls Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged "the best defense of capitalism ever written." He says that Rand changed his life, and he's working to ensure that the deceased author isn't left out of the nation's college curricula.

Since 2005, the BB&T Charitable Foundation has given 25 colleges and universities several million dollars to start programs devoted to the study of Rand's books and economic philosophy. In January, the company announced it was donating $1 million to Marshall University in West Virginia.

The money would establish a course dedicated to Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, and help create the BB&T Center for the Advancement of American Capitalism on campus.

But not everyone at the university is excited by the gift. Rick Wilson, a sociology instructor at Marshall and head of the West Virginia Economic Justice Project, says that Rand's philosophy, objectivism, is based on the view that selfishness is the only moral value.

"[Objectivism] goes against the collective wisdom of the human race, I think, pretty much everywhere," says Wilson. "I think it's a curious interpretation of philanthropy to use corporate money to promote, really, an extreme
philosophy."

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Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ‘bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

What should strike us as odd, as we’re playing the role of
psychological scientists, is the fact that we’re so inclined to
nod our heads in agreement along with the singer. One doesn’t
have to be a cognitive neuroscientist, after all, to realize that our
brains are responsible for our subjective, conscious experiences. When
our brains aren’t functioning normally, our psychology is somehow
affected; and when our brains aren’t functioning at all, as in
death—voila!—there similarly go our minds.

THE copyright on one of Australia's greatest poems is up for sale to fund an animal welfare group on the state's Far North Coast.

Kenneth Slessor's Five Bells, in which the poet muses on a drowning in Sydney Harbour, is being sold by his son Paul, who volunteers with the Animal Rights and Rescue Group in Lismore.

There are no takers yet, but Mr Slessor believes an advertising agency may be willing to pay a six-figure sum for the poem's remaining 30-year copyright.

Five Bells is regarded by some as Slessor snr's greatest work, and one of the nation's most significant poems. It is on the high school English syllabus in NSW.

"I couldn't bear to see this group disappear, and selling the copyright is what I can do to provide some hope," Mr Slessor said. "Without that, it's hard to see what will happen to the stray pets in the area."

But Mr Slessor said his father, who died in 1971, would have been proud to help the group.

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