Trivia was a marginal cow dog of questionable moral fiber, so it was not surprising the Sunday morning she meandered into the barnyard pregnant.  We hoped Cody had fathered the litter, so there would be a reasonable chance the pups might have some value.  Such was not entirely the case.  Cody was indeed the father, but because he was a blue-eyed, color-dilute, Australian Shepherd, one of his progeny suffered the deafness and partial blindness called Waardenburg’s Syndrome.  Normally, these are disqualifying characteristics for cow dogs, so we found a nice city lady from Dayton who wanted to adopt the white pup in spite of his disability.  We were cheering our good fortune when Mom announced, “No! We are keeping this pup because he will need special care and training.”  Had it not been my senior years of high school, I would have run away from home right then.  My brother, Blaine, tagged the pup with the name Sonar and soon the little, white bugger was following the other dogs every time we trailed cows.  This began the most frustrating decade of my life.

 Imagine spending an entire morning gathering yearlings and just when the leads take the corral gate, Sonar jumps in front and chases them all back into the brush.  As senseless as it was, we would all scream at the deaf dog standing in the gate prompting Mom to shout, “Use hand signals!”  I wanted to use hand signals all right, but since Sonar was nearly as blind as he was deaf, for all he knew the wild waving from the galloping cowboys meant, “Good dog.”  More often than not, he would plop his backside in the middle of the gate just to savor the wild action in his doggie heaven.  Sadly, this became the new normal on the Double Rafter Ranch.  Because of his disability, Sonar had no clue he was the problem rather than the solution and this brings me to my point.

 Sonar blindly plugging the gate is analogous to the CNBC correspondents moderating the recent Colorado, GOP, presidential debate.  Nationwide, nearly all journalists have been so indoctrinated by left-wing propaganda, they are blinded by their bias and our republic suffers greatly due to their tarnished news reporting.  None in the mainstream media will ever question the Marxist principles underlying the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton campaigns, choosing instead to promote the erroneous mantra Democrats are for poor people.  No one has suffered more economically over the past eight years than the middle and lower classes, yet media elites in the ruling class turn a blind eye to this tragedy.  Sonar was born entirely deaf and 90 percent blind, so he had an excuse.  The media are blind and deaf by choice.