mohammadalisalih.com Blog

NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: OUR DOGS (3): “DITA”

Yesterday we got a new dog, Dita, the name she came with, but some in the family said they wanted a new name.

In 1980, when I immigrated to the US and started my current job in Washington, DC, as a foreign correspondent for major Arabic newspapers and magazines in the Middle East, and my wife and I bought our present house in Burke, VA, outside Washington, we got our first dog, “George,” a golden retriever.

Our second dog, in 1997, after “George” died of old age, was “Emma,” a border collie. Like “George” she was a puppy. My wife found a woman in the Shenandoah Valley (about two hours from Washington) who made a living by breeding border collies.

Opposite of “George,” “Emma,” who died last year, also of old age, was very shy. A herder by nature, she didn’t only protect the children, but, also, wanted to herd them.

Now, we have “Dita,” short for “Gordita,” the Mexican taco-like sandwich. I would like to keep the name; it is different and can be a conversation piece. And my older daughter is into Mexican things: food and boys.

“Dita” is mostly a German shepherd, with some “Alpine” blood. We got her from a “foster mother,” who picks dogs from shelters, trains them for a month or two and sells them at nominal prices.

This morning, I took “Dita” for her first walk (no run anymore) around Burke Lake (five miles a circle). She is not fully-trained and needs to learn more about walking without pulling and without running towards squirrels, birds, ducks and other dogs. I don’t think she wants to attack, but I have to be in control her.

She is a big and strong dog, though she is only two years old; we were told that she wouldn’t grow bigger anymore – very good.

We are keeping photos of the children with “George” and with “Emma” and they will always be in our memories. Now, we welcome “Dita.”

But, I have come a long way.

Now, I am used to stories of Americans living with dogs, pampering dogs and even hiring dog walkers. (Read below).

Thirty-five years of my Americanization included how to treat dogs.

Dogs were not well-treated in the poor village where I was born, and lived until I was 16 (Wadi Haj, near the town of Argo, on the Nile River, in northern Sudan, south of the borders with Egypt).

Though few of the village dogs were stray, roamed the streets, ate garbage and drank from the Nile, most of them were kept with families to help in guarding homes and farms and in herding goats, sheep and cattle.

My American wife American-born children many times wondered how I, with my village background, “accepted” dogs to be part of the family. I joked that at least we didn’t eat dogs.

They wondered also how I, a Muslim, “broke” teachings of the Koran which they said prohibited people from allowing dogs to live with them, and declared that dogs would not go to heaven.

I didn’t find these opinions in the Koran, though it has been widely reported that Prophet Mohammad said similar opinions.

But, many years ago, I have come to explain my Islam according to the Koran which, I believe, is holly, but not according to what was reported about Prophet Mohammad.

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NEWS: “WASHINGTON POST”: DOG-WALKING COLLECTIVE

… Joshua Stephens says the concept for Brighter Days came to him nearly five years ago when he was a freelance dog walker working a part-time job… He had visited Argentina shortly after its 2001 economic collapse and became fascinated with the success of worker-run cooperative factories there…

“I could have become a professor or something, but I was a dog walker, so I just started where I was,” he says.

Stephens left Brighter Days after a bitter falling-out with the collective’s other members. “I think these people felt like stripping away the bosses and stripping away the hierarchy was a way of minimizing obligation,” he says. “It became evident that it was becoming a tool for people to have slacker lives, and I didn’t want that.”

Stephens went on to start a second … dog-walking collective that encompasses Washington, Baltimore and New York, where he now lives. Members of the new collective don’t get to participate in decision-making for a year while they take a course in animal behavior and study texts on cooperative business management …

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: OUR DOGS (2):”EMMA”:

Yesterday we got a new dog, Dita, the name she came with, but some in the family want a new name.

In 1980, when I immigrated to the US and started my current job in Washington, DC, as a foreign correspondent for major Arabic newspapers and magazines in the Middle East, and my wife and I bought our present house in Burke, VA, outside Washington, we got our first dog, “George,” a golden retriever.

Our second dog, in 1997, after “George” died of old age, was “Emma,” a border collie. Like “George” she was a puppy. My wife found a woman in the Shenandoah Valley (about two hours from Washington) who made a living by breeding border collies.

Opposite to “George,” “Emma,” who died last year, also of old age, was very shy. A herder by nature, she didn’t only protect the children, but, also, wanted to herd them.

Throughout the years, we watched border collies’ competitions on TV and read about the breed’s herding instincts. A woman with a border collie once told me that when her children played in their swimming pool, the dog would endlessly run around the pool

We had problems also with “Emma” when she was a puppy (at one point, I nicknamed her “Emma No”), but she later became the most friendly – and shy – dog.

I sometimes joke that, at a younger age, “George” and I jogged around nearby Burke Lake (five miles a circle), but by the time “Emma” came, I was too old to jog and she and I just walked. While walking, the last thing “Emma” wanted was to meet other dogs, even fellow border collies. I said, “Emma, come and say hi to this dog,” and she would just turn her head away. She was always on a mission, with no time to be distracted.

We are keeping photos of the children with “George” and with “Emma” and they will always be in our memories.

But, I have come a long way.

Now, I am used to stories of Americans living with dogs, pampering dogs and even hiring dog walkers. (Read below).

Thirty-five years of my Americanization included how to treat dogs.

Dogs were not well-treated in the poor village where I was born, and lived until I was 16 (Wadi Haj, near the town of Argo, on the Nile River, in northern Sudan, south of the borders with Egypt).

Though few of the village dogs were stray, roamed the streets, ate garbage and drank from the Nile, most of them were kept with families to help in guarding homes and farms and in herding goats, sheep and cattle.

My American wife American-born children many times wondered how I, with my village background, “accepted” dogs to be part of the family. I joked that at least we didn’t eat dogs.

They wondered also how I, a Muslim, “broke” teachings of the Koran which they said prohibited people from allowing dogs to live with them, and declared that dogs would not go to heaven.

I didn’t find these opinions in the Koran, though it has been widely reported that Prophet Mohammad said similar opinions.

But, many years ago, I have come to explain my Islam according to the Koran which, I believe, is holly, but not according to what was reported about Prophet Mohammad.

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NEWS: “WASHINGTON POST”: DOG-WALKING COLLECTIVE:

… Davin Miller makes the rounds to pick up Haley Barbour the pug and Rascal, a beagle mix who likes to stand on his hind legs… Miller talks to the dogs. “Come on, lovers,” he says as they pass the Planet Pet day-care and grooming center, which some of them frequent.

Dong walking is a common job for the city’s punk rockers, who are attracted to the flexible nature of the work…

Many of these jobs require a creative reconciliation with core beliefs. Just ask the line sitters who stand for hours so lobbyists can get into congressional hearings, the cooks who feed politicians and the bike messengers who carry documents for agencies…

The collective’s members usually walk the same dogs on the same streets at the same time, every day. Miller says he actually prefers the difficult dogs because they keep things interesting…

At one building in Adams Morgan, he walks six dogs almost every day. When he enters the first apartment, Johnny, a rescued basenji-terrier-Chihuahua mix, starts barking immediately. When Miller approaches, Johnny’s at the back of the room growling and shaking, and it takes a little work to get a leash on him…

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: OUR DOGS (1): “GEORGE”

Yesterday we got a new dog, Dita, the name she came with, but some in the family want a new name.

In 1980, when I immigrated to the US and started my current job in Washington, DC, as a foreign correspondent for major Arabic newspapers and magazines in the Middle East, and my wife and I bought our present house in Burke, VA, outside Washington, we bought our first dog.

He was a golden retriever and my wife decided to name him George. “I always wanted to marry a man with the name George,” she said almost seriously. (Probably to shout at him: “Sit down George!”).

At that time, 30 years ago, my favorite sports were jogging, racquetball and tennis, and George and I ran many times a week around nearby Burke Lake (five miles a circle).

When our three children were born, during a span of ten years, George, a big dog, was gentle with them and we all had a lot of fun.

My wife still says that George wasn’t as obedient as he should have been. He was a puppy and we had to take him to many training courses.

Once, we locked him all day in a room, and when we came home from work, we found, to our horror, that he, trying to get out, had destroyed the inside of the door and the nearby carpet. And once, he jumped at me while we were going down the stairs to the basement, and I held him up from his leach while I was on a higher step, as if trying to hang him as he was barking loudly; I shouldn’t have done that.

We are keeping photos of George and the children, and he will always be in our memories.

But, I have come a long way.

Now, I am used to stories of Americans living with dogs, pampering dogs and even hiring dog walkers. (Read below).

Thirty-five years of my Americanization included how to treat dogs.

Dogs were not well-treated in the poor village where I was born, and lived until I was 16 (Wadi Haj, near the town of Argo, on the Nile River, in northern Sudan, south of the borders with Egypt).

Though few of the village dogs were stray, most of them were kept with families to help in guarding homes and farms and in herding goats, sheep and cattle.

My American wife American-born children many times wondered how I, with my village background, “accepted” dogs to be part of the family. I joked that at least the villagers didn’t eat dogs.

They wondered also how I, a Muslim, “broke” teachings of the Koran which they said prohibited people from allowing dogs to live with them, and declared that dogs would not go to heaven.

I didn’t find these opinions in the Koran, though it has been widely reported that Prophet Mohammad said similar opinions.

But, many years ago, I have come to explain my Islam according to the Koran which, I believe, is holly, but not according to what was reported about Prophet Mohammad.

