Friday Hound Blogging (Monday Edition)

Oh Friday, you mischievous scamp you! How did you manage to slip through the marbled halls of IM Central without notice? Our backs were turned but for a second it seemed and you were gone like the first bird song wafted away on the breath of dawn. A half remembered dream, a vague, sliver of an image caught between the fleeing shadows. Where are you Friday? You have disappeared into that vast remoteness of before and now even your memory slips from us, vanishing into the now, like the mist over the sun wakened fields.

Yeah, yeah, we know what you're thinking. "Man up Ironicus. You blew the one thing that gives this blog even the hint of a socially redeeming value and now you're trying to hide behind a bunch of purple prose."

Come on. What do you want from us? It's not like we're being paid to do this, you know? When's the last time you clicked on the 'Donate Now' button? And don't give us that there is no donate button either because that's just the kind of little technicality we'd expect you to try.

And speaking of donate, let's donate some time to the overlords (Segues. We love 'em). For those of you keeping score at home, Iowa Governor Branstad signed the Greyhound Freedom Act which means that the last two tracks in Iowa will be closed by the end of next year if not before. Oh, there was that one part of the agreement where the overlords want to run the track at Mystique on their own dime without subsidies or tax breaks. Like we said, the last two tracks in Iowa will be closed by the end of next year if not before.

Well, as you might imagine this was a lot for the overlords to process, what with going from two non-profitable tracks to no non-profitable tracks in such a short period of time and it prompted overlord Leon Giguere to take to the airways with some deep thoughts.

Overlord Giguere tells us he has "mixed emotions" about the agreement because his preference would have been to keep "all" the tracks open instead of just the one that will flame ingloriously out within a year. Look on the bright side Mr. G. They're only closing half the tracks. The other half will remain open and losing money just like before.

The G man is also concerned about his fellow overlords and what might happen to them when they can no longer suck a buck off a pup. This is a valid concern and one we would share were it not for the $64 mill the casinos are forking over to get out from under the heartless exploitation of innocent living creatures for (no) profit. Don't worry too much about it Leon. Think of how long it would have taken the industry to come up with $64 million on its own drawing two bucks a pop off social security recipients. Your retirement plan just got a lot more flush.

Hey Ivy, what kind of payout did you get when you retired?

Ivy is a six and a half year old brindle female who's not into cats, but doesn't mind small dogs, likes Pina Coladas, getting caught in the rain, is not into yoga, and has half a brain. For more information about this dog, and other rescued racing greyhounds looking for homes, go here. If you don't know about the plight of racing greyhounds go here and here.