CAN WE BE OVER-TRAINED? HELL YES!

WATCHING DOGS TRAIN OWNERS

Movies and television documentaries are interested lately in featuring pets. Especially dogs, for after all, aren't dogs among the cheeriest and chummiest of species with whom we can find enduring love and affection? Now while I agree -- some of the puppies I've known had faces and personalities nicer than most people I've met! -- I've noticed something else about them.

As we enjoy watching the many dog-whisperers and dog-contests, it seems increasingly apparent to this canine-loving observer that it is the dogs not the owners who are running things. Oh sure, they wag their tails and turn their faces up to us eagerly, but I ask myself: Exactly what are they thinking right this moment?

I'll tell you what....! Evolutionary biologists have convinced this puppy-aficiando that what those wiggly Scotties and waggly Golden Retrievers are actually thinking is: "OK, so I wiggle and waggle a little for them. But, damn, this is a lot better than my wild-dog ancestors had to deal with. They struggled to stay alive; now my owner struggles to keep me alive. So what's a few silly tricks and chased-sticks cost me...?"

So there's the great Canine Conspiracy Secret. I don't know about you, yet in my case, it doesn't make any difference. I love them just the same. Maybe even more, because they're smarter than me, but never say it to my face!

WATCHING LAWYERS TRAIN CEO's

What would be your worst nightmare...? Walking outdoors without your pants or skirt? Tripping on the stage as you go up to receive that award? Waking up with someone you never met before? Well, for many of us it would be sitting in a Congressional hearing with the world's cameras on you.

To be called is already a nightmare, because they're investigating something about you. And there's probably not a soul in all the world that hasn't got a few closet skeletons to fear. But when you're a fat-cat CEO from Detroit or an even fatter-cat CEO from Wall Street, now that's big time trouble. So big, you go to your big time lawyers to get some advice. What to say, what not to say, when to smile, when not to smile, plus a dozen other things like where to keep your hands, and how to make your Nixon-blinking eyes not blink.

The point...?

Simply this. Not one in 50 such big time executives have faced Congress as an honest-to-gosh, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with feelings and families and worries like everyone else. The result -- if you ever watch these hearings -- is preening Senators vs inanimate witnesses who have been so lawyered-up, they look guilty as sin immediately after the very first over-rehearsed answer!

Is there still room for the Jimmy Stewart kind of American who "went to Washington?" Question asked & answered...!