Something Weird?

Because Mr. Pop drives his work truck home and because on the side of that truck you see the profile of a sea turtle and beneath the name of his firm the words; “Environmental Consulting”, Mr. Pop has become the neighborhood go to guy for questions about all things crawly.

A few weeks ago the lady next door cornered him to ask how she can keep a gopher tortoise from coming into her yard and leaving “turtle poop” behind. Mr. Pop tried to tactfully reassure her that gopher tortoise “poop” was not a major crisis in a human being’s life.

Last night we were about to sit down to dinner when our door bell rang. At the front door was another neighbor from four houses down. She was holding something wrapped in a paper towel. She gently unfolded the paper towel to expose what appeared to be a small egg. She wanted Mr. Pop to identify this egg she found in her yard under some mulch. Mr. Pop said to the best of his knowledge it was most likely a snake egg and the best thing to do was to put it back where she found it. The lady seemed reluctant to do that and she informed him there were two others where she found this one. It appeared that neighbor lady didn’t want anything to do with this little egg and wasn’t going to leave. Mr. Pop told her we would bury the egg in our backyard and she should leave the other two where they were. This seemed to appease neighbor lady and her final words were, “I just don’t want something weird to hatch in my yard”.

What the hell? Something “weird”? What did she think might emerge from that little egg, an alien? That’s what’s wrong with a lot of people, they don’t understand their natural environment or appreciate its diversity. They think if it isn’t human, if it isn’t cute and furry, it’s weird and should be done away with.

We’ll keep an eye on the little egg’s new nest and if we see something “weird” hatch in our yard, I’ll let you know.

“It’s Nothing”

As I write this, it is 4 o’clock in the morning and I’m in a tropical storm. One thing is missing, there is no wind and little to no rain. I awoke a bit ago to an alarming quiet. There are no howling winds or pounding rains. What kind of storm is this?

Yesterday Mr. Pop and I beat ourselves up mentally over whether to put up the hurricane shutters or not to put up the hurricane shutters. The local yokel weather people were on TV all day with their “up to the minute” storm reports. Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore in Miami said, “ I’m not going to hype this thing. It’s nothing.” So was it nothing or was it, as the local weather guy was saying, comparable to Hurricane Wilma? Let me clue you in on Hurricane Wilma. That storm was a blistering bitch of a hurricane. I watched the winds of that baby lift up my neighbor’s car on it’s shocks. It’s tires didn’t leave the ground but the car lifted up as high as it could go without leaving the ground.

About five o’clock yesterday afternoon we decided to leave the shutters in the garage and take down anything outside that might blow around. Okay, decision made and cocktail hour began. We’re watching the reports and feeling pretty damn smug that we hadn’t taken the, we’re all gonna die, bait. So what’s the next thing we hear? Our next door neighbor’s drill as they are putting up their shutters. Ut oh! A moment of did we do the right thing, raises it’s questioning head. Another cocktail tells us we did.

Still, with that silent question floating around in our head, we call our friends across town and inquire about their shutter decision. Yep, friends have their shutters up and they’re all snug inside. Oh no! Have we screwed up? Second guessing our decision becomes the subject that is not spoken.

Well here it is, early Wednesday morning and my potted plants that I put out to get drenched in the “tropical storm rains of ten inches or more” aren’t yet soaked and not a leaf is stirring outside.

Later today things weather-wise may go to hell in a hand basket, but as of now, Mr. Cantore was right not to hype this thing because, “It’s nothing”. It was wetter outside the night I put the hose in the pool to add some water and forgot about it until the next morning. Now that was something!

The Story that Wasn’t a Story

Now that the 24/7 news cycle about who killed the Ramsey child is no longer a story, we have the story about that story not being a story.

The media parasites have lost their host. There is no more blood in that non-story for them to feed on and lazily thrive. Now they must go back to hunting and gathering some real news.

I have a suggestion as to where they might want to turn next. How about covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? I hear there’s lots of blood there.

Eyes of the Storms

I remember standing out in the front yard in my nightgown with me on one end of the leash and Murphy on the other. The gusts of wind were so strong I half expected Murphy to turn into a canine kite with the leash becoming my kite string leading up to him. Mr. Pop was standing in the driveway to alert me when shingles began to leave our roof and were hurled through the air. The shingles were peeling off and flying with the wind at a good clip. It would surely injure my face or head to be hit by one of these projectiles. I couldn’t watch for flying shingles and attend to Murphy, so Mr. Pop was my alert system.

When the storm was almost over, that’s when the water began to drip from the ceiling and run down the inside and outside of almost all our walls. The house was pitch dark because of the metal hurricane shutters we’d put up on all the windows and the power had long been out. The carpet was squishy with all the water. One peek out the back door showed our screen on the pool enclosure to be literally in shreds. Other screen panels were totally gone. The yard looked as though all the trees and vegetation from the undeveloped lot next door had been placed in our backyard. Our wooden privacy fence lay on the ground as though it had been shot and killed.

These are some of my memories of Hurricane Frances. Everything was so wrong, so broken, so ruined. We were lost and confused. And yes, I did some crying. Where to begin to repair the damages and how? But we were fortunate to have the ways and means to put back together what we had had torn away and lost. We knew what we would do and we did it. A little over a year later, after Frances and Jeanne invaded our home, things were as good as, and in some ways, better than new.

I can’t imagine losing everything and then being plucked up, separated from my family, and moved hundreds or thousands of miles away with very little more than the clothes on my back. I have no concept of the fear, horror and devastation the people on the Gulf Coast experienced almost a year ago. I cannot fathom how the victims and survivors of Katrina have been able to keep their sanity. I admire them for that because I’m not sure I could have endured what they have.

Today my thoughts and my heart go out to each and every one of them. They deserve our love, admiration, respect and so very much more help. Please, today and this week and always, remember the eyes you saw in that storm a year ago this week. The closed eyes of the dead. The vacant eyes of the people wading in filthy water up to and above their waist. The frightened eyes of the people standing on their roof and begging for help. The desperate eyes of the people standing on the streets begging for food and water. Where are those eyes now and why has their country let them down for so long?

“A year after the storm, the reconstruction of New Orleans echoes our reconstruction of Baghdad. A “truth squad” of House Democrats has cataloged the “waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement” in $8.75 billion worth of contracts, most of which were awarded noncompetitively. Only 60 percent of the city has electricity. Half of the hospitals and three-quarters of the child-care centers remain closed. Violent crime is on the rise. Less than half of the population has returned.”
-Frank Rich

Friday Funnies

I didn’t write this piece, I couldn’t. But Lance Arthur, could and did. It will most likely be the funniest thing you will read all day if not all week. Please enjoy!

Pissing on Paris

I have pissed on my cat. There. I said it. But it wasn't entirely my fault.

My cat, Paris, has a problem. Or maybe it's not a problem, per se, but more of an interest. A special interest. In me. More specifically, in my bathroom activities.

Maybe this is normal cat behavior. No other cat I have ever been around has exhibited it, and I want to attribute it to two unrelated things: One, the door to my bathroom has no latch so it will not stay closed if someone really, really wants to come in, and two, she's still just a kitten, more or less, doing kitten things like exploring her boundaries and showing curiosity about every fucking thing I am doing all the time unless she is asleep, in which case she wants to be asleep on me.

I know I haven't yet actually mentioned her behavior. That's because it reflects on me in some ways that I'm not entirely happy with sharing, yet I think the amusement factor overshadows my own embarrassment concerning some of the things that have gone on in my bathroom between my cat and me.

If I begin to take a leisurely piss, she comes a-runnin', because Paris likes to watch. It's always the same. I will be standing at the toilet holding my johnson and wondering if, this time, I can get away with taking a piss without the cat. However, almost immediately after the stream hits the water, she is there.

Sometimes, she knows where I'm headed and she'll sit between my feet, staring up at my willy, waiting for me to begin. I believe she thinks it's like some piece of clothing I own, or perhaps a dangly toy she should be able to play with. So I get a little pee-shy, look down at her looking up at me with her innocent yellow eyes, and finally begin.