——————————————–

NEWS: “WASHINGTON POST”: DOG-WALKING COLLECTIVE

… The seven people belong to Brighter Days, a dog walkers’ collective founded on anarchist principles. Last year, the five-year-old business grossed more than $250,000. Its members have equal ownership and make business decisions by reaching consensus during weekly meetings …

Any of them can block any decision. They split their earnings evenly, have a group health insurance plan and cover for each other on days off. They even get paid vacation — seven weeks of it. …

Their clients — Washingtonians who can afford to pay $16 for a 30-minute walk — are generally establishment types. “They’re definitely all professionals,” John Seager says. “I would hesitate to slap any other label on all of them.”

In the beginning, when Joshua Stephens fielded the calls from Hill staffers, lawyers and bureaucrats who needed dog walkers, he would always take time to describe the collective’s mission, how it was employee-owned and their generous benefits, he said.

“Nine times out of ten, the answer I got back from people was, ‘Can I come work for you?’ ” Stephens says…

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NEWS AND VIEWS:

VIEWS: 31 YEARS IN BURKE: SPRING FLING

In 1980 (BC, Before Children), my wife and I bought a nice, two-car garage, colonial, hip-roof, two front bay-windows, four bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, full but unfinished basement house in Burke, VA. The house was in an undeveloped area at the intersection of Old Keen Mill Road and Pohick Road (now Fairfax Parkway). But, that wasn’t for long.

One day few years later, we saw huge and many tractors cutting the nearby trees, and we were told about a plan to build an elementary school – in 1985, Cherry Run Elementary School started.

Our three children went there. Before, to nearby Kiddi Country pre-school. And after, to nearby Lake Braddock Intermediate and High Schools.

Without prior planning, every location close by came handy: the schools, South Run Recreation Park, Pohick Regional, Rolling Valley Mall (was a small mall, now a plaza), Rolling Valley Park-and-Ride, and Burke Lake Park.

I and my children ran, walked and biked around Burke Lake (about five miles) thousands of times. Now, I try to walk around the lake every afternoon after I come home from Washington (my office is at the National Press Building, two blocks from the White House; I go there early in the morning and that is why I return home early).

Now, the children are gone, but I would like to continue following children-related activities in Burke. “The Burke Connection” reminds me of those good (?) old days.

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…The St. Stephen’s Preschool conducted its Spring Fling, inviting parents to join in the ‘Fitness Fest’-themed celebration. The event is the capstone of one year of the Music & Movement program at the school, which incorporates 20 minutes of activities, in addition to playground time, to help students “turn on” greater focus, listening and learning skills…
During the Spring Fling, parents participated in soccer, martial arts, yoga, African dance and the “Rainbow Room” that was full of activities incorporating manipulatives to encourage the development of math and science skills in the preschool students. The event concluded with a rousing sing-along including such classics as “The Turtle Song” and “Head, Thorax, Abdomen”…

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I heard my wife joking on the phone with her parents in Florida : “This is the last time I go for a child’s high school graduation. Don’t have more children. Can’t have more children.”
The parents were expected to attend the graduation at Lake Braddock High, Burke , VA , and a suburb of Washington , DC . They came for similar graduations for Son and First Daughter, also out of LBH. But this time, mother-in-law just had a heart operation. But, was very excited, called many times and followed the graduation from afar. Also, she promised a labtop computer for Second Daughter. Uncle, aunt, and cousins in Florida also called, before leaving for a spectacular cruise from Rome to some Mediterranean ports.
The graduation, because of weather and size, was at nearby George Mason University (home of the “Patriots” who, recently, went all way to the Final Four of NCAA Basketball in Indianapolis ).
On the graduates’ list, there were many foreign names, like: Lee, Park, Mohamed, Nugent, and Fernandez. I said to myself: Only in America are so many foreigners, not only graduate form high school, and not only graduate equally and respectively like other Americans, but, also, seem to have already become fully and wholesome Americans, inspite of the foreign names and foreign face features.
In front of me in the basketball arena, there were two Asian-looking old men who seemed to barely be able to speak English. One, when the name of his child was called, just said, in full joy: Haeeeee. The other one, when the name of his child was called, just raised his hands in full joy, while his apparently teenage daughter yelled, in perfect, American-accented English: “Way to go ….”
After graduation, we went for dinner to where we did after the graduations of Son and First Daughter: nearby Maggiano, in MacLean, VA. Little expensive, but the best restaurant I have been to, after restaurants in Caribbean cruise ships. (Third place: nearby Macaroni Grill, in Fairfax , VA ).
Maggiano served family style (like casual Daniel Boone’s restaurant in Boone , NC ). Family menu offered two appetizers (Calamari fritte and crispy long pieces of zucchini fritte), two salads (Caesar and Maggiano’s), two pastas (gnocchi and ravioli) two meats (chicken parmesan and pork medallions) and two desserts (tiramisu and layered chocolate cake). We took home a lot of leftover.
When we went to bed at around eleven, Second Daughter again dressed up for a swimming party at nearby Wakefield Recreation Center in Annandale , VA. The family joke was whether kids would smuggle in beer and liquor, but apparently Fairfax County officials and cops did their best to protect the kids.
At six the following morning, when I was ready to go to work, Second Daughter came home driving and said she had a “blast.”