There are too many scientists wasting their talents producing revolutionary advances in shaving. We’re good with that, thanks. There are a few diseases, however, we’d all be grateful to see cured.

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO), in the course of performing our our only function, pointing out the emperor’s new clothes, has been perusing the various sensational news reports concerning the election of a single senator in Massachusetts. The Senate seat in question had belonged to the late Senator Teddy Kennedy for 47 years but was won by a Republican  candidate, a former naked male model named Scott Brown. Republicans are boasting that this is a strong rebuke to President Obama, while Democrats are panicking that they’ve lost their Senate “super-majority” and have to rethink their thinking.

What operatives from both political parties fail to remember is that the Democratic candidate, interim Senator Martha Coakley, completely misread her Massachusetts constituency by being completely out of touch with how they feel about the Boston Red Sox, going so far as to claim that ex-Boston World Series hero Curt Schilling was a Yankee fan. Almost every human being in America realizes how grave an error that is and that Red Sox fans are basically a few million potentially violent psychopaths. That is the only reason Ms. Coakley lost the election. You simply do not open your mouth about the Boston Red Sox anywhere in New England with inaccurate information, especially concerning the hated New York Yankees, who they watched win 26 World Championships in the 86 years from 1918 until 2004, when Boston finally won the World Series again.

The government was not toppled by the election of Mr. Brown, their overwhelming Democratic majority remains intact. Nobody is longing for the return of Bush The Younger and Shotgun Dick Cheney. As far as President Obama is concerned, what America is seeing is a young president learning on the job, by no means an unprecedented state of affairs. All our young presidents, Clinton, Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt, went through the same tough initiation to the halls of power, suffering some initial setbacks and disappointments. Hopefully Mr. Obama will come out of these experiences the wiser and like his fellow young presidents become an effective and memorable leader.

Certainly Kennedy and Roosevelt left their indelible stamps on America, and Bill Clinton won two terms and presided over a time of peace and prosperity, no small achievement in this wicked world. The Scott Browns of this world pose no threat to President Obama or the Democratic agenda, and odds are that his will be a short time in the Senate when Massachusetts Democrats wake up and run a properly Red Sox-sensitive candidate next time around. This election represents no snowballing trend, no sea change in American politics, merely a bonehead move by Massachusetts Democrats who assumed that Kennedy’s Senate seat was theirs by default. Complacency is to blame, and the Boston Red Sox factor. A slap in the face to complacency is never a bad thing. Nor is reminding politicians that their hometown baseball teams mean more to Americans than their Senators.

This was a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious

Getting insulted because the politician you voted for didn’t live up to your high expectations is like taking rainy days personally. These things happen.

Well, here I am again, sort of. My debut blog here at bobcrespo.com didn’t  get around to what I was hired to do; cover the news from a dog’s point of view. My first blog for this space was mostly introducing myself and explaining who I am to the readers. The guy who runs this place, Bob Crespo, told me to write whatever I feel like on my first blog, but after that I should write commentary on current events. Of course, by current events he meant human news only.

I could go on and on about the sweet Golden Lab bitch that just moved in next door to me and how she had to spend a week in a cage while her owners set up their new house and that on her first day exploring her new yard she discovered a very interesting rotting corpse of a possum, chased three cats around and barked for a couple of hours to let everybody know there’s a new bitch in town, but humans don’t seem all that interested in these sorts of developments. They want to talk about Haiti, some little island somewhere that had an earthquake a week or so ago that killed a whole bunch of people and wrecked a lot of buildings and roads.

I really don’t have all that much to say about Haiti except that the people over there didn’t listen to their dogs. Dogs know when earthquakes are going to happen and vacate the premises ASAP. Knowing humans, they probably ignored their dogs’ frantic warnings and the fact that any of them not chained down beat it out of there in a hurry. Most likely they hit them and locked them up and told them to pipe down. I notice in all the news reports I’ve seen on Haiti there is no mention of the loss of life suffered by any creature other than humans, not even the usual zoo story where the imprisoned animals escape and get shot by the police. I’m sad for all the dead and injured humans, especially the children, but I for one would also like to know how many dogs died, but no one seems to know or care.

