I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

I had a couple of these:

JOHNNNY WEST LARGE SIZE ACTION DOLLS: ("Johnny" is on the palomino)

ROCK EM SOCK EM ROBOTS

MRS BEASLY (made popular by the TV programme "Family Affair")

(Click pic twice to make larger)

Boots is even as I'm writing this, running around like a loon in the apartment, yowling away. He is happy 'cos I just came back from a quick shopping trip (actually caught the bus right off, coming and going, will wonders never cease??), anyway, they now have the food they LIKE, and now Boots is tearing around like mad, "Yow, Meow, Yow!" With his tail all kinked up and puffed out (unlike most cats, Boots puffs out his tail when he's happy, not scared or angry).

He's been having a ball, watching the leaves, as well. Most of the last of the autumn foliage left the trees, over the weekend, and with a stiff November breeze behind them, they are whirling around my front windows...and Boots is looking out, loving every minute of it.

I let him out on the balcony, breifly. He was absolutely entrhalled, watching the big ol' maple leaves skittering in colourful billows down the streets and across the yards. Every once in a while, one would whirl upwards onto the balcony, and then Boots would POUNCE! "Got'cha!"

Oh, he is still such a kitten, deep down inside, so innocent and loving and playful. I wish I could be more like my Bootsie.

So, I had my political rant this morning. Sorry. Sometimes the republicans really do raise the old blood pressure a bit...thank goodness that berk will be gone...but the damage he's done...I don't think this nation will ever truly recover from it...or even the world, perhaps. Bush has taken 236 years of democracy, and prostituted it for his (and his party's) own fanatical agenda(s). And, that sort of makes me both very sad, and rather frustrated and angry...hence, this morning's vent.

Anyway, it's Monday. Bleh. I have to pop out to the grocery store, and buy some cat food. They didn't have my cat's favourite brand at the store, Saturday...and they really get put out if they don't like what I give them, the brats.

I was thinking about my fellow countrymen and women. I think, that for many Americans, the unquenchable thirst to look at new horizons, has truly died.

Hearing the remarks of people like Sarah Palin, and co-workers who avidly buy into the lies and propaganda, wtihout question or thought...I read what some young people post on the internet, in the forums--horrendous spelling (text speak) aside---and it deeply worries and saddens me.

I'm finding that many can no longer do a simple thing like search for information. Someone recently asked me, "How do I find out more about ___?" I suggested the library. "No, I don't want to bother with that, and I wouldn't know what to ask." (Erm--how about the same thing you just asked me?) Okaaay, then. How about the internet? You could google some things and see what turns up? "I don't know what to put in (the search box) there." Okaaay, then...how about putting _________in the google search box, followed by the word 'wikipedia?' That usually gives you excellent information. "That stuff is too complicated, I don't understand it." ARRRRGH!!!

Cripes! Do you want me to hold your hand then, and spoon feed you the knowledge you require?

It's a big universe out there, ever-changing, constantly re-inventing itself...every time we open a new book, ask a new question, follow our curiosity..or even just enjoy a new sunset, one that was different than yesterdays, and all the days past--for as I wrote last night, no two things in nature are exactly the same, including sunsets--every time we open our minds and hearts and souls, lift up our spirits to new thoughts, observations and experiences, we are making ourselves a part of the universe. Yes, we are small in the great expanse of the cosmos--but, we are also PART of that same universe...well, we are when we allow ourselves to be.

If we don't allow ourselves to be, well then, we shrink...and shrink and shrink, with every un-asked question, every ignornace of fact, every refusal to apprecate the world above and around and below us...we get smaller and smaller. We shut ourselves away behind computers and petty every day existance, hiding away inside our lives, like a turtle in its shell...and pretty soon, we forget who we are, we forget that we are even alive, and become mere automatons...because, perhaps, it's easier that way, I don't know. The path of least resistance?

Well anyway, I have to go out before work tonight.

I suppose I'm going to HAVE to buy the cats some toys for Christmas. Boots was just having a right ball here in the living room. A little round, flat cast iron knob has come off the old radiator again, and Boots found it, "TOY!!!" He's been batting it around the floor, like it's a hockey puck, and also gleefully holding it in his front paws and kicking it with his back feet--gosh, hope he doesn't try to bite down on it. Ouch. There goes another vet bill.

So, hope you all have a good day, anyway...considering it's a Monday. Cheers.

It has been revealed today, that in their mania--bordering on the paranoid--to do away with Al Queda, Bush and his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, put forth new regulations, allowing the US military to go after Al Queda---ANYWHERE.

