Hark, hark, the dog do bark forever and ever and...

Nothing better to do? Join in the conversation as it continues, getting a bit heated now, in the "comment section" at the end, below. Hark! Hark! The Dogs Do Bark The beggars are coming to town; Some in rags and some in tags, And some in silken gowns.* Some gave them white bread, And some gave them brown, And some gave them a good horse-whip, And sent them out of the town.

... and this news report in the Stranger:

Police Beat

The Crime of Barking

by Charles Mudede

Officer Gary McNulty reports: "Victim was outside of the business with her service dog. The suspect was behind a pillar when the victim's service dog began to bark. The suspect pulled a knife and started to walk toward the dog. The victim heard her dog barking and looked to see what it was barking at. The victim did not [recognize the man walking] toward her dog.

"The victim observed the suspect holding a knife in his left hand. The suspect told the victim that he was going to cut the dog's throat, at which time the victim said it was her service dog and he, the suspect, would have to cut her throat first. The suspect said he would cut her throat also. The suspect continued to close in on the victim and her dog. The suspect got very close to the victim, within inches, still holding the knife.

"There was a customer in the store who heard a woman screaming and looked out to see a man right up in the victim's face. I asked this witness just how close the suspect was to the victim, and he told me that the suspect was right 'up in her bubble.'

"The victim told me that she felt as if she was going to be stabbed and managed to get to a phone... As Officer Schickler and I arrived on the scene, I could see that there was a female outside of the store with a dog, but no suspect. I got out of my car to approach the female—at which time the suspect [who had not left the scene!] came out from the area where he had been using a large pillar to conceal himself.

"The suspect was told to stop and to keep his hands out where we could see them. The suspect did not follow these commands and continued to close in on us. The suspect was less than 12 feet away when he reached for his left rear side. We were now yelling for the suspect not to reach for anything but to put his hands out where we could see them.

"Officer Schickler and I closed in on the suspect, and we each took an arm and began to walk him toward the front of my patrol car. The suspect tensed up and at first seemed like he was going to struggle. The suspect was finally walked to my patrol car and Officer Schickler removed a black knife sheath containing a black-handled knife from the suspect's left rear pants pocket."

Yes, the suspect was wrong to threaten the woman with a knife, but it's also important for dog lovers to appreciate the fact that many humans profoundly hate dog-barking. The very sound of it can grab a soul and shake all reason and sense of calm out of it. To you, the owner, the barking sounds like a little chitchat; to others, it is the last thing you want to hear "up in your bubble."

On the other hand...

Chronic barking is one of those topics about which everything you think you know is wrong. For example, you would assume that if your neighbor's dog barks in such an extreme fashion that your quality of life is devastated and the health and well being of your family is imperiled, that you could turn to your local police and animal control departments and get timely relief from the ongoing torment.

After all, you are the victim - right? And your recalcitrant neighbor who refuses to take responsibility for his dog is the perpetrator. Therefore, surely after the authorities receive your complaint, they are going to step in and force the dog owner to do the right thing - aren't they?

No, probably not. The fact is that the legal system seems to have been set up to make it something between difficult and impossible for you to use the resources of law enforcement to force your neighbor to take responsibility for his dog. Far from protecting you from abuse at the hands of the irresponsible owner, you will find that the system will run interference for the dog owner, and work to block any attempts you make to correct the problem.

The legal system cannot rein in an irresponsible or malicious dog owner unless three things are in place:

1. A good law

2. an available law enforcement official who is willing to enforce the law, and

3. a judge who is willing to impose penalties strong enough to serve as a deterrent.

In Santa Rosa, California, the city won't act unless three neighbors are willing to jump through hoops, but the neighbors won't jump. So there is no hope of help from the criminal law, which is so bad that it is all but unworkable.