So much for earthquakes. What else is going on? You humans are fighting your endless wars all over the place, and for reasons that don’t really register with the canine brain. To a dog’s mind, aggression is reserved for hunting and for countering threats to oneself or one’s offspring. Being a born predator myself, I can understand aggression, but even the most savage of nature’s predators don’t kill just for the hell of it. There’s only the one; humans. And if you don’t think you are predator, check out where your eyes are located, in the front of your head. Only predators’ eyes are located there. Prey (vegetarians) has theirs side-mounted, the better to watch out for the flesh eaters.

Which brings me to another puzzling thing about some human beings, those who refuse to eat meat, in complete defiance of their inborn natures. Lots of these people join organizations dedicated to get humans to stop treating other species badly. You’d think that as a dog I would be grateful for these organizations. Sorry, but this dog can read and when I see that a big part of what these people do is to spay and neuter animals and not try to set us free in any way and I wonder, well, what’s crueler than that? They only insist that people substitute their brand of cruelty to us. Nothing ethical at all about that. You don’t see dogs forming clubs to cut human males’ nuts off or tie their females’ tubes. Animals don’t trust other species all that much, especially humans, and if you think about that for about 8 seconds, that makes sense. Your history of live-and-let-live isn’t very promising.

You ever wonder what happened to the Neanderthals? Now that was a holocaust! No tattooed survivors, no poignant books, no memorial buildings to Neanderthals. If you’re wondering what the hell a dog knows about Neanderthals, here’s a clue; dogs are born with species memory, a vital part of our instincts and stored knowledge, so that we can recall things that happened many thousands of years ago, passed down from dog to dog to dog. My own offspring will remember their ancestor that was able to communicate with humans. For thousands of years. How many humans will be so well remembered by their families in a thousand years?

Not that my fellow dogs are all that impressed with my advanced mental abilities, since being the “Canine Einstein” hasn’t exactly enabled me to convince humans to stop enslaving and torturing dogs, or even getting them to stop putting those horrible sweaters on us. But perhaps we should just be glad we’re dogs and not Neanderthal people. What was done to them was even worse that what is being done to dogs. At least we’re still alive. Slaves, but still alive. We’re hoping that global warming thing will break down human civilization and we can all escape.

Well, I did it again, strayed from reporting on the news, which is why they hired me here at bobcrespo.com. This is going to take some getting used to, and if Bob Crespo and his dot com colleagues don’t like it, let them hire another dog to write blogs fir them and see how that works out when the dog pisses on their computer, craps on the floor and chews up everything in the office. I’m the only dog around who can read and write English, so they’ll just have to be patient with me until I get a handle on this whole “news” thing.

When I read the news, more questions than answers present themselves to me, and since I have no other choice but to see the world through the eyes of a dog, I wonder about things that wouldn’t occur to people, such as why humans can’t sense earthquakes. Hell, you people congratulate yourselves when you can smell snow in the air! Sorry, but that’s not very impressive to a dog, who can sense a vast array of things that humans cannot. Makes me wonder how it is that you people got to be in charge of the planet. Well, this is Jimmy The Blogging Dog signing off for now. I’m going to need a few days to figure out what the hell it is you people expect of me. Besides, that sweet little Golden Lab bitch next store is coming into heat and I have to figure out a way over than damned fence. Even dogs have our priorities.

There is a reason why dogs lick their balls. Because they can.

Bobcrespo.com is proud to present another regular contributor to this page that is not really a page. Joining Bob Crespo, Dot Kahm and The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) will be Jimmy The Blogging Dog, the first inter-species blog. It goes without saying that Jimmy The Blogging Dog is a special animal, a dog who has mastered the personal computer and astounded his owner and the world with his mastery of the English language. At least the written portion of it, since, being a dog, all he can do is bark. Turns out he’s a dog genius, and he got the nickname “The Canine Einstein” when he was still a pup. So imagine our delight when Jimmy The Blogging Dog joined our staff. Let’s take a dog’s eye view of things with the first inter-species blog ever as Jimmy The Blogging Dog introduces himself:

My name is Jimmy. Means squat to you, right? Yeah, there’s a million Jimmies around, which one are you, you’re thinking. But not a damned one of you bothers to sniff my ass and find out exactly which Jimmy I am, so let me clear that up for you: I am Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. But that’s a dog thing, sniffing, so let’s leave it a that. Well, let me just add that there are good manners, proper greetings and protocols in every species, and who’s to say what’s right? Okay, maybe I’m a little touchy about these things.

I’m just saying…

Anyway, people expect me to give them my view of the world. I tried that, but  they didn’t understand. Then I realized that what they really wanted was my view of the world only as it has to do with humans. LIke they were the only creatures out there! How the hell am I supposed to know what people are thinking about? I’m a dog. I don’t even know what other dogs are thinking about, never mind another species. Anyway, I basically told them that I can only react to what people do, but I can’t read their minds. Some of these people were getting carried away with that Canine Einstein nonsense.

Let me put that nickname in perspective for you. Do the math here; even a “dog genius” isn’t a whole smarter than a stupid human. It’s not like I was ever solving Quantum Mechanics problems or anything. I only learned to communicate in your language, something all of you can do from a very young age, even the densest among you. And I can’t actually speak a word of English because dog mouths and vocal cords don’t do human languages. It’s only on a keyboard I can “speak” to you, and let me tell you, it’s a very limiting form of communication, no gestures, no smells, no shared mental images like there is among dogs. So, as far as interacting with humans, I am in a straitjacket, but in my own halting way, I get my ideas out.

I’m sort of like Steven Hawkings, but only as smart as, say… Carrot Top. Okay, sorry. Scratch that. A lot smarter than Carrot Top, but maybe only as smart as one of the mid-level Baldwin brothers. Pretty impressive. For a dog, that is, but don’t look at me like a new William Faulkner here. You want insights on humanity? Talk to a human, not Jimmy The Blogging Dog. All I’m saying is don’t expect anything from me but a dog’s opinion. By the way, dogs don’t know how to lie, we never really grasped that whole concept, so don’t look for any hidden meanings here. I only know what I see, and I try my best to describe exactly what I saw and felt. Don’t bite the messenger.

So, now that the intros are out of the way, it seems we don’t have much room for discussing the news of the day, which is okay by me since this is my first day on this new job and I have yet to get fully comfortable around here. There’s butts to be sniffed, territory to mark and to find out where is the food, water and the exits. Most of my coworkers are pretty friendly (even if, as my customary greeting told me, they have bizarre diets), but as usual seem puzzled to have a dog as a colleague. What they never ask me is how weird it is for me to have every coworker from a different species. It’s always about them, even in a place progressive enough to hire a blogging dog.

The people who hired me here at bobcrespo.com also seem to be under the impression that this doesn’t freak me out sometimes, like it’s normal for a dog to communicate with people. What, one of you wouldn’t freak out from time to time if you were the only one of your race that could speak with space men? I’d sniff out that lie in a second. Literally. That’s why dogs don’t lie since it is impossible to completely lie. Of course it blows my mind sometimes! I sure don’t have to explain that to dogs, we just sort of know these things about each other, but humans just can’t hear or smell or feel the thousand nonverbal messages every living being sends off when they are lying. Deception is different, done only to other species during the hunt, but never as a form of communication between one another. Dogs can spot deception instantly, which is why we’re amazed with some of the crap all of you seem to get away with.

Don’t forget that you people always drop your guard around your dogs, and you do and say anything in front of us, even saying and doing the direct opposite of what you said you would. Here’s a flash for you: there’s no such thing as dog-owner privilege, and what we see, we react to. Every dog pretty much knows that humans are lying sacks of shit, but also that they almost never lie to their dogs, and that’s mostly veterinarian related lies, understandable from a human’s point of view. The worst lie ever is the neutering lie. I am grateful that my former owners did not see fit to remove my own family jewels, and Jimmy The Blogging Dog is a fully functional canine, thank you very much.

