Hank Kalet

It’s been a rough week in the Kalet household.

Those of you who read this blog on a somewhat regular basis — there are a few — know I generally only write about my personal life if there is a good reason. I write about running, for instance, when there is a race and about my nephews when we take them to local events.

But my mind is elsewhere right now, focused far away from the drama that is local, state and federal politics, away from John Bolton’s resignation, away from the war and tax reform and Route 92.

My dog is sick and I’m a bit preoccupied.

There are those out there who might view my concern as rank sentimentality, who would dismiss my concern for a dog as just wanton silliness. But I am a dog lover. Honey, my dog, is like my kid. She’s always there and offers nothing but unconditional love.

Honey became sick last week — Nov. 26 — and stopped eating. I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice to say that she has not eaten since, not fresh-cooked chicken, not baby food, not crackers, nothing more than a morsel here and there, and she has dropped about 10 pounds, giving her a gaunt and pathetically lost look.

We had her to the vet twice last week, once for a two-night stay, and she’s back there for another overnight tonight. She’s not the kind of dog who likes the sleepaways — she’s never been kenneled or in the vet for more than an afternoon — and she’s completely attached to Annie and me.

All of the tests — blood tests, x-rays, ultrasound — have come back normal, but she still won’t eat. If things don’t improve overnight, we’ll have to take her to a specialist.

I’m beginning to wonder, having had some college psychology, if she is not proving Pavlov and Skinner correct, if she has not conditioned her own response to food, associating it with her sour stomach and essentially teaching herself not to eat.

But I don’t know. I’m hoping the vet will call and things will have turned, but I’m also growing pessimistic despite myself.

Last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up. She wasn’t moving and I couldn’t tell if she was breathing. I got down on the floor with her, but didn’t feel the soft heave of her abdomen inhaling or exhaling. I leaned toward her snout, heard a breath and climbed back into bed. Then I grew unsure of what I’d just witnessed, so climbed back out and checked again.

This is what we do for our pets.

So forgive me if I seem a bit out of it or if this blog seems a little more random than usual (could it really be any more random?).

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Consider it official. The N.J. Turnpike Authority has asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to withdraw all pending permits for Route 92, essentially killing the project.

In a letter to the DEP dated Dec. 1, Turnpike Executive Director Michael Lapolla write that “we have decided to cancel the Route 92 project” and “consider all applications pending or on record with the DEP as withdrawn.”

The action puts an end to the current chapter of the horror novel that has been Route 92, though it remains possible that like so many horror-story ghosts it could return in the future. That’s why we — the South Brunswick Post — continue our call for adoption of Assembly Bill A685 (sponsored by Assemblyman Bill Baroni, R-14) and S883 (sponsored by state Sen. Peter Inverso, R-14). The legislation — essentially the same bill introduced in both houses of the state Legislature — would strip the Turnpike Authority of its “authorization to build the Route 92,” putting the final nail in the project’s coffin.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Steve Masticola on the South Brunswick Post’s Blog of South Brunswick calls attention to a couple of wire-service stories that should be of note to the community:

Two wire services have reported briefly that the Turnpike Authority’s Route 92 project has been cancelled. I have personally attempted to contact Governor Corzine to confirm this.

We’re working on it as we speak and will have something up on our regular South Brunswick Post site, our blog and here on Channel Surfing when we have it.

Thanks for the heads up Steve.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Corruption in New Jersey knows no party allegiance, as this story shows.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Two long essays that, taken together along with Michael Isikoff and David Corn‘s book, Hubris, and Frank Rich‘s The Greatest Story Ever Sold, are essential to understanding the history of our misadventure in Iraq.

The first, Mark Danner’s “Iraq: The War of Imagination,” comes courtesy of The New York Review of Books. Danner has been one of the most important reporters writing on the war, a war in which the best writing has taken place away from the news pages and in opinion journals and on the editorial and op-ed pages. It is a long essay, as I said, even by NYRB standards, but read it anyway.

The second, Nir Rosen’s disection of the descent into civil war — “Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq’s descent into chaos” — ran in The Boston Review and is one of the few dispatches from the war zone that avoids the trap of partisanism or sentimentality. It is a hard-headed piece that should make everyone feel just a little discomfort.

Read them and weep. Literally.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick