Dog Daze is the proper headline

Which is the Better Pun: Dog Days or Dog Daze?

The Guardian's L.A. dispatch reporter, Dan Glaister has brought up the claim that America is an awards-obsessed culture, especially when it comes to canines. I'd expect this from Canadian parliament, but our friends in England's press? Tsk tsk.

I think the big problem with the column itself is that Glaister says that the big story in the US was not a.) primaries b.) janet jackson's nipple c.) bush's tv interview, but was a d.) dog show. He then mentions that he found out about Westminster in a news service e-mail where it was the third story listed. Out of the four options, I'd hope that the dog show would be number 3.

But Glaister also points out that nearly 4.6 million people watched the show last year... Astonishing for a dog show or for the UK, possibly, but for prime-time US television... it's a wet newspaper. Also amazing to Glaister is that there are 58 million dog owners in the US. But the key is that there are 293 million people in the United States. There are 60 million people in the UK. If you multiply all of Glaister's US figures by five, you can see why he has deemed dogs an abnormal craze... But as it is, it's nothing special.

What's obvious, though, is that there may be a small cultural rift between the US and the UK when it comes to awards and canines and awards for canines. We're not batty because of it, as Glaister might suggest; we're just different (I feel like I'm in a third world country defending myself against US reporters and tourists). It's an issue of size and population. We have space to keep large pets, so a sixth of the population does. As far as awards go... we have a large population of creative work and a somewhat similar coast-to-coast culture, so awards help our culture to pinpoint and document what the greater works are over time. And we enjoy giving awards for much the same reason; it helps to distinguish our favorite pieces. Personal rankings work similarly (Nick Hornby's cast of characters in High Fidelity were certainly willing participants). The system is, of course, filled with flaws, but anyone will tell you that; there aren't many highly regarded awards whose awarding is highly regarded. I know a few people who are obsessed with awards, and the nominees can often get very worked up about them, but most people are only casually interested in them if at all.

But look at me... preaching to the choir. Just remember folks, Canadia and Dan Glaister are in cahoots (sp?).