This is when she hops up onto the toilet rim for a better view. So now I have a cat-sized moving target that I'm actively trying to avoid hitting. I'll lean forward, one hand against the wall behind the toilet and the other attempting to control the targeting aspects of taking a piss.

The penis is not a well-designed tool. It does some things very well, but given a target to hit (or avoid) of anything smaller than a foot in diameter, a guy's gonna splash. And the thing's pliable, and the causeway sometimes thins out or opens up, and the stream's suddenly going on the floor or the back of the toilet, up on the seat, on your own foot – honestly there's just no telling what's going to happen.

So I'm pissing, trying to avoid the cat, and one would think – cats being so clean and all, you know, taking a dump and burying it and being all fussy about where their food is, and licking themselves constantly – that walking into a stream of urine, let alone wanting to play with it, would not be something they're apt to do.

But you'd be wrong.

First thing she does, Paris reaches out with her white, furry little paw, head tilted in such a cute way that you just want to take her picture as she's reaching out to capture your piss. So I'm moving the stream, shifting my hips. I start laughing, which only makes control more difficult. I'm trying to tighten up and shut off the stream before she reaches it, I'm peeing around her leg and head – she's moving now, shifting to the other side of the toilet, I have to pee, because holding it after you've started going is somewhat challenging. So I'm pissing again and she's paused to observe – she's leaning out farther and farther, reaching, I'm laughing and, all at once, I'm pissing on my cat's head.

I know what my reaction would be. First of all, it would be an extremely rare occurrence that you'd find my head anywhere close to a place where there's even the slightest chance that someone's going to piss on it. If, through whatever bizarre circumstances I might be found in such a state, and someone actually pissed on me, I'd be upset.

Here's what Paris did: Paris sort of shook her head like, Oh, what is this light, warm rain falling against my skull? and then she reached right out and did it again.

I'm hoping this is all a phase. I'm also looking forward to having guests over so they can have their own Paris target-shooting practice. Then I'll know whether or not it is everyone's toilette that she enjoys, or only my own.

Nightmare Material

“Vaccarella -- who, as Bunch reported, was listed in his 1999 candidate profile as director of operations for a company that operated 31 Pizza Hut restaurants -- towed a "mock but realistic-looking" version of the trailer issued to him and his family after the hurricane by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from Louisiana to Washington with the intention of cooking a meal of "shrimp and redfish and other good food" for Bush inside the trailer. According to the Times-Picayune, Vaccarella instead met with the president in a private session.”

And
“VACCARELLA: I just don't want the government and President Bush to forget about us. And I just wish the president could have another term in Washington --
BUSH: Wait a minute.
VACCARELLA: You know? I wish he had another four years, man.”
Read the entire excellent article at Media Matters

Was this bush’s Katrina version of “Mission Accomplished”? Will they ever stop with this sort of stuff? This whole episode should be dusted for fingerprints. See if they match up with those of Karl Rove.

So Rockey Vaccarella wants four more years of this nightmare. What the hell has he been promised or what the hell has he been drinking?

What of the Other War?

When our president was declaring that the troops wouldn’t come home from Iraq while under his command, wonder why he didn’t mention the other war? The war where we are fighting the persons who did order the attacks of 9-11? That war looks to me to be the real central front of the “war on terror”. Why not talk about that one, if fighting terrorist really is our goal? Let’s talk about when those troops in Afghanistan might be coming home. What’s the status of that war?

Here’s something else he failed to mention.

“The Marine Corps said Tuesday that it would begin calling Marines back to active-duty service on an involuntary basis to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan — the latest sign that the American force is under strain and a signal that the military is having trouble persuading young veterans to return.

Marine commanders will call up formerly active-duty service members now classified as reservists because the Corps failed to find enough volunteers among its emergency reserve pool to fill jobs in combat zones. The call-ups will begin in several months, summoning as many as 2,500 reservists at a time to serve for a year or more.”
Read the rest here

As we drain the energy and life from our military in the two ongoing wars, we have to wonder, what's next? Is a front door draft in our future?

Did he admit defeat?

Yesterday bush said we won’t leave Iraq as long as he is president. Wow, talk about saying a mouthful.

So is he saying we have no chance of winning that war for at least the next two and a half years? Sounds like it to me. What happened to his plan for winning? Did that go down the tubes with his roadmap for peace in the middle east? Guess so.

If he knows we can’t win the war in the next two and a half years, why keep fighting it? Is the plan now to just allow Iraqis and American soldiers to keep dying for as long as he’s in office? At the present rate that will be a lot of lives lost, and for what?

Seems to me that when he said that yesterday he was, for all means and purposes, admitting defeat and saying under his leadership the war is not winnable. That’s one sorry as hell statement. We can’t win the war but he won’t bring the soldiers home and save their lives.

Is this about keeping the “bad guys” from following us home, or is this about a stubborn man so determined not to admit his errors that he will not consider the consequences of his deeds to the detriment of hundreds if not thousands more deaths?

We have no leader, we have a fool on a deadly folly. We have a president who cannot or will not change course. Even in the face of defeat he plows along in order to avoid turning around and facing his deadly mistakes. He has made many mistakes, but this war is not a mistake. It is a crime. And the criminal who started this war seemed to admit yesterday that he has no ambition or ability to end it and no plan to win it. If he admits he can’t win, isn’t that also an admission of defeat?

Meeting and Eating Pigs

Yesterday Senator John McCain was the guest on Meet the Press. Senator McCain would like to be the next George Bush, oops sorry, the next president of the United States. These were the comments at the conclusion of the interview in which David Gregory sat in as host.

“MR. GREGORY: I mentioned your trip out to Iowa, thinking ahead to 2008. Are you a front-runner?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t know, but I had the privilege of meeting an 1190-pound pig named Waldo at the Iowa State Fair. It was one of the great fun experiences I’ve had.”

When the president was in Germany he made frequent comments about eating a pig at a pig roast.

McCain was excited about meeting a pig and bush was excited about eating a pig.
What is it with these guys and pigs?

Oink

Gopher Tortoise Sells House in Florida

Okay, it hasn’t happened yet, but it might.

Mr. Pop and I lived in another house for several years. When we moved there, there was only one other house on the street and it was way down at the corner. The neighborhood was filled with trees, palmettos and there was still a lot of wonderful wildlife. We saw foxes, opossums, raccoons and all kinds of snakes. I have tons of stories about the wildlife, but this one is about a gopher tortoise. I named her Hanna.

Hanna got that name because she loved to eat bananas. I used to go out and call to her, “Hanna, do you want a banana?” When she saw me, she would come right up to me and wait for me to place a peeled banana in front of her hungry mouth. Hanna liked to eat other things too. She showed a fondness for the dusty miller plants in our garden. She ate them all up. She went gaga over caladiums and ate them right down to where they emerged from the earth. If I failed to give Hanna her daily banana and there were no chosen plants to consume, she would come up to our patio door and push her head against the door, almost like knocking. Yep, she was hard headed Hanna.

About five years ago, we were presented with an opportunity to buy the house we’re living in now and it was too good to pass up. We decided to buy this house and rent out the other house. I had to leave Hanna behind.

When the first renters moved in I told them about Hanna coming to the door so they wouldn’t think they were being attacked by a big terrorist tortoise. I also told them she liked bananas.

Those people lived there for one year and then another family moved in. I clued them in on Hanna too. These people loved animals, so Hanna got back on the fast track with her bananas. When these people moved out this past December we decided we had had enough fun as landlords and opted to sell that house. Yes indeed, I believe the day we made that decision the housing bubble was a burst heard around the world. So our little house, after being in the hands of an idiot real estate agent for the first six months of it’s “For Sale” life, is now in the hands of a lady who seems to actually be working for us.

New real estate lady called last Sunday and told us a couple has seen the house twice. She said, “That’s a pretty sharp trick putting a big gopher tortoise in the front yard.” She said the prospective buyers were all excited about and interested in the tortoise, as it munched away on the grass in the front yard. They are nature lovers. I told new real estate lady the story of Hanna and explained that she lived there too.

That couple has narrowed their choices down to three houses and ours is one of them. If they choose ours, full credit will go to Hanna, the gopher tortoise who sold a house in Florida.
----

Have a wonderful weekend. See you back here on Monday.

