My Dog’s a Pretty Darn Good Writer, eh?

by JudyP

shih tzu.. Shih Tzu pic

New GraniteGrok contributing writers?

I was getting a tad frustrated since I couldn’t seem to get any of my letters to the editor printed in the Concord Monitor, so I decided to take drastic action.

In fact, I had emailed Felice Belman, the new gestapo of letters to the editor for the Pravda on the Merrimack as Ed Mosca likes to call it, several months ago and brought to her attention the fact that there was so much redundancy in the letters constantly being published; i.e., impeach Bush/Cheney, there were no WMD, we hate Pres. Bush, the wars illegal, bring the troops home now!, etc., etc.

Felice did email me back and said that she’d love to see more letters from the "other" side. So, many of my friends and I started writing letters to the editor from the "other" side. Here’s where my frustration starts to peak since virtually none of the letters from a more conservative side got published. Even though Felice said she wanted more, apparently she decided to use them to either line her litter box or birdcage rather than publish them.

Well, I emailed Felice with a rather long letter and asked for her to perhaps print it in a My Turn or For the Monitor piece and let me know if she would print it. A week went by with no response from Felice. I emailed Felice again and asked her to please print it or at least get back to me to let me know that she wasn’t going to print it so I could post it on my blog.

It’s been weeks and I still haven’t heard back from Felice. Well, I happened to read two letters from the editor posted three days apart containing a man’s and woman’s first names and the same unusual last name and town. Hmmm, this got me to ah thinkin’….the Monitor has a policy that they will not print a letter from the same person until two weeks have expired. But, obviously they’ll print a letter from the same "household" within a matter of days.

Well, I didn’t want to bother my husband, or son who regularly stops by to write a letter so I could attempt to get a point across for the "other" side, so I decided to ask one of my Shih Tzu’s if he could write a letter. "Hey, Rex Regal, would you like to write a letter to the editor, bubby?" I asked. Woof! Woof! Head shaking, yes, so he started writing. Let’s see…is it two taps of the paw for a "b"? Man does it take a long time for him to write a short letter, but I persevered in "interpreting" and woof, woof, his letter got published here.

Now, wasn’t Rex surprised when Rich Krajewski sent in a letter on September 3 and agreed with him? Yes, he was surprised and he proudly showed off the letter to his "sister" Reba. I let them celebrate with a treat and a swim in the brook. Reba is inspired by Rex’s success and she’s woofed, woofed that she’d like to write a letter. I better put aside a couple hours soon to interpret all those paw taps from Reba. Geez, you know how it is, what you do for one you have to do for the other or the "sibling" rivalry sets in.

Well, I still haven’t gotten a letter published in the Monitor, but I can still blog here. No, I’m not asking either Rex or Reba if they want to blog here because I think Skip and Doug have a "human’s only" policy…oh, wait a minute…they do let the "chimps" comment here…Rex and Reba! would you like to start blogging? Woof! Woof! Oh boy!   

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  • http://www.GraniteGrok.com Skip

    Only if Doug starts allowing Ivan and Tyson to bark out their MP3 for posting!
    This is just too funny…..
    -Skip

  • judy paris

    If Ivan and Tyson are cats, we’ll have to talk first as Reba Royal hasn’t had any cat friends yet. But Rex Regal has had cat friends so he’s okay with it…plus he said “bring it on!” What’s a dog do on their day off? They can’t just lay around ’cause that’s there job! I think, George Carlin said it.

  • http://www.granitegrok.com.granitegrok.com doug

    Next thing you know… yep. Dogs & cats… you know– the whole civil union thing. Uh oh!

  • Bill Bunker

    I have many letters printed in the Monitor but they tend to choose only the ones that are sensational. I found BlogsNH to be a good outlet and I take alot of heat there.
    Belman does have an agenda, there is no doubt about that. The real issue with the Monitor is that they have so many “green” student types on staff that the Editorials are just so sophomoric and juvenile.
    I criticize Belman all of the time and expect to get slapped down any minute. I have received warnings about certain posts but so far no real censorship.
    Had my share of Mt Turn pieces but under Pride. Belman has her hand in the mix and it is not inclusionary. I too have have a network and we have had conservative writing campaigns….to no avail….they are seldom published. This weekend was a prime example, 5 negative letters about Palin/McCain. None to the contrary.
    Belman will be the end of the Monitor and it could be so much more of a newspaper by representing the middle, not the fringe.
    Good luck with your efforts to get published…it is tough!
    Bill Bunker

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