The hound, Hachi

In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor at Imperial U.*, brought an akita pup from the snow country (Yukiguni), of Akita prefecture, to live with him. He would go to Shibuya station, in the morning accompanied by his hound, to travel to work. When the train returned in the afternoon, the dog would be waiting. One day, the next year, the professor was felled with a stroke. He never returned, and soon died. Hachi (*10 November 1923,†8 March 1935), the hound, was taken away, but would return to their old residence, until one day he returned to Shibuya station. This he would do for, more than, nine years.

People noticed. He was acknowledged, greeted and fed. Newspaper articles were written. A song was sung in schools by children. Hachikō was an exemplar of loyalty and faithfulness. These were the qualities the people, of the nation, should have for their country, and emperor.

People donated money for a statue of Hachikō†, while he was still a living model. When he died, a funeral service with many mourners gathered. He was stuffed, and placed as a museum exhibit. His bones were buried near his master.

The war came. The bronze statue, by Ando Teru, was melted in 1944 for armament. The akita breed had declined to a small number in the early twentieth century, after having been a favorite hunting dog of samurai. The furry and muscular hounds took down bears. During the war, dogs were butchered for food and pelt; similar stories were true in other lands too, certain breeds were nearing vanishing. In certain locales, the harboring of hounds became illegal, police would kill the animals. People who kept, and hid, their companions were harassed by their, own, family members.

Recently a book has been published, by Martha Sherrill, that tells the story of Morie Sawataishi’s rôle in saving the akita. From 1944 til he died in 2008, Sawataishi cared for the breed. The akita is a loyal breed of a loyal animal, that, has regular habits.

After the war a new statue‡ came to Shibuya station and it is, again, a landmark. A film, Hachikō Monogatari (1987), was made. This year an american version, set in New England, will be released. The 8th of April an annual remembrance takes place, for Hachikō, at the railway station.
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*now Tokyo U.
†Hachikō, a familiar diminutive form
‡ by the sculptor’s son, Takeshi; other statues have followed

Franklin Delano Roosevelt *30 January 1882

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Monument. District of Columbia.
Every country’s leader would like to promise peace and prosperity. gwbjr, aka chimpy, did so and brought the opposite, he brought war and depression. He created war, so as, to be ‘a war president’. Chimpy was a typical, delusional Republican. The greatest bugbear, the greatest villain in the history of the country, perhaps the world, for them, is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Then, after twelve years of unchecked, unregulated ‘free market’* economics, that the Republicans stood for and by, delved this nation into the Great Depression. Roosevelt understood, that, there was a great impetus to really do something. Then, when world fascism and militarism forged an axis of aggression and evil, the United States was attacked by imperial Japan.

Now, many years later (1984 Dallas Republican convention, if memory serves) Ronnie Reagan forgave Hitler and blamed Roosevelt for the war. The hatred for Roosevelt has never subsided, on the part of rabid, Republican partisans. Chimpy after the 2004 election was determined to dismantle Social Security. That one programme, which perhaps, is the one, great, enduring legacy, that, Roosevelt, and the New Deal, accomplished, and is remembered, by the nation is Social Security.

Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency, to the great alarum of the Republicans. He won honestly and greatly. America was in a condition, everyone, recognised as not prosperous. War was begun by the world’s, imperialist, anti-democrat fascists that over ran Poland, and attacked the United States.

The words of FDR at the beginning of his presidential mandate, concerning the first great crisis:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. ― First Inaugural Address (4 March 1933)

The initial words of FDR, concerning the second great crisis:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Now, Roosevelt was in the habit of using the more polite term ‘economic royalist’ for fascist, and these economic royalists, supply siders, welfare capitalists, those who privatise profit, and want to wrest government, to do their will, are with us still. Roosevelt is the sort of man these Republicans hate. Here are some of the other words, which, raises the rancor, and inflames the ire of these people:

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. ― on the National Industrial Recovery Act (16 June 1933)
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Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. ― Speech to the Democratic National Convention (27 June 1936)
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Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing. ― Simple Truths message to Congress (29 April1938)
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We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization. ― Greeting to the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, Washington, D.C. (9 January 1940)
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But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
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Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
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Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
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I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.
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I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
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If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.
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It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.
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It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
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More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
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One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
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The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
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There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.
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Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.
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War is a contagion.
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I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

There has been some controversies about the Roosevelt Memorial Park. What I have not read, or heard about, is the popularity of the statue group above. People are taking, especially, their small hounds, and photographing them next to Fala. Mister Fala of the White House was Roosevelt’s war time companion. Earlier, I wrote of man and dog; this continues the thought: Whosoever loveth me loveth my hound. Conversely, those who hateth me hateth my hound.

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks — but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or 20 million dollars — his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since! I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself — such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog. — (23 September 1944)

Fala was a scottish terrier. The Roosevelts had a succession of scotties. In the film, Wizard of Oz (1939), Dorothy had a, similar highland terrier, a cairn terrier. The Wicked Witch said, “I’ll get you my pretty ... and your little dog too!”. Yes, the venom people have for you, will, also, be given your dog.
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*Now, the reaganistas and the busheviks were against regulation of industries and commerce. Something, that the Constitution mandates, which has never been changed in the wording of the Constitution: Article I. Section 8. ― The Congress shall have power ... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes ...

God, man and hound

The hound has meaning in himself, and in relation to men and God. ‘Que me amat, amet et canem meum.’ This was a latin proverb, we know Saint Bernard of Clairvaux † 1153, the Cistercian used.* Saint Thomas More †1535, used it in english ― Whosoever loveth me loveth my hound.‡ The word ‘dog’ was a scandinavian import, hound was the anglo-saxon, it is the german word ‘Hund’. Now, this proverb implies a real friend will like, not just me, but in addition, that which is mine, is associated with me, and dear to me. Anyone who is not kind to my dog, is not my friend, and above all, this proverb says ― my dog is, my dog is my friend.

The Cynics were that school of greek philosophers, who, wanted to pursue the truth and held virtue as the highest good, and held them so tightly in their jaws, that, it could never be taken away. Kynikos = houndish, (canine), kyon is greek for dog. People often dismiss a person or comment with “that’s cynical”, or “you’re a cynic ”. They do not know what the word means, whence it came, they have relied on a misleading, and often false connotation. Other times they do know what they mean, they are annoyed with the truth, and prefer something else. Some people who were disappointed with people were cynics. They also were perceptive and right. They weighed man and dog, and the dog was superior. Diogenes was the Cynic carrying a lit lantern, in daytime, searching for an honest man.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principle difference between a dog and a man. ― Mark Twain

The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs. ― Charles De Gaulle

The stereotypical name for a dog was ‘Fido’. Fido comes from fides, fides = faith, fidelis = faithful. Odysseus (Ulysses) was gone twenty years from Ithaca. He returned dressed as a beggar, and only his dog, Argos, recognised him, after seeing his master, he died. There are many good names for hounds, though I have difficulty with people, whom, give dogs christian names, and people whom name children with names, that are beneath, the names proper to dogs. The symbol for the Dominicans is a dog with a torch in his mouth, from The Golden Legend. The pun on the name of the Dominicans, ‘Domini canes’, is Domini = Lord (God), and canis = hound, therefore, the hounds of God. Francis Thompson has the poem, The Hound of Heaven, in which the hunted is you.

There has been several saints, who are associated with dogs. Saint Bernard of Menthon †1008, the Benedictine, had a breed named after him (indirectly, from St. Bernard Pass in the alps), and a huge friend they are, carrying a small cask of brandy for you. The ancient bloodhound, had been, called Saint Hubert’s hound, Hubert had been an hunter, whom found the Lord. Saint Francis of Assisi tamed the wolf of Gubbio, a great poem by Ruben Dario§ tells this, in addition to the Fioretti. Saint John Bosco had his great protector, Grigio. Saint Roch was trapped in a pit and a dog brought bread to him.