Even if you have a good law in place, it doesn't do a bit of good unless you have available law dogs who are willing to enforce it. A case in point: In Maricopa County, Arizona, south of Carefree, what used to be a quiet desert community is now awash day and night with the sound of five Pit Bull Terriers and three other nondescript dogs who "bellow" endlessly. The dogs belong to a young man the people in the neighborhood describe as a "loose cannon" who "stares and tries to intimidate people."

For the people of the neighborhood, the noise has reached the level where their every activity must be modified to accommodate the limitations placed on them by the unrelenting torrent of noise flooding through their desert homes. As one of the neighbors said, "It's just a terrible situation," but terrible is not a strong enough word to describe the hell those people are enduring. Unless you've been through it yourself, you have no idea.

The people of the community called the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which provided the usual assistance you get in those kinds of situations. They didn't do a thing, which left the victims on their own with a resultant escalation of the crisis that led to several people acquiring firearms. "It's going to get pretty bad real soon," said one resident. "This was a nice quiet neighborhood. Now we're armed to the teeth like we're in some kind of war."

The sheriff's deputy said that, when he came out, the owner agreed to move the dogs from one side of his yard to the other side of his yard. The deputy thought that was enough of a good faith effort so he didn't write the guy a ticket. A spokesman for the sheriff's department said the dog's owner had been "more accommodating than other owners of barking dogs." Please, go back and reread the last sentence. Think about the implications of that statement. The officer said a mouthful.

Even if your home town has a good anti-barking law and police officers who are Johnny on the spot and ready to write tickets, it still doesn't mean a thing unless the local court is stocked with judges who are ready to crack down. Unfortunately, on the judicial level, the system more often than not falls way short in that regard as well.

In Oshawa, Ontario, the city council has received hundreds of complaints about barking dogs. Shift workers report they can't sleep at "any hour of the day or night" because of the endless barking. Imagine what it's like to come home wiped out from a day of factory work only to lie awake all night tormented by the staccato outbursts of nearby canines. Think what it's like at sunup having to drag yourself out of bed exhausted for a day of physical labor that you know will be capped off with yet another sleepless night.

Unfortunately, the Oshawa city council has announced that, henceforth, they will no longer even attempt to take action against the owners of barking dogs because the court returns so few convictions that the city fathers have decided it is "futile" to even try. It may be just as well because, even when fines are levied, they are usually so minimal they have no impact on the behavior of the offenders.

Think about this: Imagine you live near a habitually barking hound. There are four people in your family and, on average, each of you loses three hours of sleep each night to the neighbor's barking dog. That means that in one year's time each of you will lose 1,095 hours of sleep for a cumulative family sleep deficit of 4,380 hours on the year.

Now imagine that, miraculously, you manage to get the powers that be to come out and cite the dog owner. Even though the dog continues to bark every day, the city won't come back and cite the owner every day. Once the perpetrator has been issued a citation then, as far as the city is concerned, the case is closed until the matter goes to court and it can easily take a year before the court hears the case. That means that every day and every night of that entire year your family has to put up with this astoundingly stressful disruption of their lives.

Finally, after a year, the case goes to court and the judge fines the culprit $50.00. That means for every hour the irresponsible behavior of your neighbor kept a member of your household awake, he was forced to pay a fine of just a little over one penny. And you don't even get the penny. All you get is another year of victimization because, after the fine is paid, there's very little chance that that will be the end of it. You will almost certainly find that the dog will remain on the property and the barking will continue.

In Santa Rosa, if you are one of the rare individuals who is lucky enough to finally, actually get a judgment against a dog owner, you'll find the court will allow the culprit up to 30 days to quiet the animal. Let's see, if we calculate a night's sleep at eight hours, then, in thirty days, you can lose 240 hours of sleep. But, apparently, the city fathers were worried that it might inconvenience the perpetrators if they were required to stop committing the crime any sooner than that.

It couldn't be more apparent that what we have now is a system geared to harassing and hamstringing the victims, as opposed to a legal system dedicated to solving the problem by cracking down on the perpetrators.

