[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]
The peaceable Kingdom can be achieved it seems. The following narrative comes from Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary, in Georgia:
Confiscated from a drug dealer's home at a very young age, the BLT are the only bear, lion, and tiger in the world that live in the same enclosure. They came to Noah's Ark in 2001. Baloo, a North American Black Bear, Leo an African Lion, and Shere Khan a Bengal Tiger were discovered in an Atlanta home's basement by police officers during a drug raid. At only a few months old, all three cubs were frightened, malnourished, and infected with internal and external parasites when they were brought to Noah's Ark by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Shere Khan was underweight and malnourished, but with the treatment of his parasites and a healthy diet, he began to regain his cub-like energy and appetite, as well as increase in weight. Leo wasn't as underweight as Shere Khan, but he had an open and infected wound on his nose from being cruelly confined in a small cage. With room to stretch his growing legs and veterinary care, his nose healed although he still has a scar. Baloo was in the worst condition of all, with a severely ingrown harness digging into his flesh because it was never loosened as he grew in size. The harness was so ingrown that his flesh had begun to grow over it, and surgical intervention was required to remove the harness and clean out his deep, infected wounds. During Baloo's surgery was the only time the three brothers have ever been separated from one another, and Shere Khan and Leo became extremely agitated because of it, pacing and vocalizing for the lost member of their family of three to return. After his surgery, Baloo was returned to his brothers and the three have been together ever since, with hardly a quarrel between them. They eat, sleep, and play together and even seek out grooming from one another, head rubbing and licking one another. It seems that their terrifying early months in life bonded the three together and they are truly inseparable.
The reptile and amphibian trade, both legal and illegal, is promoted by popular culture: A Richard Avedon photo of a nude Nastassja Kinski reclining with an equally supine python becomes a popular image for the 1980s. Almost two decades later and Britney Spears appears on TV with an albino python draped across her shoiulders as she sings....
Members of N.C. Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation say reptiles and amphibians face constant threats from disease, climate change, invasive species, pollution, and unsustainable use. Illegal trafficking adds problems to an already troubled herpetological world....
It is important to recognize the threats now facing many species. With their permeable skin that can easily absorb toxic chemicals, amphibians are especially susceptible to environmental pollutants. That trait, along with habitat loss, invasive species, infectious diseases, and other factors, has resulted in steep population declines in many places.
The waters off the Hawaii's largest island are home to a half-million brightly-colored tropical fish that are scooped up into nets each year and flown across the globe into aquariums from Berlin to Boston.Tundra is a crafty dog, continually keeping us on our toes since the incident [of her eating half a bag of chocolate-covered raisins]!! She has managed to consume a very small chocolate pie since then!
...Activists have launched a campaign to shut down the buying and selling of fish for aquariums, saying the practice from Hawaii to the Philippines is destroying coral reefs. "In this day and age, where the ocean faces a crisis...there's absolutely no justification for a fishery for hobby," said Mike Long of Seattle-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is spearheading the campaign.
...Scientists estimate the aquarium trade removes about 30 million fish from reefs around the world. Hawaii accounts for less than 2 percent, while the vast majority comes from Indonesia and the Philippines.
Some fishermen in these countries capture fish by pumping cyanide into the water to make fish sluggish and easier to catch. The chemical may also harm nearby marine life, as well as shorten the captured fish's life span.
Liam is AOK [after gobbling down some unshelled walnuts], even harking[?] out a walnut 2 weeks later, hopefully that was what was causing his gasping!
This week I was introduced to British comedian John Oliver, host of "Last Week Tonight," on HBO. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this show, on which he exposed the truth about supplements (they are universally worthless) by lambasting “dangerously likable” Dr. Oz whom, as I’ve suspected for some time, is little more than a modern day snake oil salesman. Check it out.
75% of my email for weeks has been from Democrats scrambling to try to compete with the millions the Koch Brothers are lavishing about to try and protect rich white people.
That's why Robert Reich has made a video to help explain America's giant Koch problem—and explore what we can do about it.
1. "Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today's decision."The full text of Justice Ginsburg's dissent starts on p. 60 at "Here Is the Supreme Court's Decision in the Hobby Lobby Contraception Case."
2. "Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude."
Then there's this from Bob Reich on Uncle Thomas and the Supremes:
The five Republicans appointees to the Supreme Court extended their view that corporations are people in today’s “Hobby Lobby” case, finding that family-owned companies have freedom of religion and so don’t have to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to include contraceptive services in employee health insurance. What about the rights of employees to receive these services? According to the Court’s majority, the federal government should just pay for these services directly. “The most straightforward way of doing this would be for the Government to assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives at issue to any women who are unable to obtain them under their health-insurance policies due to their employers’ religious objections.” In other words, the five Republican appointees to the Court suggest the government establish a single-payer plan for contraceptive services. Remarkable.
Jesus could have called on 72,000 angels to rescue him from the cross if he had chosen to. [12 legions x 6,000 angels per legion]
I talked to a serviceman this morning who just got back from training in South Carolina. He says he works on Apache helicopters. He said that there are men now on the ground in Iraq, even if the President has called them "advisers." I shook my head. I said, "We have no business being over there in the middle of all that. We should just let those crazy Islamists kill one another." He seemed to agree with that. "But we've riled those people up," he said. "What can you do?"
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"Diversity of experience, more than anything else, is critical to creativity," says Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at New York University who has spent years researching creativity. "Creatives like to shake things up, experience new things, and avoid anything that makes life more monotonous or mundane. Creative people have more diversity of experiences, and habit is the killer of diversity of experience."
I taught at a women’s college for nearly four decades, and as I said to my students, all I can tell you about mythology is what men have said and have experienced, and now women have to tell us from their point of view what the possibilities of the feminine future are. And it is a future—it’s as though the lift-off has taken place, it really has, there’s no doubt about it. [Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine]
Methods. It is important to learn the migraine pressure point or points that bring relief. The key is feeling comfortable with one's professional massage therapist. Try to use circular movements over joints and up-and-down strokes over long bones. Within the course of the ming dynasty (1368-1644), pediatric massage therapy, or tuina, evolved into a higher form of therapy which is still applied nowadays. Many times the orgasms reached when prostate massage is involved are highly intense. The field of speech-language pathology, or speech therapy, is evolving rapidly with a growing number of job openings in the United States. In the same way, chair massage could also enhance performance at school or at work.......especially the line "Many times the orgasms reached when prostate massage is involved are highly intense." Is this why there suddenly seems to be such an epidemic of people going in for so much massage therapy?
As usual, I am clueless about the workings of the modern world...please see my website at neanderthal.com....
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. – Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?
The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me! I want people to know why I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.
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An honest seven-year-old admitted calmly to her parents that Billy Brown had kissed her after class. "How did that happen?" gasped her mother.
"It wasn't easy," admitted the young lady, "but three girls helped me catch him."
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. "Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer; she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, he's a doctor.'"
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, "And there's the teacher; she's dead."
A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, he said, "Now, boys, if I stood on my head the blood would run into it, and I should turn red in the face. Why is it, then, that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?" A little fellow shouted, "Cause yer feet ain't empty."
Last photo in camera:
When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.
Limerick of the Week:
The ultra-rich Koches are investing tens of millionsLimericks Composed while Driving:
to buy still more of the votes that spend The People's trillions,
and Democratic candidates
are begging from mendicants,
hoping to save some seats, wishing to tax the Koches' billions.
My wife said I missed the turn. I said, "I know,
I was writing a limerick, first line in tow."
"If you want to write five,
ask someone else to drive."
"But, when I'm driving, the lines really flow."
"No texting while driving" was the last sign
the texting driver didn't see, as he crossed the line,
crossed the wide shoulder,
and hit the side boulder
they set up to mark his grave for the rest of time.
"'No limerick composing while driving,'" my wife said._______________
"There needs to be a sign like that for you up ahead.
I'm just afraid,
if the sign isn't made,
it'll be you hits the boulder and we who'll be dead."
Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean
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FOUR limericks, including three composed while driving. At the bottom of a LONG column of fish, I received so much correspondence following the Hobby Lobby decision and all the frantic scurrying around of Democrats trying to compete with politically greedy billionaires. And, as usual, lots of photographs of animals.
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