Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

Big Moments in Small Lives. Thanks to all of you, I got to talk to Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC on Saturday. I had the honor of being her Foot Soldier of the Week. You can read my full interview and watch my interview here: "Meet Madison Kimrey, 12-year-old voting rights activist."
    I'm still knocking on Pat McCrory's door. I'm also working on the goal of trying to get the ability for teens to pre-register to vote back before I turn 16. I realize I'm knocking on a very big door and my goal is a very big goal. This is why I'm so thankful for all your help.
    We are going to make a difference here in North Carolina and for our country no matter what. Forward together, not one step back.

So at last we may know why the NSA was breaking the law and spying on Americans. Because so many of them are secret collaborators with Islamic terrorists, right? No. Because so many of them are environmentalists: "Is the NSA surveillance program really about spying on environmentalists?" Who could have guessed those little old ladies with the $1,000 binoculars and the Audubon t-shirts were so dangerous?

What about the law? "Highway Patrol to conduct 'no refusal' DUI checks." Excerpt:

The Tennessee Highway Patrol and local law enforcement agencies [conducted] a special "no refusal" DUI enforcement campaign in several counties across the state [last] holiday weekend.
    Tennessee's "no refusal" law allows officers to seek search warrants for blood samples when they suspect a driver to be impaired.

In 2010, an improperly maintained Enbridge pipeline in Michigan dumped more than a million gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River. Three years later an estimated 180,000 gallons of that oil still haven't been cleaned up. And as far as we know, the company has paid no fines. Meanwhile, a Michigan resident who staged a peaceful 10-hour protest of the pipeline being reopened before the last of the oil was cleaned from the river bottom, could serve a two-year jail term: "Kalamazoo pipeline protester could get two years in jail."

"Caught On Tape: Starving Dog Buries Dead Puppies." Excerpt: "Police say a Memphis man starved his dog and allowed her 11 puppies to die in his driveway."

What an interesting day...jousting with you by email and blog post, mailing packages from eBay sales, and writing about the Syria poison gas bs. We stand by as they kill 100K civilians in every horrid, inhumane manner imaginable, and we're going to war because they kill 1,400 with gas? What, did they exceed the magic quota? How bitterly ironic that only 30 years ago U.S. "intelligence" was studying satellite and spy plane images to and sending the information to Saddam Hussein so he could decide where to most effectively deploy chemical weapons against Iran.
    What is most entertaining in all this is to ponder how the U.S. government would react if a few million people started an armed insurrection here. I wonder if Big Brother would hesitate to use chemical weaponry to bring matters under control.
    As unbelievable as it may sound, some fairly radical Muslim writers overseas are taking me to task for being so harsh in my comments about Obama in foreign media. I have called him a huge disappointment, and labeled his painting himself into a corner with his "red line" comments about the Syria gas as one of the dumbest things any U.S. president ever did. When I checked my blog posts a bit ago, some guy in Turkey was sticking up for him. I posted a reply saying that as far as I am concerned, Obama is now Bush without the Texas accent, so he doesn't sound charmingly stupid, just plain stupid. I can't wait to see what the foreign pundits do with that.

Just a warning: "Wife kills cheating husband with coffee cup." Excerpt:

A Japanese housewife battered her septuagenarian husband to death with a coffee cup after discovering he was cheating on her, reports said Monday.
    The 61-year-old woman allegedly attacked her partner after learning of his affair, battering him repeatedly about the face and head with the mug at their home southwest of Tokyo on Sunday afternoon, the Asahi Shimbun and other media reported....
    “He had an affair with a woman I hate,” Emiko Hirose told police, according to the reports. “I went mad and hit him more than 10 times with a cup.”

Your recent fiction, "The Melon Gambit," mentioned an elephant that liked to bluff-charge people in vehicles and just walk away, most likely laughing. In this video the charge is no bluff: "Elephant rams, flips over safari jeep in South Africa."

But we still like to think the elephant got a laugh out of it, if not the people in the jeep. People who haven't been involved in something like this usually wonder why the driver doesn't just fire up the vehicle and get out of harm's way. As you can see, it all happens rather fast.

Alaska....one in a billion photo, taken at the entrance to Katlian Bay at the end of the road in Sitka, Alaska:

The whale is coming up to scoop up a mouthful of herring (the small fish seen at the surface around the kayak).
    The kayaker is a local Sitka Dentist. He apparently did not sustain any injuries from the terrifying experience. The whale was just around the corner from the ferry terminal, and all the kayaker could think at that moment in time was: "Paddle Man, Paddle—really fast!"

New York street artist. Worth the watch...His way of painting is so amazing! I'd never believe it, if I hadn't seen it.



Limerick of the Week:

Watching that sidewalk New York artist at work
brought me out from the boring place where I clerk
    to gape as he sprayed.
    When he's done, I prayed:
his painting had transfigured New York into kirk.

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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

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