Refusing to acknowledge the rights of every country--regardless of whether they agree with Al Queda or not, or were friendly to the US or not---to know about incursions by foreign powers (USA) into their borders, this was done in complete secrecy, without the knowledge of the countries in question.

This is an unprecidented move by the Untited States, in it's 236 year history. The United States USED to be careful in its relations with foreign powers, earning the respect of many nations, by SHOWING repect in return.

The result of this huge and very crude gap in basic diplomacy, is that getting the cooperation of these foreign countries in future miltary operations--for ANY reason, not just Al Queda--, could be damaged forever, once this news has become general knowledge.

From ignorning the Geneva convention--which protects our own soldiers and not just our enemies, ignoring the sovergnty of foreign soil, by eliminating treaties that were made to bring about peace, prosperity and cooperation between us and foreign nations, the Bush-Rumsfeld team has shown themselves to be men of almost mindlessly fanatical agression...possibly these two men, are more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden every could be, because they have one of the world's largest military machines and billions of dollars behind them.

Bush has become so obsessed with terrorists, that he's allowed the rest of his nation--the very nation he swears he wants to protect--to fall apart at the seams...weakening its position as a global economic power, and, also weakening other western nations, our allies.

Millions of Americans are losing their jobs, thousands of businesses are going under,
Bush has sat idly by, allowing the credit industry to run amuck, unchecked by the government--a government whom even today, STILL insists that de-regulation is essential to the economy!
This has resulted in people losing their homes, and a vast increase in the homeless rate of the nation.

Bush has cut funding for the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. Bush has made it harder for disabled people to get benefits, and harder for people on benefits, to stay on benefits--with blatantly aggressive methods aimed at discouraging the sick and the disabled and the elderly from seeking assistance.

Bush and his party have repeatedly blocked attempts at getting universal health care, and, made getting medical coverage much harder for people with cancer, disabling injuries and other illnesses. In America, one can lose one's home, one's job, everything--including one's very life, due to a total lack of medical care, and the exobant costs of said care.
The Bush administration does not protect these people from creditors--and, in fact, has made it HARDER for Americans to file for bankruptcy, and EASIER for creditors to take people's homes, garnish wages and strip sick people, and people hurting from finanical crisis, of their resources and even possessions.

Bin Laden encourages stoning women. Bush has made it harder for genuinely suffering under and un-insured Americans to get the treatments they need to live a reasonable quality of life, and, encourages insurance companies and hospitals and creditors, to take the homes from under suffering and/or dying men, women and children. How are they so different?

In Maryland last year, a 10 year old boy died horribly and in tortoureous pain (trust me, I know whereof I speak), of nothing more than a tooth abcess, because there were no dentists in his area whom accepted US Govt. medical insurance. There would have been, if we'd had universal health care. How is Bush so different than a terrorist? It wasn't the abcess that killed this boy--it was the sheer wanton selfishness and utter mindless ignorance of his fellow Americans, FUELED by the persistant anti-universal health care propaganda pushed forward by Bush and his party.

Bush wasn't a strong president--he was a COWARDLY one. He hurt far more people then he ever helped. He is selfish, a fanatic and is impulsive-- afraid of thinking things trough. That's not the mark of a brave man--not by a long chalk.

Join the fight to help those who have been displaced by war, famine, unemployment and natural disasters. Blog sometime tomorrow, your feelings on the refugee crisis.

One in every 50 human beings is now a refugee, a migrant, an asylum seeker, or a displaced person. Most of these uprooted people are women, children, and youth.

http://gbgm-umc.org/nwo/99so/refugees.html

Individually, we can accomplish a few things...together, we can do it ALL. Won't you please support this effort with a blog post tomorrow?

We humans try so hard sometimes, to find perfection in nature...without realizing that that is a lost cause.

Nothing in nature is truly perfect. No two things are exactly the same, from a snowflake to a towering pine tree, nothing is a carbon copy. In a way, nature is a lot like us. We can be perceived as being perfect, or nearly so. Many people strive for, and long for...perfection. Perfect bodies, perfect faces and hair styles, perfect families, perfect lives.

But, like nature, we just...aren't. We press on, spending reams of cash, wasting our days yearning to be more like those deemed to be the most handsome or beautiful...perfection. A perfection that is, inately, flawed. Because it has to be. Whether it's an external flaw, or emotional or mental "glitch," everyone has one...even the Pope, the Queen, your own mum and dad. The reality is, is that no one single person on this planet, is perfect.

Yet, we still try...because perfection is "pretty," and flaws are...not so much.

Below is a charming rural scene:

Yet, here is the reality, noise and dust and flies and manure: