I really believe that the love we have for animals is good for us.  Being with your cat or dog settles the mind, defines the conscience, and heals the heart. My Mom sent me this little story today, about how a little Corgi helped save a woman’s life.

 Don’t you remember how the wind used to come up in the morning? Almost every day it would.

Yes, I remember, he says. It came up yesterday.

It blows in from the lake, cold, and the dogs lie down against the chimney at the back of the house, to be out of it.

Well it’s warm there, if the fire is lit. And it’s good shelter.

The wind did not come up today, she says.  But that’s not why I feel this way.

They stand in the center of the town, near the fountain, and wait for the bus to come.   She stands with one hand on her hat, though there is no wind. Then she looks up the street and says to him, I think you are going to hurt me.

No.  I never would.

I don’t believe you can help it; you are going to make me cry.

He looks away at pigeons in the sunlight, and says believe me, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Nothing is very far from everything, but the truth is that you will break my heart.

Please don’t say this. Don’t give up hope for love. You are hurting me, right now.

You see? – and now she turns to look at the side of his head – it’s inevitable. Just as every day the wind comes up and brings bad news.

No, sometimes good news, he tells her. Clear weather and the smell of fir trees.

Usually bad, though some days it’s just that the moon has lived another night and set, and left that dull expression on the lake.

You should have gotten more sleep.  Your mood is a tempestuous dark green. I tried to tell you, step away from the cello, stop chopping carrots and apples for the lunches of children we don’t have.

No fault of mine, damn it.  

Oh God, where is my peace? He slumps onto a concrete bench, beneath an ornamental pear.

Don’t bring God into this, if you know what’s good for you.

If I know what’s good for me? I will bring Him into it, by God. “My peace I leave with you,” God said. But all He left with me is you, and your bottomless melancholy. You dead moon. No drifting, lightless rock alone in space has more pity for itself than you. Why the hell do you need more pity still from me?

Now she does begin to cry, and bows her head and looked at her shoes. Dust. And the tears run down her face and drip from her chin and fall around her shoes and on the earth.

a lot about forgiveness from these Amish people. God bless them for showing mercy to the family of a killer.

But please God, teach the Amish puppymillers that pets are not a product to be manufactured.

I may as well admit it, I’ve got a thing about woobies. Well, dogs and woobies. Give a dog a favorite, precious thing to drag around the house and it just melts my otherwise jaded, cynical old heart. And Happy was galloping around the place today, squeaking one of their favorite toys.  I have a weakness, and you can see why I love this this commercial.  

The only way to counter the power of organized money is with organized and outraged people. Believe me, what members of Congress fear most is a grassroots movement that demands clean elections and an end to the buying and selling of influence—or else! If we leave it to the powers that be to clean up the mess that greed and chicanery have given us, we will wake up one day with a real Frankenstein of a system—a monster worse than the one created by Abramoff, DeLay and their cronies. By then it will be too late to save Lincoln’s hope for "government of, by, and for the people."

 

I think it’s nice that Mark Foley has found his way into rehab. The timing is auspicious indeed.  And it’s nice that the GOP leadership are finding just enough space – for the moment – between his sins and their own, to be able to distance themselves. Moral relativism is nothing if not convenient.  But let’s have a show of hands:  Does anybody out there really believe they didn’t know and turn an indifferently blind eye?  I mean, spare us.

Killing innocent people, torturing, draining our treasury, stealing elections, spying on American citizens without due process, leaving the people of the Gulf States hanging on their roofs for their dear lives, etc., do not bestow democracy, and the people harmed should not be reduced to punctuation marks.

My son and the others will not go down in history as “commas” but as more victims of the war machine and I hope as the last victims of wars for profit.

How can George keep a straight face when he talks about the enemy being willing to “kill innocent people?” When has BushCo every shied away from murdering innocents?

George Bush* will be an asterisk in history.

*Impeached, removed from office, imprisoned for crimes against humanity.

The sooner the better.

[truthout.org]

There’s been another school shooting?

NICKEL MINES, Pa. – Six people were shot to death at a one-room Amish
schoolhouse in Pennsylvania’s bucolic Lancaster County Monday, and at
least three young girls were hospitalized in critical condition,
authorities said.

Words fail.

I got a phone call from moveon.org a little while ago. They wanted me to volunteer to call other moveon.org members, to get out the news that there are only 36 days until the election.

I declined.

I told the guy that I’m busy and I don’t think people want to be called at home, and that if you set up a grassroots Internet network, you should stick to it. I’ve been getting their e-mails. He said they’ve been getting a good response. Which I said is further proof that they’re preaching to the choir.

I didn’t ask him if any of the people giving them a good response were grateful for being reminded to vote in a month, that otherwise they would have clean forgotten about it.

It’s not the calling that I really object to; it’s the implication. Are the liberals and progressives really stupider than the Republicans? Do we need a reminder? And if we do, what good does it do to call a month in advance? In 36 days, any idiot will forget again that his village is voting.

Yep, I think the choir knows there’s going to be church, and when and where. The ones that need reaching are the lost sheep; the ones who just might be persuaded not to vote Republican again, out of purblind fear. And I’m not inclined to talk to those asshats. Sorry, I know that’s a tasteless opinion. But this morning, it’s the one I have to own.

All that being said, don’t forget to get out and vote. I’ll remind you again when you’re coming out of your halloween candy coma.

I was sick last weekend, and I’ve been recovering steadily. It wasn’t a virus, and that’s all I have to say about that. Anyway, I got a call from my personal trainer, who suggested I take hot baths with Epsom salt for my ailment. (I’m not throwing the trainer thing out there to stroke my ego; I need a professional to help me exercise, and I haven’t traded the Toyota pickup for a Hummer, thank you very much.)

The hot & salty bath was such a success with the aforementioned mysterious ailment, and so relaxing, that I’ve continued the constitutional each evening this week.

As I was stepping out of the tub this evening I was thinking that it’s time to stop, because I don’t need to do it anymore, and it costs dough to heat the water. So tonight may have been the last for a while. But I wondered why I’ve been doing it. Prior to last week, after all, I hadn’t taken a bath in a tub in many years; I think there was one, when my shower head was broken about 10 years ago, and before that not since childhood.

Is it because I like getting wet? No, not really. Relaxation? Partly, but I have a big comfy chair for that. Is it the increased quality time with my rubber duckie, Duckie? No, he’s more loquacious than Rumsfeld doing self-psychoanalysis. Cant shut the little ducker up.

Here’s why I like to take baths; also one of the reasons I like going for a swim:

It makes everything stop. It makes you just sit.

When you’re in the bathtub, or the pool, that’s all you’re doing. Can’t multitask in the drink, folks. No laptop, no TV (the only room in my place without some screen coverage) and no phone. OK, You can read a magazine. Pick one that’s not brand new, just in case.