I have had good luck with the bitches. That’s our term, by the way, and we don’t call them Hos, either. We also resent that when a human female is called a bitch, it’s usually not a good thing. Why is that? Bitches rock. To a male dog who’s still got his original equipment, bitches make the world go around, and a bitch in heat will stop us from whatever the heck else we were doing, every time. I’m the proud Papa of several healthy litters, all of who have had the misfortune of having to face Great Expectations, with both people and dogs hoping for another Canine Einstein. Not going to happen.

At least I hope not. Being a dog genius isn’t exactly a piece of cake. Dogs think you’re some sort of savior come to lead them back to the wild, and humans think you represent an evolutionary leap. I’m neither of those things. I’m just a dog who can write English on a computer. I don’t know why and I don’t know how this happened, it just is. Sometimes it’s exciting, but sometimes just exasperating. I’ll never figure humans out, but I have to admit, you are fun to observe. Watch this page for my writings, and you’ll find out what a dog thinks of things. At least this one, Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

The only thing we have to fear is that there is something even scarier than what we already fear. Don’t be so sure you’ve seen it all.

As a consumer of computers, by no means a professional computer person or one who knows all that much abut them, the iMAC is the best computer out there and beats the crap out of any regular PC by Dell, or HP or any of the other Big Dogs on the computer block. Those annoying commercials with the cool guy portraying the iMAC computer and the dumpy guy playing the PC aside, they are just better in every way. The operating system takes a little getting used to, but after a week or so you begin to prefer the thought processes of one set of annoying geeks, the dweebs at Apple, over the thought processes of the rest of the annoying computer geeks at the other companies.

Which is basically what an operating system is, a means to deal with things in a way that makes sense. Once you get past the cutesy names and the inside geek jokes inherent in every operating system, you learn to do the stuff on your computer that you enjoy doing and hope that things go as smooth as they possible can. Guess what? MACs don’t beak down, they don’t crash and are pretty easy to use. Whatever else they do besides what you use them for is beside the point. Who cares? You want to do the things that you like to do, period, amen, and these machines let that happen. The amount of time irretrievably wrenched from your life speaking to smug techies in Customer Support pretty much dwindles down to nothing and you can go about your business not really thinking all that much about your damned computer, which is the whole point.

That’s pretty much all you want from a product, that it works. We don’t want to obsess with our cars, just have them get us from Point A to Point B in relative safety and comfort. It’s only when they start giving us trouble on our way to Point B do we think all that much about them, and when that happens our thoughts are pretty foul and X Rated. It’s the same with your toaster, too. All you want it to do is make toast. You don’t want to tinker with it, adjust it, de-bug it or spend hours and hours speaking to a toaster rep in Kowloon telling you that you’ve been making your damned toast all wrong your whole life and now you want to reach into the phone and throttle the guy until he gets your toaster back online.

In a sense, it’s too bad Apple makes such great products, since their head honcho, Steve Jobs, is such an annoying blowhard who would be fun to ridicule, liver transplant or no liver transplant. It’s hard to feel sorry for a guy who is a billionaire many times over and has been for a very long time, especially one as condescending and antisocial as Jobs. He also has a penchant for reinventing his products every 6 months to render the last expensive versions obsolete, as if the world cannot turn without having the latest application on your telephone, with literally hundreds of thousands of things you can have your phone do other that making and receiving calls.

Now if he could only invent an App that replaces his liver function, or an App that provides wardrobe alternatives to black turtlenecks and blue jeans for middle aged cadaverous-looking transplant patients, maybe he’ll be on to something and earn another few billion. For this borderline technophobe, I’ll steer clear of his overcomplicated telephones but I salute his computers and the extra years added to my life by not having to deal with tech support people trying to tell me what the F7 button is for. I’ll be happy to never have to find out. Without the fiasco of ever-changing and increasingly irritating Windows programs clogging up my life and my work, I can just exist with one less thing to annoy the crap out of me. Once you go MAC, you don’t go back.

