Read This Blog: Terrierman

The blogoshpere is filled with self indulgent poor writers who are crying out for attention. I might be one of them, and the only salvo I have against such a claim is that I don't think I'm a poor writer. But there are writers out there whom I do aspire to be like. I hope that I can one day write as well as they do, think as clearly, and put the selfish concerns of recognition grubbing and ego induced myopia behind me. Time will tell.

One writer that is worthy of both adoration and emulation is Patrick Burns, the "Terrierman." Most of the criticisms you can find of other writers and bloggers do not apply to this man and his oeuvre. He is not self indulgent in the slightest; you won't find his name plastered all over his blog, in fact it's rather hard to find it at all. You won't find post after post detailing what he ate today, how he feels about some troubled relationship, or a thoughtless and trite cliche that panders to his audience. And on those rare occasions when he posts something personal, it is always relevant, purposeful, and inspiring.

He's always timely without being a bandwagon meme surfer. He doesn't play the popular blog game of finding the new hot topic of the week and then posting a rant (or twelve) about it. When he does speak to current events it is always in a manner that sheds light and adds perspective, showing relations to larger themes, or exposing a new incarnation of an old issue:

In Black Rednecks and White Liberals, sociologist Thomas Sowell suggests that the black pathology we see lionized by inner city thugs today is really just a kind of "black redneck" culture adopted from white rednecks in the South.

Sowell has a point. Both cultures embrace easy violence, routine inebriation, monthly government checks, and children born out of wedlock. Both cultures embrace prison tattoos and celebrate machismo posturing. Both cultures have a long love affair with fast vehicles, easy credit and gambling.

Is it really such a shock, then, that a southern black redneck by the name of Michael Vick was caught with a dog fighting arena and a kennel-full of scarred Pit Bulls behind his house in Virginia?

Let's be clear what Vick was doing: He was raising dogs to fight each other to the death for entertainment purposes, and he had been doing it for at least 6 years as part of his "Bad Newz Kennels." The "winning" dog was lucky to survive his wounds, while the loser, if not killed outright in the fight, was shot, hung, or electrocuted.

Sure Vick is a professional football player with a lot of money. So what? And yes, he's black. Big deal.

You see the germane issue here is not Vick's job, or his money, or his skin color. The real deal here is that Michael Vick is a criminal redneck.

- Black and White and Redneck All Over

Patrick's posts are amazingly well researched and Patrick is clearly well read. He is the rare scholar who doesn't formulate an opinion and then rush to find evidence, or simply collect references and then rephrase the thesis and the evidence in the soft plagiarism style so familiar to students and bloggers alike. Translating scholarly papers into language readable by the masses is an art in itself, and Patrick has a way of refining dense trade-speak into crystal clear prose. But he never just stops there, he always takes the information and uses it to educate or persuade.

Any one of his many "history" posts are superior to any chapter you'd find in a modern History text book in any respected American high school.

A Brief History of Dog Training

History of Wound Management

Foxes, Ferrets and the History of the Distemper Vaccine

A Brief History of the JRTCA

A Brief History of the Patterdale

A Brief History of the Border Terrier

A Brief History of the Jagd Terrier

A Brief History of the Jack Russell Terrier

America's Founding Terrier

The History of Dog Food

A Short History of Vaccines

Patrick's style suggests that he has truly embodied and digested a huge wealth of knowledge and has it easily accessible at his finger tips. He makes connections that blow the mind: some because they are so deeply insightful, others because you wonder how anyone could connect such disparate fields with ease and grace.

Something I have not written about before is how warblers have shaped presidential politics. In fact, it is not too much to say that "warbler controversies" have led directly to two presidents being elected to office.

The first president to have his early career shaped by a warbler was Richard Nixon ... Ronald Reagan later credited this book with transforming him from a New Deal Democrat into a conservative Republican ... Another President propelled into office on the wings of a warbler was the current President -- George W. Bush.

- Warbler Politics: How Birds Made Two Presidents

His logic is so sound and his arguments so convincing, when I find myself on the opposite end of an issue I really have to dig to find out why I'm either totally wrong or if there's some experience or piece of information that explains the difference.

His articles against inbreeding, closed dog registries, and the dangerous hobby of breeding dogs for fads are some of the most entertaining red meat to be found in the dog-blogosphere.
From Rosettes to Ruin
Inbred Thinking
The Kennel Club's Scheme
The AKC Embraces the "Big Wink" of Misery Pups
Intertwined Roots: Rosettes and Animal Rights
Thank You for Not Breeding
Cruft Never Owned a Dog
The Transvestite Terriers of Westminster
... and many more

I first found his blog six months ago, and this is what I had to say then:

Mr. P Burns,

Let me first thank you for your web site and your blog. I stumbled across both the other night from a forum that linked to your article concerning the severe morphological changes in the show terrier skull over several decades. I've spent the last few nights staying up late reading through the archives of capacious posts.

Your writing style is lucid and concise without losing any credibility or persuasive power. What Thomas Sowell is to the politics of human culture, you are to the politics of dog culture. From your vocabulary and breadth of knowledge I wouldn't be surprised if you'd easily qualify for MENSA, and from what I can glean from your personality, you'd probably shrug it off as a mutual admiration society and a waste of time.

Your blog entries are fascinating and as well researched as most any book on the market. Equally compelling are the bits of autobiography you drop with a paucity un-indicative of most bloggers; I find the vast majority of blogs are an exercise in self indulgence and pretense from people who have nothing to say and who don't DO anything worth reading about. Not the case with your blog.

You've probably already noticed that I don't have your gift for being succinct, and I haven't even gotten to the issues I'd like to discuss with you, should you be willing. At this rate I should probably start my own blog and post a link.

Well, it only took me half a year to getting around to the logical conclusion of stating my own blog and Patrick was more than gracious as I filled up his comments with my decidedly non-succinct rants. But I finally have cut the cord and ventured out on my own, and in that spirit I should thank Terrierman for the inspiration and guidance.

The man is an enigma, however, because he puts so much into his writing but not an ounce of ego. He never pulls rank or suggests that because he has a title or an award or a degree that what he says is important. What he says is important because it speaks for itself and IS important. I can imagine that he's the only parent on the planet who raised two children without ever using the phrase "because I said so!"

One of the reasons the man is so good at taking his own persona out of his arguments is that he's a ghost writer in Washington D.C. of all places. It amazes me that he works in such an pseudo-intellectual cesspool that has swallowed many a great mind and twisted them into special interest serving lackeys, yet he always seems upbeat and unadulterated by the corruptive forces. That takes a lot of spine and a clear vision and there clearly aren't enough men and women like him in Washington or anywhere for that matter.

You don't become a ghost writer in Washington by being a slouch. More words are quoted and scrutinized out of Washington than any other place on Earth, and while a select few writers make their names by being ego-enhanced pundits (Rooster-tailed Smarmies), even their sweet gig is easy in comparison. Not only does a Washington ghost writer have to pass the E.F. Hutton test: "When Patrick speaks, people listen," they also have to pass the Presidential Puppet test: "When the President speaks, he wants Patrick's words coming out of his mouth."

Now I don't know specifically who Patrick writes for, and I'm pretty sure that there is no sign of his brilliant work being used by the sitting President, but he has "stood in the Oval Office for both parties (and [has] the pictures to prove it)" and this is no surprise, his Washington advocacy resume is impressive, and he has no political holy cows. He was the Director of the National Audubon Society's Population and Habitat Program, and he's a seasoned public policy warrior on everything from environmental protection, population growth, and family planning to immigration, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and gang violence. Most writers would kill to be an authority on any one of those areas, praying to have just one piece published or give one speech, and few get the chance. Even fewer are experienced and seasoned enough to attempt to be informed on any one of those issues, let alone all of them and then some.

And what is truly a rare quality is his dedication to the positions he works on and his transformation of words and ideas into action and lifestyle choices. It's oft said that character is what you do when no one is watching, and there are plenty of well spoken hypocrites who campaign brilliantly for an ethic that they don't practice themselves. Not Patrick. This passage from his blog is just one instance of the lengths the Terrierman goes to "be the change he wants to see in the world:"

I take a back seat to almost no one one when it comes to population control. I have a Masters Degree in Demography, and at the age of 25 I walked into a urologist to get a vasectomy. The next week I began the process of adopting two children (now lovely young adults) from overseas. I imagine I am one of the very few working terrier enthusiasts in the world that can give a talk about all 23 methods of human fertility control.
- Overbreeding: Beware of Simple Answers

Now that kind of dedication and foresight takes balls and discipline, especially from a man whose peers were likely off trying to find themselves, certainly not finding a global cause to believe in and act upon.

