International Animal Rights Day

To live is so startling
it leaves little time
for anything else.
-- Emily Dickinson


Ethics and society.

December 10th, is International Animal Rights Day. Light a candle. Write a letter. Make a donation. Sign this petition. Give your pet an extra pat.

McDonald's scalds chickens alive to make their McNuggets. Labs and schools dissect animals while they are still alive and fully conscious. Unimaginably cruel tests that are redundant, unnecessary or merely padding for an institution's research budget continue to be performed on animals around the clock. If you don't believe in this, sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights . Contrary to public assumptions, vivisectionists are not strictly regulated. The reality is that in the lab virtually anything goes, and animal researchers are a law unto themselves. For example, New York's Columbia University is guilty of committing grotesque abuses to animals in their laboratories including routinely performing invasive surgeries and leaving the helpless, suffering animals to die in their cages without any painkillers.

In labs worldwide, animals are cut open, poisoned, and forced to live in barren steel cages for years, although studies show that
because of vast physiological variations between species, human reactions to illnesses and drugs are completely different from those of other animals. This is beyond barbaric.

Today's non-animal research methods are humane, more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments, yet change comes slowly and many researchers are still unwilling to switch to superior technological advances. Animal experimentation is not only preventing us from learning more relevant information, it continues to harm and kill animals and people every year. read more

Christmas past

Bird in the tower - Mexico

judybluesky recently posted about the "sense of need that I will never forget". It got me thinking about Christmases past. When my kids were little I was a single mom and we were very poor. Yes, we all had feet and we all had shoes and we had a roof over our heads. I don't take that for granted but I couldn't even afford to buy new shoelaces. I pulled them off of the shoes that ended up in the Co-Op free box. You can pontificate all you want about "true spirit", Christmastide around our house was always a bit sad.

In a good year I might manage to save up fifty bucks by Thanksgiving for Christmas gifts but that money had to be spread between several people. I was always, and to this day, too ashamed to tell my sister I couldn't afford to exchange gifts so, besides my own three kids, I bought presents for her, her husband, their three kids and my brother. Actually they all came first because their gifts had to be mailed. Everybody got shitty, little things from the second hand store. I admit I didn't want to abandon the tradition because my sister sent nice things which was a big treat for the kids. Not only did they get something new and cool, they got cash and, more importantly, they were reminded that they were part of a bigger family that also loved and cared for them. My sister also occasionally sent us a supermarket gift certificate, her way of making sure the kids got a hearty holiday meal and, I suppose, that I didn't blow the Christmas dinner money on booze. My brother sent cash for Christmas. Sometimes it was a hundred, sometimes two but it was more likely to arrive on Christmas eve or after Christmas than before. That genuinely sucked. I needed it to buy the "real" gifts for the kids.

To brighten the holidays I went to the Welfare office every year and signed the kids up to receive presents from the "Tree of Joy". Perhaps you know how that works. Children are represented on the tree by little tags that say things like, "Girl, age 9 - Likes books and games" with addendums like, "Needs winter hat" added at the prompting of a grown-up. That kind of thing. Good-hearted people in the community pick a tag and buy that child a gift. A few days before Christmas, a smiling old couple would appear at our door, usually Soroptomists, with three gifts. They were very nice. It was very embarrassing for the whole family but I couldn't talk myself out of these sad attempts to make Christmas look "normal". I also signed up for the Welfare department's Christmas food voucher. But, in spite of my efforts, Christmas was never the best of times.

This is my twentieth sober holiday season. The kids are grown and gone on to their own lives. Life is generally good these days but for the shame and regret I have over my failings as a parent and that (horrible) "sense of need I will never forget" that judybluesky mentioned. It's irrational but I sometimes feel apologetic that my standard of living has so dramatically improved since those days. I wish the changes had come sooner, when the kids were still little, but things happen in their own time. It's better today so we go from here. Besides what choices do I have? Like they say, reality is for people who can't handle drugs.

I didn't go with the bird party photo for the birthday card the other day. I used this one instead.

Task of the day

I begin with what must be done, carving it out of all that should be done. And among what must be done I look for a thread with which to unravel that crucial first step because without defining a simple starting place I will get nothing done, no matter how urgent. I have come to accept this about myself.

Today the time-sensitive task is making a birthday card and wrapping the present and, most important, mailing them by the end of the day. I already have the gift. I need the card so the first thing I have to do is select the photo. I am thinking about using this one that I took last winter but perhaps it's not right? I have one hour. If I accomplish this, I will count the day personally productive. A small measure for a priceless and irreplaceable day in one's life but nevertheless it is the task of this day.

In case you're wondering, I have already done other things today. It is not that I just woke up from too much sleep, or sobered up to be overwhelmed by the life awaiting me. No. But I am in shock at all the Xmas tasks awaiting me on the living room floor, the piles of gifts sorted out by name and family. And my motto for the season is "keep it simple". But today, the birthday gift must go and to that end so must I.

Street scenes, Mexico

Here are a couple of photos I took in Mexico recently. To me, these two particular images have a lot in common.

No exit strategy

2127

Which idiot would make a better president:
Alfred E. Newman or George W. Bush?

(I realize it's a tired old comparison
but we still haven't gotten it right. Otherwise,
why don't we impeached the bastard?)



Here's a nice photo from Variety.com showing Mr. Spaz and President Hu Jintao sharing a chummy photo during Bush's recent visit to China. Now check out our dingbat President struggling to get off the stage in this clip at FuckBush.com. This man is our "leader".



Alfred E. Newman? George W. Bush? Who would be a better president? After all, Alfred doesn't even exist. No problem. Neither one of them are real. They are both idiot media creations. Alfred. at least, would be doing a lot better job than Dubya. He isn't a lying, draft-dodging, high rolling, war mongering traitor.

Home again

We're back from the Yucatan. Over the all, we drove about 10,000 miles so my photo to miles ratio held at 1+:1, the 1+ plus being the number of photos and the 1 being the mileage. Not bad. I've deleted a lot and will delete many more. Then there are the ones that make sense only to me. I'll keep those. Among the remainder, there are a few worthy of presenting to you, the rare, much appreciated, occasional visitor to this tiny outpost border crossing. Also, naturally, I have a few things to say about the trip and, for your traveling convenience, I have compiled a list of tips for people brave enough to leave the gringo trail and travel in real Mexico. All this to come. At the moment, I must get coffee. Outside of tourist joints it is nearly impossible to get a good cup of coffee in Mexico, the land of coffee, a fact I find nearly impossible to comprehend.