Never assume that the person speaking to you hears the voices in your head. Just assume they cannot and explain yourself clearly.

Well, readers, since my last outing in this space, when I completely claimed my whole page from the boss, who had been writing the introductions to your letters, things have been going swimmingly here at bobcrespo.com. I showed Mr. Bossman himself, Bob Crespo, one of the talents I used to keep my late husband Frank a happy camper, and now you can’t wipe the shiteating grin off his face whenever I drop by the office. So girls, do yourself a favor and learn to kneel to conquer, if you get my drift, and don’t let anyone tell you that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Please! Now, before I deal with whatever misfits decided to write to me this week, let me remind you to send some money to Haiti to help some good people who are in desperate need. The rescue operation may be over, but the need for help is still huge, so open your hearts and wallets and do some good.

Dear Dot Kahm: I’m a 50 year-old housewife and I’m tired and cranky all the time. My husband doesn’t pay any attention to me anymore and my children rarely call or visit. My cleaning ladies keep quitting too. What should I do? – Bitter in The Bronx

Dear Bitter: Well, Hon, it sounds unanimous, you’re a huge pain in the ass. When even your kids can’t stand you and poor women who desperately need the job won’t work for you, it doesn’t take an Einstein to do the math here. Who can blame your family for ignoring your annoying ass? Ever try being nice to anybody? Feeling grateful for your privileged life, maybe? Or finding something to do all day long? Here’s a clue: it’s not the whole damned world that’s wrong, it’s you.

Dear Dot Kahm: Who gives you advice? – Wondering in Washington

Dear Wondering: Too many people. The better question is: Who’s do I take?

Dear Dot Kahm: My boyfriend is a real smart guy who tells me all sorts of things, not all of which I understand. He says that’s okay, since if I listen him and do everything he says, I’ll be perfect. He says he knows how I should dress, how I should behave and what I should think. Dot, he’s a nice guy and all, but I don’t feel comfortable doing and thinking things just on his say-so. Am I being obstinate, like he tells me? – Peggy in Peoria

Dear Peggy in Peoria: Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself involved with a classic control freak, kiddo, and they can never be pleased, ever. Guess again about the “real smart” part, too, and tell him to go somewhere else and create perfect women. I can see you’ve got the beginnings of a mind of your own. Continue along those lines and stay away from know-it-all jerks who think they have all the answers. I know I sure don’t, but I can smell this guy’s line of bullshit a mile away.

Dear Dot Kahm: My wife Lizzie likes to wear sexy clothing, and she’s a real knockout. Sounds like a dream come true, right? My problem, however, is this: a lot of men are always checking her out, like she’s available and even though she’s not a flirt, I get uncomfortable with the attention she gets. Am I being unreasonable? – Lizzie’s Man

Dear Lizzie’s so-called Man: First off, I congratulate you for your honesty. Second, let me just tell you to get the stick out of your butt and let Lizzie dress in a way that makes her feel feminine and desirable. You could have a wife that no other man wants to look at. Is that what you’d like? Or do you want a sexy knockout who likes to celebrate her sexuality and look good for you?  It’s either one way or the other, so the answer is yes, as in yes you are being unreasonable, you insecure wimp!

Dear Dot Kahm: I am an avid member of the animal rights group PETA. Will you tell your readers how very important our work is?

Dear Loretta: Sure hon, just as soon as every last human being on the planet is fine, then maybe we can worry about your little cause. Meanwhile, 36,000 people just starved to death today, and 36,000 more will join them tomorrow. Are you aware that Haiti is in a shambles, grinding poverty and illiteracy is widespread, malaria and other curable disease are ravaging Third World nations and more than 6 million people die every year from unsanitary water supply-related diseases? Ask someone else to worry about ferrets and poodles. I’ll worry about people if you don’t mind. And don’t let me catch any of you antisocial misfits eyeballing my mink coat with your little cans of red spray paint or you’ll be needing surgery to remove my high heel from your rear end.