Freaky Friday

“Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass light bulb in his anus, Reuters reports.”

Link (scroll down)

Candidate for Total A-Hole

“Authorities allege that Gentry purchased the bear from Greenly, a wildlife photographer and hunting guide, then killed it with a bow and arrow in an enclosed pen on Greenly's property in October 2004.

The government alleges that Gentry and Greenly tagged the bear with a Minnesota hunting license and registered the animal with the state Department of Natural Resources as a wild kill.

Gentry allegedly paid about $4,650 for the bear, named Cubby. The bear's death was videotaped, and the tape later edited so Gentry appeared to shoot the animal in a "fair chase" hunting situation, the government alleges.”
Link

This is Troy Gentry of the country music’s Montgomery Gentry. I have no idea what they sing or anything about them. I do know that if this story is true this guy is a total Ass-Hole. If he is convicted he should be sent to Iraq to do some REAL hunting.

Could the Democrats do Worse? I don’t see how.

Often we hear, “What would the Democrats do about the war?” Well how about this answer? How about the Democrats say they would have a Secretary of Defense who knew something about the right way to fight a war. He or she would make changes in the way we are handling all aspects of this war. Winning would be the goal, not a pipedream. Experience counts.

Can Democrats keep the country safe? Yes they can and they will not waste lives and money on wars such as the one in Iraq. Democrats will fight back if attacked but they won’t create false causes to allow our soldiers to be killed and maimed.

Asking Democrats to clean up bush and rumsfeld’s debacle is akin to a friend convincing you to let him borrow your car. He takes your car and he wrecks the hell out of it and kills a family. Then he casually calls you to ask you what you are going to do about it.

Bush has admitted that the job of ending the Iraq war will be determined by a future president. Isn’t he telling us he has no intention of ending it on his watch? So what is the Republican plan? Are we to continue to send our soldiers over there as cannon fodder for the next two years? Democrats should let everyone know loud and clear that is not acceptable.

A regime change is long overdue in America. There are still merits to keeping the peace.

From today’s New York Times

“An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January.”

This is just one result of the Republican “plan”.

Inspiration

“Nearly three months after shattering his right hind leg in the Preakness, Barbaro took his first steps outside late last week and grazed in the grassy area adjacent to the intensive care unit at the New Bolton Center, where he has been since the devastating May 20 incident at Pimlico Race Course.”
Link

He played against the odds and did what others feared he couldn’t. What a story of inspiration for us right now. He will never race again but he seems to be winning his own race. Negative news didn’t get in his way as he struggled toward his victory. Let's keep that in mind.

One of the things bugging me

There are many things upon which Mr. Pop and I agree and some of course that we do not. One of the most important things we agree on is we do not cheat on anything. We do not fudge our tax returns or anything else. Keeping everything honest and above board allows us one less thing to worry about. Life produces enough worries, as you told me in your comments this weekend.

Okay, why did I wake up at one o’clock this morning and was unable to go back to sleep? It was because of a matter in my family. It was because, due to past experiences, I know that I cannot trust members of my own family. That’s just so damned sad. I would trust any one of you more than I am able to trust the people related to me. Because of this present matter I am forced to deal with them, but I have to watch my own back at every move. I have to be sure that I am not falling into a trap. Not so long ago they almost caught me in another trap. They boldly lied to me, but thankfully I relied on good advice and they did not succeed with their plan.

This is like some sick freakin’ game I am having to play with them right now. That’s not the way it should be within a family. But greed seems to trump everything in this particular game.

I have stated before that I am in no way a religious person but I try to be a good and decent person. I try to be honest and fair. I try to live by the Golden Rule as much as I possibly can. If there were a Jesus, I think he would probably like me. Yet the “born again”, highly religious members of my family are the very ones who seem to have no principles when it comes to honesty, fairness and decency. I don’t know what transpires in people’s minds when they are “born again”, but from my personal experience, it isn’t good.

What’s Bugging You?

What’s been on your mind a lot lately? When you wake up in the middle of the night what’s that little thought that keeps you from going back to sleep? What do you find yourself thinking about when you stare into space?

Are We Safer or is it a Reminder that We Aren’t?

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.”

According to this article the bush administration believes it will gain politically from the foiled terrorist plots in England yesterday. Maybe they might want to rethink that, as it also seems to be a glowing reminder that five years after 9-11 al Qaeda and Bin Laden are still alive and well and doing business.

Total Chaos and the Cable Guy

Yesterday morning I was all busy mixing you guys drinks, pouring coffee, serving tea, and humming all along. I glanced out my window and saw the cable guy drive up our driveway. Okay, I knew he was coming sometime between eight and noon, but the cable company said he would call me to let me know he was on the way. He didn’t.

I wasn’t yet dressed to greet visitors but luckily Mr. Pop hadn’t left for work yet. He went outside to speak with Cable Guy to explain our troubles with the reception. Cable Guy apparently didn’t understand what “snowy picture” meant so he said he needed to come inside. While this was happening I was changing clothes like a wild woman at a spring clothing sale. My hair was, well let’s just say it could have looked a lot tamer.

With all my hustling around, Murphy somehow got the notion that we were going somewhere and he went bat-shit crazy and got all excited. He was running all over the house barking, howling, wagging his tale and just all aflutter.

So, in walks Cable Guy and Mr. Pop. Cable Guy walks into our kitchen which, at that time, looked like all kitchens do in the morning, not real good. Anyway Cable Guy looks at the TV and apparently witnesses “snowy reception” for the first time. He asks if the cable outlet was installed after the house was built. We tell him no. So thank god he goes back outside to check the connection from the line to the house.

A couple of minutes later Murphy’s trumped up excitement sends him running to the door because he’s about to have a pee-pee attack. Mr. Pop takes Murphy outside on his leash. Cable Guy comes from around the house and tells Mr. Pop he is going to lay a new cable line and basically rebuild our whole outside cable connection. Mr. Pop brings Murphy back in and relays cable guy’s diagnosis to me. Then Mr. Pop says, “In other words he doesn’t have a fucking clue, so he’s just going to replace everything and if that doesn’t fix the problem he’ll call in another cable guy.”

Our cable goes underground once it leaves our house and then it goes up a power pole where some kind of cable magic happens when it meets another connection site (kind of like the “tubes” found on the “internets”). Problem is, the pole is about three or four feet away on the other side of our privacy fence. I look out the back and see Cable Guy about to prop a tall ladder against our privacy fence to work on the pole connection. Any breathing soul could see that wasn’t going to work. There was no way. I called to Cable Guy and said, “You aren’t going to lean the ladder against the fence are you?” He answered, “No”. So I watched as he sized up the situation for several minutes and finally determined either that he was dumb as dog shit or logistics just weren’t on his side.

He took his ladder back to his truck, loaded it up and drove his truck around the block, parked on the street behind us and proceeded to prop his handy ladder against the pole the way most sane people would. Time goes by and Cable Guy is on the ladder. More time goes by and he’s still there.

I look outside just in time to see another cable guy drive up. Cable Guy 2 gets out of his truck and goes to talk with the Cable Guy 1 who is still on the ladder. Cable Guy 2 goes back to his truck, gets something, does something and presto chango, the cable is fixed.

Mr. Pop was exactly right, Cable Guy 1 hadn’t a “fucking” clue about cable repair, but he did manage to cause total chaos on our domestic front.

A Little Planet in the Blogger Universe and Lamont's Win

One morning I woke up and made a decision. I came to my computer and with shaky nervous hands I followed the instructions on my computer screen. With both fear and excitement I followed along, step by step. Then I clicked on “publish”. Lo and behold Morning Martini was born. That was six months ago this morning.

Today I want to say thank you to everyone who even knows about this little planet in the blogger universe. Thank you to those who visit and comment and thank you to those who drop by and observe. I feel we are all friends whether we agree on everything or not. You have become a part of my life and my world. I feel that I know you as a result of your comments. Those of you who have your own blog sites I also know you as a result of your posts. Thanks to your insightful, intelligent and sometimes funny comments and your friendship, the Morning Martini has been very fortunate.

