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Fetch was not like other dogs. Whenever people were eating, he stared at their feet as though it were high noon at the OK Corral and he was Wyatt Earp; and if a foot so much as moved an inch, he barked frantically, whirled around several times, then resumed staring, determined not to be outdrawn. Fetch Read More

The first time I saw an obedience class at a dog show, I thought it was done with mirrors. I was particularly suspicious of the drill in which contestants told their dogs to lie down and then walked out of the exhibition ring. Having been a school teacher during one ill-starred period in my life, Read More

The Tao Te Ching, a book of ancient Chinese wisdom, is roughly 2,500 years old, but nobody has figured out what it means yet. The last person who spoke the ancient Chinese dialect in which the Tao was written died in a single-cart accident during the Three Sovereigns Around the Moon dynasty (345-287 BCE). The Read More

COVID-19 is the gift pandemic that keeps on giving: a gleaming, unforgiving mirror that reflects the foibles, failures, and foolhardiness of the American people in 4K mind-blowing splendor. No one is exempt, Skippy, not republicans, democrats, libertarians, vegans, transvestites, independents, eggheads, skinheads, straights, non-straights (I got your binary, here), cisgenders, misgenders, those who think the Read More

“Dear Sir or Madam” Thus began the pet sitter’s letter, which my wife and I found taped to the back door when we arrived at our Southeastern Pennsylvania home late one evening after a five-day trip to New England. The oddly formal salutation–and the fact that the letter was in an envelope addressed to “Occupants”–did Read More

I have nothing against children. Indeed, I think qualified persons should own a few. Children are often cute, sometimes amusing, and if we’re lucky, they grow into human beings instead of liberals. What does fry my old-straight-white-dude ass, however, is the effect that kids have on the people who create them–or who go out and Read More

Dear Mick, Keith, Charlie, and the Other Guy,I have learned recently that you stinking geezers will be touring next year. Please don’t. In the name of all that’s wrinkled, wizened, and way past its prime—namely you sorry git—take a minute to stop and think about what you’re doing. You look like shite; you sound like Read More

 The military-athletic complex is a pain in my NFL-watching ass. I detest the ginormous flag rollouts that precede most games, the stupid camouflage gear that coaches wear on the sidelines, the butt-boy announcers kissing camouflage ass and waxing all moist over “our brave fighting men and women who keep us safe,” the staged reunions between Read More

Dear Mick,I see where you dragged your withered buttocks on stage the other day to croak your way through “Satisfaction” with that towering mediocrity Taylor Swift. Well, she towered over you that’s for sure, in more ways than one. What in the name of all that’s wrinkled, wizened, and way past its prime—namely you, you Read More

WEST CHESTER, Pa.–Postcards from the Pug Bus, southeastern Pennsylvania’s slowest-growing satire site, is going on holiday. As several members of our entourage are not permitted to leave the commonwealth, we will be vacationing in lovely, 99.9-percent-rural Tioga County, four hours and at least two worlds from our house. We regret the inconvenience to our dozens Read More

Dear Hideous-Looking Assholes:OK, you had your little nude-in last Saturday, now put your damn clothes on. Put ’em all on, every last bit you left at home in an arrogant, misguided attempt to shove your stinking business into innocent faces. Get real, Grizzled Nuts. You looked better in your diversity T-shirt and cargo pants than you do Read More

On a warm Sunday afternoon in April 1990, I was sitting on a hillside in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, watching a timber race, when god spoke to me. Because more people claim to be familiar with the voice of god than with timber races, I should explain that the latter are jumping races in which a Read More

I wouldn’t be writing this book if my wife Mary Ann had not decided that our first pug, Percy, needed another dog for companionship. The chief element of canine companionship, of course, is mutual butt sniffing, and our six cats were of no value to Percy in that regard. Cats would not be caught dead Read More

BALTIMORE – The best stories in sports are about horse racing or boxing. That’s because the best characters in sports are in the gym or on the racetrack. Guys with names like Slewfoot or Hard Times, Sweatpea or Destroyer. Their lives are the stuff of legend. Their legends have lives of their own. When a Read More