An Emergency Situation

Anyone who believes frequent barking is properly classified as a "nuisance" must also believe that cancer is an inconvenience. When the essential character of your existence is transformed and the quality of your life is slashed, that is not a "nuisance." That is a full-blown crisis. It is an emergency that warrants immediate action.

What we need are anti-barking ordinances that can always be immediately enforced. What we have instead is a legal system that usually doesn't work at all and, on those occasions that it does bring about some result, it virtually never does so in a timely fashion. To make things worse, the current system often endangers those it is supposed to protect.

Propelling the Victim Into Harm's Way

The Multiple-Household laws, that were supposedly written to deter chronic barking, actually mandate that, before law enforcement will even consider intervening, the victimized neighbor must first interact with and take actions against the dog owner that are all but certain to engender antagonisms. Imagine the plight of an elderly woman awash in an ocean of noise from a yard full of guard dogs belonging to a menacing looking young neighbor known to use methamphetamine and to have served prison time for violent behavior. Do you really think she is going to march over to his house, as the multiple-household laws mandate, demand her right to the quiet enjoyment of her property and then organize the neighborhood in a legal crusade against him? In the actual case of this particular elderly lady dog-hater she stretched the Castle Doctrine's paramiters to the limit by blowing away the miscreant menacing looking young neighbor known to use methamphetamine and to have served prison time for violent behavior and his miscreant dog handily where they stood with her 10-gauge double gun, to the joy of all her neighbors and the constabulary as well; and was awarded the Key To The City by the forever-grateful town mayor (who had suffered horrid and continuous abuse at the brutal hands of the uncivil Civil Liberties Union over the rights of shaggy yoga dogs and shaggy chickens to bark).

For further endless, lip-numbing reading about barking shaggy dogs see links below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story http://www.antimoon.com/other/shaggydog.htm Note: In its original sense, a shaggy dog story is an extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents, usually resulting in a pointless or absurd punchline. These stories are a special case of yarns, coming from the long tradition of campfire yarns. Shaggy dog stories play upon the audience's preconceptions of the art of joke telling. The audience listens to the story with certain expectations, which are either simply not met or met in some entirely unexpected manner.

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Morning Pee

How does he do that? I can't do that. My dog Sparky can't do that either.

Santo John Belushi come i maiali volano su Roma?

Elwood: "It's 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."

Jake: "Hit it."

The Blues Brothers a ‘Catholic Classic'

In the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, the 1980 comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, The Blues Brothers, has been declared "a Catholic classic" alongside The Ten Commandments and The Passion of the Christ. L'Osservatore editor Gian Maria Vian, who doubles as its film critic, apparently, cited the film's plot, in which two brothers battle "cops, neo-Nazis and crazed country fans in a bid to save the Catholic orphanage where they were raised," as his explanation. The Vatican's official reading of the film is that, "For [the Blues brothers] this Catholic institution is their only family. And they decide to save it at any cost." Aykroyd told the New York Post: "As a former altar boy from age 6 ... but a somewhat lapsed Catholic, I was delighted with the endorsement." Official Catholic ruling on Caddyshack II is still pending.

Cast

Cab Calloway as Curtis Carrie Fisher as Mystery Woman Aretha Franklin as Mrs. Murphy Ray Charles as Pawn Shop Owner/Himself James Brown as Reverend Cleophus James John Candy as Burton Mercer Kathleen Freeman as Sister Mary Stigmata, "The Penguin" Henry Gibson as Head Nazi Steve Lawrence as Maury Sline Twiggy as Chic Lady Frank Oz as Corrections Officer Jeff Morris as Bob Sheilah Wells as Claire Charles Napier as Tucker McElroy

Steven Williams as Trooper Mount Armand Cerami as Trooper Daniel Chaka Khan as Choir soloist John Lee Hooker as musician on Maxwell Street John Landis as State trooper Stephen Bishop as police officer with broken watch Joe Walsh as Prisoner Paul Reubens as Chez Paul waiter Steven Spielberg as Cook County Assessor's Office Clerk Layne Britton as The Cheese Wiz Joe Cuttone as Lloyd Toni Fleming as Mrs. Tarantino Carolyn Franklin, Brenda Bryant Corbett, and Margaret Branch as Soul Food Chorus.

The Blues Brothers Band

• John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues, lead vocals

• Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues, harmonica and lead vocals
• Steve Cropper as Steve "the Colonel" Cropper, lead guitar, rhythm guitar and vocals
• Donald "Duck" Dunn as Donald "Duck" Dunn, bass guitar
• Murphy Dunne as Murphy "Murph" Dunne, keyboards
• Willie Hall as Willie "Too Big" Hall, drums and percussion
• Tom Malone as Tom "Bones" Malone, trombone, tenor saxophone and vocals
• Lou Marini as "Blue Lou" Marini, alto saxophone and tenor saxophone and vocals
• Matt Murphy as Matt "Guitar" Murphy, lead guitar
• Alan Rubin as Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin, trumpet, percussion and vocals

Jake: "I ran outta gas! I had a flat tire! I didn't have enough money for cab fare! My tux didn't come back from the cleaners! An old friend came in from outta town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts!! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!!"

Put on your PJs

Put on your PJs and motor to one of these five Puget Sound drive-in movie theaters...

From Rachel Shimp in the Seattle Times, and other cool sources

Old peeling paint sign

Big screen cavalry coming to the rescue Saturday night tradition repeated over and over by millions

The drive-in theater was the creation of Camden, New Jersey, chemical company magnate Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr., whose family owned and operated the R.M. Hollingshead Corporation chemical plant in Camden. In 1932, Hollingshead conducted outdoor theater tests in his driveway at 212 Thomas Avenue in Riverton. After nailing a screen to trees in his backyard, he set a 1928 Kodak projector on the hood of his car and put a radio behind the screen, testing different sound levels with his car windows down and up. Blocks under vehicles in the driveway enabled him to determine the size and spacing of ramps so all automobiles could have a clear view of the screen. Following these experiments, he applied August 6, 1932 for a patent of his invention, and he was given U.S. Patent 1,909,537 on May 16, 1933. That patent was declared invalid 17 years later by the Delaware District Court.

Hollingshead's drive-in opened in New Jersey June 6, 1933, on Admiral Wilson Boulevard at the Airport Circle in Pennsauken, a short distance from Cooper River Park. It offered 500 slots and a 40 by 50 ft (12 by 15 m) screen. He advertised his drive-in theater with the slogan, "The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are". (The first film shown was the Adolphe Menjou film "Wife Beware".) The facility only operated three years, but during that time the concept caught on in other states. The April 15, 1934, opening of Shankweiler's Auto Park in Orefield, Pennsylvania, was followed by Galveston's Drive-In Short Reel Theater (July 5, 1934), the Pico in Los Angeles (September 9, 1934) and the Weymouth Drive-In Theatre in Weymouth, Massachusetts (May 6, 1936). In 1937, three more opened in Ohio, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with another 12 during 1938 and 1939 in California, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Texas and Virginia. Michigan's first drive-in was the Eastside, which opened May 26, 1938 in Harper Woods near Detroit.

The drive-in's peak popularity came in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly in rural areas, with some 4,000 drive-ins spreading across the United States. Among its advantages was the fact that a family with a baby could take care of their child while watching a movie, while teenagers with access to autos found drive-ins ideal for dates. Revenue is more limited than regular theaters since showings can only begin at twilight. There were abortive attempts to create suitable conditions for daylight viewing such as large tent structures, but nothing viable was developed.

