Yesterday, a petition I signed for Care2 reminded me vividly of “The Kennel Murder Mystery,” a Philo Vance mystery by S.S. Van Dine. The Vance novels are not for everyone, not even for every mystery fan. The series ran in the 1920s and 1930a, and in the 1920s it was the fashion for young men of some means to be eccentric, and Vance was probably the most eccentric, to the point that this jingle became what we would today call viral: “Philo Vance/needs a kick in the pance.” (Off topic, but wouldn’t that work nicely with the substitution of J.D. for Philo?) The Kennel Murder Mystery is from the 30’s and one critic said it was the best of the later ones because it was a locked room mystery and because in it Vance was “less unbearably obnoxious than usual.” But I digress. From time to time a petition, particularly one involving dog abuse, will remind me of this novel, and the look in the eyes of the dog in this photo pushed that button. The content in question is in Chapter 19 (or XIX), and i see the link I copied should take you directly to that chapter – but it doesn’t. But putting “As we approached the western entrance to the park” take you right to the place to start. There are several points to stop at, but when Vance says he wants to talk to Liang, the episode is as over as it’s going to get. I went a bit farther and found this quote from Lao-Tzu: “he who abuses the weak is eventually destroyed by his own weakness.” It might make a decent protest poster.
On Monday, I received a “Damn-giver Dispatch” from John Pavlovitz, and decided I needed more. So I signed up for a free subscription to his Substack (“The Beautiful Mess”) When I got there and started looking, I discovered that one of his posts there has been picked up by MoveOn and turned into a petition – not that it’s asking for anything, but to provide a vehicle to get it to the person to whom it is addressed, and to express the number of people who are in agreement. He certainly speaks for me, so of course I signed it. The link here is to the column – the petition link is at the bottom (before the comments). speaking of Substack, I seem to remember when I started linking to Substack articles and the “please subscribe” request looked like a paywall, saying something like “Please get adjusted because this thing is growing so fast that just about everyone who has something helpful to say will be on it.” Well, I also got an email from Theater of War – and checked the email address – and yup TOW is now on Substack. [The Pavlovitz and the ProPublics article below were intended for Tuesday.]
ProPublica’s weekly “The Big Story” newsletter from Saturday was just packed with news, most of which others are not covering. Fortunately, they provide a “view in browser” link – which as you know not everyone does.
I don’t suppose anyone here doesn’t know this now. Although you may not know just how far back it goes. Evan Hurst with Wonkette also has his own Substack, titled “The Moral High Ground.” Having that mind set, he sees things which other sometimes miss.
