REBA, ROSA AND BOOTS September 26, 2014

Oh, I do hope there are a lotof cat lovers out there. I’m a feline fanatic. The last of my pride of four, Anniecat, dashed off to kitty heaven at the ripe old age of 25.

As a devout non believer, I make believe there is a kitty heaven, and-if so-I hope I can pause there for a moment after I croak. I’m 84, you know, and very few of us live forever. In fact, I’ve never known anybody who did. Oh, there was one guy who- I’m told- died and returned three days later-only to vanish never to be seen again

But he’s expected at any moment. Has been for better than two thousand years. I’m not holding my breath. How about you?

Back to Rosa, Reba, and Boots.

Well, Rose and Reba are two of the most expensive cats I’ve ever owned. Worth it, too. I found them at the Kauai Humane Society. Love at first sight. Reba, the gray/black tiger, is-according to her Official Animal Identification-a domestic short hair mix-pretty fancy name for an ally cat-and like her sister, Rosa, was 2 months and eight days old when I brought them home. Rosa is the black orange tortoiseshell. They’re both a little over two pounds. Their ID is so extensive I’m going to take them to the DMV and get them a driver’s license. Or maybe enter them in a cat show.

Boots my grown up puppy-part Pit Bull- is one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever had. She grew up around cats, but I didn’t know how she’d take to two spunky bouncing balls of fur.

One of the most difficult things to do with an animal-any animal- is introduce it to a new environment and I sincerely doubted either Reba or Rosa had encountered such a wide variety of sounds, sights, smells and textures in their short little lives. Think of it, they’d only been on this planet for 68 days-and my jungle barn/house is a pretty large area to explore.

Cats are by nature explorers. And- wow-did they have a lot of exploring to do. I have full grown trees in my living space and they’d never seen a real tree before. Did it bite? Did it scratch? Did it smell good? “What is one supposed to do with it?” Rosa meowed.

I decided to let them run free and keep Boots on a short loose leash, just in case.

I watched Reba balance on top if a chair and gage the distance between her perch and a distant round bench beside a round table. She hunched, she bunched, she sprang. Missed. Picked herself up, shook herself off, and washed her face.

Her first encounter with Boots was a surprise to everyone. ‘specially Boots. She’s about the size of her ear. She took one look at this overgrown whatever, stiffened her legs, arched her back and exploded. Teeth and Claws. Ended up protecting Boots instead of the kittens.

Next episode: Making friends.

Here is the video link:

http://vp.telvue.com/preview?id=T01393&video=205423

or http://www.hoike.org Arts and Entertainment

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CREATE A LIFE September 21, 2014

Been there, done that. I’m not bragging, I’m just stating a fact: I’m 84 years young. Suffer from glowing good health. Have no chronic aches or pains or ailments. Take no drugs. Think maybe I did something right. Don’t you?

Someone said, “Men plan… women, too… God laughs.”

So who needs him? Her? It? Them?

I’m a devout non believer. I don’t go to church. I think, on the whole, religion sucks. I don’t pray. When things go bad, as they often do, I roll up my sleeves and get to work.

What do you do? Does it work for you?

How’s your health? Are you overweight? How many pills do you take everyday and growing?

So far-84 years and growing younger-I think I’ve done something correct. Furious that ‘they’ stole the word right.

Okay, I’m being cross and I apologize, but I’m also fed up with people-some people-telling me, because I’m not a scientist, that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll explain. I think I am a pragmatist. I’m not afraid to try something that sounds totally silly.

An example. I read a piece by a rather befuddled professor, who told a story about an outdoor beanery-a greasy spoon-in the south. An observer, he noticed some strange contrivences pinned and clipped and hanging around the premises. On closer surreptitious observation, he noticed they were all the same. A clear plastic bag, some liquid-looked like water- in which three copper pennies weighted down the bag. Of a curious scientific mindset, he questioned the rustic who served a really good meal.

“Sir,” he said, “What are those?”

And the rustic, with a southern accent, replied, “They’ah fly repellents.”

“Of course. Consisting of?”

“A cleah plastic sack’ a’watah and three shinny pennies.”

“Does it work?”

“See any flies?”

The scientist cleared his throat. “Good fried chicken. I’m from up north, could I have the recipe?”

So okay I’m reading this, and like the scientist, I shake my head. However, as it happened, I had some clear plastic sandwich bags, some water, some pennies, some clothes pins to pins them up, and a few flies. Half my house is a barn. My beloved horse, Aristotle, lives in the bedroom-errr stall-next to my bedroom. Anyhoo, I filled some bags with water, counted pennies. Why three? Pinned them up. And guess what?

No flies.

Try it the next time you have a picnic.

I could go on. I take 10 grams of Vitamin C a day, ala Linus Pauling, and we all know what a fraud he was. At least so I was told by more scientificly evolved minds than mine. I also supplement my diet, ala Adelle Davis, who’s a phony, gone out of style years ago. Yet here I am, 44 years younger.

I could tell you Vitamin C stories you wouldn’t believe.

So what’s this got to do with the price of rice? Or the vast acres of GMO corn-86% of all crops grown in America-or my preference for good old- fashioned home grown veggies. Fruits. Eggs. Honey. Thriving bees. I mean why do I prefer real food, just like my daddy used to grow?

Who knows? Certainly not dumb little old me.

Here is the video link:

http://vp.telvue.com/preview?id=T01393&video=205423

or http://www.hoike.org Arts and Entertainment

*SUPPORT LOCAL ACCESS!!*

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah and Trump and Chattel September 6, 2014

 

Chattel. What a word. It does  do not roll trippingly off the tongue. There’s a sense of darkness about it.  It means possession of something. Cars, cattle, women…

…Today is a wonderful time for Western women. I wouldn’t care to be a Muslim woman in a long black robe–in which she can vote with a green thumb–if she can see through the slits. Sharia law?  Her hair must be covered and you shouldn’t see her feet, Allah commands.  What’s the guy got against hair and feet?

In America many women are speaking out. Seems to me they’re  more concerned about the future–the children, the environment, the health of the planet–than men.

Women on Kauai are  vocal in complaining about GMOs, air-borne toxins, over-crowded, wrongly sited milk factories,  more cars, more highways, more suburban sprawl, tourists, global warming and CO2.

I love articulate, intelligent, out-spoken women.  I love their involvement in the goings-on. “This world crisis came about without women having anything to do with it. If the women of the world had not been excluded from affairs, things today might have been different.” That’s  Alice Paul before the passage of the 19^th Amendment. I suggest you find the film Iron Jawed Angels.  Watch it. Share it. We owe so much to this courageous young woman. We  need more like her. If you must identify with a female figure, identify with Alice.

Today, of course, women often play important roles in politics and law. Think of Sarah Palin. An example of female evangelism gone wrong. Trying her hand at public office. She’s baaaccckkk.  Slithered in with Trump.  What a pair. Hope you watched her exorcism ritual on the tube. Bishop Thomas Muthee, Word of Faith Churches in Kenya. It’s an insult to human intelligence.

Which brings us back to chattel.

Biblical quotes  work here. Ecclesiasticus 25:18, 19 &33. “And a man will choose…any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman…Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die.”

Really?

The history of women as chattel is woven into many legal codes and cultures. In the Old and New Testament as well as the Quran. Women are property. There’s a world- wide dominion over women. In fundamental patriarchal religious societies that live by the word women are valued as objects. A husband owns his wife…

…and she better shut up and do as told.

A quote from Augustine Aquinas is enlightening: in Summa Theologica, he wrote, “As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex, while the production of a woman comes from the defect in the active power…”

Augustine  is a Catholic Saint so I assume he resides in a Catholic heaven. As a devout non believer, who does not believe in either heaven or hell, I  pen a brief note:

“Dear Auggie, to spend all eternity with you would be hell.”

What do you think?