In the 1950s, the greater privacy afforded to patrons gave drive-ins a reputation as immoral, and they were labeled "passion pits" in the media. During the 1970s, some drive-ins changed from family fare to exploitation films, as a way to offset declining patronage and revenue. In fact some producers in the 1970s would make exploitation films directly for the drive-in market. Also, during the 1970s, some drive-ins began to show pornographic movies in less family-centered time slots to bring in extra income . This became a problem because it allowed for censored materials to be available to a wide audience, some for whom viewing was illegal. This also led to concern about the availability and uncontrollability of adult-centered media in the general public. The drive-in was open to abuse, such as the smuggling in of viewers in the trunks of cars to avoid paying for individual tickets.

Glass coffeemaker found in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art

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Bialetti Moka Express Stovetop Espresso Maker

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Dwile Flonking

Dwile Flonking

The pastime of Dwile Flonking involves two teams, each taking a turn to dance around the other while attempting to avoid a beer-soaked dwile (cloth) thrown by the non-dancing team.

'Flonk' is probably a corruption of flong, an old past tense of fling; and "dwile" is a knitted floor cloth, from the Dutch dweil, meaning mop.

Appropriate and seasonal dress is important.

Does dwile flonking really date back to the Suffolk harvests of 400 years ago?

Rules

According to The Friends Of The Lewes Arms, "The rules of the game are impenetrable and the result is always contested." However, less alcohol-centric authorities provide more clarity.

A 'dull witted person' is chosen as the referee or 'jobanowl' and the two teams decide who flonks first by tossing a sugar beet. The game begins when the jobanowl shouts "Here y'go t'gither!"

The non-flonking team joins hands and dances in a circle around a member of the flonking team, a practice known as 'girting'. The flonker dips his dwile-tipped 'driveller' (a pole 2–3 ft long and made from hazel or yew) into a bucket of beer, then spins around in the opposite direction to the girters and flonks his dwile at them.

If the dwile misses completely it is known as a 'swadger' or a 'swage'. When this happens the flonker must drink the contents of an ale-filled 'gazunder' (chamber pot ('goes-under' the bed)) before the wet dwile has passed from hand to hand along the line of now non-girting girters chanting the ancient ceremonial mantra of "pot pot pot".

A full game comprises four 'snurds', each snurd being one team taking a turn at girting. The jobanowl adds interest and difficulty to the game by randomly switching the direction of rotation, and will levy drinking penalties on any player found not taking the game seriously enough.

Points are awarded as follows:

• +3: a 'wanton'- a direct hit on a girter's head
• +2: a 'morther' or 'marther'- a body hit
• +1: a 'ripple' or 'ripper'- a leg hit
• -1 per sober person at the end of the game

At the end of the game, the team with the most number of points wins, and will be awarded a ceremonial pewter gazunder (def.: A chamber pot for the collection of faeces and urine, so called because it gazunder the bed).

Traditions Before a match the dwile flonkers sing an emotionally filled anthem "Here we 'em be together" penned by one Amos Thirkle, who was later adopted as the sport's patron saint.

History

The earliest definitely known game of Dwile Flonking was played at the Beccles Festival of Sport in 1966. According to BBC research, 'No one can remember the score, although team members recalled feeling "pretty fragile" the following morning.'

The organisers were Andrew Leverett and Robert Devereux, printing apprentices at Clay's of Bungay and Clowes of Beccles, respectively, who had apparently been shown the rules on the only decipherable portion of a parchment document entitled: 'Ye Olde Booke of Suffolk Harvest Rituels', which George High of Bungay claimed to have found the same year while clearing out his late grandfather's attic. The inaugural teams were formed by employees of Clay's and Clowes.

The Team at The Racehorse pub in 2002. The picture was taken on their Christmas Day, which was the Sunday before August Bank Holiday (explains the Christmas tree on the left of the photo)

Some suspicion was cast on the game in 1967 when the Eastern Daily Press ran an article which stated inter alia that the county archivist had failed to find any mention of the game amongst the county records. Dwile Flonking featured as a key element in legal hearings later that year assessing an application for a licence extension to cater for the dinner dance of the Waveney Valley Dwile Flonking Association. The Waveney Valley Dwile Flonking Association went on to make their television debut on The Eamonn Andrews television programme in 1967, which resulted in letters from Australia, Hong Kong and America asking for a Flonking rule book, although in the Australians' case this may have been a misprint.

