Memorial Day weekend 2012 is upon us, and we in central Phoenix are enjoying an unexpected and most welcome respite from the triple-digit temperatures that burst on to us about a month sooner than they should. The high temperature yesterday was in the mid-80s, a good 14 degrees cooler than what's considered normal. When we get lower-than-normal temperatures in Phoenix anytime from May to October, we have something for which to be thankful.
About a week ago we were broiling through temperatures that reached 108 degrees. That does not bode well for the remainder of the summer, which stretches out in front of us like 500 miles of the ugliest, most pothole-ridden, unpaved road imaginable and we're in a broken-down Ford Pinto with no air conditioning.
The tide of summer is poised to sweep over all of us, like a tsunami of horribleness that we know is coming and are powerless to stop. Last year's summer was brutal, one of the very hottest on record. It's a sure sign of advancing age when I am having more and more trouble getting through this time of the year. I know it's a consequence of living in the desert and you would think after 19 years I would be fairly well accustomed to it, but I'm not, and it's just getting worse. I find myself thinking more often of moving to a more moderate climate, like in New Mexico. Santa Fe and Taos are calling to me, and they sound better and better with each passing degree.
During the very hottest days, which are from mid-June until the monsoon season kicks in mid-July, temps can approach 120 degrees. There are no circumstances under which that amount of heat can be considered necessary or appropriate. I mean, seriously, what's the point? What does a 120-degree temperature accomplish that a 112-degree temp can't? Anything past 114 feels like hot death anyway, what's the purpose of going any higher? Coupled with the fact that the overnight temp sometimes doesn't drop out of the lower 90s, and you got yourself a little slice of hell on earth.
Sometimes I think about other seasons when it gets really hot. It helps a little (though not nearly enough) to remember what it felt like back in December and January, when I would wear my flannel pajama bottoms, wrap myself in a favorite cardigan and sit on a warm blanket on the sofa, insulated from the sharp chill outside. Or during our short autumn in early December when you wake up on a bright, chilly morning and go out to see the tree leaves turning scarlet, burgundy, lemon yellow and russet against a turquoise sky adorned with puffy white cumulus clouds. Or our springtime, which starts around Valentine's Day, when the trees and shrubs are covered with richly-colored flowers, just waiting and hoping for any moisture to come down from the sky like liquid manna.
Yes, the tide of summer is coming, and Memorial Day is just the first stop of a long, arduous and debilitating journey, not into a heart of darkness, but a heart of blinding, blazing light and heat. I know there are good days and bad days to come, and just as summer follows spring, autumn will be following summer, although trying to catch of glimpse of it over the vast, parched, desolate wastelands of June, July, August and September, it seems impossibly far-off, like a mirage shimmering in the heat waves far in the distance. You walk toward that mirage and it seems to retreat farther away the closer you get. You will reach the mirage someday, but at a pretty steep price, as it seems like summertime sucks the life out of you like a vampire that hasn't eaten for several centuries and has just been given 15 minutes in a blood bank.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
I'm Sorry, Babs
There comes a time in everyone's young life when you begin to realize that the world can be a really harsh, unpleasant and messed-up place. No matter if you've had a mostly idyllic childhood, as I had; eventually you will see and hear things that will cast a dark shadow on the sheltered, protected life you have lived. You start to understand that bad things happen.
I clearly remember as a young child, probably 5 or 6 years old, being taken by my parents to a funeral home where there was a viewing of an infant who had died. I saw a small baby dressed in a fancy white gown laying in something like it was asleep. I thought that was kind of odd, why was everyone making such a fuss over a baby sleeping. That was bad enough, but what was really jarring was seeing all the adults in the room all distressed and upset and carrying on in ways I had never seen nor expected. The worst was when the mother of the deceased baby fainted dead away in the middle of the room and collapsed to the floor. My parents took me out of there pretty quickly, but I will never forget what I saw that sad day.
By the time you're in your teens, you've seen enough to know that the world can be pretty screwed up. Some bad stuff happens completely by accident or fate, and are just dumped on you with little or no warning. Other things happen either because of things you did or didn't do. One of these is when you get yourself a pet. I always tell people when you get a companion animal of any kind, you are signing up for a future heartbreak. In spite of our best efforts, we never seem to have enough time with our beloved companions, and their short lifespans (compared to ours) guarantee that someday we will get our hearts thoroughly and completely broken. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is the love we give and get while they are here with us.
If you choose to work in animal rescue and welfare, as I and many of my friends do, you've really signed yourself up for a lot of pain. The things that happen to animals in this cruel, sadistic world are truly awful and hideous, especially since in the vast majority of cases, the animals are innocent victims of the ignorance and evilness of humans. And that makes it all the more sad and painful. Such was the fate of Babs.
I was working at the Rabbit Rescue Thrift Store on a Wednesday when a call came in from a woman who said she had gotten a rabbit a day ago and she found she could not keep it because of "allergies" (the lamest and most overused excuse ever). She said it was a Flemish Giant female about 2 years old. Normally calls like that we would refer to another agency since our shelter is perpetually full, but I decided to take the bunny in anyway. Even though my house is filled up with well over 20 rabbits (don't ask) I can't turn my back on a Flemmie. They are usually very sweet, gentle and loving animals, and are a lot like great big puppy dogs. I told the woman to bring the rabbit to the store for me to look at.
I was not prepared for what came in the front door, though. A woman came in carrying a very large gray rabbit, its feet dangling loose, wrapped in a dirty towel. The rabbit's bottom and rear legs were stained and filthy with urine, and the strong, acrid odor was a sure sign of a urinary tract infection. The woman, accompanied by her grubby, dull-eyed toddler, said the rabbit had wet itself on the way over, but you don't get that kind of staining from just a car ride. This rabbit had been in this condition for quite a while.
Now this white-trash, hillbilly moron, whose apparently only useful talent in life is spreading her legs and having children, told me a really convoluted story about her buying the rabbit for $50 from someone moving from a house into an apartment. She said her asthma was acting up and gave out with a couple of wet, loud wheezes to prove her point. I'm sure everything coming out of her mouth was a lie, and when she implied that it would be a good thing if we could reimburse her for the $50 she spent, I sent her back to her miserable, wretched life and concentrated on trying to help this poor rabbit. The woman left a bag of food the rabbit had been eating, a vile, horrible mixture of sunflower seeds, corn kernels and peanuts (shelled and unshelled) - all things a rabbit should never, ever be fed.
The rabbit, who would eventually be named Babs, was the largest bunny I had ever seen. She was enormously, morbidly obese, and was very nearly spherical in shape, weighing I'm sure over 20 lbs. She could barely sit up on her own, and running and hopping was out of the question. I can't imagine the stress and strain on her skeleton and internal organs. Her lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen and especially her heart, were all under dire, extreme pressure and stress.
After I cleaned her up at the store, I took her home and set her up in a pen, and tried to do everything I could to help her. I started her on medicine to help her urinary tract infection, and gave her some fluids because she seemed to be very thirsty. It became clear to me that it was going to be a very difficult task keeping her alive until she could start to lose some of the weight that was crushing her body. She needed to lose at least 5 pounds, and that would take a very long time. I slowly came to the realization that keeping her alive until she could begin to realize benefits from weight loss was going to be a very tough task.
Babs was an extremely sweet, docile and lovable girl. She had wonderful salt-and-pepper chinchilla-type fur, and long, dark eyelashes surrounding open and trustful eyes. Even after all she had endured, she could still trust a stranger and show him affection. I fell in love with her instantly, and vowed to do everything I could to help her. She didn't show much interest in eating anything other than a little bit of vegetables, and any movement was an exhausting, uncomfortable ordeal. Along with her critical obesity, her urinary tract infection was complicating matters immensely. Inside, I was losing hope, but knew I had to do everything I could. All the humans in her life had let her down. I would be goddamned if I was going to be another one.
The next day things looked much worse. Babs had not eaten any vegetables I left the night before. She was unable or unwilling to move at all, and pretty soon was laying down on her side. I took her out of the pen and let her lay on the cool tile floor. She flattened out like a huge, furry pancake and just laid there, breathing heavily. I think she knew, as did I, that she was losing her battle to live.
The end came later that afternoon, barely 24 hours after I first saw her. She was still laying flat on the tile floor, when I found her. There was a look of sad disbelief frozen on her face, as if she could not understand how such a terrible fate could befall a good bunny who never did anything wrong in her all-too-brief life, other than be born and want to be loved.
I knew that I had not let Babs down. I did everything I could to help her. Other humans had let her down. Their ignorance and stupidity led them to tend to her so poorly that her body got completely out of control. I am so sad that I could not have gotten her sooner, and maybe could have caught her downward spiral in time to change the outcome. I don't know, and will never know.
But I am also sure of one thing. Babs' physical problems were obviously extremely severe, but what you couldn't see was how depressed and sad she was with all the dislocation and abandonment that she suffered recently. Even though the humans that had her were vile, ignorant, loathsome assholes, they were her family and she missed them dearly. Even though she came from an undoubtedly shitty environment, to her it was home. When she came to me, she had no will to live, no fight left in her. She had given up, and she was tired and wanted to rest. Her body became a prison to her, her life filled with pain and discomfort. She would suffer no longer, and I believe she chose to go when she did. I am very very glad I was able to provide her with a place to transition to the next life. I am sure she knew she was safe, she was valued, and she was loved.
I'm sorry, Babs, that I could not help you more. I'm sorry that the previous humans you had to deal with were some of the worst examples of the wretchedness and inhumanity of people. I'm sorry that you did not get to live a happy, fun-filled life with a family who treasured you and made sure you stayed the healthy, perfect creature you once were. I'm sorry you didn't get more chances to run and play in a yard on a bright spring morning, and I'm sorry you didn't get more opportunities to prairie-dog up on your hindquarters and beg for more tasty treats. I am so sorry that humans let you down.
What happened to you was truly criminal - a heinous, cowardly assault on an innocent and defenseless soul. It was profoundly unjust, outrageously cruel and - worst of all - completely, utterly unnecessary. I'm sorry, Babs, and I hope you can forgive us someday.
You deserved so much better.
I clearly remember as a young child, probably 5 or 6 years old, being taken by my parents to a funeral home where there was a viewing of an infant who had died. I saw a small baby dressed in a fancy white gown laying in something like it was asleep. I thought that was kind of odd, why was everyone making such a fuss over a baby sleeping. That was bad enough, but what was really jarring was seeing all the adults in the room all distressed and upset and carrying on in ways I had never seen nor expected. The worst was when the mother of the deceased baby fainted dead away in the middle of the room and collapsed to the floor. My parents took me out of there pretty quickly, but I will never forget what I saw that sad day.
By the time you're in your teens, you've seen enough to know that the world can be pretty screwed up. Some bad stuff happens completely by accident or fate, and are just dumped on you with little or no warning. Other things happen either because of things you did or didn't do. One of these is when you get yourself a pet. I always tell people when you get a companion animal of any kind, you are signing up for a future heartbreak. In spite of our best efforts, we never seem to have enough time with our beloved companions, and their short lifespans (compared to ours) guarantee that someday we will get our hearts thoroughly and completely broken. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is the love we give and get while they are here with us.
If you choose to work in animal rescue and welfare, as I and many of my friends do, you've really signed yourself up for a lot of pain. The things that happen to animals in this cruel, sadistic world are truly awful and hideous, especially since in the vast majority of cases, the animals are innocent victims of the ignorance and evilness of humans. And that makes it all the more sad and painful. Such was the fate of Babs.
I was not prepared for what came in the front door, though. A woman came in carrying a very large gray rabbit, its feet dangling loose, wrapped in a dirty towel. The rabbit's bottom and rear legs were stained and filthy with urine, and the strong, acrid odor was a sure sign of a urinary tract infection. The woman, accompanied by her grubby, dull-eyed toddler, said the rabbit had wet itself on the way over, but you don't get that kind of staining from just a car ride. This rabbit had been in this condition for quite a while.
Now this white-trash, hillbilly moron, whose apparently only useful talent in life is spreading her legs and having children, told me a really convoluted story about her buying the rabbit for $50 from someone moving from a house into an apartment. She said her asthma was acting up and gave out with a couple of wet, loud wheezes to prove her point. I'm sure everything coming out of her mouth was a lie, and when she implied that it would be a good thing if we could reimburse her for the $50 she spent, I sent her back to her miserable, wretched life and concentrated on trying to help this poor rabbit. The woman left a bag of food the rabbit had been eating, a vile, horrible mixture of sunflower seeds, corn kernels and peanuts (shelled and unshelled) - all things a rabbit should never, ever be fed.
The rabbit, who would eventually be named Babs, was the largest bunny I had ever seen. She was enormously, morbidly obese, and was very nearly spherical in shape, weighing I'm sure over 20 lbs. She could barely sit up on her own, and running and hopping was out of the question. I can't imagine the stress and strain on her skeleton and internal organs. Her lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen and especially her heart, were all under dire, extreme pressure and stress.
After I cleaned her up at the store, I took her home and set her up in a pen, and tried to do everything I could to help her. I started her on medicine to help her urinary tract infection, and gave her some fluids because she seemed to be very thirsty. It became clear to me that it was going to be a very difficult task keeping her alive until she could start to lose some of the weight that was crushing her body. She needed to lose at least 5 pounds, and that would take a very long time. I slowly came to the realization that keeping her alive until she could begin to realize benefits from weight loss was going to be a very tough task.
Babs was an extremely sweet, docile and lovable girl. She had wonderful salt-and-pepper chinchilla-type fur, and long, dark eyelashes surrounding open and trustful eyes. Even after all she had endured, she could still trust a stranger and show him affection. I fell in love with her instantly, and vowed to do everything I could to help her. She didn't show much interest in eating anything other than a little bit of vegetables, and any movement was an exhausting, uncomfortable ordeal. Along with her critical obesity, her urinary tract infection was complicating matters immensely. Inside, I was losing hope, but knew I had to do everything I could. All the humans in her life had let her down. I would be goddamned if I was going to be another one.
The next day things looked much worse. Babs had not eaten any vegetables I left the night before. She was unable or unwilling to move at all, and pretty soon was laying down on her side. I took her out of the pen and let her lay on the cool tile floor. She flattened out like a huge, furry pancake and just laid there, breathing heavily. I think she knew, as did I, that she was losing her battle to live.
The end came later that afternoon, barely 24 hours after I first saw her. She was still laying flat on the tile floor, when I found her. There was a look of sad disbelief frozen on her face, as if she could not understand how such a terrible fate could befall a good bunny who never did anything wrong in her all-too-brief life, other than be born and want to be loved.
I knew that I had not let Babs down. I did everything I could to help her. Other humans had let her down. Their ignorance and stupidity led them to tend to her so poorly that her body got completely out of control. I am so sad that I could not have gotten her sooner, and maybe could have caught her downward spiral in time to change the outcome. I don't know, and will never know.
But I am also sure of one thing. Babs' physical problems were obviously extremely severe, but what you couldn't see was how depressed and sad she was with all the dislocation and abandonment that she suffered recently. Even though the humans that had her were vile, ignorant, loathsome assholes, they were her family and she missed them dearly. Even though she came from an undoubtedly shitty environment, to her it was home. When she came to me, she had no will to live, no fight left in her. She had given up, and she was tired and wanted to rest. Her body became a prison to her, her life filled with pain and discomfort. She would suffer no longer, and I believe she chose to go when she did. I am very very glad I was able to provide her with a place to transition to the next life. I am sure she knew she was safe, she was valued, and she was loved.
I'm sorry, Babs, that I could not help you more. I'm sorry that the previous humans you had to deal with were some of the worst examples of the wretchedness and inhumanity of people. I'm sorry that you did not get to live a happy, fun-filled life with a family who treasured you and made sure you stayed the healthy, perfect creature you once were. I'm sorry you didn't get more chances to run and play in a yard on a bright spring morning, and I'm sorry you didn't get more opportunities to prairie-dog up on your hindquarters and beg for more tasty treats. I am so sorry that humans let you down.
What happened to you was truly criminal - a heinous, cowardly assault on an innocent and defenseless soul. It was profoundly unjust, outrageously cruel and - worst of all - completely, utterly unnecessary. I'm sorry, Babs, and I hope you can forgive us someday.
You deserved so much better.
ECLIPSE!
Sunday 20 May 2012 brought the prospect of a solar eclipse practically to my backyard. I've seen plenty of partial eclipses in my time; that's when the moon slides across the sun in the sky and blocks part of the solar disk. While interesting, nothing apparently tops a total solar eclipse, when the moon completely obscures the sun, making a pearly corona visible and plunging lucky viewers into a false, temporary nighttime. From all accounts it is probably the most awesome thing you can ever hope to see in the sky.
Halfway between a partial and a total eclipse is something called an annular eclipse. That's when the moon crosses the solar disk but is a bit too far away to cover the sun completely. What you end up seeing is a "ring of fire," a brilliant circle of sunlight in the sky. This is the kind of eclipse that happened last Sunday.
Usually eclipses happen in the middle of the Pacific Ocean or Antarctica or the Kamchatka peninsula or some other gawd-awful corner of the world. So I was completely psyched when I learned months ago that one will be visible from northern Arizona, a mere 200 miles from my home in Phoenix. Even better, the event was going to happen at 6:30pm, as opposed to sunrise, which would give me plenty of time to get there and set up.
So, after helping out at Brambley Hedge Rabbit Rescue Sunday adoptions, I packed up my camera gear and headed north. On the way to Flagstaff I drove by the site of the Gladiator wildfire, and could see huge columns of smoke rising in the distance. The smoke turned the entire sky a dirty beige color, and it was surreal and claustrophobic to see such an angry, damaged sky from an out-of-control fire.
The drive was very pleasant if uneventful, and I haven't been up north of Flagstaff in a very long time. I had forgotten how beautiful the landscape is up there. All along Route 89 north I spotted people off the road in little clearing areas, setting up their cameras and their telescopes, getting ready for the event. After 3 hours of driving I made my turn-off onto Route 64, with the Vermilion mountains a muted magenta color in the distance. I was planning on going to the Grand Canyon to watch but I was too cheap to pay the $25 entrance fee, and chose instead a speck on the map called the Little Colorado River Gorge Overlook. The name of the place is bigger than the place itself. I had an hour before the high point of the eclipse, and I used that time to explore the Gorge Overlook, which was very much bigger and deeper than I had ever imagined, and it turned out to be a marvelous and very impressive thing to see.
The Gorge Overlook site turned out to be pretty popular with astronomy nerds like me, and there were at least 20 other people that had come there to do the same thing I was - observe the eclipse. We all had a very good time laughing and talking, and everyone was as excited and thrilled as I was at the approaching sky show.
I set my camera up and sat down to wait for the event. The minutes ticked by and I could see a bite taken out of the right side of the sun. The bite slowly, inexorably got larger, and by the time the sun was one third covered, the brightness of the sun was noticeably diminished. The moon slid further across the sun and my anticipation was building with each passing second. I started furiously snapping pictures, getting more and more excited. Finally, the moment I had been waiting for happened. The moon crossed the limb of the sun and the annular phase had started. A thin, brilliant ring of sunlight surrounded the moon, and the area was plunged into a strange kind of twilight, almost like the sun was being filtered behind some clouds, but there were no clouds in the cerulean blue northern Arizona sky. This is a composite photo I made of some of my best eclipse shots:
Two minutes later, it was over. The moon breached the opposite side of the sun and the ring of fire turned back into a thin crescent. The eclipse was finished, but the memories it left with me I know will last the rest of my lifetime. It was an awesome and awe-inspiring sight, and it left me absolutely exhilarated and feeling like I had just witnessed something extremely rare and special and magical, which I had.
Even better, it made me feel very excited about something I had never seen before. I was almost giddy with anticipation, and felt that there are still wonderful things to marvel at in the beautiful, complex, sometimes terrifying and always fascinating universe in which we live. It was good to know that I can still be impressed and humbled by nature, and I'm not quite so jaded that I can't be made to feel like a young child again.
Halfway between a partial and a total eclipse is something called an annular eclipse. That's when the moon crosses the solar disk but is a bit too far away to cover the sun completely. What you end up seeing is a "ring of fire," a brilliant circle of sunlight in the sky. This is the kind of eclipse that happened last Sunday.
Usually eclipses happen in the middle of the Pacific Ocean or Antarctica or the Kamchatka peninsula or some other gawd-awful corner of the world. So I was completely psyched when I learned months ago that one will be visible from northern Arizona, a mere 200 miles from my home in Phoenix. Even better, the event was going to happen at 6:30pm, as opposed to sunrise, which would give me plenty of time to get there and set up.
So, after helping out at Brambley Hedge Rabbit Rescue Sunday adoptions, I packed up my camera gear and headed north. On the way to Flagstaff I drove by the site of the Gladiator wildfire, and could see huge columns of smoke rising in the distance. The smoke turned the entire sky a dirty beige color, and it was surreal and claustrophobic to see such an angry, damaged sky from an out-of-control fire.
The drive was very pleasant if uneventful, and I haven't been up north of Flagstaff in a very long time. I had forgotten how beautiful the landscape is up there. All along Route 89 north I spotted people off the road in little clearing areas, setting up their cameras and their telescopes, getting ready for the event. After 3 hours of driving I made my turn-off onto Route 64, with the Vermilion mountains a muted magenta color in the distance. I was planning on going to the Grand Canyon to watch but I was too cheap to pay the $25 entrance fee, and chose instead a speck on the map called the Little Colorado River Gorge Overlook. The name of the place is bigger than the place itself. I had an hour before the high point of the eclipse, and I used that time to explore the Gorge Overlook, which was very much bigger and deeper than I had ever imagined, and it turned out to be a marvelous and very impressive thing to see.
The Gorge Overlook site turned out to be pretty popular with astronomy nerds like me, and there were at least 20 other people that had come there to do the same thing I was - observe the eclipse. We all had a very good time laughing and talking, and everyone was as excited and thrilled as I was at the approaching sky show.
I set my camera up and sat down to wait for the event. The minutes ticked by and I could see a bite taken out of the right side of the sun. The bite slowly, inexorably got larger, and by the time the sun was one third covered, the brightness of the sun was noticeably diminished. The moon slid further across the sun and my anticipation was building with each passing second. I started furiously snapping pictures, getting more and more excited. Finally, the moment I had been waiting for happened. The moon crossed the limb of the sun and the annular phase had started. A thin, brilliant ring of sunlight surrounded the moon, and the area was plunged into a strange kind of twilight, almost like the sun was being filtered behind some clouds, but there were no clouds in the cerulean blue northern Arizona sky. This is a composite photo I made of some of my best eclipse shots:
Two minutes later, it was over. The moon breached the opposite side of the sun and the ring of fire turned back into a thin crescent. The eclipse was finished, but the memories it left with me I know will last the rest of my lifetime. It was an awesome and awe-inspiring sight, and it left me absolutely exhilarated and feeling like I had just witnessed something extremely rare and special and magical, which I had.
Even better, it made me feel very excited about something I had never seen before. I was almost giddy with anticipation, and felt that there are still wonderful things to marvel at in the beautiful, complex, sometimes terrifying and always fascinating universe in which we live. It was good to know that I can still be impressed and humbled by nature, and I'm not quite so jaded that I can't be made to feel like a young child again.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
A Republican Primary Dictionary
If nothing else, this blog is all about public service. You may think a major reason why I write Careless Whispers is to satisfy some deep-seated need in me for attention and an obsession-level quest for fame and media notoriety, and you would be pretty much correct. But mixed in with all that psychological stuff is my desire to bring clarity and enlightenment into a world so often choked and obfuscated with dullness and stupidity.
In my mind, nothing more clearly illustrates the innate tawdriness and runaway putrefaction of the American political system than the Republican presidential primaries. Rising like a rancid zombie out of a pile of garbage in a junior-high-school drama class reenactment of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, the primaries or caucuses or "preference polls" or whatever the hell they call themselves reared up on their cloven hooves for about two seconds and then immediately started a headlong and inexorable plunge to the lower depths of Stupid Hell, trying to drag us all down with it.
But fret not, help is on the way. I have created this guide to the political language of the primaries, which I hope will allow the Gentle Reader to understand the hidden meaning behind all the lies, deliberate misstatements, and dog-whistle rhetoric which so often these days tries to pass as legitimate discourse. Consider this your political life preserver, and please, don't thank me. My reward is spreading around the awareness of what utter pieces of shit the Republican candidates are.
"Class Warfare" - This is one of the most patently hilarious things the Republicans have come up with yet, other than Sarah Palin running for anything other than Queen of the Inbred. Oh, those poor, sad, downtrodden billionaires - the Republicans would have you believe they are the most misunderstood and unfairly persecuted minority in this country . Imagine, they bleat out as they squeeze the crocodile tear or two from their rheumy old eyes, all the unwashed multitudes attacking the uppermost 0.5% of wage earners in this country solely because of their wealth and success! Yeah, you need to watch out for the middle class, they'll turn on you in a second. They start making 25, maybe 30 thousand bucks a year and all of a sudden they get uppity and bite the hand that feeds them. Why can't they just be satisfied sitting in their worthless, over-mortgaged homes watching Donald Trump's comb-over terrorize the mentally handicapped on "The Apprentice," or be happy with the crumbs that trickle down from the more fortunate? Never you mind the decades of tax cuts, offshore tax havens and specialized financial instruments you can access when you have a lot of money. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain - just heap disdain upon the Democrats for daring to criticize the people who underwrite and benefit from every wasteful, deficit-expanding thing the Republicans do.
"Phony Theology" - This is a rather late entry to the Sweepstakes of Stupidity the Republicans are running, but it's pretty good. It seems that, according to the priggish, sanctimonious Rick Santorum, President Obama has some kind of "phony theology" going on with his energy policy. Yeah, it sounds stupid because it IS stupid; I don't know what he means, either, and who really cares? However let us savor for a little while the delicious irony of Rick Santorum opining that someone else has a "phony theology." Santorum should know all about phony theologies because fundamentalists like him are world-class experts in "pretending" to be Christians while "doing" the exact opposite. To wit: Fundamentalists believe that you should use any means necessary to keep a fetus from being aborted but the instant they're born you turn your back on them and they are on their own. Fundamentalists don't believe you should feed the hungry or provide medical care for those who can't afford it. Let's see, where have we heard that before? If I'm not mistaken someone named Jesus Christ thought that was a good idea. Fundamentalists, not so much. Santorum also believes gay marriage is an abomination and wants a constitutional amendment to outlaw it. It will destroy traditional marriage, he bellows. He misses the irony that the 50% divorce rate among traditional marriages is what's destroying it. I guess serial adulterer Newt Gingrich is also irony-resistant because because his cheating on two of his wives is doing so much to keep traditional marriage alive and well. Now I realize that for fundamentalists, irony is so much of their daily lives and belief systems that after a while they just become inured to it and don't even notice when it jumps up and slaps them in the face, but someone like Santorum preaching about "phony theology" is absolutely astounding. The fact that he doesn't get how stupid and hypocritical it makes him sound is really amusing.
"Secure the Border" - Here in Arizona we hear a lot about "securing the border," but what that really means is keep brown-skinned Spanish-speaking people out of our country unless they're picking our crops, tending to our lawns or cleaning our houses.
