"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
1) If you could be any breed of dog, I mean any breed of dog...what would you be?
An Airedale, I think.
2) What would your name be?
Whiskey & Soda, which has a Lafayette Escadrille air about it, or Odo of Cluny.
3) And finally, what would be your normal day schedule?
A good bit of time would be spent in emulation of Crispin's Crispian, the Dog Who Belonged to Himself in the landmark conservative work Mister Dog by Margaret Wise Brown; then, after a bit of vicarious escapism with Asta on the Late Show, to bed, and dreams of battling Jacobin squirrels a laCosmo.
More canine fare:
President Harding's Airedale, Laddie Boy, shown here in the special chair he used at Cabinet meetings, retrieved golf balls for the president on the White House lawn, sat on the front steps to greet official delegations, and as First Pet in the Teapot Dome era, was more widely popular than his master:
The press made more of Laddie Boy and his antics than of the President himself. On July 17, 1921, the Washington Star printed an "interview" with Laddie Boy where he gave his opinion on everything from Woodrow Wilson's sheep and prohibition to the Harding Cabinet, and he advocated eight-hour day for guard dogs.
It's unclear what Laddie Boy was getting up to in this presidential press conference.
After Harding fell deathly ill on a trip to Alaska, it's said, Laddie Boy howled for three days before the president succumbed.
Newsboys later collected more than 19,000 pennies for a statue of Laddie Boy that was placed in the Smithsonian.
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What happens you pit Irish setter versus remote-control alligator? Amy at Ever So Humble has pictures.
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Dogs in the Great War * Vintage images of the regimental wolfhounds of the Irish Guards * Unusual mascots of the Civil War, including a bear that marched with the 12th Wisconsin Volunteers all the way to Missouri, and the 43rd Mississippi Infantry's pet camel, Douglas, killed by a minie ball at Vicksburg
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