Schott's apparently retcons the game claiming an historical evidence in a 16th century painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder: Children's games.

References

• Finn, Timothy: Pub Games of England (Oleander Press)

Notes

1. ^ Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports by Tony Collins, John Martin, Wray Vamplew
2. ^ dwile, Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, 1989, http://dictionary.oed.com/, retrieved 2009-08-14.

External links

• "The art of Dwile Flonking" at BBC Suffolk, 11 September 2003.
• Dwyle Flunking at the Lewes Arms in Lewes, East Sussex
• Play Virtual Dwile Flonking online, courtesy of the BBC
• Video of Dwyle Flunking at the Lewes Arms from 2008
• World Wide Words
• http://TheNorfolkBroads.Org/Dwile%20Flonking.html World Dwile Flonking Championships

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwile_Flonking"

Categories: Pub games

Thanks in part to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

FEDORA

Wikipedia: A fedora (pronounced /fɨˈdɔrə/) is a felt hat that is creased lengthwise down the crown and pinched in the front on both sides.^[1] Similar hats with a C-crown (with an indentation for the head in the top of the crown) are occasionally called fedoras. The brim goes all the way around, and often there will be a hat band as well. A trilby hat is somewhat similar to a fedora, but typically has a narrower brim, and the back of the brim is distinctively more sharply upturned as a result.

The term fedora was in use as early as 1891. Originally a women's fashion into the 20th century, the fedora came into use in about 1919, as a men's middle-class clothing accessory. Its popularity soared, and eventually it eclipsed the similar-looking Homburg by the early 1920s. Fedoras can be found in nearly any color imaginable, but black, grey, tan, brown, and red are the most popular.

The term Fedora came from the title of a 1880’s drama by playwright Victorien Sardou, which had been written for the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Premiered in 1889, it saw Bernhardt portray Princess Fedora, the heroine of the piece wearing a fedora hat. On this basis it became fashionable amongst women around the early twentieth century.

MOVIES & TV from boxwish http://boxwish.com/movies-men/2010-02-22- return-to-the-50s-with-fedora-hats-as-seen-on- leonardo-dicaprio-in-shutter-island

There's nothing old hat about these old school fedoras.

Fedora hats are due a cinematic comeback. Over the years, they’ve often been in the movie mix. Way back in the days of black and white (before anyone had even dreamed of HD), they were THE thing with gangsters, private investigators and tough guys, almost like a badge of honour for Hollywood heavies. Humphrey Bogart rocked one in Casablanca and Gene Kelly rarely took his off, yet since the heyday of the 40s and early 50s, they’ve become reduced from a key style staple to a quirky character clue.

Freddy Krueger wore one (with a slasher knife glove? What was he thinking?) as he terrorised dreamers in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies and Jake and Elwood Blues paired theirs with Wayfarer shades and classic suits in The Blues Brothers, but by far the most famous fedora fan is Indiana Jones. With his bullwhip and leather jacket, it made up the holy trinity essential to nailing Indy’s explorer look, and while this is always being copied and admired like Freddy and the Blues brothers’ styles, it’s a bit more fancy dress than everyday cool.

So how to give the fedora a more cool currency in modern fashions? Get a screen star known for being well-dressed and stylish to wear one. Enter Leonardo DiCaprio – job done. Yes, Leo is working the fedora look in Shutter Island, his latest collaboration with iconic director, Martin Scorsese. Working with Marty has taken Leo back to the mid-1800s with Gangs of New York, to the crime-filled streets of Boston for The Departed and to Hollywood’s glittering golden age in The Aviator and now they’re heading to 1954 for this adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s 2003 bestseller.