"Anti-religious Social Agenda" - Another one of those catch-all phrases that can be stretched and shaped to cover any number of perceived problems, from marriage equality to access to contraceptives. Any time you push back on the fundamentalists when they try to shove their religious biases on the general population, all of a sudden you're "anti-religious," and you "hate Christianity." While I gladly and proudly admit to both, a lot of people aren't, and they resist the fundamentalist urge to conflate "standing up for your rights" with "taking away their right to practice their religion". No one is taking away anyone's right to believe in the delusion of their choice, but I have a HUGE problem when they try to make everyone else defer to their beliefs, as if their beliefs are preeminent and trump everyone else's. I don't suppose it matters to most of them that the majority of people on this planet are either Hindu or Muslim, and that their beliefs are in the minority. As for contraceptives, conservatives are blanching at the fact that a church-affiliated employer might have to provide contraceptives to their employees, against their religious beliefs. Tell that to the 98% of Catholics who already use some form of contraceptive.
"Food Stamp President" - Newt Gingrich came up with that one, and it's only fitting because he looks like he really knows his way around a dinner table. Nothing like making a less-than-subtle racial comment because 1) Obama is black and 2) everyone knows the majority of people using food stamps are black. Except that they aren't. Only 22% of food stamp recipients are black; the rest are white, Hispanic, Asian, Native Americans, and others. But why let facts get in the way of a good racial slur?
These are only some of the interesting linguistic stunts the Republicans are pulling in this very bizarre primary season. One might have thought with the exit of the truly moronic wing of the candidate roster - Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain - we could maybe get into a little more substantive discussion of the great challenges this country faces, and you know, actually talk about ideas and stuff, but that was wishful thinking. The Republicans are looking for someone who can get their ultra-conservative base all riled up and ready to hit those voting booths come November, so they know they have to appeal to the very lowest, basest nature of the obese, knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who vote for them. It is truly a shame that, in their haste to get to the slimy muck at the bottom of the voter pool to find their support, they have to pull the rest of the country down with them.
In my mind, nothing more clearly illustrates the innate tawdriness and runaway putrefaction of the American political system than the Republican presidential primaries. Rising like a rancid zombie out of a pile of garbage in a junior-high-school drama class reenactment of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, the primaries or caucuses or "preference polls" or whatever the hell they call themselves reared up on their cloven hooves for about two seconds and then immediately started a headlong and inexorable plunge to the lower depths of Stupid Hell, trying to drag us all down with it.
But fret not, help is on the way. I have created this guide to the political language of the primaries, which I hope will allow the Gentle Reader to understand the hidden meaning behind all the lies, deliberate misstatements, and dog-whistle rhetoric which so often these days tries to pass as legitimate discourse. Consider this your political life preserver, and please, don't thank me. My reward is spreading around the awareness of what utter pieces of shit the Republican candidates are.
"Class Warfare" - This is one of the most patently hilarious things the Republicans have come up with yet, other than Sarah Palin running for anything other than Queen of the Inbred. Oh, those poor, sad, downtrodden billionaires - the Republicans would have you believe they are the most misunderstood and unfairly persecuted minority in this country . Imagine, they bleat out as they squeeze the crocodile tear or two from their rheumy old eyes, all the unwashed multitudes attacking the uppermost 0.5% of wage earners in this country solely because of their wealth and success! Yeah, you need to watch out for the middle class, they'll turn on you in a second. They start making 25, maybe 30 thousand bucks a year and all of a sudden they get uppity and bite the hand that feeds them. Why can't they just be satisfied sitting in their worthless, over-mortgaged homes watching Donald Trump's comb-over terrorize the mentally handicapped on "The Apprentice," or be happy with the crumbs that trickle down from the more fortunate? Never you mind the decades of tax cuts, offshore tax havens and specialized financial instruments you can access when you have a lot of money. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain - just heap disdain upon the Democrats for daring to criticize the people who underwrite and benefit from every wasteful, deficit-expanding thing the Republicans do.
"Phony Theology" - This is a rather late entry to the Sweepstakes of Stupidity the Republicans are running, but it's pretty good. It seems that, according to the priggish, sanctimonious Rick Santorum, President Obama has some kind of "phony theology" going on with his energy policy. Yeah, it sounds stupid because it IS stupid; I don't know what he means, either, and who really cares? However let us savor for a little while the delicious irony of Rick Santorum opining that someone else has a "phony theology." Santorum should know all about phony theologies because fundamentalists like him are world-class experts in "pretending" to be Christians while "doing" the exact opposite. To wit: Fundamentalists believe that you should use any means necessary to keep a fetus from being aborted but the instant they're born you turn your back on them and they are on their own. Fundamentalists don't believe you should feed the hungry or provide medical care for those who can't afford it. Let's see, where have we heard that before? If I'm not mistaken someone named Jesus Christ thought that was a good idea. Fundamentalists, not so much. Santorum also believes gay marriage is an abomination and wants a constitutional amendment to outlaw it. It will destroy traditional marriage, he bellows. He misses the irony that the 50% divorce rate among traditional marriages is what's destroying it. I guess serial adulterer Newt Gingrich is also irony-resistant because because his cheating on two of his wives is doing so much to keep traditional marriage alive and well. Now I realize that for fundamentalists, irony is so much of their daily lives and belief systems that after a while they just become inured to it and don't even notice when it jumps up and slaps them in the face, but someone like Santorum preaching about "phony theology" is absolutely astounding. The fact that he doesn't get how stupid and hypocritical it makes him sound is really amusing.
"Secure the Border" - Here in Arizona we hear a lot about "securing the border," but what that really means is keep brown-skinned Spanish-speaking people out of our country unless they're picking our crops, tending to our lawns or cleaning our houses.
"Anti-religious Social Agenda" - Another one of those catch-all phrases that can be stretched and shaped to cover any number of perceived problems, from marriage equality to access to contraceptives. Any time you push back on the fundamentalists when they try to shove their religious biases on the general population, all of a sudden you're "anti-religious," and you "hate Christianity." While I gladly and proudly admit to both, a lot of people aren't, and they resist the fundamentalist urge to conflate "standing up for your rights" with "taking away their right to practice their religion". No one is taking away anyone's right to believe in the delusion of their choice, but I have a HUGE problem when they try to make everyone else defer to their beliefs, as if their beliefs are preeminent and trump everyone else's. I don't suppose it matters to most of them that the majority of people on this planet are either Hindu or Muslim, and that their beliefs are in the minority. As for contraceptives, conservatives are blanching at the fact that a church-affiliated employer might have to provide contraceptives to their employees, against their religious beliefs. Tell that to the 98% of Catholics who already use some form of contraceptive.
"Food Stamp President" - Newt Gingrich came up with that one, and it's only fitting because he looks like he really knows his way around a dinner table. Nothing like making a less-than-subtle racial comment because 1) Obama is black and 2) everyone knows the majority of people using food stamps are black. Except that they aren't. Only 22% of food stamp recipients are black; the rest are white, Hispanic, Asian, Native Americans, and others. But why let facts get in the way of a good racial slur?
These are only some of the interesting linguistic stunts the Republicans are pulling in this very bizarre primary season. One might have thought with the exit of the truly moronic wing of the candidate roster - Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain - we could maybe get into a little more substantive discussion of the great challenges this country faces, and you know, actually talk about ideas and stuff, but that was wishful thinking. The Republicans are looking for someone who can get their ultra-conservative base all riled up and ready to hit those voting booths come November, so they know they have to appeal to the very lowest, basest nature of the obese, knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who vote for them. It is truly a shame that, in their haste to get to the slimy muck at the bottom of the voter pool to find their support, they have to pull the rest of the country down with them.
Friday, February 3, 2012
As You Sow, So Shall You Reap
It's never been a habit of mine to quote from the Bible because so many others do it so much better than I, mostly to advance a particular point of view or agenda. The Bible has been translated and re-translated so many times in so many languages that most of the wording is pretty slippery and imprecise, and thus can be used to justify any number of opinions, some of them openly contradictory. But your kind attention is gently drawn to KJV Galatians 6:8 which states:
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
The language is somewhat clumsy and unwieldy, but basically it means "as you sow, so shall you reap," the title of this post. That is interpreted as actions done in bad faith will glean bad results, and those done in good faith will return rewards. I'm pretty sure the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure (SGK) is learning this lesson in a rather expensive fashion.
The Komen Foundation has been at the forefront of raising funds and awareness for breast cancer for years, and has been doing it very well. I heard something along the lines that they are the second most trusted non-profit organization in the country. That is a powerful asset, such lofty public trust and confidence, and I'm sure it pays great dividends in the fund-raising arena.
And raise funds they do. According to charitynavigator.org, a website that rates charities, for the year ending March 2010, SGK pulled in over $311,000,000. Fundraising expenses and administrative costs ate up $60,000,000 of that (remember that if you do contribute to them), but it still left a quarter of a billion dollars for their program expenses. You can see the report here.
Indeed, SGK has the love and admiration of the public, a lot of money rolling in, and a very high-profile system of races to publicize their work advancing women's health. So what do they do to make things run more smoothly? They hire a right-wing gargoyle named Karen Handel to be their VP of public policy, and one of the things she does is come up with a completely preposterous, blatantly biased, widely discredited and ideologically-driven way to cut funding to one of their long-time partners in providing health services to disadvantaged women, Planned Parenthood.
When they did that, a media and public relations firestorm of epic proportions erupted. Facebook, that instantaneous barometer of our culture, went completely batshit. People went to the SGK page and wrote hundreds of blistering, withering comments criticizing them in the harshest possible terms. You can be sure that I posted my largely unedited and uncensored comments. For a while they were deleting all the critical comments but there were so many of them coming in at such a frantic pace that they gave up on that. Facebook pages excoriating SGK for their stupidity popped up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Numerous calls were made to boycott SGK and their races. People across the country from all walks of life were really, really steamed and they were making their feelings known with crystal clarity.
As you might predict, conservatives were gleefully cheering the axing of Planned Parenthood, because obviously they don't give a rat's ass about women's health as long as abortion is the only thing on their tiny little radar screens. Planned Parenthood is synonymous with abortion according to these cretins, a view that was voiced by the puffy, pasty-faced gas bag Senator Jon Kyl (R-Az) last year on the floor of the Senate when he opined that "over 90%" of Planned Parenthood's budget goes for abortion services. In reality, barely 3% of their budget is for abortions, but that tiny little discrepancy was not enough for all the pinheaded conservatives to get excited about. When Kyl's comments were universally ridiculed as idiotic bullshit, his office offered the now-classic explanation that what he said was not "meant to be a factual statement." So, according to them it's perfectly okay to knowingly spout insane, absurd lies on the floor of the Senate as long as you get one of your office stooges to follow up with a "he didn't really mean it" disclaimer. Once again Kyl does what he does best, embarrass himself and the entire state of Arizona with his moronic incompetence.
Anyway, back to our story. When SGK realized the black hole of crap they created for themselves, they started to have second thoughts about what they had done. Money was pouring in to Planned Parenthood from thousands of people who were taking their side. Likewise, money was pouring into SGK from all the conservative vultures who were happy Planned Parenthood would not be providing breast exams for uninsured women. Things spun so wildly out of control for SGK that today they backtracked on their funding decision and reinstated Planned Parenthood as their partner. Now, they have thousands and thousands of people on the left who despise and mistrust them for their blatant greediness and flip-flopping, and they have conservatives angry at them for changing their mind, and of course accepting all the money the conservatives gave them in the past couple of days.
SGK issued plenty of statements apologizing for this amazing public display of clumsy idiocy, but great damage has already been done to their integrity and the public trust of which they used to enjoy so much. It will take them a long, long time to dig themselves out of the hole they dug, and it is a shame, especially for the Komen family, to have the name of their loved one dragged through the political mud. As long as Karen Handel is on their payroll, they will never regain their status as a highly-respected national charity. It was because of her biased, rabidly anti-choice agenda that SGK is now seen as caring much more about money and politics than saving women's lives, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
The language is somewhat clumsy and unwieldy, but basically it means "as you sow, so shall you reap," the title of this post. That is interpreted as actions done in bad faith will glean bad results, and those done in good faith will return rewards. I'm pretty sure the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure (SGK) is learning this lesson in a rather expensive fashion.
The Komen Foundation has been at the forefront of raising funds and awareness for breast cancer for years, and has been doing it very well. I heard something along the lines that they are the second most trusted non-profit organization in the country. That is a powerful asset, such lofty public trust and confidence, and I'm sure it pays great dividends in the fund-raising arena.
And raise funds they do. According to charitynavigator.org, a website that rates charities, for the year ending March 2010, SGK pulled in over $311,000,000. Fundraising expenses and administrative costs ate up $60,000,000 of that (remember that if you do contribute to them), but it still left a quarter of a billion dollars for their program expenses. You can see the report here.
Indeed, SGK has the love and admiration of the public, a lot of money rolling in, and a very high-profile system of races to publicize their work advancing women's health. So what do they do to make things run more smoothly? They hire a right-wing gargoyle named Karen Handel to be their VP of public policy, and one of the things she does is come up with a completely preposterous, blatantly biased, widely discredited and ideologically-driven way to cut funding to one of their long-time partners in providing health services to disadvantaged women, Planned Parenthood.
When they did that, a media and public relations firestorm of epic proportions erupted. Facebook, that instantaneous barometer of our culture, went completely batshit. People went to the SGK page and wrote hundreds of blistering, withering comments criticizing them in the harshest possible terms. You can be sure that I posted my largely unedited and uncensored comments. For a while they were deleting all the critical comments but there were so many of them coming in at such a frantic pace that they gave up on that. Facebook pages excoriating SGK for their stupidity popped up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Numerous calls were made to boycott SGK and their races. People across the country from all walks of life were really, really steamed and they were making their feelings known with crystal clarity.
As you might predict, conservatives were gleefully cheering the axing of Planned Parenthood, because obviously they don't give a rat's ass about women's health as long as abortion is the only thing on their tiny little radar screens. Planned Parenthood is synonymous with abortion according to these cretins, a view that was voiced by the puffy, pasty-faced gas bag Senator Jon Kyl (R-Az) last year on the floor of the Senate when he opined that "over 90%" of Planned Parenthood's budget goes for abortion services. In reality, barely 3% of their budget is for abortions, but that tiny little discrepancy was not enough for all the pinheaded conservatives to get excited about. When Kyl's comments were universally ridiculed as idiotic bullshit, his office offered the now-classic explanation that what he said was not "meant to be a factual statement." So, according to them it's perfectly okay to knowingly spout insane, absurd lies on the floor of the Senate as long as you get one of your office stooges to follow up with a "he didn't really mean it" disclaimer. Once again Kyl does what he does best, embarrass himself and the entire state of Arizona with his moronic incompetence.
Anyway, back to our story. When SGK realized the black hole of crap they created for themselves, they started to have second thoughts about what they had done. Money was pouring in to Planned Parenthood from thousands of people who were taking their side. Likewise, money was pouring into SGK from all the conservative vultures who were happy Planned Parenthood would not be providing breast exams for uninsured women. Things spun so wildly out of control for SGK that today they backtracked on their funding decision and reinstated Planned Parenthood as their partner. Now, they have thousands and thousands of people on the left who despise and mistrust them for their blatant greediness and flip-flopping, and they have conservatives angry at them for changing their mind, and of course accepting all the money the conservatives gave them in the past couple of days.
SGK issued plenty of statements apologizing for this amazing public display of clumsy idiocy, but great damage has already been done to their integrity and the public trust of which they used to enjoy so much. It will take them a long, long time to dig themselves out of the hole they dug, and it is a shame, especially for the Komen family, to have the name of their loved one dragged through the political mud. As long as Karen Handel is on their payroll, they will never regain their status as a highly-respected national charity. It was because of her biased, rabidly anti-choice agenda that SGK is now seen as caring much more about money and politics than saving women's lives, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The First Day of the Seventh Decade (Part 2)
I had a very good birthday yesterday. It was filled with people calling and wishing me well, and getting lots of birthday greetings from all over the world on Facebook. Facebook is amazing because it allows you to have contact with many people all over the world. My life is so very much enriched by these contacts, even though it is through a website and not in person. So things went pretty well for me yesterday.
Well, almost well. Until another animal welfare agency, from whom we get most of the rabbits that come into our shelter, started sending me emails about six female domestic rabbits that were turned into them in not the best condition - hair loss, probably from fighting and being kept in a large area, and possible ear mite infestation. One of the females gave birth to a litter of five babies last Tuesday, and yesterday I learned that two more had given birth, another litter of five and a litter of six babies. It's a safe bet that the others are most likely pregnant and will be giving birth, even though we are trying our best to prevent that from happening. We dearly love the little baby bunnies, but we definitely do not need any more coming into the world and into the shelter/rescue system, which seems to be at or beyond capacity on a constant basis.
Sixteen little lives, brought into a system that can barely care for the animals already there. What is going to happen to them? What will be their fate? How will we love and care for them and find them homes so they can have a reasonably good quality of life. They didn't ask to be born, and they deserve to live their lives in happiness and health. How is that going to happen?
I find myself getting really enraged at people who are so abysmally stupid and ignorant that they keep animals in such awful conditions and allow these multiple pregnancies. I honestly want to find them and hurt them really, really badly, because they are loathsome, despicable assholes who take the horrible messes they have created, dump them off at an already-overcrowded animal shelter, and just walk away, free of any responsibility, while others work very hard to fix things. Sometimes I think those ignorant pigs need to be held accountable, financially and legally, for such moronic irresponsibility. But then I realize if they would have to answer for their actions, they wouldn't bring the rabbits to the shelter, they would just kill them outright and be done with it without anyone finding out. I have no doubt that would happen because if there is one thing I've learned over and over again in sixty years, it's that the ignorance, cowardice and evilness of most of the people in this world are stunning, boundless and beyond measure.
Equally boundless and beyond measure are the goodness, caring and loving sacrifices of the animal welfare and rescue community, goodhearted people working in the most stressful and distressing of jobs, poorly compensated and constantly overworked, but somehow returning to the battle lines day after day. Working in animal rescue you get to see the very worst of humanity along with the very best. And everywhere there are good, sweet, noble and loving animals who are always the victims of the horrendous selfishness and perversity of humans, the so-called "superior" life forms on this planet.
So much of what is wrong with this world I blame on organized religion, which is the most disastrous plague mankind has ever inflicted on itself. Most people know of my vitriolic hatred of religion and will come to me and ask, what do I have against God? And I always tell them: nothing at all. I have no problem with God, Buddha, Mohammed, or any other "deity." Never have, never will. In my world people are free to believe in whatever they choose. It's when then start to force their particular beliefs on to other people in the world, or begin to ruin and defile the world and its inhabitants because their religion tells them they can, or when they start to pass laws codifying their delusions into laws the rest of us have to follow, well, I have a REALLY huge problem with that.
When I rule the world, and that will happen someday, things will be very, very different. Until then, as I start my seventh decade of this Theatre of the Absurd which is life, I am very grateful for the vast benefits and advantages I have, which include good health (mental health not included), the means to enjoy my life and do what I want, and very good friends whom I love and value greatly. Most importantly, even though it can be very demoralizing and painful at times, I have found my purpose in life, which is rescuing, caring for and loving rabbits.
You can tell you're getting old when you start giving advice to everyone, whether they ask for it or not. But indulge me this once when I just say, for whomever reads this, that the very best gift you can give yourself in life is to find something you are passionate about, and then pursue it. If you love what you do, it will not seem like work. People will see you in your very best light, and you will draw others to you who are likewise good, true and worthwhile. That is the best way to live your life.
Well, almost well. Until another animal welfare agency, from whom we get most of the rabbits that come into our shelter, started sending me emails about six female domestic rabbits that were turned into them in not the best condition - hair loss, probably from fighting and being kept in a large area, and possible ear mite infestation. One of the females gave birth to a litter of five babies last Tuesday, and yesterday I learned that two more had given birth, another litter of five and a litter of six babies. It's a safe bet that the others are most likely pregnant and will be giving birth, even though we are trying our best to prevent that from happening. We dearly love the little baby bunnies, but we definitely do not need any more coming into the world and into the shelter/rescue system, which seems to be at or beyond capacity on a constant basis.
Sixteen little lives, brought into a system that can barely care for the animals already there. What is going to happen to them? What will be their fate? How will we love and care for them and find them homes so they can have a reasonably good quality of life. They didn't ask to be born, and they deserve to live their lives in happiness and health. How is that going to happen?
I find myself getting really enraged at people who are so abysmally stupid and ignorant that they keep animals in such awful conditions and allow these multiple pregnancies. I honestly want to find them and hurt them really, really badly, because they are loathsome, despicable assholes who take the horrible messes they have created, dump them off at an already-overcrowded animal shelter, and just walk away, free of any responsibility, while others work very hard to fix things. Sometimes I think those ignorant pigs need to be held accountable, financially and legally, for such moronic irresponsibility. But then I realize if they would have to answer for their actions, they wouldn't bring the rabbits to the shelter, they would just kill them outright and be done with it without anyone finding out. I have no doubt that would happen because if there is one thing I've learned over and over again in sixty years, it's that the ignorance, cowardice and evilness of most of the people in this world are stunning, boundless and beyond measure.
Equally boundless and beyond measure are the goodness, caring and loving sacrifices of the animal welfare and rescue community, goodhearted people working in the most stressful and distressing of jobs, poorly compensated and constantly overworked, but somehow returning to the battle lines day after day. Working in animal rescue you get to see the very worst of humanity along with the very best. And everywhere there are good, sweet, noble and loving animals who are always the victims of the horrendous selfishness and perversity of humans, the so-called "superior" life forms on this planet.
So much of what is wrong with this world I blame on organized religion, which is the most disastrous plague mankind has ever inflicted on itself. Most people know of my vitriolic hatred of religion and will come to me and ask, what do I have against God? And I always tell them: nothing at all. I have no problem with God, Buddha, Mohammed, or any other "deity." Never have, never will. In my world people are free to believe in whatever they choose. It's when then start to force their particular beliefs on to other people in the world, or begin to ruin and defile the world and its inhabitants because their religion tells them they can, or when they start to pass laws codifying their delusions into laws the rest of us have to follow, well, I have a REALLY huge problem with that.
When I rule the world, and that will happen someday, things will be very, very different. Until then, as I start my seventh decade of this Theatre of the Absurd which is life, I am very grateful for the vast benefits and advantages I have, which include good health (mental health not included), the means to enjoy my life and do what I want, and very good friends whom I love and value greatly. Most importantly, even though it can be very demoralizing and painful at times, I have found my purpose in life, which is rescuing, caring for and loving rabbits.
You can tell you're getting old when you start giving advice to everyone, whether they ask for it or not. But indulge me this once when I just say, for whomever reads this, that the very best gift you can give yourself in life is to find something you are passionate about, and then pursue it. If you love what you do, it will not seem like work. People will see you in your very best light, and you will draw others to you who are likewise good, true and worthwhile. That is the best way to live your life.
The First Day of the Seventh Decade (Part 1)
My birthday was yesterday. It was number 60. That sounds bad enough until you put it in terms of me starting my seventh decade of life on earth, which is worse.
Don't know how I managed to stay alive so long, given everything that can go wrong over the course of sixty years. I could have been killed in an automobile wreck many times, and in fact I walked away from a car crash last July that totaled my SUV. I could have died in an airplane crash, because for many years I did a huge amount of traveling.
Maybe I could have been shot in a robbery, or a random murder. You hear about that all the time. For many years I hung out in some really bad areas of big cities like Washington, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, to name a very few. Perhaps I could have been walking along on a sidewalk minding my own business when an out-of-control truck jumps the curb and creams me. Or some really huge object falls on top of me. These things happen, you know.
Or maybe I could have contracted some terminal medical condition like AIDS, cancer, or some brain or heart malady that would have ended my life. You hear about people who don't make it to their thirtieth birthday let alone their sixtieth. Or maybe I could have been one of those people whose time has just run out on them, and they drop over dead for no apparent reason, or never wake up one morning due to "natural causes."
It's true, a lot of random things could have happened to prevent me from reaching this milestone, but somehow it didn't. Maybe it's just a huge amount of luck or someone watching over me, but I managed to make it this far with most of my original equipment still intact.
I have not only survived, but I have thrived.
My life so far, and it's still a continuing, evolving story as I start a new chapter, has been a life of adventures, challenges, and learning experiences, with the occasional mistake or misstep thrown in to keep me in line or teach me something. I feel I have been extraordinarily lucky in innumerable ways, but most importantly I have the great privilege and luxury of living my life exactly the way that I want to live it.
I've always been one to buck the trend of society when it comes to assigning gender roles and what people should "do" with their lives. I have never married nor had children, and I never wanted to do either. At the age when most people were getting married and raising families, I was too busy getting my career started and traveling and having loads of fun. And I honestly don't regret that for one second. People sometimes say to me, "You don't know what you have missed by not getting married and having children." Maybe, but I prefer to think that I have been able to have an entirely different set of experiences in my life that didn't involve marriage and children, which have enriched and illuminated my life just as much but in other ways.
I never would want to be stuck in a loveless marriage with children who despise and disrespect me. I never wanted to have to deal with school activities or sporting events or college expenses. I was never particularly interested in having to remember birthdays of in-laws or wedding anniversaries or who we're spending Christmas with this year. I never wanted to have to go through a divorce, when a relationship that started off so well turned toxic and died. Call me selfish, but I knew very early on in my life what I wanted and didn't want, and I didn't let anything or anyone talk me out of my chosen path in life. And that, in many ways, is the most important thing I have ever done.
Don't know how I managed to stay alive so long, given everything that can go wrong over the course of sixty years. I could have been killed in an automobile wreck many times, and in fact I walked away from a car crash last July that totaled my SUV. I could have died in an airplane crash, because for many years I did a huge amount of traveling.
Maybe I could have been shot in a robbery, or a random murder. You hear about that all the time. For many years I hung out in some really bad areas of big cities like Washington, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, to name a very few. Perhaps I could have been walking along on a sidewalk minding my own business when an out-of-control truck jumps the curb and creams me. Or some really huge object falls on top of me. These things happen, you know.
Or maybe I could have contracted some terminal medical condition like AIDS, cancer, or some brain or heart malady that would have ended my life. You hear about people who don't make it to their thirtieth birthday let alone their sixtieth. Or maybe I could have been one of those people whose time has just run out on them, and they drop over dead for no apparent reason, or never wake up one morning due to "natural causes."
It's true, a lot of random things could have happened to prevent me from reaching this milestone, but somehow it didn't. Maybe it's just a huge amount of luck or someone watching over me, but I managed to make it this far with most of my original equipment still intact.
I have not only survived, but I have thrived.
My life so far, and it's still a continuing, evolving story as I start a new chapter, has been a life of adventures, challenges, and learning experiences, with the occasional mistake or misstep thrown in to keep me in line or teach me something. I feel I have been extraordinarily lucky in innumerable ways, but most importantly I have the great privilege and luxury of living my life exactly the way that I want to live it.
I've always been one to buck the trend of society when it comes to assigning gender roles and what people should "do" with their lives. I have never married nor had children, and I never wanted to do either. At the age when most people were getting married and raising families, I was too busy getting my career started and traveling and having loads of fun. And I honestly don't regret that for one second. People sometimes say to me, "You don't know what you have missed by not getting married and having children." Maybe, but I prefer to think that I have been able to have an entirely different set of experiences in my life that didn't involve marriage and children, which have enriched and illuminated my life just as much but in other ways.
I never would want to be stuck in a loveless marriage with children who despise and disrespect me. I never wanted to have to deal with school activities or sporting events or college expenses. I was never particularly interested in having to remember birthdays of in-laws or wedding anniversaries or who we're spending Christmas with this year. I never wanted to have to go through a divorce, when a relationship that started off so well turned toxic and died. Call me selfish, but I knew very early on in my life what I wanted and didn't want, and I didn't let anything or anyone talk me out of my chosen path in life. And that, in many ways, is the most important thing I have ever done.
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