By now you know everything about Tim Walz. Grew up in Nebraska. Joined the National Guard and eventually rose to the rank of command sergeant major. Moved to Minnesota and became a schoolteacher and high school football coach. Ran for Congress and won. Ran for governor and won. Two kids via IVF. Got his son a dog after winning the governorship.
But there's more!
That's Honey, the cat the Walz family adopted last year after their old cat ran away. So now, when Walz comes home after a hard day at the office and says, "Honey I'm home!" there's no telling who he's actually talking to.¹
¹Marian's late aunt once had a cat she named Honey just so she could say "Honey I'm home" when she walked through the door.
I always wanted to get a dog and name it Kitty, so I could open the door, call out "Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!' and have it run to me. My kids laughed, then said "No".
Walkin' My Cat Named Dog
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A friend of mine renamed his parents' dog Hitler, so he could bark: "Hitler! Stop that!" or "Hitler! Come here!"
MEOOOOOW ! Welcome to the big show. Kitties know.
There's an old joke/story I saw one time about a guy who gets asked to dog-sit for his friend for a couple of weeks, so he uses the time to retrain the dog to answer to the name "Yahtzee" so that when the owner returned and had to go look for the dog, he would have to wander around his yard yelling "Yahtzee!!"
Orange cats are where it’s at!
Thought I read once that orange cats tend to be males, and calicos tend to be female. Seven seconds on Google says that’s mostly true. Who knew?
There is some evidence that Vikings particularly liked orange cats on their ships. Places that the Vikings settled tend to have a lot of orange cats even today.
Maybe they'll try to use Honey to prove the accuracy of MN's Kensington Runestone!
I don't know about orange cats, but I did read somewhere one time that sailors once considered polydactyl cats (like Hemingway's) good luck on board and so would keep them as pets. Back in port, the cats would often jump ship and run off to join the population of local strays. This led to feline polydactylism being prevalent in the NE in particular in port cities like Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
We have a polydactyl cat -- they're adorable.
Polydactyl? Some kind of dinosaur? No, it turns out.
sohttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/chaco-canyon-pueblo-bonito-social-implications-polydactyly-extra-toes
Nice! Going for the votes of the people with good taste community. Hopefully she does not attack secret service agents.
The childless cat-lady constituency is definitely onboard now.
Why did the old cat run away?
It probably didn't. It was more likely roaming the neighborhood and got eaten by a coyote.
Or it moved in with somebody down the block who buys a better brand of cat food.
I live on the edge of San Diego. Once during the hot summer I got up super-early and went for a walk in the neighborhood. Just a few blocks from home I saw a coyote trotting towards me, carrying something in his mouth. He must have been distracted because he didn't see me until we were quite close, and then he startled, dropped it, and ran off. And then I saw what it was: a housecat, full grown, freshly killed.
We can hope your neighbor-with-better-food theory is correct, but coyotes really do patrol the suburbs for pets.
in my neighborhood there's a tree with an owl's nest and a pile of cat bones under it
A long time ago I was standing in the yard with my cat, who was just sitting there about fifteen feet in front of me. Suddenly a hawk swooped down and, about six feet above the cat, he aimed the tip of one wing straight at him, did a perfect pirouette and flew off. The cat never saw it.
I don't think it would have ended well if I hadn't been there, by sheer luck.
In Minnesota it's more likely wolves. Especially northern end of the Twincities they mix with developments.
Next pet should be called Buns, obviously.
From the nitpicking department, I read someplace else -- don't remember where -- that he didn't complete the coursework for CSM and so retired as "only" a Sergeant Major. FWIW; no idea if it's true.
That part is true. However, he performed the duties of a command sergeant major for about 18 months before retiring.
Already getting Swiftboated (In the NY Post), accused of retiring to avoid deployment to Iraq.
Given that he's running as a public servant and not a war hero, may have little or no effect. But that's what the meatheads at Fox will be screaming about for the next week or so.
You mean the war Trump called a mistake? By the way, if he was on the reserve ready list the Pentagon was deploying at the time "retirement" would have meant nothing. They were deploying old men to fight, that's the bottom of the barrel they were scraping at.
Oh by the way, did Trump go to Vietnam?
Yeah, questioning Walz's service is pretty rich coming from supporters of President "Dead Soldiers are Losers" Bonespurs.
Never stopped them, never will.
Sure, but Donald's veep candidate was in the military. Somehow, with only a high school diploma they made him a writer.
(Wikipedia)
After graduating from Middletown High School, Vance joined the US Marine Corps, where he served from 2003 to 2007 as a combat correspondent, with six months in Iraq. He attended Ohio State University afterward, graduating in 2009.
(Wait....he graduated from college in two years?)
Already getting Swiftboated (In the NY Post), accused of retiring to avoid deployment to Iraq.
The problem with this attack, at least if you care about the truth, is that Walz filed his retirement papers months before the decision to deploy his unit was made.
If it wasn't for the Twin Cities riots in 2020, then Walz would have been an obvious choice to be Harris's VP. You can hear it in the way he talks, just like a normal person speaking to you in a bar, the grocery store or at ballgame. Because he didn't become a politician until later in life. He didn't go to law school. He wasn't an officer in the Guard. That's his appeal. Living near the epicenter of the riots as I do, all I can say is nobody in any position of leadership in the city, county or state crowned themselves with glory that summer. Suffice during the Chauvin trial and during riots that took place in the nearby Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center after another police shooting of an unarmed man (ironically enough led by the man the state GOP gave its endorsement to for U.S. Senate), in 2021 the same mistake wasn't made twice. The Twin Cities was ringed with National Guardsmen and contingency plans were place. Of course, you can't always prepare for these things and it takes experience to deal with them. And that gave Walz his leg up. Shapiro is not only young, but he's only been governor for a year and a half! Given him time to show his mettle when things aren't always sunshine and balloons. Bashear too, very young. Harris wanted an older person to attract the older voters Biden was still doing. My favorite and I think the best on paper was Mark Kelly but apparently to many he's charisma deficient and Walz simply united the party better than all the other candidates (Kelly is not exactly liked by labor). By not taking Shapiro, it throws a wet blanket over the intensity of any protests in Chicago. Harris wants to keep her momentum going and Walz was the best choice for it.
When I saw Shapiro's speech I thought - Wow, this guy is good!!!
But according to WaPo, he was rather reluctant to leave the governorship so soon. I see him more as a potential top of the ticket sometime in the future. For now, Walz's grandfatherly style is a better fit.
The left wingnuts are there to be used,
https://www.rawstory.com/news/josh-shapiro-2668905361/
A celebration that probably lasted around fifteen seconds.
Why does this "Honey, I'm home" joke assume *he's* the one having a hard day at the office? Just asking questions.
The lead editorial in the Washington Post this morning made my teeth grind. Basically saying the Walz pick is tacking so far to the left that Harris better move toward the center fast. Sounded like a toned-down version of what has been coming from the Trump camp.
Don't know who is writing WaPo's editorials these days, but this doesn't bode well.
Oh they gotta write SOMETHING critical. Gushing at Real Americans' excitement over candidates is reserved for reporting from safaris to rallies and diners in Real America. Serious Journalists earn the respect of their peers by bashing Democrats, which proves to everyone (and themselves) that they're not librul nerds who can't be cool like the jocks.
"Basically saying the Walz pick is tacking so far to the left"
Oh please! He's probably more liberal than Shapiro but he's hardly Cori Bush. If Manchin can support him so can any Democrat. Basically, he's right smack dab in the center of the party and the ideal prototype for a rural Democrat in this day and age.
No, he's way over on the right side of the party. Of course Manchin can support him. But if AOC can support him, then so can any Democrat.
I particularly liked that Walz became the defensive coordinator of the football team at the school where he taught when it was on a 27 game losing streak, and three years later it won its first state championship.
Honey looks timid and frightened. Walz needs a better picture of his cat if he wants to win the election.
Facts About Tim Walz,
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/06/us/politics/tim-walz-harris-vp-facts.html
Trump could lose Utah,
https://www.rawstory.com/news/kamala-harris-mormons/
They say that enlisted military, unlike officers, know who their father was. Walz, as a command master sergeant, is about the highest rank that can claim that honor.
And then what? Trip over an ottoman?