Links and Minifeatures 01 02 Tuesday

Carnival of Personal Finance



Carnival of The Capitalists Recommended: Sox First (top ten business shenanigans for 2006)



Carnival of Investing Recommended: Ask Uncle Bill (cutting interest rates on student loans)

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I may not be myself for a while. I've got a very sick little dog who has been very important to me for the last fourteen years. Just by being himself, he pulled me out of a funk when I had basically lost faith in the whole idea of friendship. There's not much you can do for kidney failure in a dog. We've been treating it by controlling his diet, but it has become increasingly obvious that that was a delaying tactic only, as he has become progressively thinner. He's not in pain, but he has become unwilling to eat almost everything. This evening he only ate half of what I gave him of one of his favorite foods, so I have to accept at this time that I'm probably only going to have him for a few more days, at most. Tomorrow actually marks 14 years since he came to live with me, and without him and the restoration of my attitude that he worked, I would not have been the person my wife married. I'm going to keep him as long as he's not in pain, but I don't know how long that will be. I'm going to spend as much time as I can with him while he's still here, and I still have to work. So if there's not a lot left over for new articles here for a while, please understand.

THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

And when we are certain of sorrow in store,

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.



Buy a pup and your money will buy

Love unflinching that cannot lie--

Perfect passion and worship fed

By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.

Nevertheless it is hardly fair

To risk your heart for a dog to tear.



When the fourteen years which Nature permits

Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,

And the vet's unspoken prescription runs

To lethal chambers or loaded guns,

Then you will find--it's your own affair--

But . . . you've given your heart to a dog to tear.



When the body that lived at your single will,

With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).

When the spirit that answered your every mood

Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,

You will discover how much you care,

And will give your heart to a dog to tear.



We've sorrow enough in the natural way,

When it comes to burying Christian clay.

Our loves are not given, but only lent,

At compound interest of cent per cent.

Though it is not always the case, I believe,

That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve.

For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,

A short-time loan is as bad as a long--

So why in--Heaven (before we are there)

Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?



-Rudyard Kipling

If you've had a dog, you know the answer. But that doesn't make it any easier when the time comes.