The world is doomed. I'm not referring to the Euro or anything high-falutin. It's just that today in my college e mail I received this: Please RSVP in reply to this email. Better news on the dog front. Our border collie mix is now nine years old and thus about as well-trained as he's going to get. Last week I cooked myself a steak dinner, set it down on a coffee table, left the room. You know what happens next, right. The table a mere foot off the ground...the dog about two feet from steak? The rule is that if something falls on the ground he can eat it. If it's on a higher surface, he must not. When I returned, he was attempting telekinesis, trying to stare the steak onto the floor. Now that's a good dog. There's more. On another evening, two people and the dog were in the living room. I quietly put, not dropped, put a piece of chicken skin into the dog's bowl, which was in another room, fully thirty feet away. I did some things and then wandered into the next room where a movie's loud previews were playing on the DVD. The two people were talking. The dog was resting, nearly asleep. "Funny," I said, "I think for once the dog didn't hear me put food in his bowl." No mention of his name. Just that language. Up he got, wandered into the next room, heading straight for the bowl. Seems to have learned the words "food" and "bowl." Maybe others. Thankfully, he hasn't yet mastered telekinesis. Carry on. David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon