Wrench Rhetoric

I came across the calendar picture, above, and just a little earlier in the day I had sent someone a link to a post in which I had talked a bit about monkey wrenches.

It turns out I talk about wrenches a lot:

• June 5, 2011: "[A]s a general rule I am not one to encourage the use of dogs as a wrench to tighten just any loose nut."
• June 17, 2010:  "Dogs have been around a long time, and a few of us have owned dogs for more than 10 years. Use common sense. Observe. Read. Go slow. Remember that one wrench does not fit every nut."
• March 11, 2010:  "[I]f you have a dog that is phobic, or is routinely ripping into another dog (or your child or wife) then the girls at PetSmart might not be the right wrench for that nut."
• March 8, 2010:  "An e-collar is like a monkey wrench; it appears to be a useless and thuggish tool you will never need, right up until the minute you need it, and then its use becomes both transparent and necessary."
• July 19, 2008:  "A judge has thrown a wrench into the push to delist the gray wolf in the northern Rockies, saying two things that seem imminently sensible to me..."
• February 27, 2008:  "The National Rifle Association is a direct mail fear factory of the same stripe (albeit catering to a different demographic) as the Humane Society and PETA. Most gun owners see them for what they are; a useful wrench to grab and twist the gun-grabbing nuts on the far left, but not the kind of organization they actually care to support with membership dues."
• June 16, 2007: "Dogs are a bit of a mystery, and it may take a few more turns of the wrench before I get the nuts set right."
• January 9, 2007: "The only benefit of an e-collar is that it works long distance, which is very useful if you have a strong prey-drive in a very smart hunting dog as I do with Mountain."
• August 31,2006:  "The simple but harsh truth is that the psycho-demographic watching the National Geographic channel tend to be people with two types of common "dog problems": They think their dog is their child, and their dog is over-fed and fat. The dog is, quite simply, being 'loved to death.'  Cesar has antidotes for both problems. He is the right wrench for this nut."
• Dec 13, 2005:  "The world of the working terrier allows for different sized dogs for different earths, situations and quarries. Different wrenches for different nuts, so to speak.  A badger sette and a fox pipe are not the same size, nor are the animals that dig them.... The true history of the AKC breed standard seems to be that they have a breed standard written by a badger digging club that they are now presenting as a breed standard for working red fox in a natural earth.  No wonder there are so few Kennel Club dogs found in the field! It's a bit like an American mechanic showing up at a Volvo factory and wondering why none of his wrenches fit!"

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