Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Doggie diaries: The story of Rosie and Sophie The parents wait for Cesar

I'm not sure why, but we're standing outside of the Barnes & Noble in West Windsor waiting for Cesar Milan to sign a copy of his latest book, “How to Raise the Perfect Dog.”

We'd planned on coming tonight, but not just for the book signing. We thought he was going to give a talk (pointers for dealing with the pups); the crowd was too big, however, and the talk is now a signing.

We knew this ahead of time — Annie called — but we came anyway. We (mostly Annie, but a little of me) had already set our minds to it.

We got here just before 7 and probably won't see him until close to 9. (you'd think they'd have set us up inside so we could shop.)

I don't remember the last time I waited two hours for something like this — maybe Springsteen. I guess Cesar is the rock star of the dog world.

Too bad we had to leave Rosie and Sophie home.

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Hypocritical hawks

E.J. Dionne Jr. compares the penny-pinching ways of anti-health reformers with their profligacy in matters of war in one of the more pointed sentences you’ll find in an op-ed these days:

It’s also enraging that those who insist on offsetting every penny spent to expand health coverage would never ask the Congressional Budget Office to score the costs of McChrystal’s strategy. For the uninsured, they propose fiscal prudence. For war, they offer profligacy.

The logic of dictators

Follow the reasoning on this one:

Pakistan grabs a then-18-year-old during a sweep in 2002, less than a year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The teen, as a judge eventually finds, was arrested and held without cause at our Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The judge — five months ago — orders the man, now 26, released.

The Obama administration balks. Even if the Yemeni, Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed,

was not dangerous in 2002, they said, Guantánamo itself might have radicalized him, exposing him to militants and embittering him against the United States. If he returned to his troubled homeland of Yemen, the officials feared, he might fall in with the growing contingent of Al Qaeda there, one more Guantánamo survivor to star in their propaganda videotapes.

So American officials first sought to route him to a rehabilitation program for militants in Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis would take him only if he wanted to go — and he did not.

To sum things up: He’s arrested and held without cause for eight years, which turns him into a potential terrorist, which creates the cause to hold him. When did we become the Latin America of Pinochet and Peron?
So it wanted to keep him in custody, which the judge overruled.

The

Opening night: Confex rocks

I think it's going to be a hit. The new Confectionately Yours opened today and it looks great.

We've been coming here for years and are friends with the owners, the Gondek family, so maybe we're biased. But dinner was great — old-fashioned turkey dinner for me, meatloaf for Annie — and we're stuffed.

Stone table tops in the booths and a spectacular ice-cream bar — just a warm and inviting atmosphere.

They start with an advantage of a loyal customer base, but the place was packed on a Monday — the traditional slow night for restaurants.

A good start to what will be a successful venture.

Congratulations, Gondek family.

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Doggie diaries: The story of Rosie and Sophie Bad dog owners the sequel

What was I thinking, leaving a pair of sneakers in the den over night? Oh, I wasn't thinking and now I need news sneakers.

This is what I meant by us need ing more training. It's not the dogs' fault when they act like dogs. It's ours when we get lazy.

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