I think part of his circumspect gaze comes from a truly unique upbringing. He acts and thinks like a global citizen because he is a global citizen, and he inherited at least some of his technical prowess and writing ability form his father, David Burns, who directed the Climate Project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, wrote what is likely the first NYT editorial on climate change and global warming, studied in France on a Fulbright, and toured the world while working for the U.S. Foreign Service. David brought his wife with him and they started their family on the road. First to Syria and Lebanon where Patrick's brother was born, then to Iran, then to Zimbabwe where Patrick was born, then to Mali, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria.

I was born a Cesarean section in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia and is now Harare, Zimbabwe. Due to the circumstances of my birth, my father gave me "Corrigan" as a middle name in honor of "Wrong Way Corrigan." I actually like this zinger quite a lot, as my life has had a theme and a plot right from the beginning.
...
Over the course of my life, I have lived here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Now I have too much stuff to move, and suspect that true freedom can only come with very good insurance and a very big fire.
- Eight Random Facts

Back in the states, Patrick "went to High School in Arlington, VA, college in Wisconsin and Ohio, graduate school in DC. In between all that [he] built sailboats for a while, walked a chunk of Wyoming, walked about half the Appalachian Trail (starting in Georgia), and did a lot of long-distance bike rides, etc:"

...At the time I was 17 years old and walking the Appalachian Trail alone. It was the coldest winter in 200 years, and I had started south of Springer Mountain, Georgia in January. There had been sheet ice all through George, and monstrous snow drifts all through North Carolina and Tennessee. At night I slept with both water bottles and wet boots inside my sleeping bag so they would not freeze solid at night.

Back in Georgia, I had ditched my tent for a simple fly in order to save weight, and on days when I could stay on top of the snow I was walking 20 or more per day with a 60 pound pack on my back. Every two weeks I picked up food that I had mailed to myself care of General Delivery at towns along the way. Thing has been fine for seven or eight weeks, but by the time I crossed into Virginia, my boots were beginning to fall apart and my little stove had developed a stress crack and exploded, sending a fire ball up just past my head.
- Thiry Years Ago Today

I consider visiting Egypt for a month and spending a week on the Navajo reservation as a child pivotal experiences that shaped my view of the world. They were things my peers had never done nor could they understand. I can hardly imagine the multitude of experiences Patrick has accumulated that are simply out of reach and unfathomable to the rest of us. So much of the conflict in politics derives from the simple fact that people are mostly incapable of sympathizing with cultures they don't understand combined with the difficulties of appreciating differences from a distance. The shocking elements of my trips to Egypt and the reservation came more from the small things I had no idea could be so different, like where people get their water from or how they defecate, versus the substantial differences that you might be able to guess at from a distance.

Where Patrick truly shines is when he is talking about his dogs. It seems like a labor leisure of love, that is still guided by the sharp wit and keen prose he applies to his more scholarly topics, except that it has a tone of catharsis and a storytelling quality that's more akin to fine fiction. Even in the midst of a very compelling personal story, Patrick finds a way to tie in autobiography with his refined global lens.

I asked the bald vet where he was originally from, and he said Algeria. I told him I gew up in Hydra, a suburb of Algiers, as well as in Morocco and Tunisia. He said he thought he remembered me now -- from 15 years earlier. I was the only American he had ever met who had lived in Algeria. We talked about Algeria a little, and food, and the Kabylie Mountains. I think he could tell now that I loved more than the dog. But he knew I loved the dog.

It turned out that 10 or 15 years earlier he was the kennel man at this vet. Now he was the doctor. This was a success story that spoke volumes. What a life! To escape the troubles in Algeria, come to America and become a veterinarian. I loved this guy. It turned out that the new lady vet had been the receptionist at this clinic and had then gone off to vet school herself. My new Algerian friend had hired her fresh out of school. Wonderful! What a great country.
- Acts of God

The above passage is from one of the finest gems in Patrick's blog, not so much for the insightful analysis, convincing statistics, or persuasive prose that characterizes the rest of his posts; but for the mirror the story provides into Patrick's soul and his deep character. I won't spoil the details or the ending, but Acts of God is a story that should make you ask a lot of questions about yourself, your preparedness, and your character. What would you have done in that situation?



What more can you ask from an author? To inform. To entertain. To inspire. To confound. Patrick does them all.

And for that reason, he is someone you should read.