Book Review: come Fly the World, by Julia Cook

Published in 2021, the back of the book blurb & Amazon descriptions do a good job of telling us what the book is about: How stewardesses came to be in the commercial flight industry after WWII, and how PanAm stewardesses were impacted by the Viet Nam War. it also includes a great chapter on overcoming sexism and gaining respect.

Normally, this isn’t my type of read.It’s a bit cute, and the author dances around why we were in Viet Nam, but that’s not the story. the story is how many families of young women tried to dissuade them from choosing a career in the airline industry, mostly based on cultural images the airlines made popular.

I’m sure many women of the baby boom generation at least considered becoming a flight attendant. The big plus was the opportunity to see the world. Would I suggest this as a career now? Only to bilingual people, and people who enjoyed serving others. The book also has some good photos, so I’d say to any teenager, check this book out and don’t have illusions.

^^^I just returned from Dubai, and will post on that next week. I went to Dubai to see if my impressions of Dubai still held—& they do. Please check out “The Pleasure Seeker”

Venus: Eulogizing a Dog

I’ve worked in the pet industry virtually all my working career. I’ve worked for several imbeciles who’ve told me how many dogs they’ve owned, as if quantity proves you’re a dog lover.

We recently euthanized Venus, Yes, it was sad, but as I told friends, the real sadness was knowing that the end was near.

I turn 70 in a few months. ‘My’ 1st dog (that I was responsible for) was Khyber, a black Afghan. What a pedigree…but he was proof that you don’t breed pedigrees…you breed dogs. He was very loyal. He was the first dog I seriously trained. he was good, but i didn’t have the confidence to compete with him: i didn’t know how he’d be off-leash. in fact, when we started training, i was 13, and so many people tried to discourage me, nobody trained an Afghan! That’s what i was told. But my father and I couldn’t imagine why not. this was the late 1960’s.

Unfortunately, he died at age 9: he had a heart attack, so I had him euthanized, and I had an autopsy done, as he had always vomited bile. Turned out he had undiagnosed pancreatitis. 50 years ago, it was almost impossible to diagnose without a biopsy, and even then, there wasn’t really a treatment. However, it is still somewhat common in Afghans,

I got Aswan from Wally Pede when I moved out of my parents home. Another dog with a spectacular pedigree, but who didn’t mature to my tastes. She was to be my foundation, but I chose her (or rather, Wally chose her for me) too young, and she never developed a brisket, had an east-west front, and a very plain head…& no coat pattern. I ended up having her spayed. Still, I put a CD on her (novice obedience title), trained her for Open (jumps & retrieves), but she could never be counted on to do everything on one command. I couldn’t afford the entry fees if she was going to ham it up for applause. She became an ASFA field champion, and was a joy to watch run. She had a gorgeous silky strawberry blond coat. She was a very good dog once I trained her & lived to be almost 15. She became blind, deaf, incontinent the last couple of months of her life, and I knew the end was near, so I euthanized her. This was about 1987.

My husband didn’t want another Afghan after Khyber died, so I got Bari. Another dog with an exciting pedigree, but who also didn’t mature; no brisket, and flying ears. I put a C.D. and Field Championship on him. He was a very sweet dog, but Aswan was a roughneck with him. When I went into Peace Corps (after being divorced and finishing grad school…), several friends wanted him because he was very well behaved. He live to see me return, but his last few months, I could tell he was uncomfortable. When he started vomiting and couldn’t keep food down, I euthanized him at age 14.

During this time, I was involved in Afghan rescue, and ultimately left the Afghan Hound Club of Greater Chicago. This was the mid 1970’s, and no breeders supported rescue. The only club member who was a breeder who supported rescue was Fredric Alderman, and that was because he did an extremely good job of screening potential buyers. The rest of the club members who were breeding mocked me. I got Bali from Chicago Animal Care & Control, from the old facility, which was horrible,. I had been alerted by an employee there. She was in awful shape, down to 28 pounds when I got her. She vomited tinfoil and bottle caps for a few days, and I had to shave her—even her ears. I placed her, but she kept escaping, and finally the person I placed her with asked me to keep her. I have no idea how old she was: over 6—younger than 10. She looked very Belden (bloodlines) She had hookworm disease, and when she started hemorhaging, I euthanized her, but she was so loyal while I had her.

I wanted to consider a larger sighthound, after Bari died, and I called Jayne Harpling (Al Talat), who I knew from lure-coursing, She was no longer breeding dogs, & she referred me to Bill & Cindy Brown, They remembered me from ASFA field trials. I told them that I didn’t want a puppy, and they called me back a few days later telling me they had too many male dogs, and would give me ‘Bari’ whose name I changed to Sadiq. They told me he had never been in the house alone, and my 4 years with him were fraught. He was never fully housebroken: no crate could contain him He loved me & my then roommate, but was very nervous, would steal anything he could reach (fruit from a hanging fruit basket), hated obedience training. and ultimately died of lymphoma (after I spent over $2000 trying to treat it).

I learned about Saluki Rescue Central, which was sort of an ad hoc group formed by the Huron Valley Saluki Club, and there were no Salukis in rescue, but I was referred to a breeder who had kept 2 young males, both over a year old. I drove with my roommate, Melvin, to Fennville Michigan and Nancy (den Hollander) Badra gave me Dazzle.

Nancy didn’t think Dazzle was show quality, but after seeing other Salukis around me, when he was mature, I felt he was, so she said go show him. He finished quickly, We had trouble finding majors, but he got them when he was shown (usually Best of Winners over bitches—where the majors were). I didn’t spend $500 showing him to his title. We tried lure-coursing, but he got disqualified for ‘playful interference’, endearing me (as you can imagine) to all the other people running Salukis. So that was the end of that. He also didn’t like being in a class with common dogs, so we didn’t do obedience, but he was so naturally well-behaved. An anomaly! He was with me 14 years and seemed fine until one day he couldn’t stand. I knew it was the end, even though he showed no other signs of illness or pain. When I had had Dazzle about a year, Whippet Rescue (this was a forerunner to WRAP) called and asked if I’d take a young male. I had been on the waiting list for 4 years! His owner had died, and the person fostering would keep him, but the dog & her bitch played too hard & the bitch wasn’t healing from an injury. I said I’d take him if he got along with Dazzle. We called him BeBop. As soon as he walked in, he walked under Dazzle, a sign of dominance, but they got along fine. Bop was a calming influence on Dazzle, who was also a bit nervous.

Bop lived to be 14, and this was a sad time for me because by this time, Kunihiro was living with me, and he had never lived with dogs. Bop slept with him, and he didn’t want me to euthanize Bop. Bop fell down the stairs one night, and although he seemed ok, he wasn’t. The next day, I returned home from work and found him collapsed in the kitchen laying in a pool of urine. I said it had to be done. By this time, we had been lucky to find Dash.

I put the word out that I was looking for another Whippet.

Dash, who we got from Sarah Shakespeare & Linda Larsen, was returned to them for chasing the cat! Although he and Bop didn’t play a lot, they did play. I managed to put Beginner Novice, CGC, and Rally Excellent title on Dash. We started lure coursing, but he broke his leg in a freak accident (he stepped on a deflector), and that was the end of that. Linda referred me to an excellent veterinarian, and Kunihiro paid at least half the bill—which was very high. Just before COVID, Dash seemed to be dying. We knew he had a heart murmur, but nothing else was showing up. After a few weeks of back & forth with the Vet, and COVID complicating everything, we brought him to be euthanized. Again, Kunihiro asked the vet if nothing could be done. After he died, about a quart of liquid spilled from his lungs.

We had gotten Venus a few months after Bebop died. She was originally named Tosca. She was returned to her breeder, Sally Long, at age 7 due to a crisis her owner faced. Just by networking with other Whippet fanciers, I learned about her, and picked her up at the American Whippet Club Specialty outside Milwaukee in 2008.

Venus adjusted quickly, but aside from being housebroken and walking on a leash, she needed training, She was a nipper, and vocal when she got excited, but she bonded with Kunihiro quickly. I started training her in Rally, and within 3 years she had CGC and Rally Excellent titles. We were going for an RAE, which required 10 groups of 2 qualifying scores in 2 different classes at each trial. We got 3 groups of 2, but she started ‘NQing’ Rally Excellent, usually jumps. However, I had paid the entry fees and did the Advanced exercises. She had so many qualifying scores in Advanced that she was nationally ranked! We did a little WRA straight racing, but by this time she was a senior.

Both Venus and Dash were great hunters. Venus caught a rabbit 1 evening in the yard and ate it. The next day, her stool was filled with hundreds of wiggly black worms. Scary. I brought her next stool sample to the vet I worked for: nothing. Shed them all. Once I saw Dash grab a squirrel right off a tree. I have a friend who has trained dogs and thinks she knows animal behavior, and thinks it’s horrible that I ‘let’ them kill animals. It happens so fast. I was working at a very poorly run kennel that was in an old warehouse, and they both caught mice there all the time.

By this time, I agreed to foster a dog for WRAP. I had taken 1 dog, who initially seemed fine, but after a few days, he started bullying Dash, so I returned him and agreed to take Delilah.

The story I got, which was 3rd hand, was that she came from a hoarding situation.; maybe, but all the dogs they took (at least a dozen adult dogs) (& at least 2 litter of puppies) could walk on leashes and were housebroken. More: Delilah had been obedience trained. I realized this when I started taking her to classes (I am a member of Northshore Dog Training Club, so we’re always going to classes. $50 for a 6 week session for members). Also, it was clear, at least the 1st month we had her, she was looking for someone when I walked her around the neighborhood. She didn’t go willingly from whomever had her.

WRAP found a home for her, but Delilah just freaked out. She got into the car to leave me, but when they got her to the new home, she bolted. They chased her, she bit someone, but they got her back into the car, and they brought her back to me. Not what I had planned, but that’s how it was. She is extremely nervous, but she loved both Dash & Venus, it was clear. She continued to try to sleep next to Venus, but Venus wasn’t having it, By this time, Venus was old, and couldn’t take a rambunctious dog. We have no idea how old Delilah is. I’ve had her 5 years, so 6? 7? She won’t let me do her teeth, and I can’t pick her up without muzzling her.
Sally Long, Venus’s breeder, asked what happened with Venus, and the short answer is: she wore out. As old dogs do, she lost muscle mass. She didn’t have cataracts, buy opacies. Not unusual. Her hearing went. She was rickety, but I knew she still enjoyed her life, What she started doing on walks was sniffing a lot more. I usually don’t let my dogs sniff on walks, because it’s too easy to ingest ‘something’ Khyber got giardia from ingesting.

How do you know when it’s time? By knowing your dog, I tell my grooming clients that they’ll know: the dog will sleep a lot more, not want to go for walks, start pacing in the house—possibly end up stuck in a corner (a sure sign of dementia), but that wasn’t Venus, In the end, she stopped eating, and due to neuropathy in her legs, couldn’t stand.

Kunihiro, her buddy, was very broken up, Just three days before he bought latex boots and some nonslip rugs, He carried her up and down the stairs, but he knew.

My vet is ‘fear free’—so my dogs always liked going because they got cheese and that Henry Shein soft-moist fudgy fake meat. Venus had a peaceful death with us with her at the very end.