Roch is the Italian, Rocco. There is in the church of Saint Rocco, Cleveland, a statue of Rocco and his dog. Rocco is shown with his dog, the dog has bread in his mouth. Rocco carries a pilgrim staff, and points to his wounded leg. One of the funniest moments of my life, funny in a joyously poignant way, was in this church. Saint Rocco’s had several alcove rooms. In these rooms there were prie-Dieus, and candles along with the statues. Someone had put a dog biscuit there for Rocco’s friend, in the place where candles would be set.

Well, I can go on ..., but, I will diverge to this last path. Dogs are with us. They are social animals, and they have accepted us as their own. They are confused why we stand so much taller than they. Now, we are to treat them well, as we are to treat all creation, but there should be a warm, soft spot for the hound. The persian poet, Nizami †1203, tells us the tale|| that Christ found beauty in, even, a dead dog.
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*Sermo Primus
‡First Sermon on the Lord's Prayer
§Los motivos del lobo
||The Eye Of Charity
paintings by John Emms.*1843, †1912. The faith of Saint Bernard, and Saint Bernard rescue dogs.

Tayside police dog

To-day is the middlemost day of the year, as many days have passed, as our left to come this year. Not much, but a curious and trivial note. I had no particular thing I was planning to type. But, last night, because of the quickness information travels, I heard and saw, that, the cute advertisement above, had set off the mohammedan anger alarm.

Now, Tayside contains Dundee in Scotland, and Scotland within Britain. Dundee sits on the Firth of Tay. Historically, the town is known for the Jacobite, Bonnie Dundee, and for marmalade.

They employ hounds in their constabulary. They are promoting their german shepherd pup, Rebel, in public relations. A clever and pleasant action. He is available on their public computer site. One would think, this would be welcomed by the community. They had grade school (Saint Ninian’s, though in eastern Scotland, they do have many of the auld faith) children name the animal. He has appeared on placards and/or postcards informing the public of a new telephone.

It is proverbial that the anglais and, by extention, all britons really like dogs. Dogs and horses make marvelous good will ambassadors, and they, often, make the people around them better. Sounds as it would be a simple success, but, no! Besides, the usual catholics, protestants and non-believers, there are mohammedans. And some portion of them have made a stink, and here is the oddest part: the police apologised. Do you know how rare that is? Police, disgustingly often, do horrid things and make great errors, that are really travesties; and this often brasenly and without remorse. Yet, for this innocent thing, they are sorry.

Some maintain that dogs are grandly unclean. To be very simple: don’t harbor them. And don’t be a dictatorial, asinine prohibitionist for others, whom, do harbor them.


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The mediæval persians had other great poets than Omar Khayyam alone. One was Nizami *1141,†1203. Perhaps, the poem was based on a passage from al-Ghazali’s †1111, The Sayings of Jesus, where he translated aramaic into arabic.

The Eye Of Charity

One Evening Jesus lingered in market-place,
Teaching the people parables of truth and grace,
When in the square remote a crowd was seen to ride,
And stop with loathing gestures and abhorring cries.

Master and his meek disciples went to see
What cause this commotion and disgust could be,
And found a poor dead dog beside the gutter laid:
Revolting sight! at which each face its hate betrayed.

One held his nose, one shut his eyes, one turned away:
And all among themselves began aloud to say,
"Detested creature! he pollutes the earth and the air!"
"His eyes are blear!", "His ears are foul!", "His ribs are bare!"

"In his torn hide there's not a decent shoe-string left!"
"No doubt the execrable cur was hung for theft!"
Then Jesus spoke, and dropped on him this saving wreath,
"Even pearls are dark before the whiteness of his teeth!"

The pelting crowd grew silent and ashamed, like one
Rebuked by sight of wisdom higher than his own;
And one exclaimed, "No creature so accursed can be,
But some good thing in him a loving eye will see."