Because of Lamont’s victory last night and this marking of Morning Martini’s six month anniversary, this is a day of celebration. Today all drinks are on the house and the bar is stocked with everything you could possibly want. Yep, there are soft drinks, coffee and tea for those who prefer not to drink while surfing the “tubes" of the “internets”.

Thank you everyone!

Today, Hopes, Dreams

We all wait today on pins and needles to see what will happen in Connecticut. If Lamont wins, it will be a major step toward sanity and it will send a signal to both Democrats and Republicans. It will let them know that there is a part of America that doesn’t believe in war just for the sake of killing. It will tell them that we know what they did and we don’t like it one bit.

Democrats aren’t soft on defense. Democrats can be as hard on defense as the Republicans. We just don’t create false reasons to go on the offense. We believe in honesty, and yes peace, if it is at all possible. We really do believe in war as a last resort, the very last resort.

We don’t believe that the unnecessary taking of lives as the result of an unnecessary war is the American way. We don’t believe torturing people is the American way. After all, this is our America we’re talking about.

So as we watch and wait for the Connecticut results to come in, we hope and we dream. We dream about the possibility of one day America returning to what it was before all hell broke out, before the bush administration began it’s abuse and degradation of our country. We hope for a change.

We must never give up our hopes and dreams. Those are the things we mustn’t ever allow them to take from us. So whatever the outcome in Connecticut today, please hold on to your hopes and especially your dreams.

Hamas and Hezbollah

If a country doesn’t want groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to spring up, they must try not to leave serious gaps in their society.

You can see what these two groups have in common.

“In addition to its military wing, the so-called Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas devotes much of its estimated $70-million annual budget to an extensive social services network. It funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. "Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities," writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz.”
Link

And
Hezbollah “ It garners popular support among Lebanese by setting up schools, hospitals and other social services.”
Link

Remind you of anything? How about the security gaps that were left in Iraq after the American troops arrived in Baghdad?

Lovely little Moments

It’s almost noon today and I just got home. Mr. Pop and I had another of our one night stands in the Daytona area yesterday and last night. Again he had a couple of meetings up there and again I went along for the fun of getting away for a bit.

Late yesterday afternoon we went down to the restaurant on the water and had cocktails. We were sitting out on the little pier and quietly watching the water. The sun was contemplating calling it a day and there was a sweet soft little breeze. There were several dolphins moving through the area, one was accompanied by her wee little one. Mom would surface and beside her was her baby.

Birds were returning to shore after a long day of fishing. They were preparing to spend the night in some nearby trees. Often there were minor squabbles over who got which branch in which tree, but everyone seemed to settle their differences without becoming physical.

Nature was in full swing and its rhythm was so wonderfully relaxing. I wish I could send you that atmosphere and that feeling. It was such a lovely group of little moments.

Have a pleasant weekend.

To Put it Another Way

Let’s say you have a nine year old son and I have one too. We are neighbors. We look outside and see our kids fighting. They are hitting one another with big pieces of lumber and both are bleeding. Which do we do first? Do we try to figure out a way to keep them from fighting in the future, as they continue to beat the hell out of one another? Or do we stop the fight, get the kids cleaned up, see to their wounds, and then work on a way to stop them from fighting in the future?

Doesn't Sound Good

I don’t know much about military matters, but this doesn’t sound good.

"More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready, mostly because of equipment shortages that will cost up to $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday,"
More here

Major Differences

The next time you hear someone say, “More people voted for the American Idol than voted in the last presidential election”, think about the voting procedures and requirements for each action. Can that statement have any validity?

To vote for president you must be old enough to register to vote. You must register to vote. You must either get dressed and go to your voting place or you must apply in advance for an absentee ballot. When you receive the absentee ballot you must fill it out and put it in the mailbox. You can only cast one vote per presidential election.

To vote for American Idol, you must pick up your phone and punch in the telephone number. You may remain in your bed. You may call as many times as you like. The only age requirement is that you must be old enough to know how to operate a telephone.

For these reasons and more, I don’t believe you can compare the number of people who voted in the two “elections” or draw any sort of persuasive conclusion. I believe the methods and requirements for participants in each case are too vastly different to give the statement any validity at all.