Have I really owned that many dogs? I don’t think so. It’s been important to me to have a personal relationship with my dogs. At 1 time, I wanted to own a kennel, but those days are gone. Perhaps if I had married well, things might have been different, but I learned from my dogs and from having a wonderful roommate (over 20 years with Kunihiro), it’s better to have reliable than drama and disrespect.

I have loved teaching my dogs and competing with my dogs. I’ve met some really wonderful people from dog training and performance (which off set the imbeciles who wanted to be in the dog business but never bothered to learn anything about dogs, and disrespected me to the point of sabotaging the success of their businesses).

Now. I’m retired. No more drama. We will begin searching for another dog to keep Delilah company in a few weeks.

Learning As I Go: Book Promotion

I plan to start selling THE PLEASURE SEEKER, my fiction book, on January 15, 2024. I have to get the book into the hands of reviewers. if you’d like an ARC (advance review copy—not for sale), let me know. I had the book designed by a book designer. I guess if you bang out cheap stories, you can learn to do this, but I wanted the book to look good. I’ve put it up on Amazon and Draft2Digital, I’m waiting for Ingram-Spark.

Here’s the blurb:

Dayal Singh is brilliant, quirky, and has Asperger’s.The child of parents trafficked to Africa from India after independence, he knows he’s Sikh and that calculus is the evidence of God.

Having fallen in love with the granddaughter of the man who bought his father, she tells him he is too young and that he must stay in school as long as he has a scholarship. He starts school in Singapore, but is offered a better opportunity in Switzerland, where he is surprised at being proselytized to, which he finds irritating. He meets fellow music lovers, they form a group, THE PLEASURE SEEKERS, and suddenly they are famous. Dayal wants a lover, and agrees to meet Sita, the daughter of a man his father met. He tells her right from the start that if they marry and have children, he wants them raised Sikh, and she agrees. However, Sita is not totally honest. When Dayal discovers she’s been lying to him, he has to make a decision to protect his kids from succumbing to Christian ethos.  This is a serious problem and the story may offend devout Christians. There is also erotic content.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHZ3GHW8?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420 the link to preorder

I’ve learned a lot the past several years. The publishing industry has changed. usually, unless you are referred to an agent, and you don’t have a social media following, they won’t waste their time on you. that’s why so many authors are now self-publishing.

I know there is a readership for this story. If you have any questions—you know where to find me.

Why Do We Give Almost a Billion Dollars of AID to Uganda?

In case you, as an American, believes that our foreign policy has anything to do with human rights, I’ve got news for you. We don’t care.

The whole foreign aid thing started after WWII, and lobbyists (public relations people) got on board quickly. If the leader of a less developed country said he wasn’t a communist, we gave him money. Seriously. Our whole foreign policy has been—for years—- giving money to dictators who claim to not be communists (or at least under the sphere of the USSR).

We send negotiators who may or may not have degrees in political science, development, economics…it never really mattered if OUR PEOPLE had ever been to the countries they were suggesting we Americans should give aid to. The goals were vague: to make their governments friendly to the USA? Certainly not to improve living standards for most citizens. Even the World Bank believes that citizens should pay for education and medical care.

It’s difficult to learn about a country’s policies unless you live there. In Malawi, there were laws that women could not wear pants or trousers unless they wore a shalwars Khameez tunic over it. Skirts had to cover women’s knees. Men’s hair could not touch their collars (to prevent white hippies from settling in and changing the ‘culture’).

We’ve given a lot of aid to Malawi. You can Google by country, how much aid we give in three year aid cycles. The goals? Who even checks to see if the literacy rate has gone up? If people are food secure? If they have access to health care? In fact, due to some really screwed up politicians, many women can’t get access to family planning services because we believe the Christian Bible says we should be fruitful and multiply.

I call out Uganda because they have the most restrictive laws regarding LGBTQ people—including prosecuting those who associate with them. This makes no sense. Worse, it shows that the people who make the decisions about aid are racist, sexist, elitist—& don’t care about human rights. Then they wonder why so many people become refugees & try to come to the USA.

Okera City

The reason I have a degree in urban planning is that I got offered an assistantship to grad school because of my hands on experience with recycling, microbusiness, and community organizing. My undergraduate degree was no accident. I chose anthropology because (well, at the time I didn’t know I had Asperger’s) I wanted to know how humans made decisions. One of my grad school classmates also had an undergraduate degree in anthropology, and he told me he chose planning because he felt he could do a better job than what he had experienced around him.

I think a lot of planners really have a utopian vision. I was heavily influenced by what I learned about the Oneida community: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Community . it was a unique social experiment, and they supported themselves by manufacturing most of what they needed themselves—and by developing a silverware company which still exists. The commune dissolved for a variety of reasons.

I started thinking about this because Ojoko Okello, an urban planner from Kampala, Uganda, came to talk about the community he is helping to develop in Uganda, where his father was born: Okera City:https://www.okerecity.org/ Check out their website. they’ve done some amazing things in a very short period of time. Also, although the USA gives aid to Uganda…this community developed on their own & receives no aid, but is looking for investors.

https://www.projectredwood.org/zambian-childrens-fund/ i learned about ZCF just about when they started. An American woman managed to get foundation support for building a campus and school just north of Lusaka, for AIDS orphans. They slowly managed to develop income generating projects. Again, Zamia receives foreign aid from the USA, but ZCF gets none.

https://malawichildrensvillage.org/about-us/ This project was also started for AIDS orphans. A bunch of ‘do-gooder peace Corps Volunteers had ideas 9as we Americans do), but we asked the community what they wanted. They wanted to keep children with their extended families if possible, but they wanted help with an irrigation system, a school, digging wells, and a health center. They are just outside Mangochi on lake Malawi. It has not been smooth sailing for MCV. first AIDS, then so many environmental disasters, and COVID. yet for any child that graduates secondary school, there is assistance with college or starting businesses. They built a hospital/nursery for AIDS orphans. Malawi gets foreign aid from the USA, but none goes to MCV.

I’m sure there are other community based projects. If you’re going to the continent, bring world maps, first aid stuff, science education stuff…Google the country you’re visiting and see if there are any model villages. You can also contact Peace Corps in country (or Volunteers Overseas Service: https://www.vsointernational.org/ ) and possibly, volunteer, or assist (hey—Christian church members—an opportunity without proselytizing).

If you can’t go, but still want to ‘do something’:https://www.africanlibraryproject.org/ sends books and helps build libraries. Please don’t send your old trade paperbacks.They need science books, technical ‘how to’, medical books, nonfiction. They receive no government support.

I keep wondering where our aid goes. I know it goes to weapons for dictators and gets frittered away because USAID is dismal at accounting,. so another thing you can do if you really want to make a difference is ask your elected officials why nobody on their staffs can read a budget, and they keep voting to overfund out military AND ‘foreign aid’—& yet always argue about the debt s ceiling and the budget. Tell them then appear to not be very competent.

Zambian Childrens Fund

My CV

I don’t have one. Nor do I have a resume anymore. When I got my last job working for Rob Engelking at King’s Kennels in Riverwoods, Illinois, I knew that would be my last job. In fact, it was my dream job, for so many reasons. Logistically, I could get the 20 miles to the kennel in half the time it took me to get downtown, where the job I had before that (at K9 University) was. At King’s, I could park in the parking lot and not have to drive around looking for a place to park.

Then, the grooming room—in fact the whole kennel—was wonderful: safe, clean, and had every piece of equipment a dog groomer could want. More, the Engelkings had a reputation among people showing dogs. Certainly, we groomed a lot of pet dogs, but we had a high percentage of dogs being shown or retired from the ring, and of course, they were all well behaved. Also, Rob was the best boss ever. He knew dogs. He knew what we could do and what we couldn’t. He had a great sense of humor, and he respected me.

If you were to look at my resume, you’d laugh. This is the blurb I send out when I submit short stories to journals and they want a bio:

Robyn is a retired dog groomer who has titled dogs  in performance and conformation. She also has placed in grooming contests. She didn’t go to college until she was 30, and  took CLEP exams to avoid prerequisites. She has degreesin anthropology with concentrations in African & Indian studies, and a master’s in urban planning. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi. Most of her published writing has been nonfiction in pet industry magazines, though she has published fiction stories. Most recently her essay, “On the Water,” was included in the SCARS anthology for 2022.  She has Asperger’s and sees the world from the perspective of a visitor from another planet.

I went to the New York School of Dog Grooming in Chicago in 1970, where I learned basic Poodle grooming five days a week. I then got several short term jobs until I graduated high school, the last one at Becker Animal Hospital in Northfield, assisting poodle groomer Mimi Colman. Then I moved to Milwaukee, took a short term job also grooming for a mom & pop until a friend saw an ad for a groomer way across town for Jo-Kor’s Klippette. Joan Fredericksen, the owner, was a member of the Waukesha Kennel Club, and through her, I met some amazing people, including Charlie Prager, the breeder of the Center Ridge Bedlingtons & inventor of the first portable dog grooming table and stand dryer. I learned to groom terriers so they didn’t look like Cocker Spaniels.

When Joan sold the business about two years later, I moved back to Chicago, in winter.I ultimately got a job assisting Jan Condurso at The Collar & Leash. Her parents raised Bedlingtons, Poodles, and Boxers. She learned to groom Bedlingtons from Jack Funk. I was there about two years making good money when we had the first oil embargo, and business slowed to almost nonexistant.

Then I got a job working for Jocelyn Slatin, who had Jamboree Airedales. I loved that job, but she also planned to move. About that time, I knew of fellow dog fanciers who had a business out in Schaumburg, Illinois, who wanted to sell their business. My parents lent me the money and I bought Reigning Cats & Dogs. I thought my husband and I would move out there, but that never worked out. He got into law school and we got divorced. I was very demoralized, and sold the business, and went to Arizona and worked for Jocelyn, who had moved to Prescott, Arizona. When I got back, I took a part time job grooming, but got hired as a Project Manager for Literacy Volunteers of Chicago, setting up ESL training sites. We were very successful, but I was a ‘VISTA VOLUNTEER’. I got insurance, but the pay was terrible, so I had to keep grooming dogs part time.

I spent several years as an independent contractor, going to a bunch of different shops, piecing jobs together. So many microbusinesses that the owners either sold or shut down. I shlepped out to Naperville (40 miles from home) several days a week for two years. worked as a dog trainer, training people to train their dogs, going from Zion up north to Flossmoor south, and west to Elgin. Lots of driving. Then, in 1985, at the age of 30, I went on an African safari, and it change my life.I quit the dog training job, went to college while I groomed dogs part-time, at Shear Comfort in Skokie, and for a while (until i couldn’t take the lax management & noise) Critter Cleaners out on Harlem. I also learned I had Asberger’s. Suddently, between anthropology & this diagnosis, my life made sense.

I was a research assistant for the two years I was in grad school, and then there were no jobs again. I took a job at the Velvet Bow in Hinsdale, but quickly got a Peace Corps assignment in Malawi, as a Town Planner. I returned, still no jobs. I took a job for Women’s Self-Employment Project when Connie Evans (a woman who had never owned a business) was the Executive Director. That was 1 of my worst jobs. Our program was based on the Grameen Bank model, which works in Bangladesh, where women are illiterate and not mobile. Not so much in Chicago, where you can borrow money, move a block away, and disappear. Connie really had no idea how we got women into our programs. I got Plantars Fascitis from ‘pounding the pavement’ looking for women who had business ideas. From the very start, I was lied to about how much I would be paid, and ultimately they wanted me to train my next boss. What an insult!I got a job with Grooming by Gerri which was great, but I was offered an opportunity for a job with….BENEFITS!!!

The Chicago Christian Industrial League had a resale store that grossed about $300 a day in quarters! The CFO wanted to know why we weren’t making more. He hired me to be a manager, even though the two people managing, Calvin Franklin & Sally Ross, knew what the problem was. Within a week, I could tell as well. Not to go into petty details—the organization’s land was worth more than their program, but from there, I worked for the Ark—a Jewish based social service agency where I was cheated out of health insurance due to lies and bad management. There was so much potential, but management was inept. I finally decided to return to grooming dogs.

I loved grooming dogs, but it’s so physically demanding. In 2000, I bought a business with the hope of ultimately buying a boarding kennel, but first, we had 9/11, and a big scandal with Arthur Andersen (which some of my clients worked for), and the Enron mess, and slowly, slowly, during the Dubya years, the economy got pretty bad and I could see the writing on the wall. I would have possibly stuck it out, but my core business was dogs that got groomed every week and every two weeks, and as those clients dogs’ died of old age, and the clients either lost jobs or their own clients. I just felt I had bought a job for myself. I tried finding a smaller space with less rent to move the business to, and I could not find a properly zoned building within five miles of my shop. I closed up and continued to work for other people.

I went back to work for Shear Comfort, now in Evanston. I took 2 weeks off to be a UN Volunteer in Bosnia & CY (the owner) practically had a fit. I worked for a PetCo, where I was really taken advantage of, and later for a Pet Supplies Plus. I also spent a very bad year on and off working for Jennifer Stavrianos at Pet Care Plus. That was almost surreal. Another business with so much potential owned by a woman who had never trained a dog and wouldn’t even bathe her own dogs.

I worked for a couple of animal hospitals that either had no practice manager, so nobody was in charge, or had a practice manager that didn’t care and I was put in either dangerous or no-win situations constantly (my ‘favorite’ was the year dog flu/kennel cough was rampant, and the veterinarians had no isolation kennels and put sick dogs in the grooming room).

I took a job with a business owned by a veterinary technician who promised to make the grooming area better and safer, and never did, and who trusted another groomer & didn’t realize that she didn’t have enough grooming clients for a viable business.

I was hoping things would work out at K9 University, as I really like Ruby Madrigal, but she also didn’t manage her own business and her staff didn’t know enough about dogs. The whole place was dangerous for so many reasons. They actually lost 3 dogs the year I was there—either during transport, or dogs that climbed out of kennels and ran away. They kept putting nonsocial dogs right outside the grooming area, stressing me and the grooming dogs with the barking.There was so much potential, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.

So, when a client told me that Rob was looking for a groomer, I called him. Then COVID, Also, we knew it would happen: he got an offer on the land, and the land was worth more than the kennel business…. due to life.

So now I’m retired. I’m not bored. I read, I write, and I irritate the scammers and unethical people selling baby animals on Craigslist. I collect books to send to schools in Africa, I travel, I train dogs. Even though I could hardly say I had a ‘career’, I planned well.

Movie Review: How (Not) to Build a School in Haiti

https://www.haitischooldoc.com/

Being a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I’ve witnessed more failed projects in ‘developing’ countries than many Americans (although other RPCV can also tell you how things fell apart).

We Americans are inculcated in our greatness from an early age. Couple that with our blind altruism, and we usually make things worse before we make them better.

Tim Myers heard a story on NPR (public radio) about a collapsed school in Haiti, and said to himself.”I can fix that one thing.” So, he went to Haiti, met Amselme Saimplice, who was a minister who ran a private primary school, and offered his help in designing a school that wouldn’t collapse after the 2010 earthquake, as well as building materials and some supervision.

There were problems from the start: the local engineer didn’t want to follow Myers plans because, “That’s not how we do things in Haiti.” (Where have I heard that before—even though ‘how we do things’ has been demonstrated to NOT work…). Then Myers finds that there are a lot of people on Saimplice’s payroll not really working. Then, supplies are delivered that are substandard. He learns that the Haitian government (which still gets millions in aid from USAID) does not really fund primary education, and that families who want their children educated pay for private schools (this is very common in the ‘developing’ world). Revelations continue to emerge: a local resident who agrees to assist tells the filmmakers that Saimplice is not an ordained minister. He may even be skimming off the project to build his own home!

The filmmakers decided to follow Myers and the building project, apparently thinking the outcome would be much different. It took them about 10 years to edit the film, and along the way, they learned more about how to really ‘help’. Their group became a bona fide NGO (nongovernmental organization) and other it policy now is to vet a project before offering assistance, making sure that citizens are really benefiting, not just a school ‘owner’. In fact, they informed us that most of what they do now is put in toilets (you’d be shocked at how many schools in the ‘developing’ world don’t have adequate toilets). As far as curriculum….another story.

The filmmakers are looking for opportunities to show this film to a wider audience. I’d strongly urge those of you who attend churches/mosques/synagogues to host the filmmaker and a showing.

Good intentions are not enough.

Book Review: White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, by William Easterly

Foreign Aid is poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries. Easterly has the stats to prove it.

Let me start by explaining what I first witnessed with my own eyes upon coming into Malawi:

malawi_urban_housing_sector_profile.pdf (unhabitat.org)

This document— a very dense read, is about UN-Habitat developing much needed housing for the emerging middle class in Malawi, in 1990. I arrived as a Peace Corps Volunteer (town planning) in 1992. An outgoing Peace Corps Volunteer told me to ask my driver to take me to see this scheme. Hundreds and hundreds of houses of burned red brink—the size of what in America we’d call a single car garage. I was able to get out of the car and look around. Each house was actually about two rooms. The buyer was expected to pay for not just an electrical link to the grid (which at this time, did not exist), but to ‘build’ a lined, pumpable pit latrine for sanitation. No water infrastructure was put in. Was it because GTZ refused? Or because the World Bank didn’t even consider the possibility? Or because people were also supposed to buy water tanks and have it delivered?

Nobody could answer my questions. You can see in the document, however, the housing would be distributed via ‘Press Holdings’ (Hasting ‘Kamuzu’ Banda’s personal company) or by Malawi Housing Corporation.

Even had there been amenities, the housing was way too small for a couple with even 1 child, let alone 4 children.

This was a huge project, and it baffled me, but soon enough, Mrs. Kaunda (my counterpart) had me busy citing plot holders who had fences that were too tall, or made of grass.

We allowed our American government to convince us we were fighting communism in Viet Nam—and learned nothing. Funny (irony) really, that if you go to Viet Nam—which considers itself a socialist country, you will probably find a higher per centage of micro capitalists than you would in America.

Easterly writes about not only the history of foreign aid (as we know it in the USA) but of colonialism and European interference from the beginning. With hubris, Europeans always felt that they knew more than people with darker skin. He cites many examples of Europeans ‘helping’ and making things worse.

My only quibble with the book is how he describes what went wrong in the Middle East. Where—-as he puts it, Englind promised the same land to three different t entities: the Arabs, the French…& of course, the Zionists. He has Mark Sykes meeting with Emir Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashimi. Hussein didn’t message or meet with Sykes. Hussein met with T.E. Lawrence, who conveyed the plan for Arab independence to Commissioner McMahon via his superiors in the army. At that time, the British were LOSING THE WAR (WWI) to the Ottomans. There was no way they could have secured the territory of Palestine without the Arabs fighting. In fact, Hussein had no issue with Jews moving to Palestine as long as they didn’t want political control. but I digress. Easterly’s point is that the British in England—far away from the battlefield, had Sykes meet with the French guy, Picot, and WHEN the was won, the French would get Syria. This is documented in several biographies of T.E. Lawrence. Yep—what the British had done was promise Palestine to the Arabs, the French, and the Zionists. When Lawrence accompanied Hussein to peace talks in Paris after the war, they were ignored. Winston Churchill asked Lawrence to take a greater policy role in government, but Lawrence, embarrassed that his government had lied to the Arabs, refused. The gist is that the British caused what we now have in the Middle East, and for some reason, they are totally off the hook. Because of Zionists in the USA using anti-semitism to embarrass our government (and because they are such huge donors to both political parties)—we now have given and will continue to give billions of dollars not only to Israel and Egypt, but the PLO as well.

I would suggest readers go to Egypt. Go as far south as at least Luxor. You will find many buildings that look half-finished. People are living in them, but there is always a ‘terrace’ that is clearly not finished. When I asked a guide why this was, the answer: “You don’t have to pay property taxes on a building until it is finished (& you get an occupancy permit).

This is how it is in Greece, too. Bunch of whiners. The government doesn’t care about corruption. It’s every man for himself. They don’t collect taxes, allow squatters to take over buildings, and then whine that their government is in a state of collapse.

Easterly cites schemes where local ‘actors’ (citizens) have worked with nongovernmental (aid) organizations to enact schemes that really do benefit people. I’ve seen some of these small-scale schemes work. But mostly, I witnessed treasuries being looted and my government saying—in so many words, “You squandered it? Have some more!”

This attitude irks me because here in America, we still do not have Medicare for all. We claim we can’t afford this or that (particularly, Republicans) & yet, they easily take the advice of lobbyists & big shots—& we got over a billion dollars unaccounted for in Afghanistan, supported the wrong people, and left a failed state.

Althought this book was published in 2006 (we are about to go into 2022), it is as relevant today or more so than it was. Close Instagram and TikTok and take a moment to research why we keep electing jerks who look good in business attire and don’t have the curiousity to fix what doesn’t work

Are Afghans Selling Their Children?Who isn’t?

Afghan boys and girls are trafficked within the country and into Iran, Pakistan and India as well as Persian gulf Arab states, where they live as slaves and are forced to prostitution and forced labor in brick kilns, carpet-making factories, and domestic service.
Human trafficking in Afghanistan – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Human_trafficking_in_A…About featured snippets•Feedback

Afghan Parents Sell Their Kids to Pay Off Debt As Poverty …https://www.businessinsider.com › International › News1 day ago — A house cleaner in western Afghanistan named Saleha sold her 3-year-old daughter to a man to whom she owed a $550 debt.

I was ‘called out’ on a Facebook group that addresses the needs of refugees (particularly from the Middle East) because I responded to a post that copied an article from an American paper about Afghan people selling their children.

I replied that this is nothing new. That parents throughout Southeast Asia have been selling their children for centuries, but what’s worse, we give all these countries ‘humanitarian aid’ that is not tied to human rights or respect for rule of law. We are, in essence, condoning the trafficking of their citizens. THAT IS A FACT.

This concerns me, and I started writing fiction based on the fact of human trafficking. An excerpt follows. What the character, Daler Singh, says is what you have to do to make a dent. America—the United States of, give foreign aid to countries with no respect for human rights. What makes the concept of exploiting children even worse, I believe, is our American middle-Class values, and living with an economy so huge that we don’t have to sell our children (for the most part). We have created a class of people called children that didn’t exist as a social construct until we both educated and industrialized ourselves enough to support childhood as a time o learning and creating, but not working for wages.

I’m looking for comments (the following is fiction):

My life was a mass of counterfactual conditions. If Mr. Curtis hadn’t offered me the piano, I wouldn’t have met Jimmy when I was performing with the Pleasure Seekers, and I would have never been on national television talking about Morgana, and how her grandfather bought my father. Certainly, I wouldn’t have gone off on American politics.

Jimmy and I had stayed in touch, almost 20 years now. We met in Europe on an entertainment tour. He now had a TV show in the States. His music director had read about MagicScore in Billboard, told Jimmy, and Jimmy told him that we knew each other.

I planned to play ‘Saber Dance’ by Khachaturian. I also wanted to talk about the school Morgana and I were building.

Jimmy seemed surprised at my appearance. I was wearing a turban. I no longer cultivated the rock star persona. “Oh my gosh! You’re religious?” he asked.

“No. Same me. Actually, I always wore a turban when I wasn’t performing.  I’m not performing these days. I’m teaching.”

“Teaching?” he asked, his eyes moving from mine to my turban.

“Yes. Engineering.”

 “Wow! Not performing?”

“No real plans, lots of changes. Moving to the USA, learning to be an American….”

“So, you’re settled now in America?”

“For the most part. I’m still baffled by a lot.”

 “After you play, I’ll ask about how life in the USA is different from other places you’ve lived,” Jimmy said.

“I want to talk about the science school we’re developing.”

“Sure!  We’ll talk about that, too.”

The music director introduced me to the band. I gave them music charts and hooked up the piano, bass, and two horns to the computer so they could see what they played. We ran through it, and suddenly the director started counting down. The lights went up.     

The band played their theme song intro, Jimmy acknowledged the audience,  asked how they were doing and started talking about First World problems: “Has this ever happened to you? I got a tax refund from Uncle Sam. I knew it was for too much, so I sent it back. Can you believe they sent it back to me three times?  I knew someone screwed up and it wasn’t me. Who do you tell?  Finally, I deposited the check, and this week I got a letter telling me it was a mistake and they wanted the money back, with interest!”

 The audience was laughing. Then, he introduced me: “My next guest is a man I met when he was a teenager, just starting his music career, in the 1980s. He grew up without running water in his house.”

The audience laughed at that remark.

“That’s not a joke. He’s described himself to me as an accidental rock star. His group was The Pleasure Seekers…”

There were some screams and applause.

“He’s now a professor of engineering. His dissertation project will be appearing on the screen behind him. It’s a computer program that turns the music you sing or play on an instrument into music transcription. Just amazing. Please welcome Dr. Daler Singh!” 

There was applause, and the director gave me a cue to start. I again played Saber Dance, with MagicScore appearing on a screen above the band, like lace on a multicolored background.  I knew people would be blown away. It always got a great reaction.

The audience erupted. The studio lights went down as we went to a commercial break. I thanked the band.

We got resituated in a seating area, the lights came back up, and Jimmy said to me, “That was incredible!”

“I know!  Sometimes I amaze myself!” I responded, laughing. The audience laughed, too.

“How did you DO that?” Jimmy asked.

“Which? The piano or the coding?”  The audience twittered again. “The piano was practice and the coding was plain work. Hours and hours of work.”

 “So how is it you’re in Chicago? At Northwestern? A Wildcat?”

“My wife, Morgana, lived very close to Northwestern, and they have departments of engineering, media, and music, as well as a large African Studies program.  I’m a native Kiswahili speaker. Also, when you’re an inventor and work for a university, they get a percentage of the profits from your invention, if it can be monetized. I DO have a track record, you know.”

There was a murmur from the audience. 

“How did you meet? You’ve been in Switzerland since…1986?” Jimmy asked.

“Oh, I’ve always known her. She’s the granddaughter of the man who bought my father.”

“Wait. What? Bought? Seriously?” Jimmy asked, surprised.

  “My parents were trafficked. I thought you knew.” It was as though I had sucked all the air out of the room. Deafening hush. Jimmy was looking at me with his mouth open. His director looked like he was having a heart attack.

 “Would you rather talk about living with dogs?  You know, that’s new to me, too. My daughter had been begging for a dog, and she’s so happy now….”

“No, this is interesting. I had no idea. What year was this?” Jimmy asked, genuinely curious.

 “Well, it doesn’t often come up in conversation. It was sometime after the end of World War II, the late 1940s, my father thought. When he was about 14, he got snatched off the street in Mumbai and transported to Africa. He was purchased by a German Jewish businessman, Glazer, in Tanzania. Morgana is his granddaughter. Both my parents were street children.”

“I didn’t know,” Jimmy remarked.

 “You see, lots of Europeans didn’t want black Africans as servants because the African men would only take so much disrespect. The men wanted wages, partly because of the hut tax, you know. The Europeans had this genius idea of ending the slave trade and making Africans pay cash to live in their own homes. They were no longer chained, they became wage slaves…”

There was more laughter from the audience.

“Seriously, they’d go back to their homes when they’d had enough cash. The Wazungu, white people, who could afford a servant wanted Indian workers because they couldn’t run off. Where were the Indians going to go? Back across the ocean? To what?  Most were orphans or petty criminals. After they paid off their contracts, the cost of their transport to Africa, the employers gave them the opportunity to open or partner in businesses.

“Morgana’s father was born in Arusha but went to school in the USA. He found a community of South African Jews in Chicago, and he met Morgana’s mother. Her father took over her grandfather’s business, and returned every few years to Arusha, to consult with my father, who managed the business for him. When his daughters got older, he brought them. Morgana knew me before I had a beard.”

“Really.”

“When I became a teenager and Morgana’s family came to visit, I decided I wanted her and took advantage of an opportunity,” I said, raising my eyebrows and smiling.

The audience started laughing again, and Jimmy chuckled.

“I really loved her,” I went on, “but she told me our parents would not allow it.”

“Because of the difference in race or social status?” Jimmy asked.

I sighed, remembering. “I was a teenager. She was older and divorced. She was a Jew and they wanted me to marry a Sikh woman. I had to finish my studies. She discouraged me because she knew our parents would be unhappy. She also told me I had to stay in school as long as I could; she would not marry a school dropout. She went back to America. I got a scholarship and met my bandmates, the other Pleasure Seekers, and we were very lucky as a music group.”

There was more applause from the audience.

“My father met Sita’s father….”

“Your first wife,” Jimmy explained.

“Yes. My parents felt this would be a good marriage. I was a good son. I met Sita, decided she’d be a good wife, and it lasted ten years. But both of us were unhappy, so I decided to divorce and find Morgana.” 

The audience applauded. Jimmy paused, and asked, “So, in Africa, is there still slavery?”

 I chuckled. “You know, you Americans think at the end of your civil war, that was the end of slavery. Your Christian Bible allows slavery. You know that, right?  There’s slavery all over. Some people are born slaves. Humans are still trafficked from Russia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. In the USA, I’ve met many from Central America and China. People are lied to, told they’ll get good wages. Then, their passports are taken away, if they ever had real passports. Some are brought in by diplomats or other elites. Slaves disguised as relatives.”

Jimmy looked shocked. I rambled on.

“Really, you guys, you allow your politicians to give aid to countries that ignore human rights.”

The audience grew quiet, but I hardly noticed.

“The greatest country in the world, you are. This really gets me. You give aid to Tanzania, my country. An economy that can’t absorb us. We have to leave and become economic refugees. It’s why I’m working here. That aid could be repackaged for business loans, or for mosquito net factories. Who knows where it ends up?  Fleets of cars for politicians, and weapons.”

Jimmy was looking at me. He hesitated and asked, “What can Americans do?”

“You need to tell your politicians to tie aid to respect for human rights and rule of law. Improved social indicators: infant and maternal mortality, rates of literacy, access to communications. You build roads and dams we don’t need. Women don’t have access to education or family planning services. You all think you are giving humanitarian aid, but mostly you give military aid, and the corrupt leaders use it to terrorize their own people. Were it not for the Malaysians, we wouldn’t have phone service!”        

There was a collective gasp from the audience. Jimmy was nodding his head. I was on a roll. I went on, after taking a breath, “You’ve elected leaders who are ripping you off! They tell you that you can’t have single-payer health services, your ‘Medicare for all,’ but they take that money and give weapons to dictators. Then YOU get involved. On the wrong side.”

The audience was laughing, hooting, and applauding.

 “We’re in the modern world now. Email your politicians and tell them to quit taking money from lobbyists and public relations people who tell them what to put into foreign aid appropriations budgets and take care of Americans first.”

I got rousing applause.  Jimmy continued laughing and nodding.

A Little Something Different: My Query Needs Comments

I published a fiction book, an erotic romance, on my own last year. I’m a decent writer, and my main reason for writing the book was to address integrity and what dog fanciers believe. Who wants to read that? so, I made it an erotic romance. You write what you know. I paid to publish it, and I learned, after publishing this, that because of Amazon, many emerging writers self-publish However, marketing is expensive. I’ve sold under 1,000 books. I can’t really tell how many because many get sold on kindle.

I started learning about getting an agent, as the publishers who will market your book only deal with agents. You need a 3rd party to advocate for you. But you also need what we call ‘beta readers’ to read your stuff before you ask an agent to represent you, so your book ‘makes sense’. Yes, I am looking for beta readers.

The book I am currently looking for an agent for is also an erotic romance, but a more serious book. The main character is a guy. The book stretches from the time he was a child, hustling in Africa to help raise money for transportation costs for himself and his brothers to overseas schools where they all have scholarships until he attains his Ph.D, in his early 30’s. One of the things Daler is asked to sell is a piano. He had been intrigued by a broken piano at his school, and he decided to buy it and learn to play.

As a teenager, he became besotted with a woman who is the granddaughter of the man who bought his father. That’s important. He is the child of trafficked parents: slaves. Yes, in 1950s Africa, people were still trafficked mostly from southern India, on a small scale. Another important thing is that these people identify as Sikhs, mostly because Sikhs don’t recognize caste, which continues to be an issue among Indians. I chose them to be Sikh for a number of reasons, but mostly because like Jews, they are ‘others’ wherever they go. Being Christian is cultural as well as religious, with a different set of values from people who are not. Although Sikhs believe in 1 god, they do not believe in heaven, but in reincarnation.

So, the male character, Daler, seduces this older woman, a Jewess, who is the granddaughter of the man who bought his father. She is there because her father had become Daler’s father’s partner, but the African business is so marginal, it’s not worth him even traveling back to Africa every few years. He’s brought his daughters for the last time. Daler is ready to drop out of school and go to the USA with Morgana, but she tells him he is not in love and for his own mental health, he must get perspective and he must stay in school because his future won’t be Africa.

He continues his schooling, but to get studio time to play piano, he has to minor in music. He’s become very good, and his teacher sends him to a recording studio so he can earn extra money. Others hear him play, they form a band, get a hit record…and of course, are rock stars. Daler knows success can be fleeting, so remains in school. He still wants Morgana, but his parents want him to marry a Sikh. He does. It’s not a love match, but it is what it is. He continues his schooling, to perform, to invent, and has two children, but things are never right with his wife, who is of a different social class and was educated in a convent.

This group has many hit records, but Daler has also learned the music business, and it has changed a lot in the two decades. Also,his small town in Africa has also grown into a large city. Lots of changes.

There are lots of arguments, but as Daler attains his Ph.D., he decides to divorce and find Morgana. He does, but they are now adults and Morgana is still pragmatic.